want with it?" asked the gentlewoman abruptly, and as he
was plainly at a loss she added, "Crumpets or tea-cake?"

"Tea-cake," he replied, though he hated tea-cake. But he was afraid.

"You've escaped this time," said the drapery of her muslins as she swam
from his sight. "But no nonsense while I'm away!"

When she sternly and mutely thrust the refection before him, he found
that everything on the table except the tea-cakes and the spoon was
growing elm-trees.

After one cup and one slice, when the tea had become stewed and
undrinkable, and the tea-cake a material suitable for the manufacture of
shooting boots, he resumed, at any rate partially, his presence of mind,
and remembered that he had done nothing positively criminal in entering
the boudoir or drawing-room and requesting food in return for money.
Besides, the gentlewomen were now pretending to each other that he did
not exist, and no other rash persons had been driven by hunger into the
virgin forest of elm-trees. He began to meditate, and his meditations
taking--for him--an unusual turn, caused him surreptitiously to examine
Henry Leek's pocket-book (previously only known to him by sight). He had
not for many years troubled himself concerning money, but the discovery
that, when he had paid for the deposit of luggage at the cloak-room, a
solitary sovereign rested in the pocket of Leek's trousers, had
suggested to him that it would be advisable sooner or later to consider
the financial aspect of existence.

There were two banknotes for ten pounds each in Leek's pocket-book; also
five French banknotes of a thousand francs each, and a number of Italian
banknotes of small denominations: the equivalent of two hundred and
thirty pounds altogether, not counting a folded inch-rule, some postage
stamps, and a photograph of a pleasant-faced woman of forty or so. This
sum seemed neither vast nor insignificant to Priam Farll. It seemed to
him merely a tangible something which would enable him to banish the
fiscal question from his mind for an indefinite period. He scarcely even
troubled to wonder what Leek was doing with over two years of Leek's
income in his pocket-book. He knew, or at least he with certainty
guessed, that Leek had been a rascal. Still, he had had a sort of grim,
cynical affection for Leek. And the thought that Leek would never again
shave him, nor tell him in accents that brooked no delay that his hair
must be cut, nor register his luggage and secure