anything but these subjects. Oh, yes, once he told me that I could
buy my special shade of blue ties cheaper from a firm in
Burlington Arcade than from my own people in New York. And I
have bought my ties from that firm ever since. Otherwise I should
not remember the name of the Burlington Arcade. I wonder what
it looks like. I have never seen it. I imagine it to be two immense
rows of pillars, like those of the Forum at Rome, with Edward
Ashburnham striding down between them. But it probably
isn't--the least like that. Once also he advised me to buy
Caledonian Deferred, since they were due to rise. And I did buy
them and they did rise. But of how he got the knowledge I haven't
the faintest idea. It seemed to drop out of the blue sky.

And that was absolutely all that I knew of him until a month
ago--that and the profusion of his cases, all of pigskin and
stamped with his initials, E. F. A. There were gun cases, and
collar cases, and shirt cases, and letter cases and cases each
containing four bottles of medicine; and hat cases and helmet
cases. It must have needed a whole herd of the Gadarene swine to
make up his outfit. And, if I ever penetrated into his private room
it would be to see him standing, with his coat and waistcoat off
and the immensely long line of his perfectly elegant trousers from
waist to boot heel. And he would have a slightly reflective air and
he would be just opening one kind of case and just closing
another.

Good God, what did they all see in him? for I swear there was all
there was of him, inside and out; though they said he was a good
soldier. Yet, Leonora adored him with a passion that was like an
agony, and hated him with an agony that was as bitter as the sea.