made his acquaintance! Feel impelled to ask, as I do rather nervously,
not knowing if a bitter disappointment does not await me.

"Do you--er--take legal pupils ever?"

I feel that I've put it in a way that sounds like asking him if he
indulges in drink. But FIBBINS evidently not offended. He answers
briskly, with engaging candour.

"Well, to tell you the truth, though I've often been asked to--quite
pestered about it, in fact--I've never done so hitherto. The
Solicitors don't like it quite--makes 'em think one is wasting the
time which ought to be given to their briefs on one's own pups--I mean
pupils."

Perhaps, after all, FIBBINS will dash my hopes (of becoming his
"pup!" _Query_, isn't the word _infra dig._--or merely "pleasantly
colloquial?") to the ground.

"I was," I say boldly, "going to ask you if you would let _me_ read
with you."

"Were you?" replies DICK, apparently intensely astonished at the idea;
"By Jove! I should be really sorry to disappoint _you_. Yes," he goes
on in a burst of generosity, "I will make room for you--there!"

This is really kind of DICK FIBBINS. We finally arrange that I am to
come in two days' time--at the usual, and rather pretentious, fee of
one hundred guineas for a year's "coaching"--and begin work.