metaphysician did not care to look back in that direction. They
had had three children; all were happily buried.

These men were capable of better things than they had done or
would ever do; in each case their failure to fulfil youthful
promise was largely explained by the unpresentable wife. They
should have waited; they might have married a social equal at
something between fifty and sixty.

Another old friend was Mr Quarmby. Unwedded he, and perpetually
exultant over men who, as he phrased it, had noosed themselves.
He made a fair living, but, like Dr Johnson, had no passion for
clean linen.

Yule was not disdainful of these old companions, and the fact
that all had a habit of looking up to him increased his pleasure
in their occasional society. If, as happened once or twice in
half a year, several of them were gathered together at his house,
he tasted a sham kind of social and intellectual authority which
he could not help relishing. On such occasions he threw off his
habitual gloom and talked vigorously, making natural display of
his learning and critical ability. The topic, sooner or later,
was that which is inevitable in such a circle--the demerits, the
pretentiousness, the personal weaknesses of prominent
contemporaries in the world of letters. Then did the room ring
with scornful laughter, with boisterous satire, with shouted
irony, with fierce invective. After an evening of that kind Yule
was unwell and miserable for several days.

It was not to be expected that Mr Quarmby, inveterate chatterbox