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." ".