"Excuse me, sir, but you understand perch-fishing; and since we find ourselves on the same road, I should like to be better acquainted with you. I hear you once wished to be an author. I am one." Leonard had never before, to his knowledge, seen an author, and a mournful smile passed his lips as he surveyed the perch-fisher. Mr. Burley was indeed very differently attired since the first interview by the brooklet. He looked less like an author, but more perhaps like a perch-fisher. He had a new white hat, stuck on one side of his head--a new green overcoat--new gray trousers, and new boots. In his hand was a whalebone stick, with a silver handle. Nothing could be more fragrant, devil-me-carish, and to use a slang word, _tigrish_, than his whole air. Yet, vulgar as was his costume, he did not himself seem vulgar, but rather eccentric, lawless, something out of the pale of convention. His face looked more pale and more puffed than before, the tip of his nose redder; but the spark in his eye was of livelier light, and there was self-enjoyment in the corners of his sensual humorous lip. "You are an author, sir," repeated Leonard. "Well, and what is the report of your calling? Yonder column props an urn. The column is tall, and the urn is graceful. But it looks out of place by the roadside: what say you?" _Mr. Burley._--"It would look better in the churchyard." _Leonard._--"So I was thinking. And you are an author!" _Mr. Burley._--"Ah, I said you had a quick sense of allegory. And so you think an author looks better in a churchyard, when you see him but as a muffled urn under the moonshine, than standing beneath the gas-lamp, in a white hat, and with a red tip to his nose. Abstractedly, you are right. But, with your leave, the author would rather be where he is. Let us walk on." The two men felt an interest in each other, and they walked some yards in silence. "To return to the urn," said Mr. Burley, "you think of fame and churchyards. Natural enough, before illusion dies; but I think of the moment, of existence--and I laugh at fame. Fame, sir--not worth a glass of cold without! And as for a glass of warm, with sugar--and five shillings in one's pocket to spend as one pleases--what is there in Westminster Abbey to compare with it?" "Talk on, sir--I should like to hear you talk. Let me listen and hold my tongue." Leonard pulled his hat over his brows, and gave up his moody, questioning, turbulent mind to his new acquaintance. And John Burley talked on. A dangerous and a fascinating talk it was--the talk of a great intellect fallen. A serpent trailing its length on the ground, and showing bright, shifting, glorious hues as it grovelled. A serpent, yet without the serpent's guile. If John Burley deceived and tempted, he meant it not--he crawled and glittered alike honestly. No dove could be more simple.