old man desired. Why shouldn't he go and live with
Nicolovius in his new home, the home of perfect quiet and immunity from
boarders? And unbroken leisure, too, for of course Nicolovius would bear
all expenses, and he himself would fly from all remunerative work as
from the Black Death. Nay more, the old chap would very likely be
willing to pay him a salary for his society, or at least, see that he
was kept well supplied with everything he needed--books to demolish like
this one under his arm, and ...

He looked up and found the sardonic Italian eyes of the old professor
fixed on him with a most curious expression.... No, no! Better even Mrs.
Paynter's than solitude shared with this stagey old man, with his
repellent face and his purring voice which his eyes so belied.

"I must be going," said Queed hastily.

His host came forward with suave expressions of regret. "However, I feel
much complimented that you came at all. Pray honor me again very soon--"

"I'll return this book sometime," continued the young man, already at
the door. "You won't mind if I mark it, of course?"

"My dear sir--most certainly not. Indeed I hoped that you would consent
to accept it for your own, as a--"

"No, I'll return it. I daresay you will find," he added with a faint
smile, but his grossest one, "that my notes have not lessened its value
exactly!"

In the hall Queed looked at his watch; ten minutes to ten. _Twenty-five
minutes to his visit upon the old professor!_

However, let us be calm and just about it. The twenty-five minutes was
not a flat loss: he had got Crozier by it. Crozier was worth twenty-five
minutes; thirty-five, if it came to that--fifty!... But how to fit such
a thing as this into the Schedule--and Klinker's visits--and the time he
had given to Fifi to-night and very likely would have to give through an
endless chain of to-morrows? Here was the burning crux. Was it endurable
that the Schedule must be corrupted yet again?

So far as little Fifi was concerned, it turned out that these agonies
were superfluous; he had helped her with her lessons for the last time.
She did not appear in the dining-room the next night, or the next, or
the next. Inquiries from the boarders drew from Mrs. Paynter the
information that the child's cough had pulled her down so that she had
been remanded to bed for a day or two to rest up. But resting up
appeared not to prove so simple a process as had been anticipated, and
the day or two wa