'Where did you get this, may I ask?'

'I want your opinion first, and then I will tell you.'

The Professor moved towards the lamp, replaced the cardboard green shade,
sat down, and with a strong magnifying-glass examined the papyrus with
evident interest. Carrel, appreciating the interest he was exciting,
talked on in rapid jerky sentences.

'Yes. I think you will be able to help me. I am sure you will do so.
Like yourself, I am a scholar, and might have occupied a position in
Europe similar to your own.'

The Professor smiled grimly, but did not look up from the table as Carrel
continued:

'Mine has been a strange career. I was educated abroad. I became a
scholar at Cambridge. There was no prize I did not carry off. I knew
more Greek than both Universities put together. Then I was cursed not
only with inclination for vices, but with capacity and courage to
practise them--liquor, extravagance, gambling--amusements for rich
people; but I was poor.'

'It is a very sad and a very common story,' said the Professor
sententiously, but without looking up from the table. 'I myself was an
Oxford man. Your name is quite unfamiliar to me.'

'I fancy if you asked them at Cambridge they would certainly remember
me.'