"

"Yes," said Timothy, and, fixing his eyes again on the ceiling, he
added: "That fly!"

Strangely moved, Soames looked at the Cook's pleasant fattish face, all
little puckers from staring at fires.

"That'll do him a world of good, sir," she said.

A mutter came from Timothy, but he was clearly speaking to himself, and
Soames went out with the cook.

"I wish I could make you a pink cream, Mr. Soames, like in old days;
you did so relish them. Good-bye, sir; it HAS been a pleasure."

"Take care of him, Cook, he is old."

And, shaking her crumpled hand, he went down-stairs. Smither was still
taking the air in the doorway.

"What do you think of him, Mr. Soames?"

"H'm!" Soames murmured: "He's lost touch."

"Yes," said Smither, "I was afraid you'd think that, coming fresh out
of the world to see him like."

"Smither," said Soames, "we're all indebted to you."

"Oh, no, Mr. Soames, don't say that! It's a pleasure--he's such a
wonderful man."

"Well, good-bye!" said Soames, and got into his taxi.

'Going up!' he thought; 'going up!'

Reaching the hotel at Knightsbridge he went to their sitting-room, and
rang for tea. Neither of them were in. And again that sense of
loneliness came over him. These hotels! What monstrous great places
they were now! He could remember when there was nothing bigger than
Long's or Brown's, Morley's or the Tavistock, and the heads that were
shaken over the Langham and the Grand. Hotels and Clubs--Clubs and
Hotels; no end to them now! And Soames, who had just been watching at
Lord's a miracle of tradition and continuity, fell into reverie over
the changes in that London where he had been born five-and-sixty years
before. Whether Consols were going up or not, London had become a
terrific property. No such property in the world, unless it were New
York! There was a lot of hysteria in the papers nowadays; but any one
who, like himself, could remember London sixty years ago, and see it
now, realised the fecundity and elasticity of wealth. They had only to
keep their heads, and go at it steadily. Why! he remembered
cobble-stones, and stinking straw on the floor of your cab. And old
Timothy--what could HE not tell them, if he had kept his memory! Things
were unsettled, people in a funk or in a hurry, but here were London
and the Thames, and out there the British Empire, and the ends of the
earth. "Consols are goin' up!" He shouldn't be a bit surprised. It was
the breed that counted. A