Perishable Goods

It was in October, 1926, that George Hanbury and I first set up house in Wiltshire; and, since for the next six months we hunted four days a week, yet would commit to no one the pleasant task of setting our home in order, I do not think we slept out of Maintenance—for from time immemorial that has been the name of the place—more than seven times. But two of the visits I paid stand out of my memory, and, as they bear upon the matters which I am to tell, I will set them down.In the first week of December the wedding of one of my cousins took me to town. Now neither Hanbury nor I would have dreamed of visiting London without calling on Jonathan Mansel, whose flat was in Cleveland Row; for we three had made our fortune together and together had proved the stuff of which friendship is made.