e you over the
ankles."

"Is the grass not broken at the edges?"

"Not a bit of it; the whole thing might have been done for years."

"And what like is this hole in shape?"

Delavoye met me eye to eye. "Well, I can only say I've seen the same
sort of thing in a village churchyard, and nowhere else," he said. "It's
like a churchyard starting to yawn!" he suddenly added, and looked in
better humour for the phrase.

I pulled out my watch. "I'll come at one, when I knock off in any case,
if you can wait till then."

"Rather!" he cried quite heartily; "and I'll wait here if you don't
mind, Mr. Gillon. I've just seen my mother and sister off to town, so
it fits in rather well. I don't want them to know if it's anything
beastly. May we smoke in here? Then have one of mine."

And he perched himself on my counter, lighting the whole place up with
his white suit and animated air; for he was a very pleasant fellow from
the moment he appeared to find me one. Not much my senior, he had none
of my rude health and strength, but was drawn and yellowed by some
tropical trouble (as I rightly guessed) which had left but little of his
outer youth beyond a vivid eye and tongue. Yet I would fain have added
these to my own animal advantages. It is difficult to recapture a first
impression; but I think I felt, from the beginning, that those
twinkling, sunken eyes looked on me and all things in a light of their
own.

"Not an interesting place?" cried young Delavoye, in astonishment at a
chance remark of mine. "Why, it's one of the most interesting in
England! None of these fine old crusted country houses are half so
fascinating to me as the ones quite near London. Think of the varied
life they've seen, the bucks and bloods galore, the powder and patches,
the orgies begun in town and finished out here, the highwaymen waiting
for 'em on Turnham Green! Of course you know about the heinous Lord
Mulcaster who owned this place in the high old days? He committed every
crime in the Newgate Calendar, and now I'm just wondering whether you
and I aren't by way of bringing a fresh one home to him."

I remember feeling sorry he should talk like that, though it argued a
type of mind that rather reconciled me to my own. I was never one to
jump to gimcrack conclusions, and I said as much with perhaps more
candour than the occasion required. The statement was taken in such good
part, however, that I could not but own I had never even heard the name