hands behind him, looked over our heads, and ever and again rose to his
toes and dropped back on his heels. He had a way of drawing air in at
times through his teeth that gave a whispering zest to his speech It's a
sound I can only represent as a soft Zzzz.

He did most of the talking. My mother repeated what she had already said
in the shop, "I have brought George over to you," and then desisted
for a time from the real business in hand. "You find this a
comfortable house?" she asked; and this being affirmed: "It looks--very
convenient.... Not too big to be a trouble--no. You like Wimblehurst, I
suppose?"

My uncle retorted with some inquiries about the great people of
Bladesover, and my mother answered in the character of a personal friend
of Lady Drew's. The talk hung for a time, and then my uncle embarked
upon a dissertation upon Wimblehurst.

"This place," he began, "isn't of course quite the place I ought to be
in."

My mother nodded as though she had expected that.

"It gives me no Scope," he went on. "It's dead-and-alive. Nothing
happens."

"He's always wanting something to happen," said my aunt Susan. "Some day
he'll get a shower of things and they'll be too much for him."

"Not they," said my uncle, buoyantly.