"Three hours!"--again the look.

"And this is the worst secret I have discovered,"--and I pointed to
those literary Manicheans.

"Oh!" said he, carelessly, "French novels! I don't wonder you stayed so
long. I can't read your English novels,--flat and insipid; there are
truth and life here."

"Truth and life!" cried I, every hair on my head erect with
astonishment. "Then hurrah for falsehood and death!"

"They don't please you,--no accounting for tastes."

"I beg your pardon,--I account for yours, if you really take for truth
and life monsters so nefast and flagitious. For Heaven's sake, my dear
fellow, don't suppose that any man could get on in England,--get
anywhere but to the Old Bailey or Norfolk Island,--if he squared his
conduct to such topsy-turvy notions of the world as I find here."

"How many years are you my senior," asked Vivian, sneeringly, "that you
should play the mentor and correct my ignorance of the world?"

"Vivian, it is not age and experience that speak here, it is something
far wiser than they,--the instinct of a man's heart and a gentleman's
honor."

"Well, well," said Vivian, rather discomposed, "let the poor books
alone; you know my creed--that books influence us little one way or the