"I don't understand half of it," said Jill.
"I confess it needs annotating, but it's worth keeping, for it's the real thing, my dear—a human document. You see, Oxford is the most wonderful backwater in the world, but—it's a backwater."
"And if you stay in it always," said Agatha, "and never come out into the stream——"
"You are liable to take the wrong hat and to write letters that would be the better for footnotes."
Berry arrived with the tea.
In silence he received his own hat, compared it with one which he had just purchased, and then handed the latter to the waiter. In silence he read Mr. Bildew's note. In silence he selected a piece of bread and butter and sank into a chair.
"I can't bear it," said Daphne. "Where's Mr. Lewis?"
"Happily he decided to catch a train twenty minutes ago. Otherwise it would have been murder. I should have pleaded guilty to manslaughter, committed under extreme provocation. That man oughtn't to be allowed. I suppose you forgot to go to New College. Yes, just so."
"And the coal?" said I. "Have you fixed that up?"
"Three tons of the best nuts are to be delivered sub rosa between two and three to-morrow afternoon. Nothing is to be said, nothing signed. Nobody is to know anything about it. The carter will simply take up the plate, shoot the stuff in, and push off. As I happened to have six pounds ten shillings upon me, the transaction will not be recorded." With a depreciatory hand he waved aside the involuntary buzz of grateful admiration. "I am not long for this world. I am, as it were, ear-marked for a more worthy sphere. My translation may occur any moment. I should like Lewis to have some trifle in memory of me. A personal effect, I mean. I've got a gun-metal sovereign-case somewhere. But anything useful will do."