ical thought. He did not seem by any
means ideally adapted to the place he occupied here, yet filled it
without suspicion of constraint or uneasiness: there was nothing in him
to make one suppose that he had ever been accustomed to a better sphere
of life.

He lived in the house above the shop, and had done so for about two
years; previously he had held a like position in a more modest
establishment. His bed-room, which had to serve him as sitting-room
also during his free hours, gave indications of a taste not ordinarily
found in chemists' assistants. On the walls were several engravings of
views in Rome, ancient and modern; and there were two bookcases filled
with literature which had evidently known the second-hand stall,--most
of the Latin poets, a few Italian books, and some English classics. Not
a trace anywhere of the habits and predilections not unfairly
associated with the youth of the shop, not even a pipe or a
cigar-holder. It was while sitting alone here one evening, half musing,
half engaged in glancing over the advertisements in a paper two days
old, that the assistant had been attracted by the insertion just
quoted. He read and re-read it, became more thoughtful, sighed
slightly. Then he moved to the table and took some note-paper out of a
writing-case. Still he seemed to be in doubt, hesitated in pressing a
pen against his thumb-nail, was on the point of putting the note-paper
away again. Ultimately, however, he sat down to write. He covered four
pages with a letter, which he then proceeded deliberately to correct
and alter, till he had cut it down by about half. Then came another
period of doubt before he decided to make a fair copy. But it was
finally made, and the signature at the foot was: Julian Casti.

He went out at once to the post.

Two days later he received a reply, somewhat longer than his own
epistle. The writer was clearly keeping himself in a tentative
attitude. Still, he wrote something about his own position and his
needs. He was a teacher in a school in South London, living in
lodgings, with his evenings mostly unoccupied. His habits, he declared,
were Bohemian. Suppose, by way of testing each other's dispositions,
they were to interchange views on some book with which both were likely
to be acquainted: say, Keats's poems? In conclusion, the "O. W." of the
advertisement signed himself Osmond Waymark.

The result was that, a week after, Casti received an invitation to call
on Waymar