He spread them out on the table after supper with a curious melancholy. During the few months previous to this event, his chief characteristic, his eager, almost infantile, simplicity, had become tinged with a quietude which seemed to be a foreshadowing of a sombre ripening to maturity. He had been strangely silent and thoughtful of late. He had given up in a great measure, even on Sundays, those thrice-blessed days, his habit of reading constantly in the ancient authors. “My father,” he said, as he arranged the pieces of silver upon the table, “it is hard to believe that the same heart propels these fingers that first laid these pieces of silver upon this table before you, a long, long year ago. I think that year must have been an age, an epoch. Or is it that during that time, my father, I have been reading over-much in the Book of the Ages?” “Ah, my beloved Achilles,” said his father, “may it not be that your existence is entering upon a new phase? You know that the mortal life of heroes has three phases. May not this be the second phase upon which you are now entering?” “Yes, my father,” said the young man thoughtfully, “I believe that to be true. Things are not so mysterious to me as they once were. During the past year I seem to have won knowledge that is great and strange and rare.” XXIV “Luney, my son,” said Mr. James Dodson in one of his moments of expansiveness, as they walked together one evening down the Strand, “there are only two rules to remember for this life, whatever there may be for the next. The first is to know what you want; the second is to see that you get it.” “Have you yet discovered that which is necessary to yourself?” his companion ventured to inquire. “I have, my son,” said Mr. Dodson. “I have discovered that it is necessary to myself to marry a little money. You see, my son, I have come to an understanding with Chrissie. And between you and me and the lamp-post, my son, I might go a deal farther and fare a good deal worse. She knows her way about the earth, does Chrissie; she knows what two and two make; she wasn’t born yesterday. She has an eye to the main chance, has Chrissie; and that’s the wife for me. She has nearly a hundred quid laid by, and her mother’s brother has a beer off-license in the Borough. Literature is all right, Luney, and so is Art, and so is Law, and so is the Army, and so is the Church, but give me Trade, my son, vulgar and sordid Trade. I am about tired of Culture, my son; I am about tired of the Office Manner. I was only thinking this afternoon what I would pay down in hard cash to be able to cut the throat of Octavius with a blunt razor a bit jagged at the edges.”