It was a surprise to him to find that this business of writing “immoral history” lent itself as well as it did to his natural method of expression. Each time he carried his new quota of pages up to King’s Barton Manor, Mr. Urquhart seemed more delighted than the time before. “Stick to the facts⁠ ⁠… yellow Menelaus⁠ ⁠… stick to the facts⁠ ⁠… and we’ll show ’em for all time⁠ ⁠… eh, me boy?⁠ ⁠… what our ‘wold Darset’ is made of!”

As February drew to an end, it became more and more probable that the anniversary of his reappearance in his native land⁠—the third day of March⁠—would be, as he wished to make it, the date of the book’s completion.

As to Mr. Urquhart’s cheque for two hundred pounds, it still remained where Wolf had first placed it⁠—under the stomach of Mukalog at the bottom of that unused dresser-drawer in Gerda’s kitchen.