ike a little sibyl,
she would go back to her work-bench. And if urged to play more, she
would answer, lifting her great, velvet eyes in a dreamy gaze, "no, no
more to-day. The inspiration has gone." And, awed, the visitors would
depart.

* * * * *

Back of the bindery stood the blacksmith shop, where MacKittrick, the
historian-blacksmith, plied the bellows and smote the anvil.

MacKittrick took a liking to me. For one day we began talking about
ancient history, and he perceived that I had a little knowledge of it,
and a feeling for the colour and motion of its long-ago life.

"I want you to come and work for me," he urged, "my work is mostly
pretty," he apologised, with blacksmith sturdiness, "--not making
horseshoes, but cutting out delicate things, ornamental iron work for
aesthetic purposes, and all that ... all you'll have to do will be to
swing the hammer gently, while I direct the blows and cut put the dainty
filigree the "Master" sells to folk, afterward, as art."

"Well, isn't it art?" I asked.

"I suppose it is. But I like the strong work of blacksmithing best. You
see, I was born to be a great historian. But destiny has made me a
blacksmith," he continued irrelevantly ... "do come out and work for me.
I'm hungry for an intelligent helper who can talk history with me while
we work."

My transfer was effected. And I was immediately glad of it. "Mac," as we
called him, was a fine, solid man ... and he did know history. He knew
it as a lover knows his mistress. He was right. He should have been a
great historical writer--great historian he _was_!

For two glorious months I was with him. And during those two months, I
learned more about the touch and texture of the historic life of man
than three times as many years in college could have taught me.

"Mac" talked of Caesar as if only yesterday he had shaken hands with him
in the Forum ... and he was shocked over his murder as if it had
happened right after....

"Ah, that was a bad day for Rome and the future of the world, when those
mad fellows struck him down there like a pig!" he cried.

And Mary, Queen of Scots, was "a sweet, soft body of a white thing that
should have been content with being in love, and never tried to rule!"

* * * * *

"Can you cook?" asked Spalton of me one day, just as Barton had done at
"Perfection City."

"No," I replied honestly, thinking back to that experienc