, must
you--you've got some here, and to spare....'

On his arrival in the new world he wired to Pippin asking if he might
stay with him on the way up country, and received the answer: "Be sure
and come."

A week later he arrived (there was now a railway) and found Pippin
waiting for him in a phaeton. Scorrier would not have known the place
again; there was a glitter over everything, as if some one had touched
it with a wand. The tracks had given place to roads, running firm,
straight, and black between the trees under brilliant sunshine; the
wooden houses were all painted; out in the gleaming harbour amongst the
green of islands lay three steamers, each with a fleet of busy boats;
and here and there a tiny yacht floated, like a sea-bird on the water.
Pippin drove his long-tailed horses furiously; his eyes brimmed with
subtle kindness, as if according Scorrier a continual welcome. During
the two days of his stay Scorrier never lost that sense of glamour. He
had every opportunity for observing the grip Pippin had over everything.
The wooden doors and walls of his bungalow kept out no sounds. He
listened to interviews between his host and all kinds and conditions
of men. The voices of the visitors would rise at first--angry,
discontented, matter-of-fact, with nasal twang, or guttural drawl; then
would come the soft patter of the superintendent's feet crossing and
recrossing the room. Then a pause, the sound of hard breathing, and
quick questions--the visitor's voice again, again the patter, and
Pippin's ingratiating but decisive murmurs. Presently out would come the
visitor with an expression on his face which Scorrier soon began to know
by heart, a kind of pleased, puzzled, helpless look, which seemed to
say, "I've been done, I know--I'll give it to myself when I'm round the
corner."

Pippin was full of wistful questions about "home." He wanted to talk
of music, pictures, plays, of how London looked, what new streets there
were, and, above all, whether Scorrier had been lately in the West
Country. He talked of getting leave next winter, asked whether Scorrier
thought they would "put up with him at home"; then, with the agitation
which had alarmed Scorrier before, he added: "Ah! but I'm not fit for
home now. One gets spoiled; it's big and silent here. What should I go
back to? I don't seem to realise."

Scorrier thought of Hemmings. "'Tis a bit cramped there, certainly," he
muttered.

Pippin went on as if divining