Brackenhurst was right: he did collect. Collect? He trawled. There were no half-way measures. Interest him in a subject, from Cæsar’s wives to Palæolithic Toothpicks, and he had no peace until he had pursued that subject, netted it, stunned it with books of reference, stripped it of its robe of mystery, taken it to pieces, turned it inside out. And finally, when it was quite dead and done for, and its poor soul fled, he would hang up the dry bones in triumph in his den and look round for some one upon whom to discharge his accumulated information. His mother was usually the sacrifice—his mother in her pretty parlour, with Justin’s Progress running round the walls chronologically, from ‘Grace Darling’ and ‘Hope’ on the orange, to Burne-Jones, ‘Marriage à la Mode,’ Post-Impressionism, and Japanese prints. She did not really mind, though he scraped the wall-paper dreadfully shifting things each holiday, and she couldn’t see why he should insist on moving ‘Wedded,’ into Cook’s bedroom, though Cook, of course, was very pleased. But sometimes, especially in the Beardsley phase, she did wonder, uneasily, if she were being over-educated. Yet his changes of view did not disturb her as they disturbed Laura, because, wise for all her simplicity, she could always trace them back, as Laura could not, to the influence of the moment. He had so many acquaintances whom he called friends, he, who had never yet felt the need of a friend. It was always the same. Damon collected stamps for a fortnight, and Justin, Pythias of the hour, would go and do likewise, and be amazed, a year later, to find that Damon showed no interest in the three albums he had contrived to fill meanwhile, beyond merely and inaccurately protesting that the beastly things always had bored him anyway. Justin could not understand that. Through the school years, however, he had naturally attracted his like and possessed, in consequence, a heterogeneous treasury of coins, and cigarette pictures, and birds’ eggs, and butterflies, and walking sticks, and medals, all correctly labelled and cased, and faithfully supervised by Laura, into whose charge they had long ago been given, partly because he was genuinely fond of his foundling and ready to humour her, partly because he had been impressed, from the first, by her neat ways and dexterous finger-tips. He admired neatness and precision as only a thoroughly untidy man can, and Laura always knew where he had left his tobacco pouch. He seldom entirely outgrew his crazes, could always be fired anew by a rummage. Cigarette pictures, certainly, had definitely ceased to charm him, to the benefit of the twins (Laura, jealous-eyed, did not in the least appreciate the compliment of being passed over) but he still brought home an occasional carved stick, and his fourpenny bits and George III pennies had one by one given up their pads of honour to quite rare and beautiful coins. In fact, if he had not met Bellew—— And then it rained.