e in the direction his literary projects were taking. He
spent a couple of hours in turning the leaves, and Mr. Woodstock had
observed his enjoyment. What meant the arrival of the volume here in
Beaufort Street?

Abraham lit a cigar, still looking about the room.

"You live alone?" he asked, in a matter-of-fact way.

"At present."

"Ha! Didn't know but you might have found it lonely; I used to, at your
age."

Then, after a short silence--

"By-the-by, it's your birthday."

"How do you know?"

"Well, I shouldn't have done, but for an old letter I turned up by
chance the other day. How old are you?"

"Five-and-twenty."

"H'm. I am sixty-nine. You'll be a wiser man when you get to my
age.--Well, if you can find room anywhere for that book there, perhaps
you'd like to keep it!"

Waymark looked up in astonishment.

"A birthday present!" he exclaimed. "It's ten years since I had one.
Upon my word, I don't well know how to thank you!"

"Do you know what the thing was published at?" asked Abraham in an
off-hand way.

"No."

"Fifty pounds."

"I don't care about the value. It's the kindness. You couldn't have
given me anything, either, that would have delighted me so much."

"All right; keep it, and there's an end of the matter. And what do you
do with yourself all day, eh? I didn't think it very likely I should
find you in."

"I'm writing a novel."

"H'm. Shall you get anything for it?"

"Can't say. I hope so."

"Look here. Why don't you go in for politics?"

"Neither know nor care anything about them."

"Would you like to go into Parliament?"

"Wouldn't go if every borough in England called upon me to-morrow?"

"Why not?"

"Plainly, I think myself too good for such occupation. If you once
succeed in getting _outside_ the world, you have little desire to go
back and join in its most foolish pranks."

"That's all damned nonsense! How can any one be too good to be in
Parliament? The better men you have there, the better the country will
be governed, won't it?"

"Certainly. But the best man, in this case, is the man who sees the
shortest distance before his nose. If you think the world worth all the
trouble it takes to govern it, go in for politics neck and crop, by all
means, and the world will no doubt thank you in its own way."

Abraham looked puzzled, and half disposed to be angry.

"Then you think novel-writing better than governing the country?" he
asked.

"On its own merits, vastl