smoky house and a scolding wife; such a
gritty city; such a hopeless city, with no rent in the leaden canopy of
its sky; such a beleaguered city, invested by the great Marsh Forces of
Essex and Kent. So the two old schoolfellows felt it to be, as, their
dinner done, they turned towards the fire to smoke. Young Blight was
gone, the coffee-house waiter was gone, the plates and dishes were gone,
the wine was going--but not in the same direction.

'The wind sounds up here,' quoth Eugene, stirring the fire, 'as if we
were keeping a lighthouse. I wish we were.'

'Don't you think it would bore us?' Lightwood asked.

'Not more than any other place. And there would be no Circuit to go. But
that's a selfish consideration, personal to me.'

'And no clients to come,' added Lightwood. 'Not that that's a selfish
consideration at all personal to ME.'

'If we were on an isolated rock in a stormy sea,' said Eugene, smoking
with his eyes on the fire, 'Lady Tippins couldn't put off to visit us,
or, better still, might put off and get swamped. People couldn't ask one
to wedding breakfasts. There would be no Precedents to hammer at,
except the plain-sailing Precedent of keeping the light up. It would be
exciting to look out for wrecks.'

'But otherwise,' suggested Lightwood, 'there might be a degree of
sameness in the life.'

'I have thought of that also,' said Eugene, as if he really had been
considering the subject in its various bearings with an eye to the
business; 'but it would be a defined and limited monotony. It would
not extend beyond two people. Now, it's a question with me, Mortimer,
whether a monotony defined with that precision and limited to that
extent, might not be more endurable than the unlimited monotony of one's
fellow-creatures.'

As Lightwood laughed and passed the wine, he remarked, 'We shall have an
opportunity, in our boating summer, of trying the question.'

'An imperfect one,' Eugene acquiesced, with a sigh, 'but so we shall. I
hope we may not prove too much for one another.'

'Now, regarding your respected father,' said Lightwood, bringing him
to a subject they had expressly appointed to discuss: always the most
slippery eel of eels of subjects to lay hold of.

'Yes, regarding my respected father,' assented Eugene, settling himself
in his arm-chair. 'I would rather have approached my respected father by
candlelight, as a theme requiring a little artificial brilliancy; but we
will take him by twilight