“Against the rules?” he asked, holding up his cigar, a very good one, on which he had retained the band.

“By no means,” said I, “we smoke all over the house.”

“Tiptop!” He looked around the hall.  “You seem to have a bit of all right here.”

“I told you you would like it.  Everybody does,” said Liosha.  “Ah, Barbara, dear!” She ran up the stairs to meet her.  We followed.  Mr. Fendihook was presented.  I noticed, with a little shock, that he had kept on his gloves.

“Very kind of you to let me come down, madam.  I thought a bit of a blow would do our fair friend good.”

Barbara took off Liosha, looking very handsome and fresh beneath the motor-veil, to her room, leaving me with Mr. Fendihook.  As he preceded me into the drawing-room I saw a bald patch like a tonsure in the middle of a crop of coarse brown hair.  Again he looked round appreciatively and again he said “Tiptop!” He advanced to the open French window.

“Garden’s all right.  Must take a lot of doing.  Who are our friends?  The long and the short of it, aren’t they?”

He alluded to Jaffery and Doria, who were strolling on the lawn.  I told him their names.

“Jaffery Chayne.  Why, that’s the chap Mrs. Prescott’s always talking about, her guardian or something.”

“Her trustee,” said I, “and an intimate friend of her late husband.”

“Ah!” said he, with a twinkle in his eyes which, I will swear, signified “Then there was a Prescott after all!” He waved his cigar.  “Introduce me.”  And as I accompanied him across the lawn—­“There’s nothing like knowing everybody—­getting it over at once.  Then one feels at home.”

“I hope you felt at home as soon as you entered the house,” said I.

“Of course I did, old pal,” he replied heartily.  “Of course I did.”  And the amazing creature patted me on the back.

I performed the introductions.  Mr. Fendihook declared himself delighted to make the acquaintance of my friends.  Then as conversation did not start spontaneously, he once more looked around, nodded at the landscape approvingly, and once more said “Tiptop!”

“That’s what I want to have,” he continued, “when I can afford to retire and settle down.  None of your gimcrack modern villas in a desirable residential neighbourhood, but an English gentleman’s country house.”

“It’s your ambition to be an English gentleman, Mr. Fendihook?” queried Doria.

He laughed good-humouredly.  “Now you’re pulling my leg.”

I saw that he was not lacking in shrewdness.

Susan, never far from Jaffery during her off-time, came running up.

“Hallo, is that your young ’un?” Mr. Fendihook asked.  “Come and say how d’ye do, Gwendoline.”

Susan advanced shyly.  He shook hands with her, chucked her under the chin and paid her the ill compliment of saying that she was the image of her father.  Jaffery stood with folded arms holding the bowl of his pipe in one hand and looked down on Mr. Fendihook as on some puzzling insect.