“Foolish, is it not?” said Mrs Lennox to Mr Segundus. “The house has stood vacant for years and years. I ought to have sold it long ago, but when I was a child I spent several summers here which were particularly happy.”

“You are still very pale, sir,” offered Mrs Blake. “Have you eaten any thing today?”

Mr Segundus confessed that he was very hungry.

“Did not Fellowes offer to fetch your dinner?” asked Mrs Lennox in surprize.

Fellowes was presumably the negligent servant in the tiny room. Mr Segundus did not like to say that he had barely been able to rouse Fellowes to speak to him.

Fortunately, Mrs Lennox and Mrs Blake had brought an ample dinner with them and Fellowes was, at that moment, preparing it. Half an hour later the two ladies and Mr Segundus sat down to dine in an oak-panelled room with a melancholy view of autumn trees. The only slight inconvenience was that the two ladies wished Mr Segundus, in his invalid character, to eat light, easily digestible foods, whereas in truth he was very hungry and wanted fried beefsteaks and hot pudding.

The two ladies were glad of a companion and asked him a great many questions about himself. They were most interested to learn that he was a magician; they had never met one before.

“And have you found any magical texts in my library?” asked Mrs Lennox.

“None, madam,” said Mr Segundus. “But magical books, valuable ones, are very rare indeed. I would have been most surprized to find any.”

“Now that I think of it,” mused Mrs Lennox, “I believe there were a few. But I sold them all years ago to a gentleman who lived near York. Just between ourselves I thought him a little foolish to pay me such a great sum for books no one wanted. But perhaps he was wise after all.”

Mr Segundus knew that “the gentleman who lived near York” had probably not paid Mrs Lennox one quarter the proper value of the books, but it does no good to say such things out loud and so he smiled politely, and kept his reflections to himself.

He told them about his pupils, both male and female, and how clever they were and how eager to learn.

“And since you encourage them with such praise,” said Mrs Blake, kindly, “they are sure to fare better under your tutelage than they would with any other master.”

“Oh! I do not know about that,” said Mr Segundus.

“I had not quite understood before,” said Mrs Lennox, with a thoughtful air, “how universally popular the study of magic has become. I had thought that it was confined to those two men in London. What are their names? Presumably, Mr Segundus, the next step is a school for magicians? Doubtless that is where you will direct your energies?”

“A school!” said Mr Segundus. “Oh! But that would require – well, I do not know what exactly – but a great deal of money and a house.”