seldom, Jack," said I, "and never played yourself so false as to listen; while as for the notes----!"

I took up his book which he had flung upon the table. It contained naught but pictures of the Professor in divers humiliating attitudes, with John Larke ever towering above him, his honest features twisted into so heroical an expression of scorn as set me laughing till my sides ached.

He snatched the book from my hand, and flung it into a corner. "There!" said he. "It may go to the dust-hole and Pliny with it, to rot in company." And the Latin volume followed the note-book. Whereupon, with a sigh of relief, he lifted a brace of pistols from a shelf, and began industriously to scour and polish them, though indeed their locks and barrels shone like silver as it was. For my part, I plumped myself down before this very ode of Horace; and so for a while, each in his own way, we worked silently. Ever and again, however, he would look up and towards me, and then, with an impatient shrug, settle to his task again. At last he could contain no longer.

"Lord!" he burst out, "what a sick world it is! Here am I, fitted for a roving life under open skies, and plucked out of God's design by the want of a few pence."

"You may yet sit on the bench," said I, to console him.

"Ay, lad," he answered, "I might if I had sufficient roguery to supply my lack of wits." Then he suddenly turned on me. "And here are you," he said, "who could journey east and west, and never sleep twice beneath the same roof, breaking your back mewed up over a copy of Horace!"

At that moment I was indeed stretched full-length upon a sofa, but I had no mind to set him right. The tirade was passing old to me, and replies were but fresh fuel to keep it flickering. However, he had not yet done.

"I believe," he continued, "you would sooner solve a knot in Aristotle than lead out the finest lady in Europe to dance a pavan with you."

"That is true," I replied. "I should be no less afraid of her than you of Aristotle."

"Morrice," said he solemnly, "I do verily believe you have naught but fish-blood in your veins."

Whereat I laughed, and he, coming over to me:

"Why, man," he cried, "had I your fortune on my back----"

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