ollar
studs. The stud with which I was engaged (on fierce and equal terms) as
I made the above reflections, was one which I was trying to introduce
into my shirt collar when a loud knock came at the door.

My first thought was as to whether Basil Grant had called to fetch me.
He and I were to turn up at the same dinner-party (for which I was in
the act of dressing), and it might be that he had taken it into his head
to come my way, though we had arranged to go separately. It was a
small and confidential affair at the table of a good but unconventional
political lady, an old friend of his. She had asked us both to meet a
third guest, a Captain Fraser, who had made something of a name and was
an authority on chimpanzees. As Basil was an old friend of the hostess
and I had never seen her, I felt that it was quite possible that he
(with his usual social sagacity) might have decided to take me along in
order to break the ice. The theory, like all my theories, was complete;
but as a fact it was not Basil.

I was handed a visiting card inscribed: "Rev. Ellis Shorter", and
underneath was written in pencil, but in a hand in which even hurry
could not conceal a depressing and gentlemanly excellence, "Asking the
favour of a few moments' conversation on a most urgent matter."!

I had already subdued the stud, thereby proclaiming that the image of
God has supremacy over all matters (a valuable truth), and throwing on
my dress-coat and waistcoat, hurried into the drawing-room. He rose at
my entrance, flapping like a seal; I can use no other description. He
flapped a plaid shawl over his right arm; he flapped a pair of pathetic
black gloves; he flapped his clothes; I may say, without exaggeration,
that he flapped his eyelids, as he rose. He was a bald-browed,
white-haired, white-whiskered old clergyman, of a flappy and floppy
type. He said:

"I am so sorry. I am so very sorry. I am so extremely sorry. I come--I
can only say--I can only say in my defence, that I come--upon an
important matter. Pray forgive me."

I told him I forgave perfectly and waited.

"What I have to say," he said brokenly, "is so dreadful--it is so
dreadful--I have lived a quiet life."

I was burning to get away, for it was already doubtful if I should be in
time for dinner. But there was something about the old man's honest air
of bitterness that seemed to open to me the possibilities of life larger
and more tragic than my own.

I said gently: "Pray go