tted it intensely; that he attached a bitter meaning
to the words.

"And ... what is the procedure?" he asked, after a pause. "I am new to
the sort of thing." He had the air, I thought, of talking to some
respectable tradesman that one calls in only when one is _in
extremis_--to a distinguished pawnbroker, a man quite at the top of a
tree of inferior timber.

"Oh, for the matter of that, so am I," I answered. "I'm supposed to get
your atmosphere, as Callan put it."

"Indeed," he answered, absently, and then, after a pause, "You know
Callan?" I was afraid I should fall in his estimation.

"One has to do these things," I said; "I've just been getting his
atmosphere."

He looked again at the letter in his hand, smoothed his necktie and was
silent. I realised that I was in the way, but I was still so disturbed
that I forgot how to phrase an excuse for a momentary absence.

"Perhaps, ..." I began.

He looked at me attentively.

"I mean, I think I'm in the way," I blurted out.

"Well," he answered, "it's quite a small matter. But, if you are to get
my atmosphere, we may as well begin out of doors." He hesitated, pleased
with his witticism; "Unless you're tired," he added.

"I will go and get ready," I said, as if I were a lady with
bonnet-strings to tie. I was conducted to my room, where I kicked my
heels for a decent interval. When I descended, Mr. Churchill was
lounging about the room with his hands in his trouser-pockets and his
head hanging limply over his chest. He said, "Ah!" on seeing me, as if
he had forgotten my existence. He paused for a long moment, looked
meditatively at himself in the glass over the fireplace, and then grew
brisk. "Come along," he said.

We took a longish walk through a lush home-country meadow land. We
talked about a number of things, he opening the ball with that infernal
Jenkins sketch. I was in the stage at which one is sick of the thing,
tired of the bare idea of it--and Mr. Churchill's laboriously kind
phrases made the matter no better.

"You know who Jenkins stands for?" I asked. I wanted to get away on the
side issues.

"Oh, I guessed it was----" he answered. They said that Mr. Churchill
was an enthusiast for the school of painting of which Jenkins was the
last exponent. He began to ask questions about him. Did he still paint?
Was he even alive?

"I once saw several of his pictures," he reflected. "His work certainly
appealed to me ... yes, it appealed to me. I meant at