wonder! Foodless he had gone into futurity, foodless he still was. I
urged him to eat, at any rate, some bread. It was maddening to think that
he, who had so much to tell, might tell nothing. "How was it all," I
asked, "yonder? Come, tell me your adventures!"

"They'd make first-rate 'copy,' wouldn't they?"

"I'm awfully sorry for you, Soames, and I make all possible
allowances; but what earthly right have you to insinuate that I should
make 'copy,' as you call it, out of you?"

The poor fellow pressed his hands to his forehead.

"I don't know," he said. "I had some reason, I know. I'll try to
remember. He sat plunged in thought.

"That's right. Try to remember everything. Eat a little more bread.
What did the reading-room look like?"

"Much as usual," he at length muttered.

"Many people there?"

"Usual sort of number."

"What did they look like?"

Soames tried to visualize them.

"They all," he presently remembered, "looked very like one