service and stature. If HE had been Mr. Offord he certainly would
have found Brooksmith wanting, and indeed the laxity of his
employer on this score was one of many things he had had to condone
and to which he had at last indulgently adapted himself.

I remember the old man's saying to me: "Oh my servants, if they
can live with me a fortnight they can live with me for ever. But
it's the first fortnight that tries 'em." It was in the first
fortnight for instance that Brooksmith had had to learn that he was
exposed to being addressed as "my dear fellow" and "my poor child."
Strange and deep must such a probation have been to him, and he
doubtless emerged from it tempered and purified. This was written
to a certain extent in his appearance; in his spare brisk little
person, in his cloistered white face and extraordinarily polished
hair, which told of responsibility, looked as if it were kept up to
the same high standard as the plate; in his small clear anxious
eyes, even in the permitted, though not exactly encouraged, tuft on
his chin. "He thinks me rather mad, but I've broken him in, and
now he likes the place, he likes the company," said the old man. I
embraced this fully after I had become aware that Brooksmith's main
characteristic was a deep and shy refinement, though I remember I
was rather puzzled when, on another occasion, Mr. Offord remarked:
"What he likes is the talk--mingling in the conversation." I was
conscious I had never seen Brooksmith permit himself this freedom,
but I guessed in a moment that what Mr. Offord alluded to was a
participation more intense than any speech could have represented--
that of being perpetually present on a hundred legitimate pretexts,
errands, necessities, and breathing the very atmosphere of
criticism, the famous criticism of life. "Quite an education, sir,
isn't it, sir?" he said to me one day at the foot of the stairs