Again I examined the screed. 🔊 "Immajnari." But here Soames was, no more imaginary, alas! 🔊 than I. 🔊 And "labud”—what on earth was that? 🔊 (To this day I have never made out that word.) 🔊 "It's all very—baffling," I at length stammered. 🔊

Soames said nothing, but cruelly did not cease to look at me. 🔊

"Are you sure," I temporized, "quite sure you copied the thing out correctly?" 🔊

"Quite." 🔊

"Well, then, it's this wretched Nupton who must have made—must be going to make—some idiotic mistake. 🔊 Look here Soames, you know me better than to suppose that I— 🔊 After all, the name Max Beerbohm is not at all an uncommon one, and there must be several Enoch Soameses running around, or, rather, Enoch Soames is a name that might occur to any one writing a story. 🔊 And I don't write stories; I'm an essayist, an observer, a recorder. 🔊 I admit that it's an extraordinary coincidence. But you must see—" 🔊

"I see the whole thing," said Soames, quietly. 🔊 And he added, with a touch of his old manner, but with more dignity than I had ever known in him, "Parlons d'autre chose." 🔊

I accepted that suggestion very promptly. 🔊 I returned straight to the more immediate future. 🔊 I spent most of the long evening in renewed appeals to Soames to come away and seek refuge somewhere. 🔊 I remember saying at last that if indeed I was destined to write about him, the supposed "stauri" had better have at least a happy ending. 🔊 Soames repeated those last three words in a tone of intense scorn. 🔊