Now the dream of travel was to Adrian what the love of woman is to the race of young men.  It supplanted that foolishness.  It was his Romance, as we say; that buoyant anticipation on which in youth we ride the airs, and which, as we wax older and too heavy for our atmosphere, hardens to the Hobby, which, if an obstinate animal, is a safer horse, and conducts man at a slower pace to the sexton.  Adrian had never travelled.  He was aware that his romance was earthly and had discomforts only to be evaded by the one potent talisman possessed by his patron.  His Alp would hardly be grand to him without an obsequious landlord in the foreground:  he must recline on Mammon’s imperial cushions in order to moralize becomingly on the ancient world.  The search for pleasure at the expense of discomfort, as frantic lovers woo their mistresses to partake the shelter of a but and batten on a crust, Adrian deemed the bitterness of beggarliness.  Let his sweet mistress be given him in the pomp and splendour due to his superior emotions, or not at all.  Consequently the wise youth had long nursed an ineffectual passion, and it argued a great nature in him, that at the moment when his wishes were to be crowned, he should look with such slight touches of spleen at the gorgeous composite fabric of Parisian cookery and Roman antiquities crumbling into unsubstantial mockery.  Assuredly very few even of the philosophers would have turned away uncomplainingly to meaner delights the moment after.

Hippias received the first portion of the cake.

He was sitting by the window in his hotel, reading.  He had fought down his breakfast with more than usual success, and was looking forward to his dinner at the Foreys’ with less than usual timidity.

“Ah! glad you’ve come, Adrian,” he said, and expanded his chest.  “I was afraid I should have to ride down.  This is kind of you.  We’ll walk down together through the park.  It’s absolutely dangerous to walk alone in these streets.  My opinion is, that orange-peel lasts all through the year now, and will till legislation puts a stop to it.  I give you my word I slipped on a piece of orange-peel yesterday afternoon in Piccadilly, and I thought I was down!  I saved myself by a miracle.”

“You have an appetite, I hope?” asked Adrian.

“I think I shall get one, after a bit of a walk,” chirped Hippias.  “Yes.  I think I feel hungry now.”

“Charmed to hear it,” said Adrian, and began unpinning his parcel on his knees.  “How should you define Folly?” he checked the process to inquire.

“Hm!” Hippias meditated; he prided himself on being oracular when such questions were addressed to him.  “I think I should define it to be a slide.”

“Very good definition.  In other words, a piece of orange-peel; once on it, your life and limbs are in danger, and you are saved by a miracle.  You must present that to the Pilgrim.  And the monument of folly, what would that be?”