“I’m so sorry. I feel quite well, thanks. Will you have some Eno’s fruit salts? I know my landlady’s got some, because she offered me them the other day when I had a cold. Here’s your tea. Do you ever read the Pink ’un? It’s funny without being prudish.” Leamington poured out some tea. “Don’t read, Babe; it’s unsociable. Talk to me while I eat.” The Babe put down the current copy of the _Sunday Times_, and laid himself out to be pleasant. “There are some people coming to lunch at two,” he said. “I rather think I asked Reggie. Poor Reggie, he got dropped on in a minute by the Proggins. Oh, yes, and so is Stewart. Do you know Stewart? He’s a don at Trinity, and is supposed to be wicked. I wish someone would suppose me to be wicked. But I’m beginning to be afraid they never will.” “You must lose your look of injured innocence or rather cultivate the injury at the expense of the innocence. Grow a moustache; no one looks battered and world-weary without a moustache.” “I can’t. I bought some Allen’s Hair Restorer the other day, but it only smarted. I wonder if they made a mistake and gave me Allen’s Antifat?” “You don’t look as if they had,” said Leamington, “at least it doesn’t look as if it had had much effect. Wouldn’t it take?” “Not a bit,” said the Babe. “I applied it night and morning to my upper lip, and it only smelt and smarted. I suppose you can’t restore a thing that has never existed. I think I shall be a clergyman, because all clergymen cut their moustaches off, and to do that you must have one.” “I see. But isn’t that rather elaborate?” “No means are elaborate if you desire the end enough,” said the Babe sententiously. “I shall marry too, because married people are bald, and I’m sure I don’t wonder.” “So are babies.” “Not in the same way, and don’t be personal. I can’t think of any other means of losing the appearance of innocence. Suggest some: you’ve been rusticated.” “Why don’t you--” “I’ve tried that, and it’s no use.” “But you don’t know what I was going to say,” objected Leamington. “I know I don’t. But I’ve tried it,” said the wicked Babe. “I’ve even read the Yellow Book through from cover to cover, and as you see, framed the pictures by Aubrey Beardsley. The Yellow Book is said to add twenty years per volume to any one’s life. Not at all. It has left me precisely where it found me, whereas, according to that, as I’ve read five volumes, I ought to be, let’s see--five times twenty, plus twenty--a hundred and twenty. I don’t look it, you know. It’s no use your telling me I do, because I don’t. I have no illusions whatever about the matter.” “I wasn’t going to tell you anything of the kind,” said Leamington. “But you should take yourself more seriously. I believe that is very aging.” The Babe opened his eyes in the wildest astonishment.