e upturned seat, he remarked,
"I like the book in many ways. I don't think 'What We Want' would have
been a vulgar title. But I don't intend to spoil myself on the chance of
mending the world, which is what the creed amounts to. Nor am I keen on
rural silences."

"Curse!" he said thoughtfully, sucking at an empty pipe.

"Tobacco?"

"Please."

"Rickie's is invariably--filthy."

"Who says I know Rickie?"

"Well, you know his aunt. It's a possible link. Be gentle with Rickie.
Don't knock him down if he doesn't think it's a nice morning."

The other was silent.

"Do you know him well?"

"Kind of." He was not inclined to talk. The wish to smoke was very
violent in him, and Ansell noticed how he gazed at the wreaths that
ascended from bowl and stem, and how, when the stem was in his mouth,
he bit it. He gave the idea of an animal with just enough soul to
contemplate its own bliss. United with refinement, such a type was
common in Greece. It is not common today, and Ansell was surprised to
find it in a friend of Rickie's. Rickie, if he could even "kind of know"
such a creature, must be stirring in his grave.

"Do you know his wife too?"

"Oh yes. In a way I know Agnes. But thank you for this tobacco. Last
night I nearly died. I have no money."

"Take the whole pouch--do."

After a moment's hesitation he did. "Fight the good" had scarcely ended,
so quickly had their intimacy grown.

"I suppose you're a friend of Rickie's?"

Ansell was tempted to reply, "I don't know him at all." But it seemed
no moment for the severer truths, so he said, "I knew him well at
Cambridge, but I have seen very little of him since."

"Is it true that his baby was lame?"

"I believe so."

His teeth closed on his pipe. Chapel was over. The organist was prancing
through the voluntary, and the first ripple of boys had already reached
Dunwood House. In a few minutes the masters would be here too, and
Ansell, who was becoming interested, hurried the conversation forward.

"Have you come far?"

"From Wiltshire. Do you know Wiltshire?" And for the first time there
came into his face the shadow of a sentiment, the passing tribute to
some mystery. "It's a good country. I live in one of the finest valleys
out of Salisbury Plain. I mean, I lived."

"Have you been dismissed from Cadover, without a penny in your pocket?"

He was alarmed at this. Such knowledge seemed simply diabolical. Ansell
explained that if his boots were chalky, i