shed, its air was the pure air of the
mountains and the way to it through things green and lovely. To the
new we went through squalid streets, westward, toward the river; we
turned into a dilapidated tenement; we climbed three flights of rickety
stairs into a room which compared to mine as mine to the house of Rufus
Blight. The lighted gas revealed hardly more than a narrow cell, with
dirty, torn paper on the walls, a narrow bed, a cheap table, and a
single chair. Giving me the chair, my host seated himself upon the
bed, so close to me, of necessity, that our knees touched. To my eyes
he was little older than that day fifteen years before when we had met.
He was old then to my youthful view. Thinner he could not have been,
and now only the scattered white hairs and the deepened lines of his
face marked his increased years. He had laid aside his overcoat, and
sat before me clad in his waiter's clothes, but the waiter's mien was
gone. With his legs crossed, his hands clasped over one knee, his head
drawn down between his shoulders, he seemed the languid, weary man of
the store-porch, whose eyes quickened only at the trumpet-call to
debate. Clearly his attitude toward me was one of antagonism. This I
saw in his quiet gaze and in the restless twitching of fingers,
impatient for the cut and thrust of argument.

On our way from O'Corrigan's to his squalid room, the Professor had
spoken little. For the most part, as he plodded along at my side, he
had contented himself in expressing opinions not complimentary to
Herbert Talcott, in voicing his regret that he had not thrashed him
instead of merely shaking him. That he had not thrashed Talcott was
hardly evidence of the mildness of his attack. It was rather because I
had interposed; and then O'Corrigan, in the character of the outraged
proprietor of a highly respectable restaurant, had intruded himself
into the quarrel, even going so far as to threaten to call the police.
But I was first in the _melee_, and on me fell the blame of saving
Talcott from merited chastisement. For this the Professor upbraided
me. He spoke as though Talcott had been the aggressor. Had not
Talcott struck him a blow under the eye? Yes, but it was feebly given.
But the sting of it was to the Professor's pride, and he would regret
to his dying day that I had withheld him from giving the young
scoundrel his just deserts.

Poor Talcott! I confessed to myself that it would have given me
pl