on?"

"No," said Septimus modestly. "It begins where the text-books leave off.
The guns I describe have never been cast."

"Where on earth do you get your knowledge of artillery?"

Septimus dreamed through the mists of memory.

"A nurse I once had married a bombardier," said he.

Wiggleswick entered with the haddock and other breakfast appurtenances, and
while Septimus ate his morning meal Sypher smoked and talked and looked
through the pages of the Treatise. The lamps lit and the curtains drawn,
the room had a cosier appearance than by day. Sypher stretched himself
comfortably before the fire.

"I'm not in the way, am I?"

"Good heavens, no!" said Septimus. "I was just thinking how pleasant it
was. I've not had a man inside my rooms since I was up at Cambridge--and
then they didn't come often, except to rag."

"What did they do?"

Septimus narrated the burnt umbrella episode and other social experiences.

"So that when a man comes to see me who does not throw my things about, he
is doubly welcome," he explained. "Besides," he added, after a drink of
coffee, "we said something in Monte Carlo about being friends."

"We did," said Sypher, "and I'm glad you've not forgotten it. I'm so much
the Friend of Humanity in the bulk that I've somehow been careless as to
the individual."

"Have a drink," said Septimus, filling his after-breakfast pipe.

The pistol shot brought Wiggleswick, who, in his turn, brought whiskey and
soda, and the two friends finished the afternoon in great amity. Before
taking his departure Sypher asked whether he might read through the proofs
of the gun book at home.

"I think I know enough of machinery and mathematics to understand what
you're driving at, and I should like to examine these guns of yours. You
think they are going to whip creation?"

"They'll make warfare too dangerous to be carried on. At present, however,
I'm more interested in my railway carriages."

"Which will make railway traveling too dangerous to be carried on!"
laughed Sypher, extending his hand. "Good-by."

When he had gone, Septimus mused for some time in happy contentment over
his pipe. He asked very little of the world, and oddly enough the world
rewarded his modesty by giving him more than he asked for. To-day he had
seen Sypher in a new mood, sympathetic, unegotistical, non-robustious, and
he felt gratified at having won a man's friendship. It was an addition to
his few anchorages in life. Then, in a cou