THE AWKWARD AGE
region to his interlocutor in a favorable light. Vanderbank, for that matter, had the kind of imagination that liked to place an object, even to the point of losing sight of it in the conditions; he already saw the nice old nook it must have taken to keep a man of intelligence so fresh while suffering him to remain so fine. The product of Beccles accepted at all events a cigarette—still much as a joke and an adventure—and looked about him as if even more pleased than he had expected. Then he broke, through his double eye-glass, into an exclamation that was like a passing pang of envy and regret. "You young men, you young men—!"
"Well, what about us?" Vanderbank's tone encouraged the courtesy of the reference. "I'm not so young, moreover, as that comes to."
"How old are you then, pray?"
"Why, I'm thirty-four."
"What do you call that? I'm a hundred and three!" Mr. Longdon took out his watch. "It's only a quarter past eleven." Then with a quick change of interest, "What did you say is your public office?" he inquired.
"The General Audit. I'm Deputy Chairman."
"Dear!" Mr. Longdon looked at him as if he had fifty windows. "What a head you must have!"
"Oh yes—our head's Sir Digby Dence."
"And what do we do for you?"
"Well, you gild the pill—though not perhaps very thick. But it's a decent berth."
"A thing a good many fellows would give a pound of their flesh for?"
The old man appeared so to deprecate too faint a picture that his companion dropped all scruples. "I'm the most envied man I know—so that if I were a shade less amiable I should be one of the most hated."
Mr. Longdon laughed, yet not quite as if they were joking. "I see. Your pleasant way carries it off."
6
