bills and printed matter by our guests, but there I had the
advantage over Lewis, who was too tactful to refuse the stuff, too
neatly dressed to pocket it, and had no writing-desk available upon
which he could relieve himself in a manner flattering to the giver.
So that his hands got fuller and fuller. A relentless, compact
little woman in what Margaret declared to be an extremely expensive
black dress has also printed herself on my memory; she had set her
heart upon my contributing to a weekly periodical in the lentil
interest with which she was associated, and I spent much time and
care in evading her.

Mingling with the more hygienic types were a number of Anti-Puritan
Socialists, bulging with bias against temperance, and breaking out
against austere methods of living all over their faces. Their
manner was packed with heartiness. They were apt to choke the
approaches to the little buffet Margaret had set up downstairs, and
there engage in discussions of Determinism--it always seemed to be
Determinism--which became heartier and noisier, but never
acrimonious even in the small hours. It seemed impossible to settle
about this Determinism of theirs--ever. And there were worldly
Socialists also. I particularly recall a large, active, buoyant,
lady-killing individual with an eyeglass borne upon a broad black
ribbon, who swam about us one evening. He might have been a
slightly frayed actor, in his large frock-coat, his white waistcoat,
and the sort of black and white check trousers that twinkle. He had
a high-pitched voice with aristocratic intonations, and he seemed to
be in a perpetual state of interrogation. "What are we all he-a
for?" he would ask only too audibly. "What are we doing he-a?
What's the connection?"