The Interviewer presented himself the next morning, after finishing his breakfast and his cigar, feeling reasonably sure of finding Mr. Kirkwood at home, as he proved to be.  He had told Paolo to show the stranger up to his library,—­or study, as he modestly called it.

It was a pleasant room enough, with a lookout on the lake in one direction, and the wooded hill in another.  The tenant had fitted it up in scholarly fashion.  The books Paolo spoke of were conspicuous, many of them, by their white vellum binding and tasteful gilding, showing that probably they had been bound in Rome, or some other Italian city.  With these were older volumes in their dark original leather, and recent ones in cloth or paper.  As the Interviewer ran his eye over them, he found that he could make very little out of what their backs taught him.  Some of the paper-covered books, some of the cloth-covered ones, had names which he knew; but those on the backs of many of the others were strange to his eyes.  The classics of Greek and Latin and Italian literature were there; and he saw enough to feel convinced that he had better not attempt to display his erudition in the company of this young scholar.

The first thing the Interviewer had to do was to account for his visiting a person who had not asked to make his acquaintance, and who was living as a recluse.  He took out his battered coppers, and showed them to Maurice.

“I understood that you were very skilful in antiquities, and had a good many yourself.  So I took the liberty of calling upon you, hoping that you could tell me something about some ancient coins I have had for a good while.”  So saying, he pointed to the copper with the name of Gallienus.

“Is this very rare and valuable?  I have heard that great prices have been paid for some of these ancient coins,—­ever so many guineas, sometimes.  I suppose this is as much as a thousand years old.”

“More than a thousand years old,” said Maurice.

“And worth a great deal of money?” asked the Interviewer.

“No, not a great deal of money,” answered Maurice.

“How much, should you say?” said the Interviewer.

Maurice smiled.  “A little more than the value of its weight in copper,—­I am afraid not much more.  There are a good many of these coins of Gallienus knocking about.  The peddlers and the shopkeepers take such pieces occasionally, and sell them, sometimes for five or ten cents, to young collectors.  No, it is not very precious in money value, but as a relic any piece of money that was passed from hand to hand a thousand or fifteen hundred years ago is interesting.  The value of such relics is a good deal a matter of imagination.”

“And what do you say to these others?” asked the Interviewer.  Poor old worn-out things they were, with a letter or two only, and some faint trace of a figure on one or two of them.