This remarkable person owned, with a sort of frankness which was not frankness at all, that there were just two things he could do of practical utility. One, it seemed, was to toast a muffin with anybody, the other was to make the perfect cup of tea. Here he ended and here he began. He had also the rather unacademic habit of quoting dead languages in a manner so remarkably impressive as to bewilder the Sailor. Henry Harper listened with round eyes. He devoured the Sybarite. His talisman seemed to tell him that he was on the verge of worlds denied to the common run of men. This remarkable person had even a private language of his own. He used words and phrases so charged with esoteric meanings that they somehow seemed to make the Aladdin's lamp burn brighter in the Sailor's soul. He had a knowledge of books comprehensive and wonderful, of all ages and countries apparently, yet when the young man ventured to ask timidly, but with a sort of pride in his question, whether he had read the "Pickwick Papers," the answer overthrew him completely. "God forbid," said the Sybarite. Henry Harper was utterly defeated. And yet he was charmed. Here was a depth far beyond Miss Foldal, who had suggested that he should get a ticket for the Free Library in order to be able to read Charles Dickens. "I suppose, sir"--the "sir" would have had the sanction of Ginger, the perfect man of the world--"I suppose, sir, you don't think much of Charles Dickens?" After all, that was what the Sybarite really meant. "Not necessarily that. He is simply not in one's ethos, don't you know." The Sailor was baffled completely, but in some way he was a shrewd young man. He had soon decided that it would be wiser to listen than attempt to talk himself. The Sybarite was fastidious but he was not shy. He liked to speak out of the depths of his wisdom to a fit audience if the spirit was on him. He knew that he talked well, even beautifully; the immortal flair of the artist was there; and in this strange young man with the deep eyes was the perfect listener, and that was what the soul of the Sybarite always demanded. The Sailor listened with a kind of fascinated intensity; also he watched all that the Sybarite did with a sense of esthetic delight. His lightest movements, like his voice, were ordered, feline, sacramental. It made no difference whether he was toasting muffins, buttering them, or merely eating them; whether he was pouring out tea or conveying it in a blue china cup to his lips, it was all done in a manner to suggest the very poetry of motion. And when it came to a matter of rolling a cigarette, which it presently did, the almost catlike grace of the long and slender hands that were so clean and kept so perfectly, touched a chord very deep in the Sailor.