ng
Room. Celia glanced at him, and saw that he was poorly dressed, that his
shirt-cuffs were frayed, and that he had the peculiar look which is
stamped on the countenances of so many of the frequenters of the Reading
Room.

"Just tell me what you would do if you were in my fix," he said.

Celia hesitated for a moment, then a smile broke over her face which
transfigured it and made it seem to the young fellow absolutely lovely.

"I should invent histories for them," she said. "It would be so much
easier--and, perhaps, ever so much more interesting."

"Oh, that's stunning!" he exclaimed, in a whisper. "Of course, that's
the way. I say, what a brick you are! Would you mind telling me your
name?"

"Grant--Celia Grant," she told him, without hesitation.

"Mine's Rex--Reggie Rex," he said. "I've often noticed you and wondered
what kind of work you did--But I beg your pardon; I mustn't disturb you
any longer."

They both fell to work, and Celia heard his fountain-pen racing over the
paper; once or twice he chuckled, as if he were enjoying a joke; but
very soon Celia forgot him; and when, at last, she looked up from her
work, she found his place empty; but on going out for her lunch she saw
him standing by one of the pillars of the portico. He blushed at sight
of her, moved forward, hesitated, then approached her.

"You're going to an A.B.C. for your lunch?" he said, with a mixture of a
man's timidity and a boy's audacity. "May I--will you let me come with
you? I feel as if I hadn't thanked you enough; I couldn't do it in that
stuffy old hole, where you can't speak above your breath."

He took Celia's silence for consent, and they went together to the big
shop in Oxford Street, and seated themselves at a table. They both
ordered a cup of tea and a roll and butter; Celia would have liked to
have added the omnipotent bun, but refrained; for, somehow, she knew
that he could not afford one.

"Do you like the life, in there?" he asked, jerking his head in the
direction of the Museum. "Dreadful grind, isn't it? But, somehow, it
gets hold of you; there's a kind of fascination in literature." He spoke
the magic word with the air of quite an old, old man of letters. "I
ought to have been a grocer. My father's got a shop in Middleswick; he
calls it The Emporium. I think that's why I couldn't stick it. Pity,
isn't it? for it's a rattling good business. Another thing; I couldn't
stand the apron. Guv'nor insisted on the apron; '