“That is true,” said Baltazar. “But destiny, as far as I have the handling of things, won’t condemn you to a vast unfathomed cave of ocean. What I tried to imply was, that you’re a wonderful fellow—what the Americans in their fruity idiom which I haven’t yet taught you, call a peach.” “I will make a mental note of it, sir,” said Quong Ho. Baltazar grinned over his plate and went on with his dinner, the dog Brutus by his side watching the process with well-bred yearning and accepting an occasional mouthful with a gluttony politely concealed. Towards the close of the meal Quong Ho brought in lamps and candles—Baltazar loved vivid illumination—and drew the curtains. In the house Quong Ho wore Chinese slippers and walked like a ghost. He began to clear away as soon as Baltazar rose from the table. The latter filled and lit his pipe and consulted his watch. “You can come for your lesson in an hour’s time.” “In an hour precisely,” said Quong Ho. “Have you prepared the work I set you?” “With thorough perfection, sir.” “You’ll be President of the Chinese Republic yet,” said Baltazar. “It is no mean ambition,” said Quong Ho. Baltazar took a book from his shelves devoted to general reading—an amazing medley of dingy volumes such as one sees only in an ill-arranged second-hand bookseller’s stock. It was a second-hand bookseller’s stock in literal truth, for Baltazar had bought a catalogue _en bloc_. It saved infinite trouble. The collection provided him with years of miscellaneous feeding. It contained little that was modern, nothing that was of contemporary moment; on the other hand, it gave him many works which he had ear-marked for perusal, hitherto in vain, from his boyhood. There were the works of Robertson—the Histories of Scotland, Charles V and America; Davila’s Wars in France; the Aldine Edition of the British Poets in many volumes; an incomplete Dodsley’s Old Plays; the works of one Surtees—he who wrote of the immortal Jorrocks and Soapey Sponge and Facey Romford; Elzevir editions of Saint Augustine and Tertullian; The Architectural Beauties of England and Wales; Livingstone’s Travels; and Queechy, by the author of The Wide, Wide World. A haggis of a library. No one but John Baltazar could have bought it at one impulsive swoop.