uncovered a growing personal interest which kept
him constantly astonished at himself.

By the end of June he found it safe to give less and less time to the
study of editorial paradigms, for he had the technique at his fingers'
ends; and so he gave more and more time to the amassment of material.
For he had made a magnificent boast, and he never had much idea of
permitting it to turn out empty, for all his nights of torturing
misgivings. He read enormously with expert facility and a beautifully
trained memory; read history, biography, memoirs, war records, old
newspapers, old speeches, councilmanic proceedings, departmental
reports--everything he could lay his hands on that promised capital for
an editorial writer in that city and that State. By the end of July he
felt that he could slacken up here, too, having pretty well exhausted
the field, and the first day of August--red-letter day in the annals of
science--saw him unlock the sacred drawer with a close-set face. And now
the Schedule, so long lapsed, was reinstated, with Four Hours a Day
segregated to Magnum Opus. A pitiful little step at reconstruction,
perhaps, but still a step. And henceforth every evening, between 9.30
and 1.30, Dr. Queed sat alone in his Scriptorium and embraced his love.

Insensibly summer faded into autumn, and still the science of Human
Intercourse was faithfully practiced. The Paynter parlor knew Queed not
infrequently in these days, where he could sometimes be discovered not
merely suffering, but encouraging, Major Brooke to talk to him of his
victories over the Republicans in 1870-75. Nor was he a stranger to
Nicolovius's sitting-room, having made it an iron-clad rule with himself
to accept one out of every two invitations to that charming cloister.
After all, there might be something to learn from both the Major's fiery
reminiscences and the old professor's cultured talk. He himself, he
found, tended naturally toward silence. Listeners appeared to be needed
in a world where the supply of talkers exceeded the demand. The telling
of humorous anecdote he had definitely excided from his creed. It did
not appear needed of him; and he was sure that the author of his creed
would h&self have authorized him to drop it. He never missed Fifi now,
according to the way of this world, but he thought of her sometimes,
which is all that anybody has a right to expect. Miss Weyland he had not
seen since the day Fifi died. Mrs. Paynter had been away all