‘The old chap,’ he thought, ’is touched.  He evidently oughtn’t to be out here by himself.’  He debated, therefore, whether he should hasten away toward his car, or stand by in case his assistance should be needed.  Being a kind-hearted man, who believed in his capacity for putting things to rights, and noticing a certain delicacy—­a “sort of something rather distinguished,” as he phrased it afterwards—­in the old fellow’s face and figure, he decided to see if he could be of any service.  They walked along together, Mr. Purcey watching his new friend askance, and directing the march to where he had ordered his chauffeur to await him.

“You are very fond of birds, I suppose,” he said cautiously.

“The birds are our brothers.”

The answer was of a nature to determine Mr. Purcey in his diagnosis of the case.

“I’ve got my car here,” he said.  “Let me give you a lift home.”

This new but aged acquaintance did not seem to hear; his lips moved as though he were following out some thought.

“In those days,” Mr. Purcey heard him say, “the congeries of men were known as rookeries.  The expression was hardly just towards that handsome bird.”

Mr. Purcey touched him hastily on the arm.

“I’ve got my car here, sir,” he said.  “Do let me put you down!”

Telling the story afterwards, he had spoken thus: 

“The old chap knew where he lived right enough; but dash me if I believe he noticed that I was taking him there in my car—­I had the A.i.  Damyer out.  That’s how I came to make the acquaintance of these Dallisons.  He’s the writer, you know, and she paints—­rather the new school—­she admires Harpignies.  Well, when I got there in the car I found Dallison in the garden.  Of course I was careful not to put my foot into it.  I told him:  ’I found this old gentleman wandering about.  I’ve just brought him back in my car.’  Who should the old chap turn out to be but her father!  They were awfully obliged to me.  Charmin’ people, but very what d’you call it ’fin de siecle’—­like all these professors, these artistic pigs—­seem to know rather a queer set, advanced people, and all that sort of cuckoo, always talkin’ about the poor, and societies, and new religions, and that kind of thing.”

Though he had since been to see them several times, the Dallisons had never robbed him of the virtuous feeling of that good action—­they had never let him know that he had brought home, not, as he imagined, a lunatic, but merely a philosopher.

It had been somewhat of a quiet shock to him to find Mr. Stone close to the doorway when he entered Bianca’s studio that afternoon; for though he had seen him since the encounter in Kensington Gardens, and knew that he was writing a book, he still felt that he was not quite the sort of old man that one ought to meet about.  He had at once begun to tell him of the hanging of the Shoreditch murderer, as recorded