“Can it have been, after all,” Wolf thought, “just a piece of incredibly subtle cunning, worthy of the father of all water-rats, that chat about the maddeningness of girls’ legs? And had Gerda too, after her fashion, fooled him, as men have been fooled since the beginning of the world?”

Following Bob Weevil presently into his own “den,” Wolf thought he had never seen so many actresses’ photographs as he now beheld; and it gave him a reaction in favour of Mr. Urquhart’s vice, as he tried to avoid this concentrated feminine ogling from every wall!⁠ ⁠… However! He was soon stretching himself out in a low deck-chair comfortably enough, while his mind, as he listened to his host’s excited volubility, took its soundings of the situation.