girl who was linked for life to a bargee like Tuppy Glossop."

And I emitted a hard laugh--one of the sneering kind.

"I always thought you were such friends," said Angela.

I let go another hard one, with a bit more top spin on it than the first
time:

"Friends? Absolutely not. One was civil, of course, when one met the
fellow, but it would be absurd to say one was a friend of his. A club
acquaintance, and a mere one at that. And then one was at school with the
man."

"At Eton?"

"Good heavens, no. We wouldn't have a fellow like that at Eton. At a
kid's school before I went there. A grubby little brute he was, I
recollect. Covered with ink and mire generally, washing only on alternate
Thursdays. In short, a notable outsider, shunned by all."

I paused. I was more than a bit perturbed. Apart from the agony of having
to talk in this fashion of one who, except when he was looping back rings
and causing me to plunge into swimming baths in correct evening costume,
had always been a very dear and esteemed crony, I didn't seem to be
getting anywhere. Business was not resulting. Staring into the bushes
without a yip, she appeared to be bearing these slurs and innuendos of
mine with an easy calm.

I had another pop at it:

"'Uncouth' about sums it up. I doubt if I've ever seen an uncouther kid
than this Glossop. Ask anyone who knew him in those days to describe him
in a word, and the word they will use is 'uncouth'. And he's just the
same today. It's the old story. The boy is the father of the man."

She appeared not to have heard.

"The boy," I repeated, not wishing her to miss that one, "is the father
of the man."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about this Glossop."

"I thought you said something about somebody's father."

"I said the boy was the father of the man."

"What boy?"

"The boy Glossop."

"He hasn't got a father."

"I never said he had. I said he was the father of the boy--or, rather, of
the man."

"What man?"

I saw that the conversation had reached a point where, unless care was
taken, we should be muddled.

"The point I am trying to make," I said, "is that the boy Glossop is the
father of the man Glossop. In other words, each loathsome fault and
blemish that led the boy Glossop to be frowned upon by his fellows is
present in the man Glossop, and causes him--I am speaking now of the man
Glossop--to be a hissing and a byword at places like the Drones, where a
certain sta