"I--I just been reading one of your books, Mr. Grey," he said, "an’ if yer don’t mind my sayin’ so, I’ve read many a story what was worse. I ’ave, indeed. I like this story first rate. It’s no more like a thing you’d hear of in life than I’m like the photograph my son took of me last week with a five-shilling camera. ’Ow on earth you manage to do it is a marvel to me. Do you get a plot in yer ’ead like and just stick it down just as it comes to yer--what my old woman calls when the spirit moves? ’The spirit moves,’ she says, and then she goes out and gets a jug of beer. But that’s only figurative, of course. What I mean is, do you go on writing what’s in your ’ead, or do you get bits of it out of other books? ’He threw his arms around her neck and held her in a passionate embrace.’ I’ve read that in ’eaps of books. I suppose they get it from each other." "Did you find it in mine?" asked John. "Well, no--I can’t say as I ’ave yet. But then, they’ve only just been introduced. I expect you’ll ’ave to come to it sooner or later. They all do." "That’s quite right," said John--"we all do. There’s something inevitable about it. Have you had a meal yet?" "No--but I’ve got a little something here in a basket. I’ll eat it on the landing if you like." "Oh, no," said John--"eat it here. It makes no difference to me." So Mr. Chesterton pulled out the basket with the little something inside. Two cold sausages and some bread and butter were the extent of his meal which he ate with evident relish, and table manners that, perhaps, a fastidious person might have objected to. You could, for example, hear him eating. Sometimes he exclaimed how excellent were sausages when they were cold. He went so far as to say he loved them. He also expanded on the way his old woman cooked tripe; but when he talked about the brains of certain animals being cheap and at the same time a great delicacy, John found that his hands wanted washing and went into the other room. "They’ve had a tiff," said the little man as he bit into the second sausage--"they’ve ’ad a tiff. He’s that down in the mouth, there’s nothin’ I can say as’ll buck him up. Why, if I talk about sheep’s brains to my old woman, she gets as chirpy as a cock-sparrer." When John came back, Mr. Chesterton had finished; the basket was put away and he was doing things with his teeth and a bent pin in a far corner of the room. "’Ave yer got a box of draughts, Mr. Grey?" he asked, when he was at liberty. John nodded his head. "Then come along," said the little man--"let’s have a game!" CHAPTER XXIII AMBER