Free Walk with Care by Patricia Wentworth Page B

would go down to Bournemouth in the afternoon, speak in the evening, take a well earned rest on the Sunday, and return to town on Monday for a mass meeting at the Albert Hall.
    Principals may rest, but secretaries must work. The Bournemouth speech being disposed of, the Albert Hall speech must be pruned, polished and perfected. It had to be rather a special speech—short, because, where Prime Ministers jostle one another, even a Bernard Mannister must curb the flow of his oratory and compress to ten minutes the wit, eloquence and wisdom of a full length speech. The wit and wisdom were Mannister’s. The task of compressing them without detracting from the eloquence with which they were presented was Jeremy Ware’s. It was a perfectly damnable task. Whenever he cut anything out Mannister insisted on putting it back, and the speech as it stood took an hour to declaim. Obviously, something had to be done. Mannister’s attitude became more and more that of the hierophant who defends his oracle from a sacrilegious mob. By four o’clock Jeremy began to feel as if his brains were being stewed in treacle. They had got nowhere, and Mannister had a train to catch. And then suddenly Mannister ceased to be a hierophant and became a human being—a pompous, fatuous ass of a human being, but definitely human.
    â€œBetter take a time off and come back to it. Go away and come back to it fresh. Effort prolonged beyond a certain point defeats itself—Ah! You might make a note of that! A good pithy sentence! Thought too intensely concentrated coagulates and clogs the brain.”
    â€œTreacle!” said Jeremy to himself. “That’s pithier still, you old molasses-mill!” Aloud he said, “Thank you, sir.”
    â€œGo out and take the air. Refresh yourself. Do not return before eight o’clock. You will dine here. James will attend to you. I would like you to stay until you have finished your task.”
    â€œI could take it home,” said Jeremy tentatively.
    He did not know why he said that. He was not in the least anxious to take work home. His room would be cold, and the light would be very bad. The Evans next door would in all probability be having a row—they had a very loud and dramatic row which ran as a serial most evenings between eight and ten. The piercing screams of Mrs Evans and the deep oaths of Mr Evans had lost their freshness for Jeremy, but he still found them disturbing when he had work on hand. The task of condensing Mannister’s oratory was sufficiently formidable without these handicaps.
    Mannister had assumed a Jovian frown.
    â€œI have ordered dinner for you. I should like you to finish your work here. There are a number of references, and accuracy is essential. Look up everything, even if you already feel certain of it. I am sorry to keep you so late, but it is better than attempting to go on now. ‘The mind o’er-stretched recoils upon itself like the frayed bow.’ Now where did I get that from? A good example, I believe, of the—er. … Now is it paralipsis? … No. … Paralogism? Metastasis? … No, it eludes me. It is, of course, the string that is frayed and not the bow, but the word which describes the transference of an image in this manner escapes me.” He turned away with a gesture which relinquished the escaping word. “I have my train to catch. A life of public service has its penalties. Sometimes I long for leisure. But I must hurry. Don’t wait about when I have gone. Return refreshed—but not until eight o’clock.”
    At eight o’clock Jeremy returned. He was served with an excellent meal in the dining-room under the eyes of six ancestral portraits, a tall young footman, and old James, who was the only servant who lived in. Jeremy felt a little hustled by the eyes. He would have liked to have a book by his plate and dawdle pleasantly through dinner.
    He had coffee in the library and got