e I find
the man. It's from Ninian. It came this morning!..."

He seized Henry's bag and hurried off with it, leaving Henry to follow
slowly or remain where he was, as he pleased, and then, before Henry had
time to do more than take the letter from its envelope and glance
carelessly at the first page of it, he came quickly back. "Come up," he
said, putting his arm in Henry's. "You can read it as you go along.
There's not much in it!"

They left the pier and passed through the station into the street.

"Holyhead," said Gilbert, "is a good place to get drunk in! We won't
linger!..."

They took the lower road to Tre'Arrdur Bay because it was quieter than
the upper road, and as they walked, Henry read Ninian's letter.

"He seems to like South America," he said, returning the letter to
Gilbert when he had finished with it.

Gilbert nodded his head. "That old Tunnel of his doesn't get itself
built, does it? But it must be great fun building a railway in a place
like that. There's a revolution on the first and third Tuesdays of the
month, and the President of the Republic and the Emperor of the Empire
are in power for a fortnight and in exile for another one. So Ninian
says. He told Roger in his last letter that he had had to kick the
emperor's backside for him for interfering with the railway contract....
Oh, by the bye, Rachel's produced an infant. She says it's like Roger,
but Roger hopes not. He says it's like nothing on earth. He came to see
me off from Euston yesterday and when I asked him to describe it to me,
he said he couldn't ... it was indescribable. It looks _raw_, he says.
It must be frightfully comic to be a father, Quinny!"

"I don't see anything comic about it," Henry replied. "I'd rather like
to be a father myself."

"Well, why don't you become one. They say it's easy enough. First, you
get a wife...."

"What sort of an infant is it? Is it a boy or a girl?"

"Great Scott!" said Gilbert, "I forgot to ask that. That was very
careless of me. Look out, Quinny, here's a motor, and that's Holy
Mountain on the right. We'll go up it to-morrow, if you like. It's not
much of a climb. Just enough to jig you up a bit. There's a chap in the
hotel who scoots up mountains like a young goat. He asked me to go up
Snowdon with him, but when I asked him what the tramfare was, he was
slightly snorty in his manner. How's the novel getting on?"

"It'll be out in September. I corrected the final proofs last month. I
t