but Ackroyd, but Bunce?  Ackroyd thought of the meaning of the words; no more.  Poor Bunce had darkling throes of mind, but struggled with desperate nervousness and could not be at ease till the straightforward talk began again.  And Bower?—­Nay, there goes more to this matter than mere enthusiasm in a teacher.  Who had instructed Gilbert Grail to discern the grace of the written word?  On the other hand, it was doubtful whether Walter Egremont, left to himself in the home of his good plain father, would have felt what now he did.  The soil was there, but how much do we not owe to tillage.  Read what Egremont on one occasion read to these men: 

’"He beginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margins with interpretations and load the memory with doubtfulness:  but he cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion, either accompanied with or prepared for the well-enchanting skill of music and with a tale forsooth he cometh unto you—­with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner."’

What were that to you, save for the glow of memory fed with incense of the poets?—­save for innumerable dear associations, only possible to the instructed, which make the finer part of your intellectual being?  Walter was attempting too much, and soon became painfully conscious of it.

He came to the dramatists, and human interest thenceforth helped him.  He could read well, and a scene from those giants of the prime had efficiency even with Bower.  Hope revived in the lecturer.

To-night he was less happy than usual, for what reason he could not himself understand.  His thoughts wandered, sometimes to Eastbourne, sometimes to Ullswater; yet he was speaking of Shakespeare.  Bower was more owl-eyed than usual; the five doubtful hearers obviously felt the time long.  Only Grail gave an unfailing ear.  Egremont closed with a sense of depression.

Would Bower come and pester him with fatuous questions and remarks?  No; Bower turned away and reached his hat from the peg.  The doubtful five took down their hats and followed the portly man from the room.  Bunce was talking with Grail, pointing with dirty forefinger to something in his dirty note-book.  But he, too, speedily moved to the hat-pegs.  Grail was also going, when Egremont said: 

’Could you spare me five minutes, Mr. Grail; I should like to speak to you.’

CHAPTER VIII

A CLASP OF HANDS

Grail approached the desk with pleasure.  Egremont observed it, and met his trusty auditor with the eye-smile which made his face so agreeable.

‘I am sorry to see that Mr. Ackroyd no longer sits by you,’ he began.  ‘Has he deserted us?’

Gilbert hesitated, but spoke at length with his natural directness.

‘I’m afraid so, sir.’

‘He has lost his interest in the subject?’