Vanderbank at Mrs. Brookenham's about Beccles and Suffolk; but it was
not at Beccles nor anywhere in the county that these ornaments had been
designed. His action had already been, with however little purpose, to
present the region to his interlocutor in a favourable light.
Vanderbank, for that matter, had the kind of imagination that likes to
PLACE an object, even to the point of losing sight of it in the
conditions; he already saw the nice old nook it must have taken to keep
a man of intelligence so fresh while suffering him to remain so fine.
The product of Beccles accepted at all events a cigarette--still much as
a joke and an adventure--and looked about him as if even more pleased
than he expected. Then he broke, through his double eye-glass, into an
exclamation that was like a passing pang of envy and regret. "You young
men, you young men--!"

"Well, what about us?" Vanderbank's tone encouraged the courtesy of the
reference. "I'm not so young moreover as that comes to."

"How old are you then, pray?"

"Why I'm thirty-four."

"What do you call that? I'm a hundred and three!" Mr. Longdon at all
events took out his watch. "It's only a quarter past eleven." Then with
a quick change of interest, "What did you say is your public office?" he
enquired.

"The General Audit. I'm Deputy Chairman."

"Dear!" Mr. Longdon looked at him as if he had had fifty windows. "What
a head you must have!"