“There's something of the miser in both these people,” said Esmeer, and the thing was perfectly true. For, after all, the miser is nothing more than a man who either through want of imagination or want of suggestion misapplies to a base use a natural power of concentration upon one end. The concentration itself is neither good nor evil, but a power that can be used in either way. And the Baileys gathered and reinvested usuriously not money, but knowledge of the utmost value in human affairs. They produced an effect of having found themselves--completely. One envied them at times extraordinarily. I was attracted, I was dazzled--and at the same time there was something about Bailey's big wrinkled forehead, his lisping broad mouth, the gestures of his hands and an uncivil preoccupation I could not endure.... 3 Their effect upon me was from the outset very considerable. Both of them found occasion on that first visit of mine to talk to me about my published writings and particularly about my then just published book THE NEW RULER, which had interested them very much. It fell in indeed so closely with their own way of thinking that I doubt if they ever understood how independently I had arrived at my conclusions. It was their weakness to claim excessively. That irritation, however, came later. We discovered each other immensely; for a time it produced a tremendous sense of kindred and co-operation. Altiora, I remember, maintained that there existed a great army of such constructive-minded people as ourselves--as yet undiscovered by one another. “It's like boring a tunnel through a mountain,” said Oscar, “and presently hearing the tapping of the workers from the other end.” “If you didn't know of them beforehand,” I said, “it might be a rather badly joined tunnel.” “Exactly,” said Altiora with a high note, “and that's why we all want to find out each other....” They didn't talk like that on our first encounter, but they urged me to lunch with them next day, and then it was we went into things. A woman Factory Inspector and the Educational Minister for New Banksland and his wife were also there, but I don't remember they made any contribution to the conversation. The Baileys saw to that. They kept on at me in an urgent litigious way. “We have read your book,” each began--as though it had been a joint function. “And we consider--” “Yes,” I protested, “I think--” That was a secondary matter. “They did not consider,” said Altiora, raising her voice and going right over me, “that I had allowed sufficiently for the inevitable development of an official administrative class in the modern state.” “Nor of its importance,” echoed Oscar.