THE HOME FROM HOME 75

The Way Back

Rather more than two thousand miles away Major
Grant was probably buttonholing another friend. "It's
just how you look at it," he would say; "the fellows
are always bragging about Paris, but I say England's
good enough for me." He used to visit a brothel in
Savile Row; there were scenes of luxurious abandon-
ment in close proximity to the select tailors. He
would ring up on the phone and make an appoint-
ment, "Three this afternoon/' then explain rather
guardedly what he wanted, guardedly because you
never knew when the police might listen-in and to
procure a woman was a criminal offence. "Young,"
he would say, "mind it's young"; "Fair or dark?" die
maid would say at the other end and sometimes
Major Grant replied "fair" and sometimes "dark",
according as his passion urged him at the moment
towards his fair or dark angel. Then it was as well
to add a few details, "Something rather lean," and
in another mood, "Curved but not too curved." He
didn't, he told me, find the place very satisfactory;
shop-girls and nursery-maids adding a little to their
wages on the slant were pitiably lacking in finesse. I
think it was the theatre rather than the play which
exercised its fascination over Major Grant; he liked
the idea of ordering a woman, as one might order a
joint of meat, according to size and cut and price.
There was a wealth of dissatisfaction in his in-
dulgence; he knew the world, and all the time he took
his revenge for the poor opinion he had of it.
Presently he shifted his custom to an address in