'The way servants treat flowers!' she said hastily. She drew a green vase with a crinkled lip towards her, and began pulling out the tight little chrysanthemums, which she laid on the table-cloth, arranging them fastidiously side by side.
There was a pause.
'You knew Jenkinson, didn't you, Ambrose?' asked Mr. Pepper across the table.
'Jenkinson of Peterhouse?'
'He's dead,' said Mr. Pepper.
'Ah, dear!--I knew him--ages ago,' said Ridley. 'He was the hero of the punt accident, you remember? A queer card. Married a young woman out of a tobacconist's, and lived in the Fens--never heard what became of him.'
'Drink--drugs,' said Mr. Pepper with sinister conciseness. 'He left a commentary. Hopeless muddle, I'm told.'
'The man had really great abilities,' said Ridley.
'His introduction to Jellaby holds its own still,' went on Mr. Pepper, 'which is surprising, seeing how text-books change.'
'There was a theory about the planets, wasn't there?' asked Ridley.
'A screw loose somewhere, no doubt of it,' said Mr. Pepper, shaking his head. Now a tremor ran through the table, and a light outside swerved. At the same time an electric bell rang sharply again and again.
'We're off,' said Ridley.
A slight but perceptible wave seemed to roll beneath the floor; then it sank; then another came, more perceptible. Lights slid right across the uncurtained window. The ship gave a loud melancholy moan.
'We're off!' said Mr. Pepper. Other ships, as sad as she, answered her outside on the river. The chuckling and hissing of water could be plainly heard, and the ship heaved so that the steward bringing plates had to balance himself as he drew the curtain. There was a pause.
'Jenkinson of Cats--d'you still keep up with him?' asked Ambrose.
'As much as one ever does,' said Mr. Pepper. 'We meet annually. This year he has had the misfortune to lose his wife, which made it painful, of course.'
'Very painful,' Ridley agreed.
'There's an unmarried daughter who keeps house for him, I believe, but it's never the same, not at his age.'
Both gentlemen nodded sagely as they carved their apples.
'There was a book, wasn't there?' Ridley enquired.
'There _was_ a book, but there never _will_ be a book,' said Mr. Pepper with such fierceness that both ladies looked up at him.
'There never will be a book, because some one else has written it for him,' said Mr. Pepper with considerable acidity. 'That's what comes of putting things off, and collecting fossils, and sticking Norman arches on one's pigsties.'
'I confess I sympathise,' said Ridley with a melancholy sigh. 'I have a weakness for people who can't begin.'
'. . . The accumulations of a lifetime wasted,' continued Mr. pepper. 'He had accumulations enough to fill a barn.'
'It's a vice that some of us escape,' said Ridley. 'Our friend Miles has another work out to-day.'
Mr. Pepper gave an acid little laugh. 'According to my calculations,' he said, 'he has produced two volumes and a half annually, which, allowing for time spent in the cradle and so forth, shows a commendable industry.'
'Yes, the old Master's saying of him has been pretty well realised,' said Ridley.
'A way they had,' said Mr. Pepper. 'You know the Bruce collection?--not for publication, of course.'
