A spuffler is a gay pretender, who hides his lack of success beneath the importance of his manners. Time is his one possession, and to him it is valueless; yet he tries to impress the world with its extreme rarity. A spuffler is always in a hurry; he talks loudly. He plays a game of make-believe that he is a person of far-reaching authority; he deceives others and almost deceives himself. He is usually small in stature and not infrequently bald-headed. In conversing he makes an imaginary lather with his hands and points his finger, at you. He may splutter and spit when he gets excited; but this is accidental and not necessary. The prime requisite is that he should affect the prosperity of a bank-president and be dependent on some quite obscure source for his pocket-money. Since I have lived in America I have become familiar with a word which is very similar--_a bluffer_. But a bluffer is a conscious liar and may be a humorist, whereas a spuffler does all in his power to deceive himself and is always in dead earnest. It is a curious fact that the men whom I loved best as a child were all three incompetents in the worldly sense. They were clever, but they lacked the faculty of marketing their talents. They were boys in men’s bodies. With children they had the hearts of children and were delightful. With business men their light-heartedness counted as irresponsibility and was a drawback. In two out of the three cases named, the disappointments which resulted from continual defeat produced vices. Only my Uncle Obadiah, clad in his armor of unpierceable spuffle, rode through the ranks of life scatheless, with his sweetness unembittered and his integrity untarnished. But they were all good men. Through the June twilight we returned to the outskirts of London. We turned in at a ruined gateway, and rode through a tunnel of overhanging trees where laburnum blazed through the dusk. A long rambling house grew up before us. At one time it must have been the country estate of some city-merchant. At sound of our wheels on the gravel, the front-door opened and a little lady stepped out to greet us. She was neat and speckless as a hospital nurse. Her body was slim and dainty as a girl’s. There was an air of decision and restraint about her, which was in direct opposition to my uncle’s hurried geniality. When we had halted, she lifted me out of the dog-cart and carried me into the house to a large room at the back, which looked into a shadowy garden and a paddock beyond. It seemed older and more opulent than any house I had known as yet. There was so much space about it. My uncle came in from stabling Dollie. “Well, Lavinia, I couldn’t get home to lunch. Very sorry, but it couldn’t be helped.”