"You do talk like a book, and no error!" said the Duke. "I haven't ever heard you gas on like that before."
The bright particular star was discovered in Claude's easiest chair, with the precious volume in one hand, and a tall glass, nearly empty, in the other; the Impressionist was in the act of replacing the stopper in the whisky-decanter; and Claude accepted the somewhat redundant explanation, that they were making themselves at home, with every sign of approval. Nor was he slow in introducing his friends; but for once the Duke was refreshingly subdued, if not shy; and for the first few minutes the others had their heads together over the large-paper edition, for whose "decorations" the draftsman himself had not the least to say, where all admired. At length Claude passed the open volume to his cousin; needless to say it was open at the frontispiece; but the first and only thing that Jack saw was the author's name in red capitals on the title-page opposite.
"Claude Lafont!" he read out. "Why, you don't ever mean—to tell me—that's you, old brusher?"
Claude smiled and coloured.
"You an author!" continued the Duke in a wide-eyed wonder. "And you never told me! Well, no wonder you can talk like a book when you can write one, too! So this is your latest, is it?"
"The limited large-paper edition," said Claude. "Only seventy-five copies printed, and I sign them all. How does it strike you—physically, I mean?"
"'Physically' is quite pleasing," murmured Stubbs; and Claude helped him to more whisky.
Jack looked at the book. The back was of a pale brown cardboard; the type had a curious, olden air about it; the paper was thick, and its edges elaborately ragged. The Duke asked if it was a new book. It looked to him a hundred years old, he said, and discovered that he had paid a pretty compliment unawares.
"There's one thing, however," he added: "we could chop leaves as well as that in the back-blocks!"
The Impressionist grinned; his friend drank deep, with a corrugated brow; the poet expounded the beauties of the rough edge, and Jack gave him back his book.