* * * * *
One evening (it was during the second month of my appointment) we were sitting in his private study—a dark, comfortable room lined with books. It was an occasion on which a new characteristic of the man was offered to my inspection.
A prisoner of a somewhat unusual type had come in that day—a spiritualistic medium, convicted of imposture. To this person I casually referred.
"May I ask how you propose dealing with the new-comer?"
"On the familiar lines."
"But, surely—here we have a man of superior education, of imagination even?"
"No, no, no! A hawker's opportuneness; that describes it. These fellows would make death itself a vulgarity."
"You've no faith in their—"
"Not a tittle. Heaven forfend! A sheet and a turnip are poetry to their manifestations. It's as crude and sour soil for us to work on as any I know. We'll cart it wholesale."
"I take you—excuse my saying so—for a supremely sceptical man."