“You see yourself,” cried Bulstrode, giving his battered hat a rakish cock, “Skelton is a fine example of what enormous study and research will bring a man to, and I’m another one. He has been studying for twenty years to write the greatest book that ever was written. He’s spent the twenty best years of his life, and he’s got fifteen thousand books stored away in that grand new library he has built, and he’s bought me, body and soul, to help him out, and the result will be--he’ll _never_ write the book!” Bulstrode slapped his hand down on his knee as he brought out the “_never_” in a ringing voice; the dog gave a single loud yelp, and Lewis Pryor jumped up in surprise. “You don’t mean it, Mr. Bulstrode!” he cried breathlessly, for he had been bred upon the expectation that a great work was being then written in the Deerchase library by Mr. Skelton, and when it was given to the world the planet would stop revolving for a time at least. Bulstrode had an ungovernable indiscreetness, and, the string of his tongue being loosed, he proceeded to discuss Skelton’s affairs with great freedom, and without regarding in the least the youth of his companion. “Yes, I do mean it. Skelton’s milking the post, and he’s hired me to hold the sieve. He’s been preparing--preparing--preparing to write that book; and the more he prepares, the more he won’t write it. Not that Skelton hasn’t great powers; you know those things he wrote at the university, particularly that ‘Voices of the People’? Well, Skelton’s got a bogie after him--the bogie of a too brilliant promise in his youth. He’s mortally afraid of the young fellow who wrote ‘Voices of the People.’ But he’ll carry out that other project of his--no doubt at all about _that_.” “What is it?” asked Lewis, full of curiosity, though not altogether comprehending what he heard. “Oh, that determination of his to ruin Jack Blair and his wife,” replied Bulstrode, flapping away a fly. “Mrs. Blair, you know, jilted the Great Panjandrum fifteen years ago, and ran away with Blair; and they’ll pay for it with every acre of land and stick of timber they’ve got in the world!” Lewis pondered a moment or two. “But I thought Mr. Skelton and the Blairs were so friendly and polite, and--” “O Lord, yes. Deuced friendly and polite! That’s the way with gentlefolks--genteel brutality--shaking hands and smiling one at the other, and all the time a knife up the sleeve. Don’t understand gentlefolks myself.” This rather shocked Lewis, who was accustomed to hearing everybody he knew called a gentleman, and the title insisted upon tenaciously. “Why, Mr. Bulstrode,” he said diffidently, “ain’t you a gentleman?”