Yes, I "took" him, and as George had called me a cockatrice--a very favourite term of abuse with him--only that morning, and remembering how she swaggers about being George's Egeria, I said, "You'll have to go to Lady Scilly for that!" "Quite so!" he said very naturally. "Your distinguished parent dedicated his last book to her, did he not? Did you approve, may I ask?" "No," I said. "People should always dedicate all their works to their wife, whether they love her or not, that's what I think!" "Quite so," he said again. "I see we agree famously, and between us we shall concoct a splendid interview. But now, if you would be so very good, and happen to have a small portion of leisure at your disposal----" "I'll do what I can for you," I said, delighted at his nice polite way of putting things. "I'll take you round the house, shall I? Have you a Kodak with you? Would you like to take a snapshot at George's typewriter?" "Certainly, if she is pretty," said the silly man, and I explained that Miss Mander was out, and that it was the machine I meant. He said one machine was very like another, but that if he might see the study, where so many beautiful thoughts had taken shape? He said it quite gravely, but I felt he was laughing in his jacket all the time. "We'll take it all _seriam_!" I said, not wishing him to have all the fine words. "And we will begin at the beginning--I mean the atrium." He had a little pocket-book in his hand, and he said, as I led the way through the hall, "You won't mind my writing things down as they occur to me?" "Not at all!" I said. "If you will let me look at what you have written. I see you have put a lot already." He laughed and handed me his book, and I read-- "_Through dusky suites, lit by stained glass windows, whose dim cloistral light, falling on lurid hangings and gorgeous masses of Titianesque drapery, and antique ebon panelling, irresistibly suggest the languorous mysteries of a mediæval palace...._ Do you think your father will like this style?" "You have made it rather stuffy--piled it on a good deal, the drapery and hangings, I mean!" I said. "Now that I know the sort of thing you write, I shan't want to read any more." "I thought you wouldn't," he said, taking it back. "I'll read it to you. '_Behind this arras might lurk Benvenuto and his dagger----_'" "Not Ben's dagger, but Papa's bicycle." "We'll leave it there and keep it out of the interview," he said. "It would spoil the unity of the effect. '_On, on, through softly-carpeted ante-rooms where the footstep softer falls, than petals of blown roses on the grass...._'" "I hate poetry!" I said. "And we mayn't walk on that part of the carpet for fear of blurring the Magellanic clouds in the pattern. Do you know anything about Magellanic clouds in carpets?"