e looked dry and
sturdy like a piece of old oak; a type of old man I was not used to
seeing.

"O, about ninety, I should say," said Dick.

"How long-lived your people must be!" said I.

"Yes," said Dick, "certainly we have beaten the threescore-and-ten of the
old Jewish proverb-book. But then you see that was written of Syria, a
hot dry country, where people live faster than in our temperate climate.
However, I don't think it matters much, so long as a man is healthy and
happy while he _is_ alive. But now, Guest, we are so near to my old
kinsman's dwelling-place that I think you had better keep all future
questions for him."

I nodded a yes; and therewith we turned to the left, and went down a
gentle slope through some beautiful rose-gardens, laid out on what I took
to be the site of Endell Street. We passed on, and Dick drew rein an
instant as we came across a long straightish road with houses scantily
scattered up and down it. He waved his hand right and left, and said,
"Holborn that side, Oxford Road that. This was once a very important
part of the crowded city outside the ancient walls of the Roman and
Mediaeval burg: many of the feudal nobles of the Middle Ages, we are
told, had big houses on either side of Holborn. I daresay you remember
that the Bishop of Ely's house is mentioned in Shakespeare's play of King
Richard III.; and there are some remains of that still left. However,
this road is not of the same importance, now that the ancient city is
gone, walls and all."

He drove on again, while I smiled faintly to think how the nineteenth
century, of which such big words have been said, counted for nothing in
the memory of this man, who read Shakespeare and had not forgotten the
Middle Ages.

We crossed the road into a short narrow lane between the gardens, and
came out again into a wide road, on one side of which was a great and
long building, turning its gables away from the highway, which I saw at
once was another public group. Opposite to it was a wide space of
greenery, without any wall or fence of any kind. I looked through the
trees and saw beyond them a pillared portico quite familiar to me--no
less old a friend, in fact, than the British Museum. It rather took my
breath away, amidst all the strange things I had seen; but I held my
tongue and let Dick speak. Said he:

"Yonder is the British Museum, where my great-grandfather mostly lives;
so I won't say much about it. The building on t