"Her trustee," said I, "and an intimate friend of her late husband."

"Ah!" said he, with a twinkle in his eyes which, I will swear, signified
"Then there was a Prescott after all!" He waved his cigar. "Introduce
me." And as I accompanied him across the lawn--"There's nothing like
knowing everybody--getting it over at once. Then one feels at home."

"I hope you felt at home as soon as you entered the house," said I.

"Of course I did, old pal," he replied heartily. "Of course I did." And
the amazing creature patted me on the back.

I performed the introductions. Mr. Fendihook declared himself delighted
to make the acquaintance of my friends. Then as conversation did not
start spontaneously, he once more looked around, nodded at the landscape
approvingly, and once more said "Tiptop!"

"That's what I want to have," he continued, "when I can afford to retire
and settle down. None of your gimcrack modern villas in a desirable
residential neighbourhood, but an English gentleman's country house."

"It's your ambition to be an English gentleman, Mr. Fendihook?" queried
Doria.

He laughed good-humouredly. "Now you're pulling my leg."

I saw that he was not lacking in shrewdness.

Susan, never far from Jaffery during her off-time, came running up.

"Hallo, is that your young 'un?" Mr. Fendihook asked. "Come and say how
d'ye do, Gwendoline."

Susan advanced shyly. He shook hands with her, chucked her under the
chin and paid her the ill compliment of saying that she was the image of
her father. Jaffery stood with folded arms holding the bowl of his pipe
in one hand and looked down on Mr. Fendihook as on some puzzling insect.

"Do you mind if I take off my gloves?" our strange visitor asked.

"Pray do," said I. The sight of the fellow wandering about a garden
bareheaded and gloved in yellow chamois leather had begun to affect my
nerves. He peeled them off.

"Look here, Gwendoline Arabella, my dear," he cried. "Catch!"

He made a feint of throwing them.

"Haven't you caught 'em?"

"No."

She stared at the man open-mouthed, for behold, his hands were empty.

"Tut, tut!" said he. "Perhaps you can catch a handkerchief." He flicked
a red silk handkerchief from his pocket, crumpled it into a ball and
threw; but like the gloves it vanished. "Now where has it gone to?"

Susan, who had shrunk beneath Jaffery's protecting shadow, crept forward
fascinated. Mr. Fendihook took a sudden step or two towards a flower
bed.