I shall have, when I can afford it. He has got together a lot of knick-knacks and curios, but takes them lightly. 'Sorry I've only one big arm-chair,' he said, handing me his cigarette-case and settling me down in comfort; 'but I entertain very seldom. I should like to be hospitable,' he went on; '—I really think it's in me; but that's pretty much out of the question here. I have no chef, no dining-room of my own, no ballroom, certainly. . . . Perhaps, before very long, I shall have to make a change.'
"He asked me about Freeford, and I didn't realize until I was on my way back that he had assumed my home town just as he had assumed my lodging. Well, all right; I never resent a friendly interest. He sat in a less-easy chair and blew his smoke-rings and wondered if I had been a small-town boy. 'I'm one, too,' he said; '—at least Churchton, forty years—at least Churchton, thirty years ago, was not all it is to-day. It has always had its own special tone, of course; but in my young—in my younger days it was just a large country village. Fewer of us went into town to make money, or to spend it.' . . .
"And then he asked me to go into town, one evening soon, and help him spend some. He suggested it rather shyly; à tâtons, I will say—though French is not my business. He offered a dinner at a restaurant, and the theatre afterwards. Did I accept? Indeed I did. Think, Arthur! after all the movies and restaurants round the elms and the fountain (tho' you don't know them yet)! I will say, too, that his cigarettes were rather better than my own. . . .
