Mr. Urquhart, however, seemed in a fussy, preoccupied, fidgetty mood that morning. He kept bringing books from the shelves and placing them on his secretary’s table; and then, after he had opened them and read a passage or two, muttering “That’s good, isn’t it? That’s the kind of thing we want, isn’t it?” he would return them to the shelves and bring back others. Wolf was not very much helped by these manoeuvres. In fact, he was teased and nonplussed. He was anxious to find out exactly how much of a free hand he was going to be allowed, and he was also anxious to find out what definite ideas the Squire of King’s Barton already had. This erratic tumbling about of old folios, this hunting for nothing but whimsical and scandalous passages, seemed waste of time on that first morning.

“Have you any plan, any synopsis made out, Sir, such as I could enlarge upon?”