d he opened the Institute door. Langham followed, in the temper of one
getting up a subject for examination.

Poor Robert! His labor and his enthusiasm deserved a more appreciative
eye. He was wrapped up in his Club, which had been the great success
of his first year, and he dragged Langham through it all, not indeed,
sympathetic creature that he was, without occasional qualms. 'But after
all,' he would say to himself indignantly, 'I must do something with
him.'

Langham, indeed, behaved with resignation. He looked at the collections
for the year, and was quite ready to take it for granted that they
were extremely creditable. Into the old-fashioned window-sills glazed
compartments had been fitted, and these were now fairly filled with
specimens, with eggs, butterflies, moths, beetles, fossils, and what
not. A case of stuffed tropical birds presented by Robert stood in the
centre of the room; another containing the birds of the district was
close by. On a table further on stood two large opera books, which
served as records of observations on the part of members of the Club. In
one, which was scrawled over with mysterious hieroglyphs, anyone might
write what he would. In the other, only such facts and remarks as had
passed the gauntlet of a Club meeting were recorded in Robert's neatest
hand. On the same table stood jars full of strange creatures--tadpoles
and water larvae of all kinds, over which Robert hung now absorbed
poking among them with a straw, while Langham, to whom only the
generalizations of science were congenial, stood by and mildly scoffed.

As they came out a great loutish boy, who had evidently been hanging
about waiting for the Rector, came up to him, boorishly touched his
cap, and then, taking a cardboard box out of his pocket, opened it with
infinite caution, something like a tremor of emotion passing over his
gnarled countenance.

The Rector's eyes glistened.

'Hullo! I say, Irwin, where in the name of fortune did you get that? You
lucky fellow! Come in, and let's look it out!'

And the two plunged back into the Club together, leaving Langham to the
philosophic and patient contemplation of the village green, its geese,
its donkeys, and its surrounding fringe of houses. He felt that quite
indisputably life would have, been better worth living if, like Robert,
he could have taken a passionate interest in rare moths or common
plough-boys; but Nature having denied him the possibility, there was
sm