ore."

"Hum! I should be inclined to let it stand at that. I know something of
them both. Not much, but as much as I want. I don't think I should take
them to my bosom if I were you. Not that there's much amiss with
Monkhouse Lee."

"Meaning the thin one?"

"Precisely. He is a gentlemanly little fellow. I don't think there is
any vice in him. But then you can't know him without knowing
Bellingham."

"Meaning the fat one?"

"Yes, the fat one. And he's a man whom I, for one, would rather not
know."

Abercrombie Smith raised his eyebrows and glanced across at his
companion.

"What's up, then?" he asked. "Drink? Cards? Cad? You used not to be
censorious."

"Ah! you evidently don't know the man, or you wouldn't ask. There's
something damnable about him--something reptilian. My gorge always rises
at him. I should put him down as a man with secret vices--an evil liver.
He's no fool, though. They say that he is one of the best men in his
line that they have ever had in the college."

"Medicine or classics?"

"Eastern languages. He's a demon at them. Chillingworth met him
somewhere above the second cataract last long, and he told me that he
just prattled to the Arabs as if he had been born and nursed and weaned
among them. He talked Coptic to the Copts, and Hebrew to the Jews, and
Arabic to the Bedouins, and they were all ready to kiss the hem of his
frock-coat. There are some old hermit Johnnies up in those parts who
sit on rocks and scowl and spit at the casual stranger. Well, when they
saw this chap Bellingham, before he had said five words they just lay
down on their bellies and wriggled. Chillingworth said that he never saw
anything like it. Bellingham seemed to take it as his right, too, and
strutted about among them and talked down to them like a Dutch uncle.
Pretty good for an undergrad. of Old's, wasn't it?"

"Why do you say you can't know Lee without knowing Bellingham?"

"Because Bellingham is engaged to his sister Eveline. Such a bright
little girl, Smith! I know the whole family well. It's disgusting to see
that brute with her. A toad and a dove, that's what they always remind
me of."

Abercrombie Smith grinned and knocked his ashes out against the side of
the grate.

"You show every card in your hand, old chap," said he. "What a
prejudiced, green-eyed, evil-thinking old man it is! You have really
nothing against the fellow except that."

"Well, I've known her ever since she was as long as that