"Well, I met him on the stairs just now. For a moment I knew not
which alternative to choose--whether your desertion had driven him to
the extreme course of reading a book or two for himself, or he had
come desperately in search of you to promise that if you returned,
all should be forgiven. . . . No, you need not look alarmed. He came
in search of a newspaper."

"But there are no newspapers in the Library."

"Quite so: he has just made that discovery. Thereupon, since an
animal of that breed cannot go anywhere without leaving his scent
behind him, he has scrawled himself over half a page of the
Suggestion' Book. He wants this Library to take in _The Times_
newspaper, 'if only for the sake of its foreign correspondence and
its admirable weather-charts.' Signed, 'J. Tarbolt.' What part is
the humbug sustaining, that so depends on the weather?"

"He takes Bishop Henry of Blois in the Fourth Episode. He wears a
suit of complete armour, and you cannot conceive how much
it--it--improves him. I helped him to try it on the other day,"
Mr. Simeon explained with a smile.

"Maybe," suggested Brother Copas, "he fears the effect of rain upon
his 'h's.'"

But the glass held steady, and the great day dawned without a cloud.
Good citizens of Merchester, arising early to scan the sky, were
surprised to find their next-door neighbours already abroad, and in
consultation with neighbours opposite over strings of flags to be
suspended across the roadway. Mr. Simeon, for example, peeping out,
with an old dressing-gown cast over his night-shirt, was astounded to
find Mr. Magor, the contiguous pork-seller, thus engaged with Mr.
Sillifant, the cheap fruiterer across the way. He had accustomed
himself to think of them as careless citizens and uncultured, and
their unexpected patriotism gave him perhaps less of a shock than the
discovery that they must have been moving faster than he with the
times, for they both wore pyjamas.

They were kind to him, however: and, lifting no eyebrow over his
antiquated night-attire, consulted him cheerfully over a string of
flags which (as it turned out) Mr. Magor had paid yesterday a visit
to Southampton expressly to borrow.

I mention this because it was a foretaste, and significant, of the
general enthusiasm.

At ten in the morning Fritz, head waiter of that fine old English
coaching-house, "The Mitre," looked out from the portico where he
stood surrounded by sporting prints, and an