ned from his office, rose to greet
him.

"And how do you like Warwick?" he demanded. "You show your good
taste," he approved, when Leigh had complimented the beauty of the
city, "and Warwick is a very cultivated place as well. Have n't you
found it so? There are a great many rich people here, but you see no
display of wealth, as in New York."

"I hate New York," his wife put in. "It's so frightfully commercial."

Mr. Parr, having delivered himself of the articles of his belief,
resumed his role as the silent partner of the house. He was a large,
slow man, whose history seemed to be the history of the dinners he had
eaten. In his eyes smouldered a dull glow, as of resentment at the
limits of the human stomach and the volubility of wives. He woke up as
his visitor prepared to depart, to inform him that the thermometer had
registered twenty degrees of frost that morning, and to express the
conviction that Warwick would spoil him for residence hereafter in any
other city. Leigh assured him that there was no doubt of it, and went
out into the winter twilight, homesick for the full, crude life of the
Middle West, for the picturesque civilisation of California, for the
smoke and splendour and roar of New York.

As he passed the bishop's darkened house, he felt that it was out of
the question for him to spend the Christmas recess in the deserted
college on the hill. He resolved to run away from himself, to seek
distraction from the riddle of his existence by a visit to the
metropolis, to change his sky in the hope of changing his mind. The
increasing cold, and the dun canopy of cloud that had overspread the
sky for days, convinced him of the futility of attempting to continue
his observations at present. Tomorrow he would join in the general
hegira from the Hall.

He walked back to the college, and seeing a light in Cardington's room,
he knocked at the door. His friend was seated in the chair he never
seemed to leave.

"Ah," he said, observing his visitor's bundles, "you come in like a
Santa Claus coadjutor, a youthful Santa Claus, not yet dignified by
that hirsute appendage to the chin without which no Santa Claus is
complete."

Leigh admitted that he was a feeble imitation, and produced the
briar-wood pipe from his pocket. Cardington was greatly pleased.

"Thank you," he said; "thank you. I shall break the amber stem,
sooner or later, but I shall have it replaced by one of vulcanised
rubber, and shall