the master wants you."

Raffles, the page-boy, who happened to be the messenger, was obliged to
deliver his summons three times--the last time with the accompaniment of
a tap on the tutor's shoulder--before that _virtuoso_ swung round on his
stool and demanded--

"What is it, Raffles?"

"Please, sir, the master wants you hinstanter."

Mr Armstrong was inclined to compliment Raffles on his Latin, but on
second thoughts (the tutor's second thoughts murdered a great number of
his good sayings) he considered that neither the page nor himself would
be much better for the jest, and spared himself.

He nodded to the messenger to go, and closing the piano, screwed his
eye-glass in his eye, ready to depart.

"Please, sir," said Raffles at the door, "the governor he's dicky to-
day. You'd best have your heye on 'im."

"Thank you, Raffles; I will," said the tutor, going out.

He paced the long passage which led from his quarters to the oak hall,
whistling _sotto voce_ a bar or two of the Schumann as he went; then his
manner became sombre as he crossed the polished boards and entered the
passage beyond which led to his employer's library.

Old Roger Ingleton was sitting in the almost dark room, staring fixedly
into the fire. There was little light except that of the flickering
embers in his dim, worn face. Though not yet seventy, his spare form
was bent into the body of an old, old man, and the hands, which feebly
tapped the arms of the chair on which they rested, were the worn-out
members of a man long past his work. He saw little and heard less; nor
was he ever to be met outside the confines of his library, or, in summer
weather, the sunny balcony on to which it opened. Only when he talked
were you able to realise that this worn-out body did not belong to a
Tithonus, but to a man whose inward faculties were still alert and
vigorous, whatever might be said of his outward failure. Could he but
have been accommodated with the physical frame of a man of fifty, he had
spirit enough to fill it, and become once more what he was twenty years
ago, a complete man.

"Sit down, Armstrong," said he, when presently his dim eyes and ears
became aware of the tutor's presence. "There's no need to light the
lamp, and you need not trouble to talk, for I should not be able to hear
you."

The tutor shook the eye-glass out of his eye, and seated himself at a
corner of the hearth in silence.

Mr Ingleton, having thus prepared his