g called this "sidey." He was anxious to
show Sabre, when Sabre first came to the firm, the best places to lunch
in Tidborough, but Sabre was frequently lunching with one of the School
housemasters or at the Masters' common room. Twyning thought this
stand-offish.

II

Twyning was of middle height, very thin, black-haired. His clean-shaven
face was deeply furrowed in rigid-looking furrows which looked as though
shaving would be an intricate operation. He held himself very stiffly
and spoke stiffly as though the cords of his larynx were also rigidly
inclined. When not speaking he had a habit of breathing rather noisily
through his nose as if he were doing deep breathing exercises. He was
married and had a son of whom he was immensely proud, aged eighteen and
doing well in a lawyer's office.

He came in and closed the door. He had a sheet of paper in his hand.

Sabre, engrossed, glanced up. "Hullo, Twyning." He wrote a word and then
put down his pen. "Anything you want me about?" He lay back in his chair
and stared, frowning, at the manuscript before him.

"Nothing particular, if you're busy," Twyning said. "I just looked in."
He advanced the paper in his hand and looked at it as if about to add
something else. But he said nothing and stood by Sabre's chair, also
looking at the manuscript. "That that book?"

"M'm." Sabre was trying to retain his thoughts. He felt them slipping
away before Twyning's presence. He could hear Twyning breathing through
his nose and felt incensed that Twyning should come and breathe through
his nose by his chair when he wanted to write.

But Twyning continued to stand by the chair and to breathe through his
nose. He was reading over Sabre's shoulder.

The few pages of "England" already written lay in front of Sabre's pad,
the first page uppermost. Twyning read and interjected a snort into his
nasal rhythm.

"Well, that book's not written for me, anyway," he remarked.

Sabre agreed shortly. "It isn't. But why not?"

Twyning read aloud the first words. "'This England you live in is
yours.' Well, I take my oath it isn't mine. Not a blooming inch of it.
D'you know what's happening to me? I'm being turned out of my house.
The lease is out and the whole damned house and everything I've put on
to it goes to one of these lordlings--this Lord Tybar--just because one
of his ancestors, who'd never even dreamt of the house, pinched the land
it stands on from the public common and started to