CAMBRIDGE put Baltazar on the track of old acquaintances, so that on his return to London he found himself in contact with people of his own standing who could explain to him the contemporary attitude of mind. There was Burtingshaw, K.C., for instance, a member of the Inventions Committee, and Weatherley, a professor of Modern History, whom the war had developed into an indefatigable publicist, and Jackman, a curious blend of classical scholar and man of business, who had allowed his family mustard-making firm to look after itself while he spent laborious days at the Admiralty in uncomfortable naval uniform. All welcomed the elderly prodigal, though in return for fatted calves—these were happy days before rationing—they demanded an account of his adventures. A man can’t make a sensational disappearance from a small social unit and turn up twenty years afterwards, without encountering natural human curiosity. This, over and over again, he had to satisfy, until he began to regard his absurd history with loathing, especially that of the past two years. He went through it, however, grimly, as part of the penalty he must pay for folly. After his first meeting with them at offices and clubs, he received invitations to dinner at their respective homes. The night before he went to Godalming he dined with the Jackmans. The family consisted of Mrs. Jackman, a homely woman, who spent most of her time at a Y.M.C.A. canteen on the south side of the river, two young girls and a boy home on leave from France. A few guests had been invited to meet John Baltazar; a colonel of artillery on sick leave, a notoriously question-asking Conservative member of Parliament, a judge, the wives of the two last, and a woman just back from eighteen months’ Red Cross work on the Russian front. A typical war gathering. As soon as chance enabled him to speak to his host after his entrance into this galaxy of civilization, he said: “Man alive! you shouldn’t have asked all these people. I’ve not been in a European drawing-room for twenty years. My instinct is to wander about, growling, like a bear.” Jackman, a florid, good-natured, clean-shaven man, laughed. “It’s for your good. The sooner you get into the ways of the world the better.” “But what the devil shall I talk about?” “Let the other people talk. You listen. I thought that was what you wanted.”