ursued, "and his name's rather
funny. It's John Little Bilham, and he says his two surnames are, on
account of his being small, inevitably used together."

"Well," Waymarsh asked with due detachment from these details, "what's
he doing up there?"

"His account of himself is that he's 'only a little artist-man.' That
seemed to me perfectly to describe him. But he's yet in the phase of
study; this, you know, is the great art-school--to pass a certain
number of years in which he came over. And he's a great friend of
Chad's, and occupying Chad's rooms just now because they're so
pleasant. HE'S very pleasant and curious too," Strether added--"though
he's not from Boston."

Waymarsh looked already rather sick of him. "Where is he from?"

Strether thought. "I don't know that, either. But he's 'notoriously,'
as he put it himself, not from Boston."

"Well," Waymarsh moralised from dry depths, "every one can't
notoriously be from Boston. Why," he continued, "is he curious?"

"Perhaps just for THAT--for one thing! But really," Strether added,
"for everything. When you meet him you'll see."

"Oh I don't want to meet him," Waymarsh impatiently growled. "Why
don't he go home?"

Strether hesitated. "Well, because he likes it over here."

This appeared in particular more than Waymarsh could bear. "He ought
then to be ashamed of himself, and, as you admit that you think so too,
why drag him in?"

Strether's reply again took time. "Perhaps I do think so
myself--though I don't quite yet admit it. I'm not a bit sure--it's
again one of the things I want to find out. I liked him, and CAN you
like people--? But no matter." He pulled himself up. "There's no
doubt I want you to come down on me and squash me."

Waymarsh helped himself to the next course, which, however proving not
the dish he had just noted as supplied to the English ladies, had the
effect of causing his imagination temporarily to wander. But it
presently broke out at a softer spot. "Have they got a handsome place
up there?"

"Oh a charming place; full of beautiful and valuable things. I never
saw such a place"--and Strether's thought went back to it. "For a
little artist-man--!" He could in fact scarce express it.

But his companion, who appeared now to have a view, insisted. "Well?"

"Well, life can hold nothing better. Besides, they're things of which
he's in charge."

"So that he does doorkeeper for your precious pair? Can life," Wayma