I did not help write more than one half, at most, of his lectures; edited—anonymously, though—a learned, scientific work on "The Precise Cause of the Modifications in the Undulatory Motion in Waves," a posthumous work of a poor fellow—fine lad he was, too—a friend of mine. Yes, here I have been doing all this, while you still are hammering away at that one poor plaguy Inferno! Oh, there's a secret in dispatching these things; patience! patience! you will yet learn the secret. Time! time! I can't teach it to you, my boy, but Time can: I wish I could, but I can't.'
There was another knock at the door.
'Oh! cried Millthorpe, suddenly turning round to it, 'I forgot, my boy. I came to tell you that there is a porter, with some queer things, inquiring for you. I happened to meet him downstairs in the corridors, and I told him to follow me up—I would show him the road; here he is; let him in, let him in, good Delly, my girl.'
Thus far, the rattlings of Millthorpe, if producing any effect at all, had but stunned the averted Pierre. But now he started to his feet. A man with his hat on, stood in the door, holding an easel before him.
'Is this Mr. Glendinning's room, gentlemen?'
'Oh, come in, come in,' cried Millthorpe, 'all right.'
'Oh, is that you, sir? well, well, then'; and the man set down the easel.
'Well, my boy,' exclaimed Millthorpe to Pierre; 'you are in the Inferno dream yet. Look; that's what people call an easel, my boy. An easel, an easel—not a weasel; you look at it as though you thought it a weasel. Come; wake up, wake up! You ordered it, I suppose, and here it is. Going to paint and illustrate the Inferno, as you go along, I suppose. Well, my friends tell me it is a great pity my own things ain't illustrated. But I can't afford it. There now is that Hymn to the Niger, which
