d the elder man at last.

"Only on fine nights."

"Well you aren't fit for the mystery. Go away to your Latin Quarter
and squalid digs and midnight settling of the universe."

So Martin went and found various members of his college living in
contented poverty. It seemed to him that, at the rate at which they
were existing, twenty-five pounds would keep him for a lifetime. Their
nights were late but frugal and an ability to sleep saved the expense
of _petit dejeuner_. They found where to obtain the noblest dinner for
one franc fifty and made the acquaintance of artists, male and female,
who would expound the whole theory of life and its artistic expression
if someone paid for their drinks: which Martin did, purposing to
improve his French. The weather was dry without being too hot, and one
Sunday they went to Versailles in search of amusement, which
materialised, for Martin and Lawrence, in the shape of two delightful
women who said they had lost their way in the woods and needed a guide.
Martin and Lawrence guided them with some skill to a house of
refreshment, where the strangers became pleasantly intoxicated and very
charming. They soon announced that they had lost their husbands as
well as their way and were going to look for them at the station.
Thither they went, with Martin and Lawrence following discreetly at a
distance. The husbands were found to be in other company and the wives
made a scene on the platform; it all ended by Martin and Lawrence,
themselves not frigidly sober, removing the other company to a cafe and
comforting their insulted dignity. They had a strange evening, and
Martin learned a lot more French.

Owing to one or two reckless evenings he found himself a pauper just
when the others were setting off to see Pierre Loti's fishermen,
Paimpol and Guingamp and the quaint religion of the West. Of necessity
he returned to Devonshire, fired with a determination to settle those
texts which he had carried in vain to Paris.

He crossed by night and came down during the day. When he arrived, it
was an evening of great beauty. Suddenly, as he was driven between
banked hedges and silent woods of purest green, he came to view the
mystery of Ham and Eggs as he had never viewed it before. He knew now
how sick he was of Paris with its noise and penetrating smell of
petrol, how tired of street cafes and superficial chattering about art.
It struck him that if a man isn't going to create something h