y for his tremendous dark beard that his head
ran short. It was one of those great beards that are supposed to go
with the portrait of some old patriarch, and over this could be seen a
pair of beautiful large clear eyes that wore a thoughtful dreamy aspect,
and a broad high white forehead. He was rather shabbily dressed in a
pepper-and-salt frock-coat, vest, and trousers, one of which had been
turned up as if to keep it out of the mud while the other was turned
down; and both were extremely baggy and worn about the knees. Judging
from appearances his frock-coat might have been brushed the week before
last, but it was doubtful, though his hat, which he placed upon the
table as he entered, certainly had been brushed very lately, but the
wrong way.

He did not wear gloves upon his hands, but in his trousers pockets, from
which he pulled them to throw them in his hat, after he had carefully
placed two great folio volumes, each minus one cover, upon a chair, and
then he shook hands, smiling blandly, with Mrs Dunn, and with the
lawyer.

"Bless the man!" said Mrs Dunn to herself, "one feels as if one
couldn't be cross with him; and there's a button off the wrist-band of
his shirt."

"'Fraid you had not received my telegram, sir," said the lawyer in
rather a contemptuous tone, for Mrs Dunn had annoyed him, and he wanted
to wreak his irritation upon someone else.

"Telegram?" said the professor dreamily. "Oh, yes. It was forwarded to
me from Oxford. I was in town."

"Oh! In town?"

"Yes. At an hotel in Craven Street. I am making preparations, you
know, for my trip."

"No, I don't know," said the lawyer snappishly. "How should I know?"

"Of course not," said the professor smiling. "The fact is, I've been so
much--among books--lately--that--these are fine. Picked them up at a
little shop near the Strand. Buttknow's _Byzantine Empire_."

He picked up the two musty old volumes, and opened them upon the table,
as a blast rang out.

The professor started and stared, his dreamy eyes opening wider, but
seeing that it was only the lawyer blowing his nose, he smiled and
turned over a few leaves.

"A good deal damaged; but such a book is very rare, sir."

"My dear sir, I asked you to come here to talk business," said the
lawyer, tapping the table with his snuff-box, "not books."

"True. I beg your pardon," said the professor. "I was in town making
the final preparations for my departure to the Levant, and I