Page:The Criterion - Volume 4.djvu/62

 chary of fixing his eyeglass in the presence of the rich. With them, he never felt quite sure that he had a right to his monocle. He felt himself a parvenu to monocularity. And then there were the intelligent. Their company, too, was most unfavourable to the eyeglass. Eyeglassed, how could one talk of serious things? 'Mozart,' you might say, for example; 'Mozart is so pure, so spiritually beautiful.' It was unthinkable to speak those words with a disk of crystal screwed into your left eye-socket. No, the environment was only too rarely favourable. Still, benignant circumstances did sometimes present themselves. Hermione’s half-Bohemian parties, for example. But he had reckoned without Paxton.

Amused, amazed, he laughed. As though by accident, the monocle dropped from his eye.

'Oh, put it back,' cried Paxton, 'put it back, I implore you,' and himself caught the glass, where it dangled over Gregory’s stomach, and tried to replace it.

Gregory stepped back; with one hand he pushed away his persecutor, with the other he tried to snatch the monocle from between his fingers. Paxton would not let it go.

'I implore you,' Paxton kept repeating.

'Give it me at once,' said Gregory, furiously, but in a low voice, so that people should not look round and see the grotesque cause of the quarrel. He had never been so outrageously made a fool of.

Paxton gave it him at last. 'Forgive me,' he said, with mock penitence. 'Forgive a poor drunken colonial who doesn’t know what’s done in the best society and what isn’t. You must remember I'm only a boozer, just a poor hard working drunkard. You know those registration forms they give you in French hotels? Name, date of birth and so on. You know?'

Gregory nodded, with dignity.

'Well, when it comes to profession, I always write