ffice was composed of several different rooms, and they waited very
silently in one of them after they had sent in their letter and their
cards. The letter was not one which it would take Mr. Westgate very long
to read, but he came out to speak to them more instantly than they could
have expected; he had evidently jumped up from his work. He was a tall,
lean personage and was dressed all in fresh white linen; he had a thin,
sharp, familiar face, with an expression that was at one and the same
time sociable and businesslike, a quick, intelligent eye, and a large
brown mustache, which concealed his mouth and made his chin, beneath it,
look small. Lord Lambeth thought he looked tremendously clever.

"How do you do, Lord Lambeth--how do you do, sir?" he said, holding the
open letter in his hand. "I'm very glad to see you; I hope you're very
well. You had better come in here; I think it's cooler," and he led
the way into another room, where there were law books and papers, and
windows wide open beneath striped awning. Just opposite one of the
windows, on a line with his eyes, Lord Lambeth observed the weathervane
of a church steeple. The uproar of the street sounded infinitely far
below, and Lord Lambeth felt very high in the air. "I say it's cooler,"
pursued their host, "but everything is relative. How do you stand the
heat?"

"I can't say we like it," said Lord Lambeth; "but Beaumont likes it
better than I."

"Well, it won't last," Mr. Westgate very cheerfully declared; "nothing
unpleasant lasts over here. It was very hot when Captain Littledale was
here; he did nothing but drink sherry cobblers. He expressed some doubt
in his letter whether I will remember him--as if I didn't remember
making six sherry cobblers for him one day in about twenty minutes. I
hope you left him well, two years having elapsed since then."

"Oh, yes, he's all right," said Lord Lambeth.

"I am always very glad to see your countrymen," Mr. Westgate pursued. "I
thought it would be time some of you should be coming along. A friend
of mine was saying to me only a day or two ago, 'It's time for the
watermelons and the Englishmen."

"The Englishmen and the watermelons just now are about the same thing,"
Percy Beaumont observed, wiping his dripping forehead.

"Ah, well, we'll put you on ice, as we do the melons. You must go down
to Newport."

"We'll go anywhere," said Lord Lambeth.

"Yes, you want to go to Newport; that's what you want to do," M