Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 1.pdf/239

Rh back on the sideboard and resuming his seat with an air of intense satisfaction. "I can assure you I have the best authority.&hellip;"

"I can assure you.&hellip;"

Crump tucked in the corners of his mouth and shook his head from side to side even as he had done to the Vicar. "No good," he said, "can't alter our ideas just because an irresponsible visitor.&hellip;"

"If these are angels," said the Angel, "then I have never been in the Angelic Land."

"Precisely," said Crump, ineffably self-satisfied; "that was just what I was getting at."

The Angel stared at him for a minute round-eyed, and then was seized for the second time by the human disorder of laughter.

"Ha, ha, ha!" said Crump, joining in. "I thought you were not quite so mad as you seemed. Ha, ha, ha!"

And for the rest of the lunch they were both very merry, for entirely different reasons, and Crump insisted upon treating the Angel as a "dorg" of the highest degree.

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the Angel had left Crump's house he went up the hill again towards the Vicarage. But—possibly moved by the desire to avoid Mrs. Gustick—he turned aside at the stile and made a detour by the Lark's Field and Bradley's Farm.

He came upon the Respectable Tramp slumbering peacefully among the wild flowers. He stopped to 207