"You are a scholar," he said, "and I can do nothing for scholars. You need no ideal, for you have one. You need no dreams, for your life is one. For you, the earth pours out hidden treasure, and the impossible comes true day by day. What you desire just now is a long definite inscription to settle a controverted point in your favor. And if I could give it you, just think how miserable you'd be. Nothing further to argue about, there; and several quite happy and contentious professors would be reduced to such straits that I don't know what crimes you might all commit. You might even take to making money." "If I wanted money," said the Student, "I should, being an intelligent person, at once proceed to make it. Then I should have to live in the big house again, instead of letting it, and my precious time would be spent in arguing with my gardener and endeavoring to conceal my ignorance from my chauffeur. As it is, we live anyhow, and I am happy." "Happiness doesn't score any points in the game," said the hawker. "What good do you and your inscriptions do, anyway?" "That's not my job here," said the Student. "That will come on afterwards. Besides, I don't want to do good. I am old-fashioned; why should I take my neighbor by the throat and say, 'Let me do good to you, or it shall be the worse for you and yours'? Besides, I can't do good. You can't dot the wilderness with prosperous homesteads when half the years the oats don't ripen till the year after. Besides, I do do good; I have let the big house to shooting tenants, and it's excellent for their health. Besides seventeen other reasons, which I can enumerate if you are able to bear them. Besides, Fiona is fond of me." "Yes," said the old man softly, "that's your real justification. And it's a great deal more than I could give you; my hawker's licence doesn't cover the big things. How many buttons do you want?" Fiona came scrambling through the open window, and curled herself up on the rug with her head on the Student's knee. The Student stroked her hair. "Tell me what it's all about," she said. "This gentleman," he said, "once interrupted a very important piece of work which I was doing, and I was just about to tell him exactly what I thought of him when you interrupted me." The old hawker had risen and bowed courteously to the girl. "My dear young lady," he said, "I have been searching my pack for a present for your father, and found nothing suitable. But perhaps I could find something for you." Fiona jumped up. "Have you a hedgehog?" was her question. "I do not carry them with me, as a general thing," said the old man. "No doubt one could be got. But why a hedgehog?" "I want one for the Urchin," she said. "You see, it's his namesake." "I see," said the old man, quite gravely. "And who is the Urchin?"