anacrusis, and see if they don't go better.«
    He involved himself in terms of pedantry, and with such delight that his
eyes gleamed. Having delivered a technical lecture, he began to read in
illustration, producing quite a different effect from that of the rhythm as
given by his friend. And the reading was by no means that of a pedant, rather of
a poet.
    For half an hour the two men talked Greek metres as if they lived in a world
where the only hunger known could be satisfied by grand or sweet cadences.
    They had first met in an amusing way. Not long after the publication of his
book »On Neutral Ground« Reardon was spending a week at Hastings. A rainy day
drove him to the circulating library, and as he was looking along the shelves
for something readable a voice near at hand asked the attendant if he had
anything by Edwin Reardon. The novelist turned in astonishment; that any casual
mortal should inquire for his books seemed incredible. Of course there was
nothing by that author in the library, and he who had asked the question walked
out again. On the morrow Reardon encountered this same man at a lonely part of
the shore; he looked at him, and spoke a word or two of common civility; they
got into conversation, with the result that Edwin told the story of yesterday.
The stranger introduced himself as Harold Biffen, an author in a small way, and
a teacher whenever he could get pupils; an abusive review had interested him in
Reardon's novels, but as yet he knew nothing of them but the names.
    Their tastes were found to be in many respects sympathetic, and after
returning to London they saw each other frequently. Biffen was always in dire
poverty, and lived in the oddest places; he had seen harder trials than even
Reardon himself. The teaching by which he partly lived was of a kind quite
unknown to the respectable tutorial world. In these days of examinations,
numbers of men in a poor position - clerks chiefly - conceive a hope that by
passing this, that, or the other formal test they may open for themselves a new
career. Not a few such persons nourish preposterous ambitions; there are
warehouse clerks privately preparing (without any means or prospect of them) for
a call to the Bar, drapers' assistants who go in for the preliminary examination
of the College of Surgeons, and untaught men innumerable who desire to procure
enough show of education to be eligible for a curacy. Candidates of this stamp
frequently advertise in the newspapers for cheap tuition, or answer
advertisements which are