ed at him with equal gravity. "Well, I'm sorry for that,"
he said, "because it takes you out of our bailiwick. But I suppose
you've made enough money out of 'The Vital Thing' to permit yourself a
little harmless amusement. When you want more cash come back to
us--only don't put it off too long, or some other fellow will have
stepped into your shoes. Popularity don't keep, you know; and the
hotter the success the quicker the commodity perishes."

He leaned back, cheerful and sententious, delivering his axioms with
conscious kindliness.

The Professor, who had risen and moved to the door, turned back with a
wavering step.

"When did you say another volume would have to be ready?" he faltered.

"I said October--but call it a month later. You don't need any pushing
nowadays."

"And--you'd have no objection to letting me have a little advance now?
I need some new instruments for my real work."

Harviss extended a cordial hand. "My dear fellow, that's talking--I'll
write the cheque while you wait; and I daresay we can start up the
cheap edition of 'The Vital Thing' at the same time, if you'll pledge
yourself to give us the book by November.--How much?" he asked, poised
above his cheque-book.

In the street, the Professor stood staring about him, uncertain and a
little dazed.

"After all, it's only putting it off for six months," he said to
himself; "and I can do better work when I get my new instruments."

He smiled and raised his hat to the passing victoria of a lady in whose
copy of "The Vital Thing" he had recently written:

_Labor est etiam ipsa voluptas._

THE OTHER TWO

I

WAYTHORN, on the drawing-room hearth, waited for his wife to come down
to dinner.

It was their first night under his own roof, and he was surprised at
his thrill of boyish agitation. He was not so old, to be sure--his
glass gave him little more than the five-and-thirty years to which his
wife confessed--but he had fancied himself already in the temperate
zone; yet here he was listening for her step with a tender sense of all
it symbolized, with some old trail of verse about the garlanded nuptial
door-posts floating through his enjoyment of the pleasant room and the
good dinner just beyond it.

They had been hastily recalled from their honeymoon by the illness of
Lily Haskett, the child of Mrs. Waythorn's first marriage. The little
girl, at Waythorn's desire, had been transferred to his house on the
day of her mother's wed