Waymark helped the conversation by offering a cup of coffee, which he himself made.

“You smoke, I hope?” he asked, reaching some cigars from the mantelpiece.

Julian shook his head, with a smile.

“No?  How on earth do you support existence?—­At all events, you don’t, as the railway-carriage phrase has it, object to smoking?”

“Not at all.  I like the scent, but was never tempted to go further.”

Waymark filled his pipe, and made himself conformable in a low cane-bottom chair, which had stood folded-up against the wall.  Talk began to range over very various topics, Waymark leading the way, his visitor only gradually venturing to take the initiative.  Theatres were mentioned, but Julian knew little of them; recent books, but with these he had small acquaintance; politics, but in these he had clearly no interest.

“That’s a point of contact, at all events,” exclaimed Waymark.  “I detest the very name of Parliament, and could as soon read Todhunter on Conic Sections as the reports of a debate.  Perhaps you’re a mathematician?” This with a smile.

“By no means,” was the reply.  “In fact,” Casti went on, “I’m afraid you begin to think my interests are very narrow indeed.  My opportunities have been small.  I left a very ordinary school at fourteen, and what knowledge I have since got has come from my own efforts.  I am sure the profit from our intercourse would be entirely on my side.  I have the wish to go in for many things, however,—­”

“Oh,” broke in the other, “don’t suppose that I am a scholar in any sense of the word, or a man of more than average culture.  My own regular education came to an end pretty much at the same age, and only a certain stubbornness has forced me into an intellectual life, if you can call it so.  Not much intellect required in my every-day business, at all events.  The school in which I teach is a fair type of the middle-class commercial ‘academy;’ the headmaster a nincompoop and charlatan, my fellow-assistants poor creatures, who must live, I suppose,—­though one doesn’t well understand why.  I had always a liking for Greek and Latin and can make shift to read both in a way satisfactory to myself, though I dare say it wouldn’t go for much with college examiners.  Then, as for my scribbling, well, it has scarcely yet passed the amateur stage.  It will some day; simply because I’ve made up my mind that it shall; but as yet I haven’t got beyond a couple of weak articles in weak magazines, and I don’t exactly feel sure of my way.  I rather think we shall approach most nearly in our taste for poetry.  I liked much what you had to say about Keats.  It decided me that we ought to go on.”

Julian looked up with a bright smile.

“What did you think at first of my advertisement, eh?” cried Waymark, with a sudden burst of loud laughter.  “Queer idea, wasn’t it?”

“It came upon me curiously.  It was so like a frequent thought of my own actually carried out.”