enlarged version enriched with footnotes, appendixes and copious
illustrations, was the ambition, the sole ambition, of Mr. Ernest
Eames, R.A. . . .

It was not true to say of this gentleman that he fled from England to
Nepenthe because he forged his mother's will, because he was arrested
while picking the pockets of a lady at Tottenham Court Road Station,
because he refused to pay for the upkeep of his seven illegitimate
children, because he was involved in a flamboyant scandal of
unmentionable nature and unprecedented dimensions, because he was
detected while trying to poison the rhinoceros at the Zoo with an
arsenical bun, because he strangled his mistress, because he addressed
an almost disrespectful letter to the Primate of England beginning "My
good Owl"--or for any suchlike reason; and that he now remained on the
island only because nobody was fool enough to lend him the ten pounds
requisite for a ticket back again.

He came there originally to save money; and he stayed there originally
because, if he had happened to die on his homeward journey, there would
not have been enough coppers in his pocket to pay for the funeral
expenses. Nowadays, having solved the problem of how to live on 85
pounds a year, he stayed for another reason as well: to annotate
Perrelli's ANTIQUITIES. It sweetened his self-imposed exile.

He was a dry creature, almost wizened, with bright eyes and a short
moustache; unostentatiously dressed; fastidious, reserved, genteel,
precise in manner, and living a retired life in a two-roomed cottage
somewhere among the vineyards.

He had taken a high degree in classics, though Greek was never much to