“I was kindling the fire, mentally,” said Winthrop.

“Mentally! —­ where’s your kindling? —­ I can tell you! —­ if you had been out in this air you’d want some breath of material flame, before you could set any other agoing.  And I am afraid this isn’t enough —­ or won’t be, —­ I want some fuel for another sort of internal combustion —­ some of my Scotchman’s haggis.”

And Rufus stopped to laugh, with a very funny face, in the midst of his piling chips and brands together.

“Haggis?” said Winthrop.

“Yes. —­ There was a good fellow of a Scotchman in the stage with me last night —­ he had the seat just behind me —­ and he and a brother Scotchman were discoursing valiantly of old world things; warming themselves up with the recollection. —­ Winthrop, have you got a bit of paper here? —­ And I heard the word ‘haggis’ over and over again, —­’haggis’ and ‘parritch.’  At last I turned round gravely —­ ‘Pray sir,’ said I, ’what is a haggis?’ ‘Weel, sir,’ said he good-humouredly, —­ ’I don’t just know the ingredients —­ it’s made of meal, —­ and onions, I believe, —­and other combustibles!!’ —­ Winthrop, have you got any breakfast in the house?”

“Not much in the combustible line, I am afraid,” said Winthrop, putting up his books and going to the closet.

“Well if you can enact Mother Hubbard and ’give a poor dog a bone,’ I shall be thankful, —­ for anything.”

“I am afraid hunger has perverted your memory,” said Winthrop.

“How?”

“If the cupboard should play its part now, the dog would go without any.”

“O you’ll do better for me than that, I hope,” said Rufus; “for I couldn’t go on enacting the dog’s part long; he took to laughing, if I remember, and I should be beyond that directly.”

“Does that ever happen?” said Winthrop, as he brought out of the cupboard his bits of stores; a plate with the end of a loaf of bread, a little pitcher of milk, and another plate with some remains of cold beefsteak.  For all reply, Rufus seized upon a piece of bread, to begin with, and thrusting a fork into the beefsteak, he held it in front of the just-burning firebrands.  Winthrop stood looking on, while Rufus, the beefsteak, and the smoke, seemed mutually intent upon each other.  It was a question of time, and patience; not to speak of fortitude.

“Winthrop,” said Rufus changing hands with his fork, —­ “have you any coffee?”

“No sir.”

“Tea?”

“No.”

“Out of both?”

“For some time.”

“Do you live without it?”

“I live without it.”

“Without either of them?”

“Without either of them.”

“Then how in the world do you live?” said Rufus turning his beefsteak in a very gingerly manner and not daring to take his eyes from it.

“Without combustibles —­ as I told you.”

“I should think so!” exclaimed his brother.  “You are the coolest, toughest, most stubborn and unimpressible piece of sensibility, that ever lived in a garret and deserved to live —­ somewhere else.”