"Two weeks? I say, would you mind doing me a trifling favour? I'd like a violin to amuse myself with."
"A fiddle? I don't know a thing about 'em except that they sound good." Cutty pulled at his chin.
"Whatever it costs I'll reimburse you the day I'm up."
"All right. I'll bring you a bundle of them, and you can do your own selecting."
Out in the corridor the nurse said: "I couldn't hold him. But he'll be easier now that he's got the questions off his mind. He will have to be humoured a lot. That's one of the characteristics of head wounds."
"What do you think of him?"
"He seems to be gentle and patient; and I imagine he's hard to resist when he wants anything. Winning, you'd call it. I suppose I mustn't ask who he really is?"
"No. Poor devil. The fewer that know, the better. I'll be home round three."
Once in the street, Cutty was besieged suddenly with the irresistible desire to mingle with the crowd over in the Avenue, to hear the military bands, the shouts, to witness the gamut of emotions which he knew would attend this epochal day. Of course he would view it all from the aloof vantage of the historian, and store away commentaries against future needs.
