tate behind the
kitchen garden and the paddock and the moor. And the whole business of
acquiring this property went without a hitch. He took it on the long
tail-end of a lease from an impecunious landlord who couldn't afford to
keep it up.

He obtained possession by September and in the early spring of
nineteen-fourteen he was settled in Amershott Old Grange.

They furnished it as they had furnished the house in Edwardes Square,
with the most complete return to beautiful simplicity.

Jimmy polished off a short novel and a play between October and June, and
kept himself going on the proceeds of his old novels, his old plays, and
his old short stories collected in a volume. Then I think he must have
sat down to wait events.

For when we went down to stay with them we found him waiting. He was
entirely prepared for certain contingencies. If anybody knew anything
about English social conditions it was Tasker Jevons. He had calculated
all the chances and provided for the ostracism that attends the inexpert
invader of the country-side. He was aware that there were powers in and
around Amershott that were not to be conciliated. The very fact that
their territory lay so near the frontier (Amershott is only sixty-seven
miles from London) kept them on their guard. To any good old county
family, Tasker Jevons's celebrity was nothing, if it was not an added
offence, and his opulence was less than nothing. In settling among them
he ran the risk of being ignored. But when it came to ignoring, Jimmy
considered that success lay with the party who got in first. So before he
settled he took care to diffuse a sort of impression that the Tasker
Jevonses were never at home to anybody, that it was not to be expected
that a great novelist and playwright would have time for calling and
being called on, even if he had the absurd inclination. He had one
solitary introduction in the neighbourhood, and he worked it very
adroitly, not to obtain other introductions, but to spread the rumour of
retirement and exclusiveness.

His arrival, preceded by this attractive legend, became an event. You
couldn't even affect to overlook it. And if it was not possible for Jimmy
to subdue his features to an expression of complete ignoring, he had got
in so promptly with his attitude that it took the wind out of the sails
of any people who were merely proposing to ignore.

Then, having come amongst them as a shy recluse, Jimmy began instantly to
focus atten