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Presently he spoke. He said quietly, "It really is a most extraordinary thing that you can't get a decent cup of coffee in this country. Even in a club like this they can't make coffee."

I laid down my paper. If the old man wanted to talk to me, I had no great objection. All day I had been working with my eyes in my old-fashioned office, reading reports and writing dockets. It would be good to take off my spectacles for a little time and un-focus my eyes. I was very tired.

I felt in my pocket for my spectacle case. I said, "A chap who deals in coffee once told me that ground coffee won't keep in our climate. It's the humidity, or something."

"Ground coffee goes off in any climate," he said dogmatically. "You never get a proper cup of coffee if you buy it like that. You have to buy the beans and grind it just before you make it. But that's what they won't do."

We went on talking about coffee and chickory and things like that for a time. Then by a natural association we talked about the brandy. He approved of the club brandy. "I used to have an interest in a wine business," he said. "A great many years ago, in Exeter. But I disposed of it soon after the last war."