"MY DEAR GEORGE," it ran--and I preserve it as the only letter I ever received from the world's worst correspondent--"many thanks. Delighted to come. Villiers has gone under temporarily with rheumatic fever, contracted by sitting on wet grass to watch his house being defeated in the Championship; I am knocking the Under Sixth into shape in his absence. I have achieved considerable popularity with the boys, and Burgess would like to keep me in perpetuity. It's not bad fun. Some of the kids who fagged for me in Matheson's are now grown men, about five times the size of me. As I haven't got a degree yet, of course I'm not entitled to wear a gown, and the lads despise me accordingly. Burgess, seen at close quarters as a colleague, is even greater than I thought. I have gathered from him and the common-room some hideous stories of you and Jim. Blackmail will be the prop of my declining years.--Ever yours,
I had received a conditional promise from the Daintons, and to complete my party I invited the Lorings. Amy accepted, and Jim refused. Looking back at this time I remember that it was not easy to frame an invitation that he would not refuse. It was a weariness going to other people's houses, he told me, eating strange food, not being master of his own time. Assuming that I wanted to see him, why didn't I come to House of Steynes? Smilingly but resolutely he declined to come.
Where his personal comfort was concerned Loring could be wonderfully unadaptable. "I waste a fair portion of my life in the House," he used to argue. "Do let me enjoy the rest of the time in my own way." His mother and sister caught the refrain and abetted him. Indeed, a legend grew up that he was the hardest-worked member of either House and could therefore claim indulgences in the off hours when he was not struggling heroically against the latest Radical machination.
The old controversies are dead, but Loring's theory of the House of Lords is of hardier growth. Posing as the reader of Democracy's secret thoughts, he would leave House of Steynes amid rows of bowing flunkeys, motor to the station, where the stationmaster hastened to be obsequious, and step into his reserved carriage. With a great deal of bowing and smiling the guard would lock the door that his lordship might be undisturbed till he reached London. And at Euston a chauffeur and footman would meet him. "Yes, my lord"; "No, my lord"; "Very good, my lord." It would take another four men adequately to open the great doors of Loring House, but in time, and with more assistance where needed, he would be driven down to Westminster, there to display the knowledge of social conditions and public opinion acquired in his journeyings abroad.