Lord Burlingham was a selfmade man. He had run barefoot, he had sold papers in the streets. He had acquired a fortune, bought a country estate, joined the Labour Party and been wafted to the House of Lords upon one of those occasions when the Tory majority there was proving more than usually irritating. There may have been other reasons. It was said that he did not bow very complacently to the Party yoke, and that he was developing an inconvenient habit of getting up in the Commons and saying what he really thought. There may have been a feeling that it would be safer to let him say it somewhere else.

He stood in the village street polishing his face with a red and green bandanna and telling Mr. Plowden that Edward Random was going to succeed old Barr.

“And someone had better tell Arnold Random before we all meet on the Bench next week, or I shall do it myself, and perhaps I had better not! He might have a fit! Hates my guts, you know-thinks I’m common! And so I am! What’s wrong with it? Common sense, common law, the common people of England -what’s the matter with any of them?”

His voice with its broad accent and occasional uncertainty over an aitch rang out vigorously and reached the ladies in the fish queue. Old Mr. Plowden’s quavering “Certainly-certainly, my dear fellow,” was carried away by the wind.

That was a little time ago. And now Emmeline sat behind her gimcrack table and counted heads. “The Vicar and Mrs. Ball-Mildred Blake-Dr. Croft and Cyril-four, and myself five-and Susan should be here at any moment, only of course she may have taken the later train-six-or is it seven? Then Edward-” Impossible to say. So nice if he and Susan could have met and come up together.