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"Ah but what becomes of friendship?" Mr. Longdon earnestly and pleadingly asked, while he still held Vanderbank's arm as if under the spell of the vivid explanation supplied him.

The young man met his eyes only the more sociably. "Friendship?"

"Friendship." Mr. Longdon maintained the full value of the word.

"Well," his companion risked, "I dare say it isn't in London by any means what it is at Beccles. I quite literally mean that," Vanderbank reassuringly added; "I never really have believed in the existence of friendship in big societies—in great towns and great crowds. It's a plant that takes time and space and air; and London society is a huge 'squash,' as we elegantly call it—an elbowing pushing perspiring chattering mob."

"Ah I don't say THAT of you!" the visitor murmured with a withdrawal of his hand and a visible scruple for the sweeping concession he had evoked.

"Do say it then—for God's sake; let some one say it, so that something or other, whatever it may be, may come of it! It's impossible to say too much—it's impossible to say enough. There isn't anything any one can say that I won't agree to."