"It doesn't surprise me a bit," I said. "Not to find me the stump-end of a gentleman, eh?" "No; I see that you are one." "Was, my boy--was," corrected Jim. "I say," he went on, "this is a great cigar! You have to puff a bit to appreciate it properly." He threw back his head and left a number of his little grey rings curling into thin air against the blue. I was not going to ask him any questions. We smoked for some time in silence. Then he exclaimed, with his eyebrows right up on his forehead, as though he himself could hardly credit it: "Yes, by Jove! I was at Eton and the House." "Nothing surprises me in this country," I remarked. "Yet you're about the first that ever spotted _me_. By the way, I'm not the wicked baronet or the disguised duke, don't you know? My father's only a country squire of sorts--if he's alive. But he sent me to Eton and from there to Oxford; and from Oxford I went to the Temple, and from the Temple to the devil and all his angels. There I've stuck. And that's the genesis of Hell-fire Jimmie, if you care to know it." I cared to know infinitely more. These crude headings were small satisfaction to me looking at the handsome sunburnt stockman and realising that I was alone in the wilderness with the romantic ruin of a noble manhood. I turned away from the quiet devil-may-care smile in the sunken blue eyes, in order to conceal the curiosity which was consuming me. I dropped back on my elbow to the ground, and stared into the unbroken unsuggestive blue of the southern summer sky. When I sucked at my cigar I discovered that I had let it out. Turning once more to my companion, I found him puffing his with the loving deliberation of a connoisseur. "Like velvet, isn't it?" he murmured, stroking the brown leaf gently with his finger. "That's one of the points of a good cigar, and another's the ash. You never saw a firmer nor a whiter ash than this. My good fellow, it's a cigar for the gods!" He held it admiringly at arm's length, as I relit mine. Then he smoked on in silence, but very slowly and caressingly, for some minutes longer. At length he said musingly: "I wonder how long it is since I smoked my last cigar? How long is it since I came out here? I'm losing count of the years, and I've just about forgotten Oxford and London, and the wine and the women, and the old country altogether. All but one woman and one village.... I suppose you couldn't put a fellow in the way of forgetting _them_?" I was still wondering what on earth to say to him--for once more I seemed to detect a wistful ring in his voice--when he settled the question himself by laughing in my face. "How could you help me when you don't know the yarn?" he asked, with his blue eyes full of amusement. "Look here, I've a good mind to inflict it on you!" "Wouldn't that hurt?" I could not help asking him.