Fixing his monocle, he stopped before a fishmonger’s and, with a faint smile on his face, regarded a lobster. Ages since he had eaten a lobster! One could long for a lobster without paying, but the pleasure was not solid enough to detain him. He moved upstreet and stopped again, before a tailor’s window. Together with the actual tweeds, in which he could so easily fancy himself refitted, he could see a reflection of himself, in the faded brown suit wangled out of the production of ‘Marmaduke Mandeville’ the year before the war. The sunlight in this damned town was very strong, very hard on seams and buttonholes, on knees and elbows! Yet he received the ghost of æsthetic pleasure from the reflected elegance of a man long fed only twice a day, of an eyeglass well rimmed out from a soft brown eye, of a velour hat salved from the production of ‘Educating Simon’ in 1912; and, in front of the window he removed that hat, for under it was his new phenomenon, not yet quite evaluated, his _mêche blanche_. Was it an asset, or the beginning of the end? It reclined backwards on the right side, conspicuous in his dark hair, above that shadowy face always interesting to Gilbert Caister. They said it came from atrophy of the--er--something nerve, an effect of the war, or of under-nourished tissue. Rather distinguished, perhaps, but----! He walked on, and became conscious that he had passed a face he knew. Turning, he saw it also turned on a short and dapper figure--a face rosy, bright, round, with an air of cherubic knowledge, as of a getter-up of amateur theatricals. Bryce-Green, by George! “Caister? It is! Haven’t seen you since you left the old camp. Remember what sport we had over ‘Gotta Grampus’? By Jove! I am glad to see you. Doing anything with yourself? Come and have lunch with me.” Bryce-Green, the wealthy patron, the moving spirit of entertainment in that South Coast convalescent camp. And, drawling slightly, Caister answered: “Shall be delighted.” But within him something did not drawl: ‘By God, you’re going to have a feed, my boy!’ And--elegantly threadbare, roundabout and dapper--the two walked side by side. “Know this place? Let’s go in here! Phyllis, cocktails for my friend Mr. Caister and myself, and caviare on biscuits. Mr. Caister is playing here! you must go and see him.” The girl who served the cocktails and the caviare looked up at Caister with interested blue eyes. Precious! He had been ‘out’ for six months! “Nothing of a part,” he drawled; “took it to fill a gap.” And below his waistcoat the gap echoed: ‘Yes, and it’ll take some filling.’ “Bring your cocktail along, Caister; we’ll go into the little further room, there’ll be nobody there. What shall we have--a lobstah?” And Caister murmured: “I love lobstahs.” “Very fine and large here. And how are you, Caister? So awfully glad to see you--only real actor we had.” “Thanks,” said Caister, “I’m all right.” And he thought: ‘He’s a damned amateur, but a nice little man.’