"But the Stapleton case--surely you remember all that in the newspapers?" "I don't. I never read the newspapers." "Good Lord--you must be a hermit! ... Anyhow, Severn's quite a big man, and likely as not he'll end on the Woolsack. He knows everybody worth knowing, and positively rolls in money and influence. And all that at thirty-five, mind you, and with a wife still in her twenties and one child aged ten. He did everything early." He seemed startled, and I went on, satisfied that he was interested: "Severn married her when she was eighteen--and a shop-girl in Paris. Still, she must have been rather an exceptional shop-girl. Severn probably spotted her just as he spots all the other winners. But his people are Eton and Oxford to the teeth, and they wouldn't look at her, or him either, for a long while afterwards. He'll tell you the whole story of his early struggles if you give him half a chance--he's awfully proud of them." We chatted on till nearly midnight, and then, since the last tube train had gone, I walked with him to his rather dingy lodgings in Swinton Street, near King's Cross. (Evidently he _was_ poor; perhaps even poorer than I.) "You must come to tea with me soon," I said, shaking hands with him at the door. I suggested the following Wednesday, but he answered: "I'm afraid I could never come for tea--I work at the College until seven." "Even on Saturdays?" I queried, and he nodded. "And Sundays?" He smiled then and said: "On Sundays I go out for the day. Next Sunday I'm going for a tramp across the hills from Dorking to Reigate, and if you'd care to come with me...." II He didn't drink, he didn't smoke, he didn't read newspapers, and he didn't ever go out to tea. Then what on earth _did_ he do? I found out one thing, at any rate, on that following Sunday; he _walked_. He called it tramping, but no tramp that ever lived went at his pace. By the time we reached Reigate I longed for a corner seat in a railway compartment. All he said was: "Ten miles isn't really enough. I usually do twelve or fifteen." We didn't talk much during the walk. I was far too breathless most of the time to gasp more than a few words consecutively, but I thought a good deal. I thought, for instance: Why am I running myself out of breath on these confounded hills with a man who, so far, has shown himself to be no more than a conglomeration of abstinences? And the only answer I could arrive at was: You want to get to know him, and this, apparently, is the only way.