"What have I been doing, Barton?" Maitland answered. "Oh, I have been
reflecting on the choice of a life, and trying to humanize myself!
Bielby says I have not enough human nature."

"Bielby is quite right; he is the most judicious of college dons and
father-confessors, old man. And how long do you mean to remain his pupil
and penitent? And how is the pothouse getting on?"

Frank Barton, the speaker, had been at school with Maitland, and ever
since, at college and in life, had bullied, teased, and befriended him.
Barton was a big young man, with great thews and sinews, and a broad,
breast beneath his broadcloth and wide shirt-front. He was blonde,
prematurely bald, with an aquiline commanding nose, keen, merry blue
eyes, and a short, fair beard. He had taken a medical as well as other
degrees at the University; he had studied at Vienna and Paris; he was
even what Captain Costigan styles "a scoientific cyarkter." He had
written learnedly in various Proceedings of erudite societies; he had
made a cruise in a man-of-war, a scientific expedition; and his _Les
Tatouages, Etude Medico-Legale_, published in Paris, had been commended
by the highest authorities. Yet, from some whim of philanthropy, he had
not a home and practice in Cavendish Square, but dwelt and labored in
Chelsea.

"How is your pothouse getting on?" he asked again.

"The pothouse? Oh, the _Hit or Miss_ you mean? Well, I'm afraid it's not
very successful I took the lease of it, you know, partly by way of doing
some good in a practical kind of way. The working men at the waterside
won't go to clubs, where there is nothing but coffee to drink, and
little but tracts to read. I thought if I gave them sound beer, and
looked in among them now and then of an evening, I might help to
civilize them a bit, like that fellow who kept the Thieves' Club in the
East End. And then I fancied they might help to make _me_ a little more
human. But it does not seem quite to succeed. I fear I am a born wet
blanket But the idea is good. Mrs. St. John Delo-raine quite agrees with
me about _that_. And she is a high authority."

"Mrs. St. John Deloraine? I've heard of her. She is a lively widow,
isn't she?"

"She is a practical philanthropist," answered Maitland, flushing a
little.

"Pretty, too, I have been told?"

"Yes; she is 'conveniently handsome,' as Izaak Walton says."

"I say, Maitland, here's a chance to humanize you. Why don't you ask her
to marry you? Pretty and