Let me give one instance. One evening when we were driving slowly along a bye-road in the vicinity of Uxbridge, in accordance with our preconceived plan—the Mercédès had not then arrived, and our progress was additionally slow as the roads were exceedingly heavy, as rain had been falling daily ever since the night I had been arrested—suddenly my companion said—
"Do you know anything of Persian poetry, Mr. Sutgrove?"
As it happened, owing to the fact that a Sutgrove had once represented his country at the Persian court, I had a slight knowledge of the subject, and I said so.
"I am never out of doors on a spring evening," he continued, "without wishing I had the time to acquire a knowledge of it."
"Why?" I asked.
"It's this way," he replied. "On one of my jobs—a show job, attendance on a distinguished visitor, don't you know—I was thrown a great deal into the company of a Persian gentleman, and we did our best to learn something of each other's languages. He taught me out of Hafiz, and I picked up just enough to make me wish for more. Listen to this."
He recited to me one of the shorter poems from the Divan.
"Isn't that musical?" he continued. "It seems to me to have the real poetry of the spring evening in it."
I agreed with him, and we were silent for a while. Later he asked me diffidently not to mention to any one his penchant for Persian poetry.
"Even at the Yard," he explained, "I doubt whether they would put it down to my credit."