CHAPTER VII

I experienced a great surprise a few mornings afterwards. I had risen
quite early, and found the Celebrity's man superintending the hoisting of
luggage on top of a van.

"Is your master leaving?" I asked.

"He's off to Mohair now, sir," said the valet, with a salute.

At that instant the Celebrity himself appeared.

"Yes, old chap, I'm off to Mohair," he explained. "There's more sport in
a day up there than you get here in a season. Beastly slow place, this,
unless one is a deacon or a doctor of divinity. Why don't you come up,
Crocker? Cooke would like nothing better; he has told me so a dozen
times."

"He is very good," I replied. I could not resist the temptation to add,
"I had an idea Asquith rather suited your purposes just now."

"I don't quite understand," he said, jumping at the other half of my
meaning.

"Oh, nothing. But you told me when you came here, if I am not mistaken,
that you chose Asquith because of those very qualities for which you now
condemn it."

"Magna est vis consuetudinis," he laughed; "I thought I could stand the