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Percy did not entirely come up to his guest's comic picture of him, and there were times when he showed a certain uneasiness. So now, smiling a little dubiously, he remarked, 'We neither of us perhaps can claim to possess such staggering properties as are to be found in a neglected milk-bottle. But I think you are a very remarkable person: our talk tonight has given me furiously to think. And I like thinking furiously.'

'So do I.' René discharged a furious puff of smoke from his dilated nostrils. They sat down and talked a little more, Percy saying, among other things, what a marvellous insight his new friend had into American history. 'But of course it is your job,' to which the historian replied, 'It is in fact a pity that Englishmen do not know a little more how America came to be what it is.' Then suddenly Percy drew his chair, with some violence, near to that of René.

'Look here, my dear fellow, I have been thinking about this ever since Mary informed me of your splendid gesture, how you laid down your post . . . in a spirit of the purest idealism. Whenever I think of it I marvel—how many people would sacrifice everything for a principle, expose themselves . . . well, to penury? Now, my dear fellow, I am a relative and you must allow me to say this. In order to meet the difficulties which must immediately confront you, you must allow me to place at your disposal the sum of one thousand pounds.'