Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Barbecue-Smith arrived in time for tea on Saturday afternoon.
He was a short and corpulent man, with a very large head and no
neck. In his earlier middle age he had been distressed by this
absence of neck, but was comforted by reading in Balzac's "Louis
Lambert" that all the world's great men have been marked by the
same peculiarity, and for a simple and obvious reason: Greatness
is nothing more nor less than the harmonious functioning of the
faculties of the head and heart; the shorter the neck, the more
closely these two organs approach one another; argal...It was
convincing.

Mr. Barbecue-Smith belonged to the old school of journalists. He
sported a leonine head with a greyish-black mane of oddly
unappetising hair brushed back from a broad but low forehead.
And somehow he always seemed slightly, ever so slightly, soiled.
In younger days he had gaily called himself a Bohemian. He did
so no longer. He was a teacher now, a kind of prophet. Some of
his books of comfort and spiritual teaching were in their hundred
and twentieth thousand.

Priscilla received him with every mark of esteem. He had never
been to Crome before; she showed him round the house. Mr.
Barbecue-Smith was full of admiration.

"So quaint, so old-world," he kept repeating. He had a rich,
rather unctuous voice.

Priscilla praised his latest book. "Splendid, I thought it was,"
she said in her large, jolly way.

"I'm happy to think you found it a comfort," said Mr. Barbecue-
Smith.

"Oh, tremendously! And the bit about the Lotus Pool--I thought
that so beautiful."

"I knew you would like that. It came to me, you know, from
without." He waved his hand to indicate the astral world.

They went out into the garden for tea. Mr. Barbecue-Smith was
duly introduced.

"Mr. Stone is a writer too," said Priscilla, as she introduced
Denis.

"Indeed!" Mr. Barbecue-Smith smiled benignly, and, looking up at
Denis with an expression of Olympian condescension, "And what
sort of things do you write?"

Denis was furious, and, to make matters worse, he felt himself
blushing hotly. Had Priscilla no sense of proportion? She was
putting them in the same category--Barbecue-Smith and himself.
They were both writers, they both used pen and ink. To Mr.
Barbecue-Smith's question he answered, "Oh, nothing much,
nothing," and looked away.

"Mr. Stone is one of our younger poets." It was Anne's voice.
He scowled at her, and she smiled back exasperatingly.

"Excellent, excellent," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith, and he squeezed
Denis's arm encouragingly. "The Bard's is a noble calling."

As soon as tea was over Mr. Barbecue-Smith excused himself; he