But it was really too much trouble to go down the ninety
stairs to a restaurant. It was much easier to be hungry."

"And did you ever get a reform in the hours of washing the floor?"

"Ha! ha! ha! No, they always waited till I was going to bed. I suppose
they thought I liked damp. They never got over my morning tub, you know.
And that, too, sprang a leak after you left, and helped spontaneously to
wash the floor."

"Shows the fallacy of cleanliness," said Peter, "and the inferiority of
British ideals. They never bathed in their lives, yet they looked the
pink of health."

"Yes--their complexion was high--like the fish."

"Ha! ha! Yes, the fish! That was a great luxury, I remember. About
once a month."

"Of course, the town is so inland," said Lancelot.

"I see--it took such a long time coming. Ha! ha! ha! And the Herr
Professor--is he still a bachelor?"

As the Herr Professor was a septuagenarian and a misogamist, even in
Peter's time, his question tickled Lancelot. Altogether the two young
men grew quite jolly, recalling a hundred oddities, and reknitting their
friendship at the expense of the Fatherland.

"But was there ever a more madcap expedition than ours?" exclaimed Peter.
"Most boys start out to be pirates----"

"And some do become music-publishers," Lancelot finished grimly, suddenly
reminded of a grievance.

"Ha! ha! ha! Poor fellow'" laughed Peter. "Then you _have_ found them
out already."

"Does anyone ever find them in?" flashed Lancelot. "I suppose they do
exist and are occasionally seen of mortal eyes. I suppose wives and
friends and mothers gaze on them with no sense of special privilege,
unconscious of their invisibility to the profane eyes of mere musicians."

"My dear fellow, the mere musicians are as plentiful as niggers on the
sea-shore. A publisher might spend his whole day receiving regiments of
unappreciated geniuses. Bond Street would be impassable. You look at
the publisher too much from your own standpoint."

"I tell you I don't look at him from any standpoint. That's what I
complain of. He's encircled with a prickly hedge of clerks. 'You will
hear from us.' 'It shall have our best consideration.' 'We have no
knowledge of the MS. in question.' Yes, Peter, two valuable quartets
have I lost, messing about with these villains."

"I tell you what. I'll give you an introduction to Brahmson. I know
him--privately."

"No, thank you, Peter."

"Why not?