ul soul of Christobel had suddenly realized how
the Boy would slap his leg, and rock, over the recital of such a
sentence; and, between the two, she had been reduced to a condition
bordering on hysterics.

They travelled from Cambridge in a first-class compartment, had it to
themselves, and fell quite naturally into the style of conversation
which had always characterized their friendship; meeting each other's
minds, not over the happenings of a living present, but in a mutual
appreciation of the great intellects of a dead and gone past. Before
long, the Professor had whisked his favourite Persian poet from the
tail-pocket of his coat, Christobel had provided paper and pencil, and
they were deep in translation.

Arrived at Liverpool Street station, they entered a four-wheeler, and
trundled slowly off to Cannon Street. Christobel had imagined
four-wheelers to be obsolete; but the Professor dismissed her
suggestion of a taxi, as being "a needlessly rapid mode of progression,
indubitably fraught with perpetual danger," and proceeded to hail the
sleepy and astonished driver of a four-wheeled cab.

(Oh, Boy dear, what would you have said to that four-wheeler--you dear
record-breaking, speed-limit-exceeding, astonishingly rapid Boy? That
ancient four-wheeler, trundling past the Bank of England, the Royal
Exchange, the Mansion House, up King William Street, and round into
Cannon Street, endlessly blocked, continually pulling up; then starting
on, only to be stopped again; and your Beloved inside it, Boy dear,
looking out of the ramshackle old window, in a vain endeavour to see
something of the London you had planned to show her in your own
delightful extravagant way. Oh, Boy dear, keep out of this! It is not
your show. This four-wheeler has been hailed and engaged by the
Professor. The lady within is the bride of the Professor. Hands off,
Boy!)

They drew up, for a few minutes, outside a bookseller's in New Broad
Street, on the left-hand side, just after they had trundled into it--a
delightful little place, crammed, lined, almost carpeted, with books.
The Professor plunged in, upsetting a pile of magazines in his hasty
entrance through the narrow doorway. Here he always found precisely
the book he happened to be requiring for his latest research. With an
incoherent remark to the proprietor, who advanced to meet him, the
Professor became immediately absorbed, in a far corner of the shop,
oblivious of his cab, his