"No, no, you shan't put that on me. It's perfectly true. The greatest characters--I mean characters, not intellects--are by no means generally in the highest places; because, as I say, to climb up there you have to specialise too much. You have to lop off the branches to make the trunk grow. But I don't see you like that. The Burlington Theatre was hardly in the direct line of ascent, was it?" "I shan't be quite such a fool as that again, sir." "Not to that extent, and not perhaps in just that way--no. I don't know exactly how you came to go in for it; indeed you don't quite seem to know yourself, as far as I can gather from what you've said. But I take it that it was to see and find out things--to broaden your life and your world?" Arthur hesitated. "Yes, I suppose so--complicated by--Well, I was rather excited at the time. I was coming new to a good many things." Sir Christopher nodded his head, smiling. "You may safely assume that Esther has gossiped to me about you. Well now, take that lady--I don't mean Esther Norton Ward, of course. Men like us appreciate her. Apart from personal relations, she's something in the world to us--a notable part of the show. So we what is called waste a lot of time over her; she occupies us, and other women like her--though there aren't many." "No, by Jove, there are not!" Arthur assented. "It's a lucky thing, Arthur, that your good cousin isn't built on the lines of our friend at Raylesbury, isn't it? The world would have been the poorer! By the way, that fellow's going to get off; I had a note from Hurlstone's private secretary this morning." Mr Hurlstone was the Home Secretary. "It's a funny thing, but she kept coming into my mind when I was trying the case." Arthur's nod confessed to a similar experience. "We didn't know each other well enough to talk about it then," Sir Christopher observed, smiling. "Fancy if we'd had to try Godfrey Lisle! I hope you're going to stick to the Hilsey folk, Arthur? It's good for a man to have a family anchorage. I haven't got one, and I miss it." "Yes, rather! I shall go down there in the Christmas vacation. I'm awfully fond of it." The old man leant forward, warming his hands by the fire. "You'll often find funny parallels like that coming into your head, if you're ever a judge. Good thing too; it gives you a broad view." "I never shall be a judge," said Arthur, laughing. "Very likely not, if they go on appointing the best lawyers. Under that system, I should never have been one either." "I think, on the whole, sir, that it's better fun to be a Marshal."