This talk took place upon the lawn, at the end of one of Toddles’s French lessons, and Shelton left John Noble maintaining to the youthful foreigner, with stubborn logic, that he, John Noble, and the anarchists had much, in common.  He was returning to the house, when someone called his name from underneath the holm oak.  There, sitting Turkish fashion on the grass, a pipe between his teeth, he found a man who had arrived the night before, and impressed him by his friendly taciturnity.  His name was Whyddon, and he had just returned from Central Africa; a brown-faced, large-jawed man, with small but good and steady eyes, and strong, spare figure.

“Oh, Mr. Shelton!” he said, “I wondered if you could tell me what tips I ought to give the servants here; after ten years away I ’ve forgotten all about that sort of thing.”

Shelton sat down beside him; unconsciously assuming, too, a cross-legged attitude, which caused him much discomfort.

“I was listening,” said his new acquaintance, “to the little chap learning his French.  I’ve forgotten mine.  One feels a hopeless duffer knowing no, languages.”

“I suppose you speak Arabic?” said Shelton.

“Oh, Arabic, and a dialect or two; they don’t count.  That tutor has a curious face.”

“You think so?” said Shelton, interested.  “He’s had a curious life.”

The traveller spread his hands, palms downwards, on the grass and looked at Shelton with, a smile.

“I should say he was a rolling stone,” he said.  “It ‘s odd, I’ ve seen white men in Central Africa with a good deal of his look about them.

“Your diagnosis is a good one,” answered Shelton.

“I ’m always sorry for those fellows.  There’s generally some good in them.  They are their own enemies.  A bad business to be unable to take pride in anything one does!” And there was a look of pity on his face.

“That’s exactly it,” said Shelton.  “I ’ve often tried to put it into words.  Is it incurable?”

“I think so.”

“Can you tell me why?”

Whyddon pondered.

“I rather think,” he said at last, “it must be because they have too strong a faculty of criticism.  You can’t teach a man to be proud of his own work; that lies in his blood “; folding his arms across his breast, he heaved a sigh.  Under the dark foliage, his eyes on the sunlight, he was the type of all those Englishmen who keep their spirits bright and wear their bodies out in the dark places of hard work.  “You can’t think,” he said, showing his teeth in a smile, “how delightful it is to be at home!  You learn to love the old country when you’re away from it.”

Shelton often thought, afterwards; of this diagnosis of the vagabond, for he was always stumbling on instances of that power of subtle criticism which was the young foreigner’s prime claim to be “a most awfully interesting” and perhaps a rather shocking person.