his reputation for amiability.

So that when the unexpected Mr. Bishop (whose Christian name was Softly)
said to him: "I won't keep you now. Only I was passing and I want you to
be kind enough to make an early appointment with me at some time and
place entirely convenient to yourself," Mr. Prohack proceeded to
persuade Mr. Bishop to stay to lunch, there being no sort of reason in
favour of such a course, and various sound reasons against it. Mr.
Prohack deceived Mr. Softly Bishop as follows:

"No time and place like the present. You must stay to lunch. This is
your old club and you must stay to lunch."

"But you've begun your lunch," Bishop protested.

"I've not. The fact is, I was half expecting you to look in again. The
hall-porter told me...." And Mr. Prohack actually patted Mr. Bishop on
the shoulder--a trick he had. "Come now, don't tell me you've got
another lunch appointment. It's twenty-five to two." And to himself,
leading Mr. Bishop to the strangers' dining-room, he said: "Why should I
further my own execution in this way?"

He ordered a lunch as copious and as costly as he would have ordered for
the other, the real Bishop. Powerful and vigorous in some directions,
Mr. Prohack's mentality was deplorably weak in at least one other.

Mr. Softly Bishop was delighted with his reception, and Mr. Prohack
began to admit that Mr. Bishop had some personal charm. Nevertheless
when the partridge came, Mr. Prohack acidly reflected: