"Ah, to be sure!" sighed the Tinker, "but then, they are translations." "There are good translations as well as bad," said I. "Maybe," returned the Tinker, "maybe, but a translation's only a echo, after all, however good it be." As he spoke, he dived into his pack and brought forth a book, which he handed to me. It was a smallish volume in battered leathern covers, and had evidently seen much long and hard service. Opening it at the title-page, I read: Epictetus his ENCHIRIDION with Simplicius his COMMENT. Made English from the Greek By George Stanhope, late Fellow Of King's College in Camb. LONDON Printed for Richard Sare at Gray's Inn Gate in Holborn And Joseph Hindmarsh against the Exchange in Cornhill. 1649. "You've read Epictetus, perhaps?" inquired the Tinker. "I have." "Not in the Greek, of course." "Yes," said I, smiling, "though by dint of much labor." The Tinker stopped chewing to stare at me wide-eyed, then swallowed his mouthful at one gulp. "Lord love me!" he exclaimed, "and you so young, too!" "No," said I; "I'm twenty-five." "And Latin, now—don't tell me you can read the Latin." "But I can't make a kettle, or even mend one, for that matter," said I. "But you are a scholar, and it's a fine thing to be a scholar!" "And I tell you again, it is better to be a tinker," said I. "How so?" "It is a healthier life, in the first place," said I. "That, I can believe," nodded the Tinker. "It is a happier life, in the second place." "That, I doubt," returned the Tinker. "And, in the third place, it pays much better." "That, I don't believe," said the Tinker. "Nevertheless," said I, "speaking for myself, I have, in the course of my twenty-five years, earned but ten shillings, and that—but by the sale of my waistcoat." "Lord love me!" exclaimed the Tinker, staring. "A man," I pursued, "may be a far better scholar than I—may be full of the wisdom of the Ancients, and the teachings of all the great thinkers and philosophers, and yet starve to death—indeed frequently does; but who ever heard of a starving Tinker?" "But a scholar may write great books," said the Tinker. "A scholar rarely writes a great book," said I, shaking my head, "probably for the good and sufficient reason that great books never _are_ written." "Young fellow," said the Tinker, staring, "what do you mean by that?" "I mean that truly great books only happen, and very rarely." "But a scholar may happen to write a great book," said the Tinker. "To be sure—he may; a book that nobody will risk publishing, and if so—a book that nobody will trouble to read, nowadays." "Why so?"