Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER THE THIRD THE ENTERTAINMENT OF MR. DIRECK BEACHES A CLIMAX § ! ' Breakfast was in the open air, and a sunny, easygoing feast. Then the small boys laid hands on Mr. Direck and showed him the pond and the boats, while Mr. Brit- ling strolled about the lawn with Hugh, talking rather intently. And when Mr. Direck returned from the boats in a state of greatly enhanced popularity he found Mr. Britling conversing over his garden railings to what was altogether a new type of Britisher in Mr. Direck's experience. It was a tall, lean, sun-bitten youngish man of forty perhaps, in brown tweeds, looking more like the Englishman of the American illustrations than anything Mr. Direck had met hitherto. Indeed he came very near to a complete realisation of that ideal except that there was a sort of intensity about him, and that his clipped moustache had the restrained stiffness of a wiry-haired terrier. This gentleman Mr. Direck learnt was Colonel Rendezvous. He spoke in clear short sentences, they had an effect of being punched out, and he was refusing to come into the garden and talk. " Have to do my fourteen miles before lunch," he said. " You haven't seen Manning about, have you ?" " He isn't here," said Mr. Britling, and it seemed to Mr. Direck that there was the faintest ambiguity in this reply. " Have to go alone, then," said Colonel Rendezvous. " They told me that he had started to come here." " I shall motor over to Bramley High Oak for your Boy Scout festival," said Mr. Britling. " Going to have three thousand of 'em," said the Colonel. " Good show." His steely eyes seemed to search the cover of Mr. Brit- ling's garden for the missing Manning, and then He decided to give him up. " I must be going," he said. " So long. Come up! " A well-disciplined...