"Oh yes--our head's Sir Digby Dence."

"And what do we do for you?"

"Well, you gild the pill--though not perhaps very thick. But it's a
decent berth."

"A thing a good many fellows would give a pound of their flesh for?"

Vanderbank's visitor appeared so to deprecate too faint a picture that
he dropped all scruples. "I'm the most envied man I know--so that if I
were a shade less amiable I should be one of the most hated."

Mr. Longdon laughed, yet not quite as if they were joking. "I see. Your
pleasant way carries it off."

Vanderbank was, however, not serious. "Wouldn't it carry off anything?"

Again his friend, through the pince-nez, appeared to crown him with a
Whitehall cornice. "I think I ought to let you know I'm studying you.
It's really fair to tell you," he continued with an earnestness not
discomposed by the indulgence in Vanderbank's face. "It's all right--all
right!" he reassuringly added, having meanwhile stopped before a
photograph suspended on the wall. "That's your mother!" he brought
out with something of the elation of a child making a discovery or
guessing a riddle. "I don't make you out in her yet--in my recollection
of her, which, as I told you, is perfect; but I dare say I soon shall."

Vanderbank was more and more aware that the kind of amusement he excited