He found the editor in a dim back room at the top of a high building, so lost in a world of books and dust that at first Henry could hardly make him out, writing by a window with his back to the door. Then an alert head turned round to him, and a rather peevish gesture bade him be seated, while the editor resumed his work. This hardly came up to Henry's magnificent dreams of the editorial dignity. Perhaps he had a vague idea that editors lived in palaces, and sat on thrones. Presently the editor put down his pen with an exclamation of satisfaction; and the first impression of peevishness vanished in the cordiality with which he now turned to his visitor. "You must excuse my absorption. It was a rather tough piece of proof-reading. A subject I'm rather interested in,--new Welsh dictionary. Don't suppose it's in your line, eh, eh?"--and the tall, spare man laughed a boyish laugh like a mischievous bird, and tossed his head at the jest. His face was small and sallow and tired; but the dark eyes were full of fun and kindness. Presently, he rose and began to walk up and down the room with a curious, prancing walk, rolling himself a cigarette, and talking away in a rapid, jerky fashion with his continual, "eh, eh?" coming in all the time. "Poor Gerard! So you know him? How is he now?" and he lowered his voice with the suggestion of a mutual confidence, and stopped in his walk till Henry should answer. "Poor Gerard! And he might have been--well, well,--never mind. We were together at King's. Brilliant fellow. So you know Gerard. Dear me! Dear me!" Then he turned to the subject of Henry's visit. "Well, my poor boy, nothing will satisfy you but literature? You are determined to be a literary man, eh, eh?" Then he stopped in front of Henry and laid his hand kindly on his shoulder, "Is it too late to say, 'Go back while there is yet time'? Perhaps--of course--you're going to be a very great man," and he broke off into his walk again, with one of his mischievous laughs. "But unless you are, take my word, it's a poor game--Yet, I suppose, it's no use talking. I know, wasted breath, wasted breath--Well, now, what can you do? and, by the way, you won't grow fat on _The Fleet Street Review_. Ten shillings a column is our magnificent rate of payment, and we can hardly afford that--" Then he began pulling out one book and another from the piles of all sorts that lay around him. "I suppose, like the rest, you'd better begin on poetry. There's a tableful over there--go and take your pick of it, unless, of course, you've got some special subject. You're not, I suppose, an authority on Assyriology, eh, eh?" Henry feared not, and then a new fit of industry came upon the editor, and he begged Henry to take a look at the books while he ran through another proof for the post.