XLIII
It must have been just about a year ago to-day that I received one morning a letter from an old acquaintance of mine, Henry Gregory by name, telling me that he was staying in my neighbourhood—might he come over to see me? I asked him to come to luncheon.
I do not remember how I first came to know Gregory, but I was instrumental in once getting him a little legal work to do, since when he has shown a dangerous disposition to require similar services of me, and even to confide in me. I am quite incapable—not on principle, but from a sort of feeble courtesy—of rejecting such overtures. It does more harm than good, because I am unable to help him in any way; and the result of our talks is only to send him away disappointed and annoyed, and to leave me both bored and compassionate, with that wholly ineffectual compassion which is a mere morbid sentiment. Judge between him and me! I will tell the whole story.
Gregory is a man of real ability, conscientious, clear-headed, accurate. He was one of a large family; his father a country solicitor, I think. He was at a public school and at the University; he has a small income of his own, perhaps L150 a year; and he drifted to the bar. I don’t think he ever made friends with anyone in his life—he is constitutionally incapable of friendship. I have seen him in the company of one or two unaccountably dreary men, himself the dreariest of the party. He is long-winded, exact in statement, ponderous. He has no sort of imagination, and no touch of humour. He can be depended upon to give you a mass of detailed information on almost any point, and every subject that he touches turns to lead before your eyes. One has a sense of mental indigestion for a day or two after one has seen him, until one has forgotten his statements. If I desired to think ill of a writer, I should ask