These words fell upon John's ears as music. It was a spell upon him, something that took him into a realm of wonderful sounds and visions. On that walk home, he plied the poet with questions, and Keats, Shelley, Browning and Byron became more than mere names. He learned how they had lived, of Byron's picturesque, turbulent career; of Shelley's passion for reform; of Keats' struggle against disease and the burning ardour for the glory that was Greece. And then Steer told him of living men who were writing. "But don't meet them if you can help," he advised. "You should never meet authors of the books you admire--they have conserved their best moments in a few pages, and they cannot live up to your expectations--and authors, too, are not the pleasantest of mankind. There is sufficient egotism in a room full of them to lift St. Paul's to the top of Everest." "But you're a poet yourself, Mr. Steer--and you're not at all objectionable!" said John laughingly. "Perhaps that's why I'm such a bad one," answered Steer. They had now overtaken the others and Vernley, looking round, noticed John's excited manner. "Whatever's stirred you up, Scissors?" he asked. "You look as if you'd found a gold mine!" "Mr. Steer's been telling me about the poets. Oh, Verney, I'd no idea they were such a ripping set. Have you got a Wordsworth at home?" "Yes--but you haven't come here to read that stuff--you'll have to read it when you get at your 'remove'--a horrible old man, always grousing about some 'divine, far-off event'--no, that's Tennyson. How does it run? I've got it-- _a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns And the round ocean and the living air--_" "That's beautiful, it's--" exclaimed John. "I call it utter tosh. Parse and analyse. Subject; there isn't one, predicate; find it if you can; object--Good Lord, why don't these fellows write sense? Whoever saw a round ocean?" "But that isn't what he meant--you mustn't take it pictorially." "Bravo, John, you've got the sense of it," interjected Steer. "Bobbie's attempted to analyse it,--that's fatal." Vernley stared at John curiously for a moment, amazed at his friend's enthusiasm, then-- "You are a rum beggar, Scissors; I believe you'd like to write stuff like that yourself." "Perhaps he will--alas," sighed Steer. "Why do you say 'alas'?" asked John. "You're not at all sad, you're quite jolly and--" "You can play tennis, sir," added Vernley in a consolatory voice. II