"I beg your pardon—'anent a certain well-known but absent-minded Peer of the Realm.'"
"That's the stuff. You have the trick of it. Then sometimes I do bits of general information—computations as to the height of a column of the picture postcards sold in London in a year, and all that. Nobody can check figures of that kind, so the work is easy—and correspondingly ill-paid!" (I cannot reproduce the number of contemptuous r's that Robin threw into the adverb.)
"It's a fine useful place the Museum," he continued reflectively. "You were busy there this morning yourself. You would be collecting data anent—I mean about—the Island of Caerulea."
I sat up in surprise at this.
"How on earth——?" I began.
"Oh, I just jal—guessed it. You being the only member of his Majesty's Government in whom I have any personal interest, I have always followed your career closely. (You gave me your card, you'll mind.) Well, I saw you were having trouble with yon havering body Wuddiford—I once reported at one of his meetings: he's just a sweetie-wife in pince-nez—and when I saw you busy with an atlas and gazetteer I said to myself:—'He'll be getting up a few salient facts about the place, in order to appease the honourable member's insatiable thirst for knowledge—Toots, there I go again! Man, the journalese fairly soaks into the system. I doubt now if I could write out twenty lines of 'Paradise Lost' without cross-heading them!"
We finished our cigar over talk like this, and finally rose to go. Robin lingered upon the steps of the restaurant. I realised that he, being a Scotsman, was endeavouring to pump up the emotional gratitude which he felt sure that I, as an Englishman, would expect from a starving pauper who had lunched at my expense.
"I must thank you," he said at last, rather awkwardly, "for a most pleasant luncheon. And I should like fine," he added suddenly and impetuously, "to make out a précis for you on the subject of Caerulea. Never heed it yourself! Away home, and I'll send it to you to-morrow!"
An idea which had been maturing in my slow-moving brain for some time suddenly took a definite shape.
"It is extremely kind of you," I said. "I shall be delighted to leave the matter in your hands. But when you have made the précis, I wonder if you would be so good as to bring it to my house instead of sending it?"