explanations. I remarked a frock-coat with satin lapels behind the door;
there was a dignified umbrella in the corner and a clothes-brush and
a hat-brush stood on a side-table. My uncle returned in five minutes
looking at his watch--a gold watch--"Gettin' lunch-time, George," he
said. "You'd better come and have lunch with me!"

"How's Aunt Susan?" I asked.

"Exuberant. Never saw her so larky. This has bucked her up something
wonderful--all this."

"All what?"

"Tono-Bungay."

"What is Tono-Bungay?" I asked.

My uncle hesitated. "Tell you after lunch, George," he said. "Come
along!" and having locked up the sanctum after himself, led the way
along a narrow dirty pavement, lined with barrows and swept at times by
avalanche-like porters bearing burthens to vans, to Farringdon Street.
He hailed a passing cab superbly, and the cabman was infinitely
respectful. "Schafer's," he said, and off we went side by side--and with
me more and more amazed at all these things--to Schafer's Hotel, the
second of the two big places with huge lace curtain-covered windows,
near the corner of Blackfriars Bridge.

I will confess I felt a magic charm in our relative proportions as the
two colossal, pale-blue-and-red liveried porters of Schafers' held open
the inner doors for us with a respectful salutation that in some manner