to speak to them more instantly than they could have expected;
he had evidently jumped up from his work. He was a tall,
lean personage and was dressed all in fresh white linen;
he had a thin, sharp, familiar face, with an expression that was
at one and the same time sociable and businesslike, a quick,
intelligent eye, and a large brown mustache, which concealed
his mouth and made his chin, beneath it, look small.
Lord Lambeth thought he looked tremendously clever.

"How do you do, Lord Lambeth--how do you do, sir?" he said,
holding the open letter in his hand. "I'm very glad to see you;
I hope you're very well. You had better come in here; I think
it's cooler," and he led the way into another room, where there were
law books and papers, and windows wide open beneath striped awning.
Just opposite one of the windows, on a line with his eyes,
Lord Lambeth observed the weathervane of a church steeple.
The uproar of the street sounded infinitely far below,
and Lord Lambeth felt very high in the air. "I say it's cooler,"
pursued their host, "but everything is relative.
How do you stand the heat?"

"I can't say we like it," said Lord Lambeth; "but Beaumont likes
it better than I."

"Well, it won't last," Mr. Westgate very cheerfully declared;
"nothing unpleasant lasts over here. It was very hot when Captain
Littledale was here; he did nothing but drink sherry cobblers.
He expressed some doubt in his letter whether I will remember him--
as if I didn't remember making six sherry cobblers for him one day
in about twenty minutes. I hope you left him well, two years having