“The eternal fitness of things. One doesn't as a general rule, for instance, meet the Archbishop of Canterbury at a Covent Garden ball.” He spoke in a hearty voice, with somewhat exotic gestures. Roderick Usher had spent part of his schooldays in France, and was fond of insisting on his cosmopolitan training. He was dressed in the most perfectly fitting of frock-coats and patent leather boots, and wore faultless grey suede gloves. His only departure from the commonplace severity of fashionable attire was a yellow Indian silk bow whose ends spread over the front of his coat. He had light fuzzy hair that protruded bushily behind his glossy silk hat, and his yellow beard was pointed in the Vandyke pattern. He was of medium height, rather stout; his face was broad and ruddy, at first sight giving the impression of frank good humour; but his eyes, small and somewhat shifty, although hidden behind gold pince-nez, detracted from the general air of handsomeness that he was pleased to cultivate. Besides, the deep lines of nearing middle age were growing troublesomely obvious. Sylvester replied in a matter-of-fact way to his last remark,---- “I was working in my laboratory all the morning, and I felt the need of air. Weymouth Street is not far. I don't come here as a rule.” “Bless you, my friend, there's no need to apologise. The place belongs to you just as much as it does to me. How's the old man?” “Which old man?” asked Sylvester. “Your old man, my old man, both our old men. Our antique but venerated old men.” “My father is very well,” replied Sylvester, stiffly, “and so, I believe, is yours.” “_A la bonne heure!_ So you've come to London to make your fortune? You steady scientific files always do. We poor artistic devils generally manage to make other people's.” “I don't quite understand,” said Sylvester. The other laughed and drawing a cigarette from a silver case lit it daintily. “I don't suppose you do. You approach a paradox as solemnly as if it were a disease. We play bat and ball with it. That makes the difference between us. Have a turn?” Sylvester assented somewhat reluctantly. He disliked the son as much as he disliked the father. But the spirit of lonesomeness had been weighing on him to-day, and human instinct craved relief. They moved away and took their places in the sauntering procession on the broad walk. “Why don't you do more of this sort of thing?” asked Roderick. “You treat life by rule of thumb, as if it were a science. It isn't; it's an art,--the finest of the Fine Arts. Colour, form, relief, action, sound, articulation, all combined, capable of a myriad permutations, any one of which can be fixed by the inspiration of the moment.” “My way of life suits me best,” replied Sylvester. “I teach people how to kill bacilli; you teach them how to kill time.”