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"Tell her to go away." I did. Then I could hear a curious pattering upon the door, almost like some one feeling for the handle in the dark, and Pyecraft's familiar grunts. "It's all right," I said, "she's gone." But for a long time the door didn't open. I heard the key turn. Then Pyecraft's voice said, "Come in." I turned the handle and opened the door. Naturally I expected to see Pyecraft.
Pyecraft received the thing almost in tears. "To be right ways up again " he said. I gave him the whole secret before I saw where it would take me. "Buy sheet lead," I said, "stamp it into discs. Sew 'em all over your underclothes until you have enough. Have lead-soled boots, carry a bag of solid lead, and the thing is done!
I leant back in my chair. My imagination made one mighty effort and fell flat within me. "What in Heaven's name, Pyecraft," I asked, "do you think you'll look like when you get thin?" He was impervious to reason, I made him promise never to say a word to me about his disgusting fatness again whatever happened never, and then I handed him that little piece of skin. "It's nasty stuff," I said.
The little affair of Pattison to which I have alluded was a different matter altogether. What it was doesn't concern us now, but I knew, anyhow, that the particular recipe I used then was safe. The rest I didn't know so much about, and, on the whole, I was inclined to doubt their safety pretty completely. Yet even if Pyecraft got poisoned
"You ought to be a good cricketer," he said. I suppose I am slender, slender to what some people would call lean, and I suppose I am rather dark, still I am not ashamed of having a Hindu great-grandmother, but, for all that, I don't want casual strangers to see through me at a glance to her. So that I was set against Pyecraft from the beginning.
And, besides, why does he keep on eternally eating? Well, here goes for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth! Pyecraft . I made the acquaintance of Pyecraft in this very smoking-room. I was a young, nervous new member, and he saw it.
He didn't want him about. "Where are you going for your walk?" he said. "Oh, anywhere. Why?" "Well, if you happen to be in Wyck, would you mind taking these photographs back to Pyecraft and showing him the ones I've chosen? Just see that he doesn't make any stupid mistake."
Meanwhile, if the book was to be ready for publication in the spring, the photographs would have to be taken at once, before the light and the leaves were gone. So Pyecraft and Pyecraft's man came with their best camera, and photographed and photographed, as long as the fine weather lasted.
The whole affair was extremely curious and interesting to me, and it was delightful to think of Pyecraft like some great, fat blow-fly, crawling about on his ceiling and clambering round the lintels of his doors from one room to another, and never, never, never coming to the club any more.... Then, you know, my fatal ingenuity got the better of me.
"Even the smell of 'em ... No!" But after going so far Pyecraft was resolved I should go farther. I was always a little afraid if I tried his patience too much he would fall on me suddenly and smother me. I own I was weak. But I was also annoyed with Pyecraft. I had got to that state of feeling for him that disposed me to say, "Well, take the risk!"
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