The Professor's lips were framing once more the ritual formula, "It doesn't count," when his eyes fixed with a horrid stare upon the short but pleasing figure of Mr. Kirby, which walked into the room, nodded genially at him, then as genially at Jimmy.
The solicitor drew up a chair and sat down before the two men.
"Didn't know you knew each other," he said in his cheerful, rather jerky voice.
"We don't" had almost framed itself on the Professor's lips, when he thought better of it, and to his horror heard Jimmy say that the Professor and he had met on board ship in the Mediterranean some years ago—and how glad he was to come across him again.
"It is a funny thing how small the world is," said Mr. Kirby simply. "You meet a man under one set of circumstances, and you get to know him quite intimately—so that you will remember him all your life—and then you think never to see him again, when he turns up quite unexpectedly, doesn't he? … You know Mr. Brassington?" he added genially, looking at the Professor.
"I—I—I—I know the name," said the wretched man.
"Oh, you must know the man himself,"
