Page:Edgar Jepson--the four philanthropists.djvu/178

170 We were affluent, too, after having endured hard times; an agreeable position. Our tastes were simple, and Angel grew a better and better housekeeper. A gentle, continuous stream of briefs began to flow in. I made Angel happier by letting her write the reviews of a good many of the novels sent to me. She had a natural good judgment, and I only had to rewrite or later correct them into the befitting English.

But if we, in our simplicity, were content, and disposed to be careless of the fact that the G. P. R. C. was doing no business, Chelubai and Bottiger shared neither our content nor our carelessness. The passion for practical philanthropy had taken hold of them. Their consciences were harassed by the need to be actively furthering the progress of Humanity. They were for ever harping on the question of removals, and kept me busy considering and rejecting their suggestions.

At last it fell to me to come to the aid of their distressed consciences. I was walking along Fleet Street late one bitterly cold December afternoon, when a very shabby young man gave me a glance of half-recognition, and hurried by me with a shame-faced air. For a moment I could not remember him, then knew him for Marmaduke Jubb, a son of Jubb and Symons' famous Ne Plus Ultra Pickles, whom I had coached for his Pass degree at Oxford some four years before. I called after him, "Hallo, Jubb!"