times but was not able to
learn anything definite. There was a little card-index of parishioners,
which it was Mr. Poodle's duty to fill in with details of each person's
business, charitable inclinations, and what he could do to amuse
a Church Sociable. The card allotted to Gissing was marked, in Mr.
Poodle's neat script, Friendly, but vague as to definite participation
in Xian activities. Has not communicated.

But in himself, Gissing was increasingly disturbed. Even his seizures of
joy, which came as he strolled in the smooth spring air and sniffed the
wild, vigorous aroma of the woodland earth, were troublesome because
he did not know why he was so glad. Every morning it seemed to him that
life was about to exhibit some delicious crisis in which the meaning and
excellence of all things would plainly appear. He sang in the bathtub.
Daily it became more difficult to maintain that decorum which Fuji
expected. He felt that his life was being wasted. He wondered what ought
to be done about it.

CHAPTER TWO

It was after dinner, an April evening, and Gissing slipped away from the
house for a stroll. He was afraid to stay in, because he knew that if he
did, Fuji would ask him again to fix the dishcloth rack in the kitchen.
Fuji was very short in stature, and could not reach up to the place
where the rack was screwed over the sink. Like all people whose minds
are very active, Gissing hated to attend to little details like this. It
was a weakness in his character. Fuji had asked him six times to fix the
rack, but Gissing always pretended to forget about it. To appease his
methodical butler he had written on a piece of paper FIX DISHCLOTH RACK
and pinned it on his dressing-table pincushion; but he paid no attention
to the memorandum.

He went out into a green April dusk. Down by the pond piped those
repeated treble whistlings: they still distressed him with a mysterious
unriddled summons, but Mike Terrier had told him that the secret of
respectability is to ignore whatever you don't understand. Careful
observation of this maxim had somewhat dulled the cry of that shrill
queer music. It now caused only a faint pain in his mind. Still, he
walked that way because the little meadow by the pond was agreeably soft
underfoot. Also, when he walked close beside the water the voices were
silent. That is worth noting, he said to himself. If you go directly at
the heart of a mystery, it ceases to be a mystery, and becomes only a