facsimiles and collated texts of the classics are familiar throughout the
world. He has independent means, and from time to time entertains
English and foreign _cognoscenti_ with elegant simplicity at his
wonderful house in Kensington. His conversation is more informing than
brilliant. Yet you may detect an unaccountable melancholy in his voice
and manner, attributed by the irreverent to his constant visits to the
Museum. Religious people, of course, refer to his loss of faith at
Oxford; for I regret to say the Professor has been an habitual
freethinker these many years.

However it may be, Professor Lachsyrma is sad, and has not yet issued his
edition of the newly discovered poems of Sappho unearthed in Egypt some
time since--an edition awaited so impatiently by poets and scholars.

Some years ago, on retiring from his official appointment, Professor
Lachsyrma, being a married man, searched for some apartment remote from
his home, where he might work undisturbed at labours long since become
important pleasures. You cannot grapple with uncials, cursives, and the
like in a domestic environment. The preparation of facsimiles,
transcripts, and palaeographical observations, reports of excavations and
catalogues, demands isolation and complete immunity from the trivialities
of social existence.

In a large Bloomsbury studio he found a retreat suitable to his
requirements. The uninviting entrance, up a stone staircase leading
immediately from the street, was open till nightfall, the rest of the
house being used for storage by second-hand dealers in Portland Street.
No one slept on the premises, but a caretaker came at stated intervals to
light fires and close the front door; for which, however, the Professor
owned a pass-key, each room having, as in modern flats, an independent