Octon was still there—extended on three chairs, smoking and drinking a whisky and soda. I asked him about his travels—he was just back from the recesses of Africa (if there are, truly, any recesses left)—but gained small satisfaction. His predominant intellectual interest was—insects! He would hunt a beetle from latitude to latitude, and by no means despised the pursuit of a flea. My interest in the study of religion assorted ill with this: when I questioned on my subject, he replied on his. All other incidents of his journeys he passed over, both in talk and in writing (he had written two books eminent in their own line), with a brevity thoroughly Cæsarean. "Having taken the city and killed the citizens"—Cæsar invaded another tribe!—That was the style. Only Octon's tribes were insects, Cæsar's patriots. It was, however, rumored—as Bertram Ware had hinted in a jocose form—that Octon's summaries were, sometimes and in their degree, as eloquent as Cæsar's own.
"Hang my journeys!" he said, as I put one more of my futile questions. "I got six bugs—one indisputably new. But I didn't hurry up here—I only got home this morning—to talk about that. I hurried up here, Austin——"
"To annoy your neighbors—knowing they were assembled here?"
"That was a side-show," he assured me. "Though it was entertaining enough. And, after all, young Lacey began on me! No—I came to bring you news of your liege lady. I've been in Paris, too, Austin."
"And you met her?"
"I met her often—with her cat."
"Miss Chatters?"
"Precisely. And sometimes without her cat. How do you like the change from old Driver?"
"I hold no such position, either in county or borough, as need tempt you—to say nothing of entitling you—to ask impertinent questions, Octon."
He chuckled out a deep rumbling laugh of amusement. "Good!" he said. "Well-turned—almost witty! Austin, I've my own pursuits—but I'm inclined to wish I had your position."