"Ah!—you're not offended?"
"Not in the least."
"Good. It was a motley assemblage, as you say. Yet I'm inclined to think
I found my pearl in the oyster. I'm afraid I interrupted—eh?"
"No, no, not at all. Only some idle scribbling. I'd finished."
"You are a poet?"
"Only a lunatic. I haven't taken my degree."
"Ah! it's a noble gift—the gift of song; precious through its rarity."
Polyhistor caught a note of emotion in his visitor's voice, and glanced at him curiously.
"Surely," he thought, "that vulgar, ruddy little face is transfigured."
"But," said the stranger, coming to earth, "I am lingering beside the mark. I must try to justify my solecism in manners by a straight reference to the object of my visit. That is, in the first instance, a matter of business."