They've got quite a decent library here, we get all the new books, but I don't really have much time for reading.
I talk to people.
You meet all sorts here, you know.
They come and they go.
Sometimes they go because they think they're cured, but a lot of them come back, and sometimes they go because they die.
I've seen a lot of people out and before I go I expect to see a lot more.'
The girl sitting on Ashenden's other side suddenly spoke.
'I should tell you that few persons can get a heartier laugh out of a hearse than Mr McLeod,' she said.
McLeod chuckled.
'I don't know about that, but it wouldn't be human nature if I didn't say to myself: Well, I'm just glad it's him and not me they're taking for a ride.'
It occurred to him that Ashenden didn't know the pretty girl, so he introduced him.
'By the way, I don't think you've met Mr Ashenden – Miss Bishop.
She's English, but not a bad girl.'
'How long have you been here?' asked Ashenden.
'Only two years.
This is my last winter.
Dr Lennox says I shall be all right in a few months and there's no reason why I shouldn't go home.'
'Silly, I call it,' said McLeod.
'Stay where you're well off, that's what I say.'
At that moment a man, leaning on a stick, came walking slowly along the veranda.
'Oh, look, there's Major Templeton,' said Miss Bishop, a smile lighting up her blue eyes; and then, as he came up: 'I'm glad to see you up again.'
'Oh, it was nothing.
Only a bit of a cold.
I'm quite all right now.'
The words were hardly out of his mouth when he began to cough.
He leaned heavily on his stick.
But when the attack was over he smiled gaily.
'Can't get rid of this damned cough,' he said.
'Smoking too much.
Dr Lennox says I ought to give it up, but it's no good – I can't.'
He was a tall fellow, good-looking in a slightly theatrical way, with a dusky, sallow face, fine very dark eyes and a neat black moustache.
He was wearing a fur coat with an Astrakhan collar.
His appearance was smart and perhaps a trifle showy.
Miss Bishop made Ashenden known to him.
Major Templeton said a few civil words in an easy, cordial way, and then asked the girl to go for a stroll with him; he had been ordered to walk to a certain place in the wood behind the sanatorium and back again. McLeod watched them as they sauntered off.
'I wonder if there's anything between those two,' he said.
'They do say Templeton was a devil with the girls before he got ill.'
'He doesn't look up to much in that line just now,' said Ashenden.
'You never can tell.
I've seen a lot of rum things here in my day.
I could tell you no end of stories if I wanted to.'
'You evidently do, so why don't you?'
McLeod grinned.
'Well, I'll tell you one.
Three or four years ago there was a woman here who was pretty hot stuff.
Her husband used to come and see her every other week-end, he was crazy about her, used to fly up from London; but Dr Lennox was pretty sure she was carrying on with somebody here, but he couldn't find out who.
So one night when we'd all gone to bed he had a thin coat of paint put down just outside her room and next day he had everyone's slippers examined.
Neat, wasn't it?
The fellow whose slippers had paint on them got the push.
Dr Lennox has to be particular, you know.