He could never make out how he had attained the footing of intimacy in the Dunster mansion above the bay--whether on the ground of personal merit or as the pioneer of the vegetable silk industry.

It must have been the last, because he remembered distinctly, as distinctly as in a dream, hearing old Dunster once telling him that his next public task would be a careful survey of the Northern Districts to discover tracts suitable for the cultivation of the silk plant.

The old man wagged his beard at him sagely.

It was indeed as absurd as a dream.
Willie of course would be there in the evening.

But he was more of a figure out of a nightmare, hovering about the circle of chairs in his dress-clothes like a gigantic, repulsive, and sentimental bat.