Jones. Labels, you mean. Robinson. Fair--very fair, by Jove! Do you go north this year? Brown. I do, this week. Robinson. So soon! Health and a happy holiday! Jones. Your good health and a pleasant time in Garth! Robinson. Here's a point, Brown. Hallowes--he talks of Garth: I thought the place was only known to you. Brown. Hallowes discovered it a year ago: And there I met him. Jones. So: I understand How such an out-at-elbows man as he Is known to you: there you had no one else. Brown. Exactly: with his simple ecstasies He made good sport when Maudlin took the dumps. Jones. When do you wed your cousin? Brown. In a month. Jones. Is the day fixed? Brown. I go to have it fixed. Robinson. Your cousin, Magdalen ... By Jove, here's Smith! Enter Smith. Smith. You here! Has Hallowes been? Brown. No; not to-night. Are you to meet him? Smith. Yes. Brown. He'll not appear: He acts the people's notion of a poet. He has a double memorandum-book-- Engagements to be broken--to be kept; And most of those he makes are for the first: "Sorry I failed you," when he sees you; "but"-- And you are left to gather that the Muse Hugged him so close he couldn't get away. Smith. He'll not fail me. Jones. Don't be too sure of that. I've known him break with me a dozen times. Smith. Perhaps he's braver than your other friends. Jones. The satire's deep. Brown. A little underbred-- Hallowes, I mean. Robinson. Still he's a graduate. Jones. Finished apprentice; but he shuns the stress Of competition with the journeymen, Whereby alone dexterity is gained. Brown. A fledgling knight who flies the eager fray Where sword whets sword. Robinson. He herds with nobody, I've noticed that. But here's a point: I, you, Smith--everybody wants to know the man; He--won't be known: no one can equal him In turning forth the dark slide when you think Acquaintance burns to intimacy. Smith, Only you see his lantern blazing bright; How's that? Brown. Speak for yourself, sir. This I know, He rather courted me. His fitful wisp, However, I assure you, Robinson, Leads to a quaking bog of egotism. Jones. Where I have floundered more than once. A month-- Three weeks ago when he gave up his post In--Holofernes' School--the Cambridge man's-- That very day I met him here alone. "I'm done with it," he cried. "These squalid years Of mental boot-blacking are ended now-- The shameful pedagogy. Ah," he said, With lips that shook and molten eyes, his voice Hushing and sparkling as his passion tore A ragged way through wordy wildernesses, Or spread, where image failed, in shallows vague, The margin lost in rushy verbiage, "Shameful! a devil's compact! I, for food