At this his face brightened. He drew a long breath, and began: "I am a Professor of Music at Heidelberg----" Charles, I had to interrupt him. I simply couldn't help it. I said; "Then you owe me half-a-crown." He stopped, and looked at me with a sort of sad dignity. Then he turned round with a sigh and plodded wearily across the park. And, oh, I do hope he had better luck with somebody else, because he has been at it for five years now, and it must be a heart-breaking life. His hair had gone quite grey since I saw him last. Charles, you do see that that is a true story, don't you? If I had been making it up, I should have said that he gave me back my own card as a reference. I wonder why he didn't. I suppose it had got rather dirty after five years. Do you want the other one now? It is the merest anecdote, and Hilda told it me, and I know it's not true. She has a cat called "Didums poor little kitty wee, then"; you put the accent on the "then," and spread it out as long as you can. Well, Didums, etc., goes about eating moths; a curious diet for a cat, but I believe it keeps them thin. He swallowed them whole, you know, and Hilda told him how cruel it was. She seems to have spoken of the sufferings of the imprisoned ones in the most moving terms. Anyhow she found Didums next day up in her bedroom remorsefully eating a sealskin coat. I am surprised at Hilda. If she is not careful her baby will grow up a journalist. I have seen him since he came back from you. This time I approached from the west, and I noticed a great difference. He is certainly a fine child, and as he let me put him to sleep I love him. After all, looks don't matter tuppence to a man. The great thing is wisdom. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. I remember a General Knowledge Paper in my Mays. One of the questions was "Give a list of the chief coaling-stations you would pass on your way to New Zealand." The only two I could think of were Cyprus and Rickett Smith. I never heard whether I got full marks: probably not. But since that day knowledge has come for I have a friend in the Admiralty. He was a very high wrangler the year I wasn't, and just as Fisher is the man behind the First Lord, so he is the man behind Fisher; at least, he tells me so. And he buys his tobacco by the knot--or is it the quid?--and plays the Hague Convention at bridge, and (as I say) knows all the coaling-stations from Cambridge to New Zealand. Wisdom Lingers. What a splendid title for a novel. You would expect a fine moral tale, and it would turn out to be the story of the Lingers family. Wisdom K. Lingers. There you have the essence of successful book-naming. I hand the idea to you, Charles, in the certainty that you would steal it anyhow.