nother, a personal
claim. She'd been in our house, in our service; she was our friend; sat
with us; eaten with us; talked with us; shared with us; and now, now,
turned to us. Good God, man, was that to be refused? Was that to be
denied? Were we going to repudiate that? Were we going to say, "Yes,
it's true you were here. You were all very well when you were of use to
us; that's all true and admitted; but now you're in trouble and you're
no use to us; you're in trouble and no use, and you can get to hell out
of it." Good God, were we to say that?'

"You should have seen his face; you should have heard his voice; you
should have seen him squirming and twisting in his chair as though this
was the very roots of him coming up out of him and hurting him. And I
tell you, old man, it was the very roots of him. It was his creed, it
was his religion, it was his composition; it was the whole nature and
basis and foundation of the man as it had been storing up within him all
his life, ever since he was the rummy, thoughtful sort of beggar he used
to be as a kid at old Wickamote's thirty years ago. It got me, I can
tell you. It made me feel funny. Yes, and the next thing he went on to
was equally the blood and bones of him. In a way even more
characteristic. He said, 'Mind you, Hapgood, I don't blame my wife that
all this had no effect on her. I don't blame her in the least, and I
never lost my temper or got angry over the business. I see her point of
view absolutely. And I see absolutely the point of view of the girl's
father and of every one else who's willing to take in the girl but
insists she must give up the baby. I see their point of view and
understand it as plain as I see and understand that calendar hanging on
the wall. I see it perfectly,' and he laughed in a whimsical sort of
way and said, 'That's the devil of it.'

"Characteristic, eh? Wasn't that just exactly old Sabre at school
puzzling up his old nut and saying, 'Yes, but I see what he means'?

"Well, wait a bit. He came to that again afterwards. It seems that, if
you please, the very next day the girl herself follows up her letter by
walking into the house. Eh? Yes, you can well say 'By Jove.' In she
walked, baby and all. She'd walked all the way from Tidborough, and God
knows how far earlier in the day. Sabre said she was half dead. She'd
been to her father's house, and her father, that terrific-looking old
Moses coming down the mountain that I've described to yo