nd
there was a little window garden on the sill, where tulips bloomed in
their season, and under a glass case there was a plaster model of the
Arch of Titus in Rome, of which he was exceedingly proud, and which I
thought very pretty, and at one time longed to have.

Mr. Davies was a smooth and decent scholar, and when he was dreamy he
would shove his scratch back from his forehead and shut his eyes and
recite Homer or Virgil by the page together, while Lancelot and I
listened open-mouthed, and I wondered what pleasure he got out of all
that rigmarole. The heroes of Homer and of Virgil seemed to me very
bloodless, boneless creatures after my kings and wizards out of Mr.
Galland's book; even Ulysses, who was a thrifty, shifty fellow enough,
with some touch of the sea-captain in him, was not a patch upon my hero,
Sindbad of Bagdad, from whose tale I believe the Greek fellow stole half
his fancies, and those the better half.

I remember still clearly the very first afternoon when I presented
myself at Mr. Davies's shop in Cliff Street. He told me I was very
welcome, assured me that on that day I crossed the threshold of the
Muses' Temple, shook me warmly by the hand, and then, all of a sudden,
as if recollecting himself, told me to greet my class-fellow. A lad of
about mine own age came from the window and held out his hand, and the
lad was Lancelot Amber.

I have seen many gracious sights in my time, but only one so gracious as
that sudden flash of Lancelot Amber upon my boyish vision. As he came
forward with the afternoon sunlight strong upon him he looked like some
militant saint. There is a St. George in our church, and there is a St.
Michael too, both splendid in coat-armour and terrible with swords, but
neither of them has ever seemed to me half so heroic or half so saintly
as the boy Lancelot did that morning in Mr. Davies's parlour. He was
tall of his years, with fair hair curling about his head as I have since
seen hair curling in some of the old Pagan statue-work.

The boy came forward and shook hands with me in friendly fashion, with a
friend's grip of the fingers. I gave him the squeeze again, and we both
stood for a moment looking at each other silently, as dogs over-eye one
another on a first meeting. How little it entered into either of our
brains that moment of the times that we should stand together, and the
places and the trials and perils that we should endure together. We were
only two lads standing