'Ah! I confused a cabman at Liverpool by talking the 'depot.''
He laughed merrily, a stronger and deeper laugh than of old. Personally he was not, however, much changed. He was still shaven, still stood in the same attitude; his smile was still the same inscrutable movement of the features. But his natural wiriness had become somewhat more pronounced, and the sea-tan on his cheeks prepared one for a robuster kind of speech from him than formerly.
'Of course you have not dined. Let me go away for one moment.'
'I thank you. Foreseeing this, I dined at the station.'
'Then you behaved with much unkindness. Stand with your face rather more to the light. Yes, you are strong and well. I shall not say how glad I am to see you; perhaps I should have done, if you had waited to break bread under my roof.'
'I shall sit down if I may. This journey from Liverpool has tired me much. Oh yes, I was glad as I came through the Midlands; it was poetry again, even amid smoke and ashes.'
'But you must not deny your gods.'
'Ah, poetry of a different kind. From Whitman to Tennyson.
And one an English home; grey twilight poured—
No, I deny nothing; one's moods alter with the scene.'