“Tom,” said Kit, “who was sent with tuppence to buy postage-stamps and spent it on beer?” The question was well received by the audience. Tom was beaten. A potato, vast and nobbly, fell from his palsied hand. He was speechless. Then he began to stammer. “Just you stop it, Tom,” shouted Kit triumphantly. “Just you stop it, d’you ’ear, you stop it.” She turned towards us on the steps, and, taking us all into her confidence, added: “’E’s a nice thing to ’ave for a bruvver, anyway.” Then she rejoined Malim, amid peals of laughter from both armies. It was a Homeric incident. Only a half-hearted attempt was made to renew the attack. And when the door of the Hummums at last opened, Malim observed to Julian and me, as we squashed our way in, that if a man’s wife’s relations were always as opportune as Kit’s, the greatest objection to them would be removed. CHAPTER 8 I MEET THE REV. JOHN HATTON _(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)_ I saw a great deal of Malim after that. He and Julian became my two chief mainstays when I felt in need of society. Malim was a man of delicate literary skill, a genuine lover of books, a severe critic of modern fiction. Our tastes were in the main identical, though it was always a blow to me that he could see nothing humorous in Mr. George Ade, whose Fables I knew nearly by heart. The more robust type of humour left him cold. In all other respects we agreed. There is a never-failing fascination in a man with a secret. It gave me a pleasant feeling of being behind the scenes, to watch Malim, sitting in his armchair, the essence of everything that was conventional and respectable, with Eton and Oxford written all over him, and to think that he was married all the while to an employee in a Tottenham Court Road fried-fish shop. Kit never appeared in the flat: but Malim went nearly every evening to the little villa. Sometimes he took Julian and myself, more often myself alone, Julian being ever disinclined to move far from his hammock. The more I saw of Kit the more thoroughly I realized how eminently fitted she was to be Malim’s wife. It was a union of opposites. Except for the type of fiction provided by “penny libraries of powerful stories.” Kit had probably not read more than half a dozen books in her life. Grimm’s fairy stories she recollected dimly, and she betrayed a surprising acquaintance with at least three of Ouida’s novels. I fancy that Malim appeared to her as a sort of combination of fairy prince and Ouida guardsman. He exhibited the Oxford manner at times rather noticeably. Kit loved it. Till I saw them together I had thought Kit’s accent and her incessant mangling of the King’s English would have jarred upon Malim. But I soon found that I was wrong. He did not appear to notice.