When not cast down by his business responsibilities he was a blithe soul, and in the evenings he liked nothing better than to sit in the veranda listening to the gramophone or strumming his own guitar; he quite fancied himself as a guitarist, and Terry agreed that he knew how to treat a sentimental ballad. His voice was a pleasing light baritone, and sitting a few yards away from him in the half-darkness and watching his fair head against the palms as he strummed and sang, Terry found it easy to imagine him in a film with some pretty little thing as his partner.The business, he told Terry, was a headache. It was now costing more to run on a lower income, and though it was a branch of one of the older firms in Malaya, it was hardly worth the trouble and expense of keeping it going. He had been put in charge for two reasons—to give him a taste of the responsibility he loathed and to add importance to the branch and so help it regain lost prestige. Somehow, he thought, the place would be closed down by this time next year and he would be transferred to Singapore.“Quite a place, Singapore,”
