"You would certainly find it much clearer outside," said I, beginning to blow up the fire. "But then, Cousin Peter, outside one must become a target for the yokel eye, and I detest being stared at by the uneducated, who, naturally, lack appreciation. On the whole, I prefer the smoke, though it chokes one most infernally. Where may one venture to sit here?" I tendered him the stool, but he shook his head, and, crossing to the anvil, flicked it daintily with his handkerchief and sat down, dangling his leg. "'Pon my soul!" said he, eyeing me languidly through his glass again, "'pon my soul! you are damnably like me, you know, in features." "Damnably!" I nodded. He glanced at me sharply, and laughed. "My man, a creature of the name of Parks," said he, swinging his spurred boot to and fro, "led me to suppose that I should meet a person here—a blacksmith fellow—" "Your man Parks informed you correctly," I nodded; "what can I do for you?" "The devil!" exclaimed Sir Maurice, shaking his head; "but no—you are, as I gather, somewhat eccentric, but even you would never take such a desperate step as to—to—" "—become a blacksmith fellow?" I put in. "Precisely!" "Alas, Sir Maurice, I blush to say that rather than become an unprincipled adventurer living on my wits, or a mean-spirited hanger-on fawning upon acquaintances for a livelihood, or doing anything rather than soil my hands with honest toil, I became a blacksmith fellow some four or five months ago." "Really it is most distressing to observe to what depths Virtue may drag a man!—you are a very monster of probity and rectitude!" exclaimed Sir Maurice; "indeed I am astonished! you manifested not only shocking bad judgment, but a most deplorable lack of thought (Virtue is damnably selfish as a rule)—really, it is quite disconcerting to find one's self first cousin to a blacksmith—" "—fellow!" I added. "Fellow!" nodded Sir Maurice. "Oh, the devil! to think of my worthy cousin reduced to the necessity of laboring with hammer and saw—" "Not a saw," I put in. "We will say, chisel, then—a Vibart with hammer and chisel—deuce take me! Most distressing! and, you will pardon my saying so, you do not seem to thrive on hammers and chisels; no one could say you looked blooming, or even flourishing like the young bay tree (which is, I fancy, an Eastern expression)." "Sir," said I, "may I remind you that I have work to do?" "A deuced interesting place though, this," he smiled, staring round imperturbably through his glass; "so—er—so devilish grimy and smutty and gritty—quite a number of horseshoes, too. D'ye know, cousin, I never before remarked what a number of holes there are in a horseshoe—but live and learn!" Here he paused to inhale a pinch of snuff, very daintily, from a jewelled box. "It is a strange thing," he pursued, as he dusted his fingers on his handkerchief, "a very strange thing that, being cousins, we have never met till now—especially as I have heard so very much about you."