As a matter of fact, I couldn’t be said to take Miss Benyon Pepys in to dinner, not knowing the way. But she took me in, and it was no mere dinner, but a dazzling banquet on a table groaning with massive silver and other forms of plate. There was no tablecloth in the usual acceptation of the word; but a strip of rich fabric—probably antique tapestry from France or Turkey—spread on a polished table which glittered and reflected in its ebony depths the wax candles and silver and various pieces of rare workmanship arranged upon the hospitable board. One would have thought, to see them, that a dinner of this kind—seven courses not counting dessert—was an everyday thing with the Benyon Pepys! It may have been, for all I know. Wine flowed like water—at least, it would have done so if there had been anybody there to drink it; but, of course, I didn’t, knowing well that wine goes to the head if you’re not used to it—and Miss Benyon Pepys merely drank hot water with a little tablet of some chemical that fizzed away in it—medicine, I suppose. It was sad in a way to see her pass the luxurious dishes without touching them. She little knew what she was missing. Even Mr. Benyon Pepys himself only sipped each wine in turn, with birdlike sips, but he never drank his glass quite empty. I expect the footmen dashed off what he left, doubtless tossing up among themselves which should have it. I tried to talk at dinner, though there was little time, and once a good thing, full of rich and rare flavours, was swept away before I had finished it, because I stopped to speak. I asked after the Pepys diaries and hoped they were successful. I said: “I shall, of course, keep a diary in London, and I was going to get a Raphael Tuck diary; but I shall buy a Pepys now.” Looking back, I don’t think either of them heard this. At any rate, that night when my Aunt Augusta explained about it, I prayed to God in my prayers that they might not have heard. The footmen, however, must have. But I made Mr. Benyon Pepys laugh with a remark which, curiously enough, was not in the least amusing nor intended to be. I said: “Of course, the business of a Director is to direct?” Because I thought it would show a proper spirit to be interested in his great work. But he laughed, and said: “Not always, Mr. Corker, not always! I am not myself a man of business; but a connoisseur and creator. Art is my occupation. Do not, however, think that I am not exceedingly interested in the Apollo. You will find upon the face of each policy an allegorical representation of the sun-god in a chariot drawn by four horses. I cannot claim that the actual design is mine, but the conception sprang from my brain twenty-five years ago. The creation, though severely Greek, is my own.” He explained that he had found the greatest difficulty to get anybody to accept his nomination to the Apollo Fire Office.