“I daresay he’ll be too shy, after all these years, to come in at all,” said he, as he went out. But what he thought was, “I’ll do my best to get rid of him.” Graham-Shute’s voice, however, rang out cheerily after him: “You have forgotten Marrable, if that’s what you think of him.” John Bradfield went slowly down the few stairs which led into the inner hall. By the time he reached the bend which would bring him in sight of the newcomer, he had made up his mind. “I must take the bull by the horns,” said he to himself. “After all, the man’s a fool, and will be easy to manage, even if he does know or guess a little too much.” With all his knowledge of the world, John Bradfield was capable of making the mistake of thinking a fool can be easy to manage. CHAPTER XXI. MR. MARRABLE’S MERRY CHRISTMAS. Surely no human creature ever trod this earth, who, by his appearance, seemed less likely to inspire fear than Mr. Marrable. A fair, colourless, middle-aged man, under the middle height, and inclined to be stout, he was the most inoffensive-looking person in the world, and, to judge by his demeanour as he stood in the hall, holding his shabby tall hat in his hand, and looking about him with an air of awe-struck astonishment, the humblest and the meekest. As John Bradfield approached him, with outstretched hand, and a rather forced smile of welcome on his face, Mr. Marrable withdrew his gaze from the objects around him, and fixed it nervously upon his old friend. “Well, Alf,” began John Bradfield, as he came up to his abashed old friend, “this is a strange meeting after all these years, isn’t it?” The other man, after hesitating a moment, thrust his hand with great delight into that of his old friend, and instantly became as talkative and lively as a moment before he had been taciturn and depressed. “Why, John, so it is,” he exclaimed, with a smile broadening on his plump and placid face, turning his head a little towards his companion, after the manner of those who are slightly deaf. “And glad am I to see you again, old chap, and looking so well too, and--and so prosperous,” and he gave a shy glance round him. “Do you know,” he went on, growing buoyantly confidential under the influence of his friend’s hearty grip of the hand, “that I thought you wanted to cut me? That you had grown too grand for your old friends.” “No. When was that?” asked John Bradfield, shortly. He was not a good actor, and Marrable looked at him doubtfully, as he answered: “Why, out in the street just now, outside the station. I knew you in a moment, wrapt up as you were, and cutting such a dash, too. But then you were always a dashing fellow, even in the old days, John,” maundered on the unprosperous one, admiringly. “I called out to you, but you took no notice. And I said to myself, ‘Ah, he’s like all the rest of ’em; he knows his friends by their coats. He----’”