He complained a good deal about the snobbishness of people generally. Somebody was always cutting or ignoring him, and then “look at the sort of men that one meets nowadays; fellows whose fathers keep shops and haven’t an ‘h’ in their alphabets.” He couldn’t understand how people could stand the cads that went about; yet you could go into the Ritz or the Carlton and see the Countess of Daventry and Lady FitzStuart lunching and dining with “bounders like that fellow Clutterbuck.” After his marriage Baxendale became absorbed more and more by his wife’s family. He seemed to be impressed especially by old Sir Robert and Jack Barnard, his wife’s uncle and brother. Whatever Jack did interested Baxendale, and whatever he said Baxendale repeated in confidence to most of his acquaintances. Of course Jack is a romancer, but Baxendale never knows whether to believe him or not, and Jack, being aware of this, concocts imposing fairy tales for Baxendale’s benefit. Sir Robert is supposed to be very rich, and the amount of his fortune and what he is going to do with it are matters of deep concern to Baxendale, who made a habit of calling on him daily and constantly inviting him to dinner. He told Peter Knott he was sorry for the old man being so lonely, and that his wife was his favourite niece and much attached to him; but Jack declared that his uncle was horribly mean, and only tolerated Baxendale because he could get dinner at his house for nothing. At the beginning of the War Baxendale began complaining about his nerves. Somehow he didn’t enjoy his food and couldn’t get a proper night’s sleep. He’d tried Benger’s Food last thing at night and Quaker Oats for breakfast, but nothing seemed to do him any good. The curious part of Baxendale’s illness was that he continued to look perfectly well, but he seemed to get offended if people said so; what really touched him was pity. There’s a man at the club called Funkelstein whom everybody supposed was a German, but now he says he’s Dutch. Just after the War broke out, Baxendale told every one confidentially he was a spy, but, to our surprise, they suddenly became quite friendly. It seemed that Funkelstein also suffered from nerves. Baxendale said he was most sympathetic to him personally, and alluded to him as “poor Funkelstein.” As time went on Baxendale’s nerves grew worse, and it was thought he must have been badly hit financially by the War, till Peter Knott told us that he had invested most of his wife’s and his own money in shipping companies and coal-mine debentures which had done nothing but rise ever since the War began. On the strength of this satisfactory information Baxendale was occasionally approached for subscriptions; but his response was generally evasive, or the amount offered so minute that he felt compelled to explain it by expressing his apprehensions about new taxation and the insane extravagance of the Government.