putting it away he held it poised and trickling over the rug, and I
then became aware that he was looking at me with deep acknowledging
eyes--his air of universal responsibility. I immediately
understood--there was scarce need of question and answer as they
passed between us. When I took in that our good friend had given
up as never before, though only for the occasion, I exclaimed
dolefully: "What a difference it will make--and to how many
people!"

"I shall be one of them, sir!" said Brooksmith; and that was the
beginning of the end.

Mr. Offord came down again, but the spell was broken, the great
sign being that the conversation was for the first time not
directed. It wandered and stumbled, a little frightened, like a
lost child--it had let go the nurse's hand. "The worst of it is
that now we shall talk about my health--c'est la fin de tout," Mr.
Offord said when he reappeared; and then I recognised what a note
of change that would be--for he had never tolerated anything so
provincial. We "ran" to each other's health as little as to the
daily weather. The talk became ours, in a word--not his; and as
ours, even when HE talked, it could only be inferior. In this form
it was a distress to Brooksmith, whose attention now wandered from
it altogether: he had so much closer a vision of his master's
intimate conditions than our superficialities represented. There
were better hours, and he was more in and out of the room, but I
could see he was conscious of the decline, almost of the collapse,
of our great institution. He seemed to wish to take counsel with
me about it, to feel responsible for its going on in some form or
other. When for the second period--the first had lasted several