sed of
an insatiable thirst for knowledge coupled with an excellent memory and
an inexhaustible capacity for work, passed as a well-read if not a very
learned man. There seemed to be few topics upon which he could not
discourse on equal terms even with those who had made that subject their
own.

Now it happened that there were two young Fellows at the same college
who, wearied of his constant superiority in conversation, determined to
take Brown (for such was his name) 'down a peg or two.' So each night at
dinner in hall they skilfully turned the conversation to unusual topics,
hoping to light upon some chink in the redoubtable Brown's intellectual
armour. Once they tried him on the rarer British hemipterous homoptera,
but soon discovered that he was a very fair entomologist. Next evening
the conversation veered to ancient Scandinavian burial rites, but here
again he could give them points. The Byzantine coinage of Cyprus was, of
course, well known to him while he had himself worked on the oolitic
foraminifera of the blue marl at Biarritz. His experiments on the red
colouring matter of _drosera rotundifolia_ had formed the subject of a
monograph, and he was particularly interested in the hagiological
folk-lore of Lower Brittany.

It seemed almost hopeless. Try as they would they could find no subject
with which he was unacquainted. Every night some fresh outlandish topic
was introduced. Brown looked very bored, and proceeded to tell them all
there was to be said upon the subject. But one night a casual remark put
them on the right track. Someone happened to ask Brown a question about
Indian music. He answered shortly, and remarked that it was a subject
upon which a good deal of work was yet to be done. The conspirators
looked across the table at each other, left the common-room early, and
retired to Jones's rooms.

'Did you notice?' said Jones.

'Yes,' said Smith; 'he evidently doesn't know much about oriental music.'

'But he will by to-morrow,' replied the astute Jones. 'As soon as ever he
gets to his rooms to-night, he'll read up everything he possibly can on
Indian music, and he'll continue in the Library to-morrow. By dinner-time
he'll be stuffed full of tom-toms and shawms and dulcimers, or whatever
they play in India.'

'We must ride him off,' said Smith. 'How about Chinese music? He won't
know anything about that.'

This seemed such a promising topic that they got out the encyclopaedia and
found to thei