"Well, well, I should never have believed it. Old Norpois doesn't at all disapprove of your idea of taking up writing," my father had reported. And as he had a certain amount of influence himself, he imagined that there was nothing that could not be "arranged", no problem for which a happy solution might not be found in the conversation of people who "counted". "I shall bring him back to dinner, one of these days, from the Commission.