If you want to understand us you
must be an outcast too; we are not playing at the game."

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 bod