You see, he was naturally so very glum. True at the beginning there had been gleams of light but they soon became extinguished. True, also, at Frogs’ Hole Farm, when demonstrating truths by means of tea in glasses, he had been for a short while pleasant--only, however, to plunge immediately and all the deeper into gloom and ill-temper. Gloom and ill-temper was his normal state; and to see him attending to my wants, doing it with unmistakable assiduity, actively courteous, was astonishing. I was astonished. But my breeding enabled me to behave as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world, and I accepted sugar from him and allowed him to cut my bread with the blank expression on my face of him who sees nothing unusual or interesting anywhere, which is, I take it, the expression of the perfect gentleman. When at length my plate was surrounded by specimens of all the comforts available, and I had begun to eat, he sat down again, and leaning his elbow on the table and fixing his eyes on the city already sweltering in heat and vapour below, resumed his pipe. A train puffed out of the station along the line at the bottom of our field, jerking up slow masses of white steam into the hot, motionless air. “There goes Jellaby’s train,” said Menzies-Legh. “Jellaby’s what?” said I, cracking an egg. “Train,” said he. “Why, what has he got to do with trains?” I asked, supposing with the vagueness of want of interest, that Jellaby, as well as being a Socialist, was a railway director and kept a particular train as another person would keep a pet. “He’s in it,” said Menzies-Legh. I looked up from my egg at Menzies-Legh’s profile. “What?” said I. “In it,” said he. “Obliged to go.” “What--Jellaby gone? First Lord Sidge, and now Jellaby?” Naturally I was surprised, for I had heard and noticed nothing of this. Also the way one after the other left without saying good-bye seemed to me inconsiderate--at least that: probably more. “Yes,” said Menzies-Legh. “We are--we are very sorry.” I could not, however, honestly join in any sorrow over Jellaby, so merely remarked that the party was shrinking. “Yes,” said Menzies-Legh, “that’s rather our feeling too.” “But why has Jellaby----?” “Oh, well, you know, public man. Parliament. And all that.” “Does your Parliament reassemble so shortly?” “Oh, well, soon enough. You have to prepare, you know. Collect your wits, and that sort of thing.” “Ah, yes. Jellaby should not leave that to the last minute. But he might,” I added with a slight frown, “have taken leave of me according to the customs of good society. Manners are manners, after all is said and done.” “He was in a great hurry,” said Menzies-Legh. There was a silence, during which Menzies-Legh smoked and I breakfasted. Once or twice he cleared his throat as though about to say something, but when I looked up prepared to listen he continued his pipe and his staring at the city in the sun below.