That was the difficulty. Stabb was well aware of it. A man who is odd, and knows it, may be proud, but he will be careful; he may swagger, but he will take precautions. Lynborough had no idea that he was odd; he followed his nature--in all its impulses and in all its whims--with equal fidelity and simplicity. This is not to say that he was never amused at himself; every intelligent observer is amused at himself pretty often; but he did not doubt merely because he was amused. He took his entertainment over his own doings as a bonus life offered. A great sincerity of action and of feeling was his predominant characteristic. “Besides, if I’m odd,” he went on with a laugh, “it won’t be noticed. I’m going to bury myself at Scarsmoor for a couple of years at least. I’m thinking of writing an autobiography. You’ll come with me, Cromlech?” “I must be totally undisturbed,” Stabb stipulated. “I’ve a great deal of material to get into shape.” “There’ll be nobody there but myself--and a secretary, I daresay.” “A secretary? What’s that for?” “To write the book, of course.” “Oh, I see,” said Stabb, smiling in a slow fat fashion. “You won’t write your autobiography yourself?” “Not unless I find it very engrossing.” “Well, I’ll come,” said Stabb. So home they came--an unusual-looking pair--Stabb with his towering bulky frame, his big goggles, his huge head with its scanty black locks encircling a face like a harvest moon--Lynborough, tall, too, but lean as a lath, with tiny feet and hands, a rare elegance of carriage, a crown of chestnut hair, a long straight nose, a waving moustache, a chin pointed like a needle and scarcely thickened to the eye by the close-cropped, short, pointed beard he wore. His bright hazel eyes gleamed out from his face with an attractive restlessness that caught away a stranger’s first attention even from the rare beauty of the lines of his head and face; it was regularity over-refined, sharpened almost to an outline of itself. But his appearance tempted him to no excesses of costume; he had always despised that facile path to a barren eccentricity. On every occasion he wore what all men of breeding were wearing, yet invested the prescribed costume with the individuality of his character: this, it seems, is as near as the secret of dressing well can be tracked.