“Now, out with it, and see you behave yourself!”

He had been ready to smile chivalrously.  But the smile was put to sudden death.

“Some tea, please,” he said faintly, and his intimidated tone said, “If it isn’t troubling you too much.”

“What do you 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 his seat on long-distance expresses, filled him with very real melancholy.  He did not feel sorry for Leek, nor say to himself “Poor Leek!” Nobody who had had the advantage of Leek’s acquaintance would have said “Poor Leek!” For Leek’s greatest speciality had always been the speciality of looking after Leek, and wherever Leek might be it was a surety that Leek’s interests would not suffer.  Therefore Priam Farll’s pity was mainly self-centred.