"Oh, things are bright and pleasant enough." Through the wide window there
appeared, half a mile away, the square twin towers of the University
library, reminiscent of Oxford and Ely. Round them lesser towers and
gables, scholastic in their gray stone, rose above the trees of the campus.
Beyond all these a level line of watery blue ran for miles and provided an
eventless horizon. A bright and pleasant enough sight indeed, but nothing
for Joe Foster.

"Well, let me by," he said, "and we'll get along to my own room." The
resonant bigness of the "gallery" was far removed from the intimate and the
sociable.

To the side of this bare place, with its canvases which had become rather
demode--or at least had long ceased to interest--lay two bed-chambers:
Foster's own, and one adjoining, which was classed as a spare room. It was
sometimes given over to visiting luminaries of lesser magnitudes. Real
celebrities--those of national or international fame--were entertained in a
sumptuous suite on the floor below. Casual young bachelors, who sometimes
happened along, were lodged above and were expected to adjust themselves,
as regarded the bathroom, to the use and wont of the occupant adjoining.

Foster's own room was a cramped omnium gatherum, cluttered with the
paraphernalia of daily living. It was somewhat disordered and untidy--the
chamber of a man who could never see clearly how things were, or be
completely sure just what he was about.

"There's Pepys up there," he said, pointing to his bookshelf, as he worked
out of his chair and tried to dispose himself comfortably on a couch. "I
hope we're going to get along a little farther with him, some time."