Explore "C. I. D" by Talbot Mundy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"The trouble with impossibilities is that they so often happen."
Major Eustace Smith, aged fifty-four and rather seedy for his years, lay in bed at the Residency. There was nothing much wrong except for a boil on the back of his neck, which made him irritable. The damp and the dripping of rain depressed him; and, since the doctor went on leave, he had been lonely, although he and the doctor detested each other as only two bachelors can who have no other society than each other for months at a time. He enjoyed not having to have breakfast with the doctor, even though he missed him and needed his attentions now. Bed was comfortable. Office details were obnoxious to a military man--of the old school, dammit!--and there was nothing his clerk could not attend to; his successor, three months hence, might suit himself and find as much fault with the clerk as he pleased. In the meantime, the less business the better. Three months--then a pension, thank God!--and a little cottage in Madiera, where a fellow can live cheaply and enjoy the climate.