In a mood less irritable and less inflamed he would have been safe; but doubtful, suspicious, angered as he was he fell an easy--alas! too easy a prey--to the inconsequent and empty enthusiast; and it was his ruin. * * * * * Mr. Clutterbuck was back at The Plâs, and the thorn in his soul struck sore. Too many words were enigmas. He suffered too much silence. He would speak. They were together in the Art Gallery of The Plâs, Mr. Clutterbuck and Charlie, the Master and the Man. Mr. Clutterbuck was sitting at a desk where he often did his work, under the inspiration of the big Manet which Charlie had purchased that summer of Raphael and Heinz. Fitzgerald was smoking a cigarette lazily at the end of the long room, and reading one of those articles in the _Spectator_ which have so profound an influence week by week upon the political situation. Mr. Clutterbuck suddenly looked up from his writing, turned round to him and said: "Mr. Fitzgerald, what is a Peabody Yid?" Charlie Fitzgerald was so startled that he let the premier review of the Anglo-Saxon Race fall to the floor; but a glance at Mr. Clutterbuck's honest though troubled profile reassured him. "Oh, a Yid," he said laughing, "I suppose a Yid's a name for a German, or something of that sort. Then Peabody--oh, the Peabody Buildings!" "Is it a kind of man, then?" said Mr. Clutterbuck, solemnly. "Why," said Fitzgerald, thoughtfully, "I suppose it is." "I thought it was one man," said Mr. Clutterbuck, still in doubt, and in a tone which made Charlie Fitzgerald look at him again, but again feel reassured. "It would be one fellow, of course," said Fitzgerald manfully, "if you were only speaking of one: if you said 'a Peabody Yid,' for instance.... But if you were talking of several," he mused, "why you'd say 'Peabody Yids,' I s'pose. What?" Mr. Clutterbuck was lost in thought. "But Yid means a Jew surely, doesn't it, Mr. Fitzgerald?" said the older man. "It's a vulgar name for a Jew, isn't it?" "Why-y, yes," answered the other with nonchalance. "A German, or a Jew, or something of that sort. Then Peabody was a sort of philanthropical fellow: architect, I think." Mr. Clutterbuck having got so far, said: "Oh!" He said no more; he went on writing; but, like the man in the Saga, his heart was ill at ease. For the first time in many months he was as sore and as anxious as ever he had been in the old days before good fortune came to him. The seventh day of the New Year broke brightly, but never a word from Peter Street. Mr. Clutterbuck went so far as to speak first to his secretary, before his secretary had spoken to him, and to ask him, but with all the courtesy imaginable, whether something could not be done to reassure him? Charlie Fitzgerald more than hinted that it was all nervousness. "Things aren't done in that way," he said worriedly. "They won't give me anything in writing, of course."