he day's weather, stood deferential for
instructions. "You will be going out for lunch, sir. Very good, sir.
White slips of course, sir. You will go down into the country in the
afternoon? Will that be the serge suit, sir, or the brown?"

These matters settled, the new aristocrat could yawn and stretch like
any aristocrat under the old dispensation, and then as the sound of
running water from the bathroom ceased, stick his toes out of bed.

The day was tremendously indicated. World-states and aristocracies of
steel and fire, things that were as real as coal-scuttles in Billy's
rooms away there at Cambridge, were now remoter than Sirius.

He was expected to shave, expected to bath, expected to go in to
the bright warmth and white linen and silver and china of his
breakfast-table. And there he found letters and invitations, loaded with
expectation. And beyond the coffee-pot, neatly folded, lay the TIMES,
and the DAILY NEWS and the TELEGRAPH all with an air of requiring his
attention. There had been more fighting in Thibet and Mr. Ritchie had
made a Free Trade speech at Croydon. The Japanese had torpedoed another
Russian ironclad and a British cruiser was ashore in the East Indies. A
man had been found murdered in an empty house in Hoxton and the King
had had a conversation with General Booth. Tadpole was in for North
Winchelsea, beating Taper by nine votes, and there had been a new cut
in the Atlantic passenger rates. He was expected to be interested and
excited by these things.

Presently the telephone bell would ring and he would hear the clear
little voice of his mother full of imperative expectations. He would be
round for lunch? Yes, he would be round to lunch. And the afternoon, had
he arranged to do anything with his afternoon? No!--put off Chexington
until tomorrow. There was this new pianist, it was really an EXPERIENCE,
and one might not get tickets again. And then tea at Panton's. It was
rather fun at Panton's.... Oh!--Weston Massinghay was coming to lunch.
He was a useful man to know. So CLEVER.... So long, my dear little Son,
till I see you....

So life puts out its Merkle threads, as the poacher puts his hair noose
about the pheasant's neck, and while we theorize takes hold of us....

It came presently home to Benham that he had been down from Cambridge
for ten months, and that he was still not a step forward with the
realization of the new aristocracy. His political career waited. He had
done a quanti