uthority for instance of the Recording
Angel--that in five years time he would be able to sit quiet and not work
any more. He wanted very much to be able to take a passive instead of an
active interest in life, and this a few hundreds of pounds a year in
addition to his savings would enable him to do. He saw, in fact, the goal
arrived at which he would be able to sit still and wait with serenity and
calmness for the event which would certainly relieve him of all further
material anxieties. His very active life, the activities of which were so
largely benevolent, had at the expiration of fifty-eight years a little
tired him. He coveted the leisure which was so nearly his.

Morris lit a cigarette for himself, having previously passed the wine to
Mr. Taynton.

"I hate port," he said, "but my mother tells me this is all right. It
was laid down the year I was born by the way. You don't mind my
smoking do you?"

This, to tell the truth, seemed almost sacrilegious to Mr. Taynton, for
the idea that tobacco, especially the frivolous cigarette, should burn in
a room where such port was being drunk was sheer crime against human and
divine laws. But he could scarcely indicate to his host that he should
not smoke in his own dining-room.

"No, my dear Morris," he said, "but really you almost shock me, when you
prefer tobacco to this nectar, I assure you nectar. And the car, now,
tell me more about the car."

Morris laughed.

"I'm so deeply thankful I haven't overdrawn," he said. "Oh, the car's a
clipper. We came down from Haywards Heath the most gorgeous pace. I saw
one policeman trying to take my number, but we raised such a dust, I
don't think he can have been able to see it. It's such rot only going
twenty miles an hour with a clear straight road ahead."

Mr. Taynton sighed, gently and not unhappily.

"Yes, yes, my dear boy, I so sympathise with you," he said. "Speed and
violence is the proper attitude of youth, just as strength with a more
measured pace is the proper gait for older folk. And that, I fancy is
just what Mrs. Assheton felt. She would feel it to be as unnatural in you
to care to drive with her in her very comfortable victoria as she would
feel it to be unnatural in herself to wish to go in your lightning speed
motor. And that reminds me. As your trustee--"

Coffee was brought in at this moment, carried, not by one of the discreet
parlour-maids, but by a young man-servant. Mr. Taynton, with the port
still b