Perhaps I worked too hard, or the Oxford climate after the Cotswold air got me down. Within a fortnight I was feeling nohowish, as Keats called it.

[…] his thick, iron-gray hair was brushed straight back from his forehead. It was so long that it bushed out behind his ears […]

a ginger snap

On the principle that two heads are better than one, he resolved to take his companion, Jones, into his confidence and ask him to make a suggestion.