“We,” he said, “are destitute—­absolutely.  It’s simply frightful, the wear and strain of it.  Peggy, of course,” he added plaintively, “is not a good manager.  She likes spending, you know—­and there’s so seldom anything to spend, poor Peggy.  So life is disappointing for her.  The babies, I needn’t say, are growing up little vagabonds.  And they will bathe in the canals, which isn’t respectable, of course; though one is relieved in a way that they should bathe anywhere.”

“If he was selling any pictures,” Peter reflected, “he would tell me,” so he did not enquire.  Peter had tact as to his questions.  One rather needed it with Hilary.  But he wondered vaguely what the babies had, at the moment, to grow up upon, even as little vagabonds.  Presently Hilary enlightened him.

“I edit a magazine,” he said, and Peter perceived that he was both proud and ashamed of the fact.  “At least I am going to.  A monthly publication for the entertainment and edification of the Englishman in Venice.  Lord Evelyn Urquhart is financing it.  You know he has taken up his residence in Venice?  A pleasant crank.  Venice is his latest craze.  He buys glass.  And, indeed, most other things.  He shops all day.  It’s a mania.  When he was young I believe he had a very fine taste.  It’s dulled now—­a fearful life, as they say.  Well, his last fancy is to run a magazine, and I’m to edit it.  It’s to be called ‘The Gem.’  ‘Gemm’ Adriatica,’ you know, and all that; besides, it’s more or less appropriate to the contents.  It’s to be largely concerned with what Lord Evelyn calls ‘charming things.’  Things the visiting Englishman likes to hear about, you know.  It aims at being the Complete Tourist’s Guide.  I have to get hold of people who’ll write articles on the Duomo mosaics, and the galleries and churches and palaces and so on, and glass and lace and anything else that occurs to them, in a way calculated to appeal to the cultivated British resident or visitor.  I detest the breed, I needn’t say.  Pampered hotel Philistines pretending to culture and profaning the sanctuaries, Ruskin in hand. Ruskin.  Really, you know....  Well, anyhow, my mission in life for the present is to minister to their insatiable appetite for rhapsodising over what they feel it incumbent on them to admire.”

“Rather fascinating,” Peter said.  It was a pity that Hilary always so disliked any work he had to do.  Work—­a terrific, insatiable god, demanding its hideous human sacrifices from the dawn of the world till twilight—­so Hilary saw it.  The idea of being horrible, all the concrete details into which it was translated were horrible too.

“If it was me,” said Peter, “I should minister to my own appetite, no one else’s.  Bother the cultivated resident.  He’d jolly well have to take what I gave him.  And glass and mosaic and lace—­what glorious things to write about....  I rather love Lord Evelyn, don’t you.”