uncheon at the Voyagers' Club was
courteously declined. Indeed, it began to be felt that the
self-effacement of the returned pressmen was being carried to a pedantic
length. Foreman compositors, advertisement clerks, and other members of
the non-editorial staff, who had, of course, taken no part in the great
trek, found it as impossible to get into direct communication with the
editor and his satellites now that they had returned as when they had
been excusably inaccessible in Central Asia. The sulky, overworked
office-boy, who was the one connecting link between the editorial brain
and the business departments of the paper, sardonically explained the new
aloofness as the 'Yarkand manner.' Most of the reporters and sub-editors
seemed to have been dismissed in autocratic fashion since their return
and new ones engaged by letter; to these the editor and his immediate
associates remained an unseen presence, issuing its instructions solely
through the medium of curt typewritten notes. Something mystic and
Tibetan and forbidden had replaced the human bustle and democratic
simplicity of pre-migration days, and the same experience was encountered
by those who made social overtures to the returned wanderers. The most
brilliant hostess of Twentieth Century London flung the pearl of her
hospitality into the unresponsive trough of the editorial letter-box; it
seemed as if nothing short of a Royal command would drag the
hermit-souled _revenants_ from their self-imposed seclusion. People
began to talk unkindly of the effect of high altitudes and Eastern
atmosphere on minds and temperaments unused to such luxuries. The
Yarkand manner was not popular."

"And the contents of the paper," said the nephew, "did they show the
influence of the new style?"

"Ah!" said Sir Lulworth, "that was the exciting thing. In home affairs,
social questions, and the ordinary events of the day not much change was
noticeable. A certain Oriental carelessness seemed to have crept into
the editorial department, and perhaps a note of lassitude not unnatural
in the work of men who had returned from what had been a fairly arduous
journey. The aforetime standard of excellence was scarcely maintained,
but at any rate the general lines of policy and outlook were not departed
from. It was in the realm of foreign affairs that a startling change
took place. Blunt, forcible, outspoken articles appeared, couched in
language which nearly turned the autumn m