And what made it rougher than ever was that she was positively all that he had.

She wasn't only a combined parent, as it were, but she had quarrelled with all her own and the governor's relations before Reggie had won his first trouser pockets.

So that whenever Reggie was homesick out there, sitting on his dark veranda by starlight, while the gramophone cried, "Dear, what is Life but Love ?" his only vision was of the mater, tall and stout, rustling down the garden path, with Chinny and Biddy at her heels...
The mater, with her scissors outspread to snap the head of a dead something or other, stopped at the sight of Reggie.
"You are not going out, Reginald ?" she asked, seeing that he was.
"I'll be back for tea, mater," said Reggie weakly, plunging his hands into his jacket pockets.
Snip.

Off came a head.

Reggie almost jumped.
"I should have thought you could have spared your mother your last afternoon," said she.
Silence.