"A man who might have been famous, if he had condescended to be respectable! The boy listening to us both so attentively interested _me_ too--I should like to have the making of him. But I must buy this Horace." The shopman, lurking within his hole like a spider for flies, was now called out. And when Mr Norreys had bought the Horace, and given an address where to send it, Harley asked the shopman if he knew the young man who had been reading Boethius. "Only by sight. He has come here every day the last week, and spends hours at the stall. When once he fastens on a book, he reads it through." "And never buys?" said Mr Norreys. "Sir," said the shopman with a good-natured smile, "they who buy seldom read. The poor boy pays me twopence a-day to read as long as he pleases. I would not take it, but he is proud." "I have known men amass great learning in that way," said Mr Norreys. "Yes, I should like to have that boy in my hands. And now, my lord, I am at your service, and we will go to the studio of your artist." The two gentlemen walked on towards one of the streets out of Fitzroy Square. In a few minutes more Harley L'Estrange was in his element, seated carelessly on a deal table, smoking his cigar, and discussing art with the gusto of a man who honestly loved, and the taste of a man who thoroughly understood it. The young artist, in his dressing robe, adding slow touch upon touch, paused often to listen the better. And Henry Norreys, enjoying the brief respite from a life of great labour, was gladly reminded of idle hours under rosy skies; for these three men had formed their friendship in Italy, where the bands of friendship are woven by the hands of the Graces. CHAPTER V. Leonard and Mr Burley walked on into the suburbs round the north road from London, and Mr Burley offered to find literary employment for Leonard--an offer eagerly accepted. Then they went into a public house by the wayside. Burley demanded a private room, called for pen, ink, and paper; and, placing these implements before Leonard, said, "Write what you please in prose, five sheets of letter paper, twenty-two lines to a page--neither more nor less." "I cannot write so." "Tut, 'tis for bread." The boy's face crimsoned. "I must forget that," said he. "There is an arbour in the garden under a weeping ash," returned Burley. "Go there, and fancy yourself in Arcadia." Leonard was too pleased to obey. He found out the little arbour at one end of a deserted bowling-green. All was still--the hedgerow shut out the sight of the inn. The sun lay warm on the grass, and glinted pleasantly through the leaves of the ash. And Leonard there wrote the first essay from his hand as Author by profession. What was it that he wrote? His dreamy impressions of London? an anathema on its streets, and its hearts of stone? murmurs against poverty? dark elegies on fate?