Walk with Care Read Free Page B

Whatever it was, it passed in a flash and he was
    â€œMy case? I hardly have a case. I have certainly been troubled, but I do not quite know why I should trouble Mr Smith. You must pardon me, but I do not perfectly apprehend the position—”
    â€œNo?” said Mr Smith. He was leaning back, his fine head relieved against the rough brown leather of the chair. His hands lay upon the arms—long, delicate-fingered hands. His gaze went mournfully past Bernard Mannister.
    Garrett’s stubby eyebrows twitched. He thrust directly into these generalities.
    â€œPosition? Whose? Mine? Yours? Mr Smith’s? Your secretaries’? We’ve all got positions. We’d better come down to brass tacks.”
    Mannister had kept his upright pose. He might have been awaiting the half turn and courteous formula with which a chairman introduces a distinguished speaker. It was not an attitude which really suited the comfortable, sprawling chair. He said in a dignified voice,
    â€œBy all means, Colonel Garrett. My position is very easily defined. I suspect that my correspondence is being tampered with. You, I believe, take the view that there is not sufficient evidence to induce your department to give the matter their attention. There remains Mr Smith’s position.” He made a slight inclination of the head and proceeded. “Am I to understand that Mr Smith has an official status?”
    One of Mr Smith’s hands lifted and fell again.
    â€œNo—no—oh no.”
    â€œCertainly not,” said Garrett. He drove a heel back against the log and sent the sparks flying.
    Mannister’s voice became a trifle louder.
    â€œWhat then?” he inquired.
    Ananias said “Awk!” very suddenly and loudly. Mr Smith rebuked him in a perfunctory manner, then observed,
    â€œIt appears, Mr Mannister, that you have been brought here on false pretences. I am merely the—er—man in the street. Colonel Garrett’s idea seems to have been that the—er—man in the street can sometimes apprehend a point which eludes the departmental mind. You are naturally under no sort of constraint in what may be a personal and confidential matter.”
    Mannister leaned forward.
    â€œIt was as a matter of public policy and public duty that I approached the Foreign Office. I must confess to having been disquieted. I number amongst my correspondents prominent public men in every country. They write to me in the way of friendship. They permit themselves the freedom which friends accord to one another. They treat informally of subjects which in public require, and of necessity receive, the most careful handling. It does not, I think, need a great deal of perspicacity to appreciate the harm which might be done if some of these confidential discussions were to be made public.”
    â€œNo,” said Mr Smith—“no.”
    â€œThe world,” pursued Mr Mannister on a rising note—“the world—world consciousness, world politics, world aspirations—is in a condition so delicate, so highly sensitized, that it is impossible to predicate the effect of a single jarring touch. I submit that at this moment the publication of such a correspondence might deal a disastrous blow at the very foundations of our civilization. It is, to my mind, a question of ‘Shall Chaos come again?’”
    He certainly had a very fine voice, and at least one appreciative auditor. Ananias drank in the rich rolling sounds, head cocked and one foot slightly raised,
    Garrett came into the pause with an abrupt,
    â€œWell, there you are! You say someone’s been tampering with your correspondence—and we say, ‘What makes you think so?’”
    Mannister frowned upon him. He had “an eye like Jove, to threaten and command,” and a brow with magnificent accommodation for a frown.
    â€œThere have been leakages,” he said with an air of majestic reserve.
    Garrett looked