For some time now the literary schemes of the weekly journals had announced this. George Trenchard only laughed at enquiries: “It takes a damned long time, you know,” he said, “’tisn’t any use rushing the thing.” He enjoyed, however, immensely, making notes. From half-past nine in the morning until half-past one, behind his closed doors, he considered the early Nineteenth Century, found it admirable (Scott seemed to him the perfect type) took first one book, then another from his book-shelves, wrote a few lines, and before his fire imagined the Trenchards of that period, considered their food and their drink, their morals, their humour and their literature. Hazlitt’s essays seemed to him the perfection, not of English prose, but of a temporal and spiritual attitude. “Hang it all,” he would conclude, “we’re a rotten lot now-a-days.” He did not worry over this conclusion, but it gave him the opportunity of a superior attitude during the rest of the day when he joined the world. “If you knew as much about the early Nineteenth Century as I do,” he seemed to say, “you wouldn’t be so pleased with yourselves.” He did not, however, express his superiority in any unpleasant manner. There was never anyone more amiable. All that he wanted was that everyone should be happy, and to be that, he had long ago discovered, one must not go too deep. “Keep out of close relationships and you’re safe” might be considered his advice to young people. He had certainly avoided them all his life, and avoided them by laughing at them. He couldn’t abide “gloomy fellows” and on no account would he allow a ‘scene’. He had never lost his temper. During the months that he spent at his place in Glebeshire he pursued a plan identically similar. He possessed an invaluable ‘factotum’, a certain James Ritchie, who took everything in a way of management off his hands. Ritchie in Glebeshire, Mrs. Trenchard and Rocket in London. Life was made very simple for him.