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Such was René Harding's brother-in-law: it was Tuesday, May the 23rd, and René and his wife accordingly were to go to dinner in Hampstead; with 'Big Business' as René called him.

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At 7.30 in the evening, as René stood beside the taxi, waiting for his change, his eye rested upon the superbly spacious house, so beautifully unlike the House that Jack Built. Nothing absurd about this house. How excellently abstract wealth was after all: it got rid of the idiosyncratic, the absurd! Lobb, the chauffeur, stood beside the Cadillac: so exactly uniformed, his face so excellently devoid of expression, he was not absurd. (His name was, but not the chauffeur.) And as to the Cadillac, no Cadillac can possibly be absurd. A few moments later René and Hester passed the waiting car and began to ascend the six steps to the pair of ponderous front doors. One of these opened, and 'Rod' (Rodriques), most hysterical of spaniels, rushed out, seething with the wildest joy. He was immediately followed by Pauline—his owner, speaking legally, his goddess in canine theology. Pauline was twenty, and though lacking the fanatical abandon of her dog, possessed the impulsive vitality of her years. On seeing René, with an ardour worthy of Rod, she sprang at him, seized his beard, and flung her arms convulsively around his neck.