They walked along one or two main streets, the journalist, still ink-spotted on the nose, nodding now and then to an acquaintance, and turned at length into a by-way of dwelling-houses, which did not, indeed, suggest opulence, but were roomy and decent.  At one of the doors, Breakspeare paused, turned the handle, and ushered in his guest.

Almost immediately, Dyce was presented to his hostess, on whose thin but pleasant face he perceived with satisfaction a reverential interest.  Mrs. Breakspeare had few words at her command, and was evidently accustomed to be disregarded; she knew that her husband admired intellectual women, and that he often privately lamented his mistake in marriage; but none the less was she aware that he enjoyed the comfort of his home—­to her a sufficient recompense.  Like many a man, Breakspeare would have been quite satisfied with his wife, if, at the same time, he could have had another.  He heartily approved the domestic virtues; it would have exasperated him had the mother of his children neglected home duties for any intellectual pursuit; yet, as often as he thought of Miss Bride, contemptuous impatience disturbed his tranquillity.  He desired to unite irreconcilable things.  His practical safeguard was the humour which, after all, never allowed him to take life too seriously.

A boy of sixteen, the eldest of seven children, sat down to table with them.  Breakspeare made a slight apology for his presence, adding genially:  “Meminisse juvabit.”  The meal was more than tolerable; the guest thoroughly enjoyed himself, talking with as little affectation as his nature permitted, and, with a sense of his own graciousness, often addressing to Mrs. Breakspeare a remark on the level of her intelligence.

“When you come down to Hollingford,” said the journalist, “I suppose you will generally stay at Lady Ogram’s?”

“Possibly,” was the reply.  “But I think I had better decide which is to be my hotel, when I have need of one.  Will you advise me in that matter?”

Breakspeare recommended the house which Lashmar already knew, and added hints concerning the political colour of leading trades-folk.  When they rose, the host reminded Dyce of his suggestion that they should go and see an old friend of his, one Martin Blaydes.

“We shall find him smoking his pipe, with a jug of beer at his elbow.  Martin is homely, but a man of original ideas, and he will appreciate your visit.”

So they set forth, and walked for a quarter of an hour towards the outskirts of the town.  Mr. Blaydes, who held a small municipal office, lived alone in a very modest dwelling, his attendant a woman of discreet years.  As Breakspeare had foretold, he was found sitting by the fireside the evening was cool enough to make a fire agreeable a churchwarden between his lips, and a brown jug of generous capacity on the table beside him.  As the door opened, he turned a meditative head, and blinked myopically at his visitors before rising.  His movements were very deliberate; his smile, which had the odd effect of elevating one eyebrow and depressing the other, made him look as if he were about to sneeze.  Not without ceremony, Breakspeare presented his companion, whom the old man (his years touched on seventy) greeted in the words of Belshazzar to Daniel: