He was never seen without the books and the umbrella, and was supposed (by the lighter wits of the Persian MS.

room) to go to bed with them in his little brick villa in the neighbourhood of Shepherd's Bush.

There he lived with three sisters, ladies of solid goodness, but sinister demeanour.

His life was happy, as are almost all the lives of methodical students, but one would not have called it exhilarating.

His only hours of exhilaration occurred when his friend, Basil Grant, came into the house, late at night, a tornado of conversation.
Basil, though close on sixty, had moods of boisterous babyishness, and these seemed for some reason or other to descend upon him particularly in the house of his studious and almost dingy friend.