Barfleur came one evening to my hotel with the announcement that Sir Scorp was coming down to Bridgely Level to spend Saturday and Sunday, that he would bring his car and that together on Sunday we three would motor to Oxford. Barfleur had an uncle who was a very learned master of Greek at that University and who, if we were quite nice and pleasant, might give us luncheon. We were, I found, to take a little side trip on Saturday afternoon to a place called Penn, some twenty or twenty-five miles from Bridgely Level, in Buckinghamshire, whence William Penn had come originally. Saturday was rainy and gloomy and I doubted whether we should do anything in such weather, but Barfleur was not easily put out. I wrote all morning in my alcove, while Barfleur examined papers, and some time after two Sir Scorp arrived,--a pale, slender, dark-eyed man of thirty-five or thereabouts, with a keen, bird-like glance, a poised, nervous, sensitive manner, and that elusive, subtlety of reference and speech which makes the notable intellectual wherever you find him. For the ten thousandth time in my life, where intellectuals are concerned, I noticed that peculiarity of mind which will not brook equality save under compulsion. Where are your credentials?--such minds invariably seem to ask. How do you come to be what you think you are? Is there a flaw in your intellectual or artistic armor? Let us see. So the duel of ideas and forms and methods of procedure begins, and you are made or unmade, in the momentary estimate of the individual, by your ability to withstand criticism. I liked Sir Scorp as intellectuals go. I liked his pale face, his trim black beard, his slim hands and his poised, nervous, elusive manner. “Oh, yes. So you’re new to England. I envy you your early impression. I am reserving for the future the extreme pleasure of reading you.” These little opening civilities always amuse me. We are all on the stage and we play our parts perforce whether we do so consciously or not. It appeared that the chauffeur had to be provided for, Sir Scorp had to be given a hasty lunch. He seemed to fall in with the idea of a short run to Penn before dark, even if the day were gloomy, and so, after feeding him quickly before the grate fire in the drawing-room, we were off--Sir Scorp, Barfleur, Berenice and Percy--Barfleur’s son--and myself. Sir Scorp sat with me in the tonneau and Barfleur and Percy in the front seat. Sir Scorp made no effort to strike up any quick relationship with me--remained quite aloof and talked in generalities. I could see that he took himself very seriously--as well he might, seeing that, as I understood it, he had begun life with nothing. There were remarks--familiar ones concerning well-known painters, sculptors, architects, and the social life of England.