did his housekeeping for him. Then there was a wonderful cook,
he said, a half-breed whom he had picked up in his travels, who
could serve an excellent dinner. I remember that he remarked
what a queer household it was to find in the heart of Surrey, and
that I agreed with him, though it has proved a good deal queerer
than I thought.

"I drove to the place--about two miles on the south side of
Esher. The house was a fair-sized one, standing back from the
road, with a curving drive which was banked with high evergreen
shrubs. It was an old, tumbledown building in a crazy state of
disrepair. When the trap pulled up on the grass-grown drive in
front of the blotched and weather-stained door, I had doubts as
to my wisdom in visiting a man whom I knew so slightly. He
opened the door himself, however, and greeted me with a great
show of cordiality. I was handed over to the manservant, a
melancholy, swarthy individual, who led the way, my bag in his
hand, to my bedroom. The whole place was depressing. Our dinner
was tete-a-tete, and though my host did his best to be
entertaining, his thoughts seemed to continually wander, and he
talked so vaguely and wildly that I could hardly understand him.
He continually drummed his fingers on the table, gnawed his
nails, and gave other signs of nervous impatience. The dinner
itself was neither well served nor well cooked, and the gloomy
presence of the taciturn servant did not help to enliven us. I
can assure you that many times in the course of the evening I
wished that I could invent some excuse which would take me back
to Lee.

"One thing comes back to my memory which may have a bearing upon