All seven were associated in business—Lord Sombrewater’s business—and he was their president. They travelled in his steam-yacht. In England it was their custom to dine once a week at Lord Sombrewater’s house or in his bamboo garden, to hear a little music perhaps, drink wine (except one of them), discuss life and the world. Now the industrial world was seething at this time, and Lord Sombrewater had seemed to retire his forces, leaving a picket here, an outpost there, a strong point where necessary, well held. He had withdrawn into the quiet of the ocean to mature plans, taking with him these friends and chief lieutenants, who had each something to contribute. Much business was done daily by wireless. He kept touch with reluctant Governments, and controlled his generals in charge of the field, with relentless hand. Ambrose remarks that a wise captain-general of industry will not omit to remember that the good faith of a deputy may fail, and he is certain that Lord Sombrewater, a silent man, harboured during his silences considerations of that order even in regard to his six friends. Ambrose Herbert was annalist and minute-writer to the Sages. He was not himself a Sage. He recorded the sagacity of others, fitted for this exercise by the passionless receptivity of his mind. Every morning, every hour, he swept his mind clean, so that he might receive unprejudiced the impressions of the day, and no doubt that is why the lineaments of the people in his records, and the scenery, are so clear. It came to his ears that this passivity was looked on doubtfully in a man not yet senile, not yet even middle-aged, hardly mature; it was complained that he had no character, except in his being characterless; it was thought unfortunate. But Lord Sombrewater thought otherwise. 2