comments upon the company with Esmeer. Esmeer was still a don; but he was nibbling, he said, at certain negotiations with the TIMES that might bring him down to London. He wanted to come to London. “We peep at things from Cambridge,” he said.
“This sort of thing,” I said, “makes London necessary. It's the oddest gathering.”
“Every one comes here,” said Esmeer. “Mostly we hate them like poison—jealousy—and little irritations—Altiora can be a horror at times—but we HAVE to come.”
“Things are being done?”
“Oh!—no doubt of it. It's one of the parts of the British machinery—that doesn't show.... But nobody else could do it.
“Two people,” said Esmeer, “who've planned to be a power—in an original way. And by Jove! they've done it!”
I did not for some time pick out Oscar Bailey, and then Esmeer showed him to me in elaborately confidential talk in a corner with a distinguished-looking stranger wearing a