He found Mr. Manley awaiting him in the little dining-room, ready to play
host. Over their soup and fish they talked about ordinary topics and a
little about themselves. Mr. Manley learned that Mr. Flexen had been in
the Indian Police for over seven years, and had been forced to resign his
post by the breaking down of his health; that during the war he had twice
acted as Chief Constable and three times as stipendiary magistrate in
different districts. Mr. Flexen gathered that Mr. Manley had fought in
France with a brilliant intrepidity which had not met with the public
recognition it deserved, and learned that he had been invalided out of
the Army owing to the weakness of his heart. This common failure of
health was a bond of sympathy between them, and made them well disposed
to one another.

There came a pause in this personal talk, and either of them addressed
himself to the consumption of the wing of a chicken with a certain
absorption in the occupation. It was not uncharacteristic of Mr. Manley
that his high sense of the fitness of things had not prevailed on him to
accord the liver wing to the guest. He was firmly eating it himself.

Then Mr. Flexen said: "I suppose you came across Hutchings, the butler,
pretty often. What kind of a fellow was he?"

"He was rather more like his master than if he had been his twin brother,
except that he wore whiskers and not a beard," said Mr. Manley, in a tone
of hearty dislike.

"He does not appear to have been at all popular with the other servants,"
said Mr. Flexen.