d a competent official. But now he is simply a
briefless barrister, without a friend in the world.

He arrived very punctually to luncheon. He is a small, sturdy man, with
a big head, of a uniform, dull tint, as if it were carved out of a not
very successfully boiled chicken. He is bald, and wears spectacles. He
was rather primly dressed, and everything about him gave a sense of
careful and virtuous economy, from the uncompromising hardness of his
heavy grey suit to the emphatic solidity of his great boots. I had two
rather lively young men staying with me, and they behaved with
remarkable kindness. But Gregory put the garden-roller over us all in a
very few minutes. One of my young friends asked a silly question about
current politics. Gregory looked at him blankly, and said, "I am afraid
that that question betrays a very superficial acquaintance with the
elements of political economy. May I ask if you picked that up at
Cambridge?" He gave a short mirthless laugh, and I understood that he
was trying his hand at a little light social badinage. However, it
flattened out my young friend, while Gregory ruthlessly told us the
elements, and a good deal more than the elements, of that science. He
was diverted from his lecture by the appearance of some ham. Gregory
commented upon the inferiority of English hams, and described the
process of curing hams in Westphalia, which, unfortunately for us, he
had personally witnessed. So it went on. It was impossible to stop him
or to divert him. When he ceased for a moment, to swallow a mouthful, I
interjected a remark about the weather. Gregory replied, "Yes; and then
they have a method of packing the hams which is said to have the effect
of retaining their flavour in a remarkable degree. Imagine a strip of
sacking revolving upon two metal objects somewhat resembling
fishing-reels." So it continued; and it was delivered, moreover, in a
tone of voice which it was somehow impossible to elude; it compelled a
sort of agonised attention. After luncheon, while we were smoking, one
of my young friends, who could bear passivity no longer, played a few
chords of Wagner on a piano. Gregory poured into the gap like a great
cascade, and we had a discourse on the origins of the Wagnerian
librettos.

After it was over and we were trying to banish the subject from our
minds, I sent the other two out for a walk--this had been agreed upon
previously--and prepared to face the music alone. But they only