Furley glanced down at his incongruous attire and seemed for a
moment ill at ease.
"I've got to go out presently," he announced.
Julian raised his eyebrows.
"Got to go out?" he repeated. "On a night like this? Why, my
dear fellow--"
He paused abruptly. He was a man of quick perceptions, and he
realised his host's embarrassment. Nevertheless, there was an
awkward pause in the conversation. Furley rose to his feet and
frowned. He fetched a jar of tobacco from a shelf and filled his
pouch deliberately:
"Sorry to seem mysterious, old chap," he said. "I've just a bit
of a job to do. It doesn't amount to anything, but--well, it's
the sort of affair we don't talk about much."
"Well, you're welcome to all the amusement you'll get out of it, a
night like this."
Furley laid down his pipe, ready-filled, and drank off his port.
"There isn't much amusement left in the world, is there, just
now?" he remarked gravely.
"Very little indeed. It's three years since I handled a shotgun
before to-night."
"You've really chucked the censoring?"
"Last week. I've had a solid year at it."
"Fed up?"
"Not exactly that. My own work accumulated so."
"Briefs coming along, eh?"
"I'm a sort of hack journalist as well, as you reminded me just
now," Julian explained a little evasively.
"I wonder you stuck at the censoring so long. Isn't it terribly
tedious?"
"Sometimes. Now and then we come across interesting things,
though.
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