“Colour, yes, colour!”

He sat back and lit his pipe.

“I must get someone to start the plates. I know just what I want, but I don’t quite know the person to do it.”

He talked to himself—within himself.

“Rogers? No, too flamboyant, not true. I want truth. There’s Peterson. No, I don’t like Peterson’s style—too niggling. Loses the charm in trying to be too correct.”

He was disturbed by the opening of a door, and a sudden swelling of voices towards him. He half turned in his chair with the momentary impatience of a thinker disturbed.

“Let us look it up under ‘hygiene.’”

The library door opened, and the invasion displayed itself.

“We want to look at the encyclopædia, James.”

“It’s there!”