brings in no return. I think I'm a great philosopher, but
then all philosophers think that, though they don't dare to say so. But,
however great I am. I shan't earn money. Perhaps I shan't ever be able
to keep myself. I shan't even get a good social position. You've only
to say one word, and I'll work for the Civil Service. I'm good enough to
get in high."

Mr. Ansell liked money and social position. But he knew that there is
a more important thing, and replied, "You must take up this philosophy
seriously, I think."

"Another thing--there are the girls."

"There is enough money now to get Mary and Maud as good husbands as they
deserve." And Mary and Maud took the same view. It was in this plebeian
household that Rickie spent part of the Christmas vacation. His own
home, such as it was, was with the Silts, needy cousins of his father's,
and combined to a peculiar degree the restrictions of hospitality with
the discomforts of a boarding-house. Such pleasure as he had outside
Cambridge was in the homes of his friends, and it was a particular joy
and honour to visit Ansell, who, though as free from social snobbishness
as most of us will ever manage to be, was rather careful when he drove
up to the facade of his shop.

"I like our new lettering," he said thoughtfully. The words "Stewart
Ansell" were repeated again and again along the High Street--curly gold
letters that seemed to float in tanks of glazed chocolate.

"Rather!" said Rickie. But he wondered whether one of the bonds that
kept the Ansell family united might not be their complete absence of
taste--a surer bond by far than the identity of it. And he wondered this
again when he sat at tea opposite a long row of crayons--Stewart as a
baby, Stewart as a small boy with large feet, Stewart as a larger boy
with smaller feet, Mary reading a book whose leaves were as thick as
eiderdowns. And yet again did he wonder it when he woke with a gasp in
the night to find a harp in luminous paint throbbing and glowering at
him from the adjacent wall. "Watch and pray" was written on the harp,
and until Rickie hung a towel over it the exhortation was partially
successful.

It was a very happy visit. Miss Appleblosssom--who now acted as
housekeeper--had met him before, during her never-forgotten expedition
to Cambridge, and her admiration of University life was as shrill and
as genuine now as it had been then. The girls at first were a little
aggressive, for on his arrival he