"Well--do you mean to take it?" he asked, with a lingering coquetry.

"Take it? Take it, my dear fellow? It's in press already--you'll
excuse my not waiting to consult you? There will be no difficulty
about terms, I assure you, and we had barely time to catch the
autumn market. My dear Linyard, why didn't you _tell_ me?" His voice
sank to a reproachful solemnity, and he pushed forward his own
arm-chair.

The Professor dropped into it with a chuckle. "And miss the joy of
letting you find out?"

"Well--it _was_ a joy." Harviss held out a box of his best cigars.
"I don't know when I've had a bigger sensation. It was so deucedly
unexpected--and, my dear fellow, you've brought it so exactly to the
right shop."

"I'm glad to hear you say so," said the Professor modestly.

Harviss laughed in rich appreciation. "I don't suppose you had a
doubt of it; but of course I was quite unprepared. And it's so
extraordinarily out of your line--"

The Professor took off his glasses and rubbed them with a slow
smile.

"Would you have thought it so--at college?"

Harviss stared. "At college?--Why, you were the most iconoclastic