He said very little, and looked at nobody, until some casual remark of his made somebody look at him.  Then he began to talk, laconically at first, and finally with great fluency.  It was all about himself, and everybody listened.  He proved a good talker, as a man ought to be who has knocked about four continents and seen strange men and stranger women.  You could tell that Miss Batchelor was interested, for she had turned round in her chair now and was looking him straight in the face.  It seemed that he had worked his way out to Bombay and back again.  He had been reporter to half-a-dozen provincial papers.  He had been tutor to Somebody’s son at some place not specified.  He had tried his hand at comic journalism in London and at cattle-driving in Texas, and had been half-way to glory as a captain of irregulars in the Soudanese war.  No, nobody was more surprised than himself when that mystic old man left him Thorneytoft.  He thought he had chucked civilization for good.  For good?  But—­after his exciting life—­wouldn’t he find civilization a little—­dull? (Miss Batchelor had a way of pointing her sentences as if she were speaking in parables.) Not in the country, there was hardly enough of it there, and he had never tried being a country gentleman before; he rather wanted to see what it was like.  Wouldn’t it be a little hard, if he had never—?  He thought not.  The first thing he should do would be to get some decent hunters.

Hunters were all very well, but had he no hobbies?  No, he had not; the bona fide country gentleman never had hobbies.  They were kept by amateur gentlemen retired from business to the suburbs.  Here Sir Peter observed that talking of hobbies, old Mr. Tyson had a perfect—­er—­mania for orchids; he spent the best part of his life in his greenhouse.  Mr. Nevill Tyson thought he would rather spend his in Calcutta at once.

A dark lean man who had arrived with Tyson was seen to smile frequently during the above dialogue.  Miss Batchelor caught him doing it and turned to Tyson.  “Captain Stanistreet seemed rather amused at the notion of your being a fine old country gentleman.”

“Stanistreet?  I daresay.  But he knows nothing about it, I assure you.  He has the soul of a cabman.  He measures everything by its distance from Charing Cross.”

“I see.  And you—­are all for green fields and idyllic simplicity?”

He bowed, as much as to say, “I am, if you say so.”

Miss Batchelor became instantly self-possessed.

“You won’t like it.  Nothing happens here; nothing ever will happen.  You will be dreadfully bored.”

“If I am bored I shall get something to do.  I shall dissipate myself in a bland parochial patriotism.  I can feel it coming on already.  When I once get my feet on a platform I shall let myself go.”

“Do.  You’ll astonish our simple Arcadian farmers.  Nothing but good old Tory melodrama goes down here.  Are you equal to that?”