seen, and did everything that involved personal contacts. And, being a
bad habit, he had, of course, grown on Priam Farll, and thus, year after
year, for a quarter of a century, Farll's shyness, with his riches and
his glory, had increased. Happily Leek was never ill. That is to say, he
never had been ill, until this day of their sudden incognito arrival in
London for a brief sojourn. He could hardly have chosen a more
inconvenient moment; for in London of all places, in that inherited
house in Selwood Terrace which he so seldom used, Priam Farll could not
carry on daily life without him. It really was unpleasant and disturbing
in the highest degree, this illness of Leek's. The fellow had apparently
caught cold on the night-boat. He had fought the approaches of insidious
disease for several hours, going forth to make purchases and
incidentally consulting a doctor; and then, without warning, in the very
act of making up Farll's couch, he had abandoned the struggle, and,
since his own bed was not ready, he had taken to his master's. He always
did the natural thing naturally. And Farll had been forced to help him
to undress!

From this point onwards Priam Farll, opulent though he was and
illustrious, had sunk to a tragic impotence. He could do nothing for
himself; and he could do nothing for Leek, because Leek refused both
brandy and sandwiches, and the larder consisted solely of brandy and
sandwiches. The man lay upstairs there, comatose, still, silent, waiting
for the doctor who had promised to pay an evening visit. And the summer
day had darkened into the summer night.

The notion of issuing out into the world and personally obtaining food
for himself or aid for Leek, did genuinely seem to Priam Farll an
impossible notion; he had never done such things. For him a shop was an
impregnable fort garrisoned by ogres. Besides, it would have been