"That's all right," said Crump when the bandaging was replaced. "It's a trick of memory, no doubt, but these excrescences of yours don't seem nearly so large as they did yesterday. I suppose they struck me rather forcibly. Stop and have lunch with me now you're down here. Midday meal, you know. The youngsters will be swallowed up by school again in the afternoon."

 

"I never saw anything heal so well in my life," he said, as they walked into the dining-room. "Your blood and flesh must be as clean and free from bacteria as they make 'em. Whatever stuff there is in your head," he added sotto voce.

 

At lunch he watched the Angel narrowly, and talked to draw him out.

 

[Pg 136]

 

"Journey tire you yesterday?" he said suddenly.

 

"Journey!" said the Angel. "Oh! my wings felt a little stiff."

 

("Not to be had,") said Crump to himself. ("Suppose I must enter into it.")

 

"So you flew all the way, eigh? No conveyance¹?"

 

"There wasn't any way," explained the Angel, taking mustard. "I was flying up a symphony with some Griffins and Fiery² Cherubim, and suddenly everything went dark and I was in this world of yours."

 

"Dear me!" said Crump. "And that's why you haven't any luggage." He drew his serviette across his mouth, and a smile flickered³ in his eyes.

 

"I suppose you know this world of ours pretty well? Watching us over the adamantine walls and all that kind of thing. Eigh?"

 

"Not very well. We dream of it sometimes. In the moonlight, when the Nightmares have fanned us to sleep with their wings."

 

"Ah, yes—of course," said Crump. "Very[Pg 137] poetical⁴ way of putting it. Won't you take some Burgundy? It's just beside you."

 

"There's a persuasion⁵ in this world, you know, that Angels' Visits are by no means infrequent. Perhaps some of your—friends have travelled? They are supposed to come down to deserving persons in prisons, and do refined Nautches and that kind of thing. Faust business, you know."

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