All this did not put the Professor at his ease. He pulled out his MSS. and let it drop. A third man picked it up, and handed it to him again with a ready smile. Professor Higginson on first coming into the room had taken him for a young man, for he had the cut and the facial lines of youth; but as the light from the window fell upon him as he picked up the papers, the face that smiled was a face well over fifty, perhaps nearer sixty. Professor Higginson was not a little astonished to see the same smile suddenly appearing and disappearing on the face three or four times about nothing in particular, and directed towards no one. A little more experience of the world would have enabled him to label the features and the man, for that smile goes with the Ministry of the Fine Arts, and no less a one than Sir John Hooker stood before him. But Mr. Higginson had got no further than Lord Biggleton, that was enough for him!
He struggled into his gown with difficulty, and wondered whether a fourth man who helped him on was a Home Secretary or a Field-Marshal or what.
They made a little procession, Biggleton putting upon the Professor's back a powerful pushing hand by way of encouragement, the
