would have served him right to have christened him 'Oliver.'"

I laughed heartily, for he was fighting himself again by gibing at me. He
sent off the old man to scour the pantry for a supper for me, and then
pushed open the door and led me into the room.

For size and dignity, it was a room to take away the breath of a poor
yeoman. It seemed to me a Sabbath day's journey to the great blazing
hearth, where two men were sitting; the high white ceiling was moulded
into a wondrous design, with great carved pendants hanging from it like
icicles from the eaves of the Hanyards. Many bookcases ran half-way up the
walls round the greater part of the room, filled with stores of books such
as my heart had never dreamed of, great leather-bound folios by platoons,
and quartos by regiments. If I could get permission I would steal an hour
or two from sleep to eye them over, and as we walked towards the hearth I
got behind my host in my slowness and had to step up smartly to get level
with him to make my bow of introduction. I gasped with the shock as I
stepped into the arms of Master John Freake.

"My dear lad," he cried, "what luck! What luck! How are you? How are they?"

He made me sit down beside him, for here as elsewhere he was easily the
most important man present, though his bearing was ever quiet and modest.
He spoke of me to Sir James in warm and kindly phrases, and it soon became
manifest that his good word was a passport into my host's confidence and
regard. The three gentlemen filled their glasses and toasted me with grave
courtesy, and I easily slid out of the uneasy mood into which Inskip's
candour and my unaccustomed surroundings had driven me.

The third man present was a Welsh baronet, Sir Griffith Williams, a