What was the matter with everybody?
What had he done?
"Well, I'll go and change," he said.
"Dinner will be ready in ten minutes, dear," said his mother.
"I'll be in time all right," he said.
At the door he almost ran into Mr.Thurston.This gentleman had been described, on some earlier occasion, by an unfriendly observer as "the Suburban Savonarola." He was tall and extremely thin with a bony pointed face that was in some lights grey and in others white.

He had the excited staring eyes of a fanatic, and his hair now very scanty, was plastered over his head in black shining streaks.

He wore a rather faded black suit, a white low collar and a white bow tie.

He had a habit, at moments of stress, of cracking his fingers.

He had a very pronounced cockney accent when he was excited, at other times he struggled against this with some success.
He passed from brooding silences into sudden bursts of declamation with such abruptness that strangers thought him very eloquent.