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Blank,’ he said with an air of intense politeness.
    Mr Blank did. He emptied Mr Brown’s cigar box into his pocket. He drank three glasses of Mr Brown’s whiskey and soda. While William’s back was turned he filled his pockets with
the silver ornaments from the mantelpiece. He began to inspect the drawers in Mr Brown’s desk. Then:

    MR BLANK MADE HIMSELF QUITE AT HOME.
    ‘William! Come to tea!’
    ‘You stay here,’ whispered William. ‘I’ll bring you some.’
    But luck was against him. It was a visitor’s tea in the drawing-room, and Mrs de Vere Carter, a neighbour, there, in all her glory. She rose from her seat with an ecstatic murmur.
    ‘Willie! Dear child! Sweet little soul!’
    With one arm she crushed the infuriated William against her belt, with the other she caressed his hair. Then William in moody silence sat down in a corner and began to eat bread and butter.
Every time he prepared to slip a piece into his pocket, he found his mother’s or Mrs de Vere Carter’s eyes fixed upon him and hastily began to eat it himself. He sat, miserable and hot,
seeing only the heroic figure starving in the next room, and planned a raid on the larder as soon as he could reasonably depart. Every now and then he scowled across at Mrs de Vere Carter and made
a movement with his hands as though pulling a cap over his eyes. He invested even his eating with an air of dark mystery.
    Then Robert, his elder brother, came in, followed by a thin, pale man with eyeglasses and long hair.
    ‘This is Mr Lewes, Mother,’ said Robert with an air of pride and triumph. ‘He’s editor of Fiddle Strings .’
    There was an immediate stir and sensation. Robert had often talked of his famous friend. In fact Robert’s family was weary of the sound of his name, but this was the first time Robert had
induced him to leave the haunts of his genius to visit the Brown household.
    Mr Lewes bowed with a set, stern, self-conscious expression, as though to convey to all that his celebrity was more of a weight than a pleasure to him. Mrs de Vere Carter bridled and fluttered,
for Fiddle Strings had a society column and a page of scrappy ‘News of the Town’, and Mrs de Vere Carter’s greatest ambition was to see her name in print.
    Mr Lewes sat back in his chair, took his teacup as though it were a fresh addition to his responsibilities, and began to talk. He talked apparently without even breathing. He began on the
weather, drifted on to art and music, and was just beginning a monologue on The Novel, when William rose and crept from the room like a guilty spirit. He found Mr Blank under the library table,
having heard a noise in the kitchen and fearing a visitor. A cigar and a silver snuffer had fallen from his pocket to the floor. He hastily replaced them. William went up and took another look at
the wonderful ears and heaved a sigh of relief. While parted from his strange friend he had a horrible suspicion that the whole thing was a dream.
    ‘I’ll go to the larder and get you sumthin’,’ he said. ‘You jus’ stay there.’
    ‘I think, young gent,’ said Mr Blank, ‘I think I’ll just go an’ look round upstairs on the quiet like, an’ you needn’t mention it to no one.
See?’
    Again he performed the fascinating wink.
    They crept on tiptoe into the hall, but – the drawing-room door was ajar.
    ‘William!’
    William’s heart stood still. He could hear his mother coming across the room, then – she stood in the doorway. Her face filled with horror as her eyes fell upon Mr Blank.
    ‘ William! ’ she said.
    William’s feelings were beyond description. Desperately he sought for an explanation for his friend’s presence. With what pride and sangfroid had Robert announced his uninvited
guest! William determined to try it, at any rate. He advanced boldly into the drawing-room.
    ‘This is Mr Blank, Mother,’ he announced jauntily. ‘He hasn’t got no ears.’
    Mr Blank stood in the background, awaiting