“Well,” said Marley, haltingly, “I’d heard a good deal of you—and I thought I’d like you, and then I’ve heard father speak of you.”
“You have?” said Powell, looking up quickly.
“Yes.”
“What’d he say?”
“Well, he said you were a great orator and he said you were always with the under dog. He said he liked that.”
Powell turned his eyes away and his face reddened.
“Well, let’s see. If you think your father would approve of your sitting at the feet of such a Gamaliel as I, we can—” He was squinting painfully at his book-shelves. “Is that Blackstone over there on the top shelf?”
Marley got up and glanced along the backs of the dingy books, their calfskin bindings deeply browned by the years, their red and black labels peeling off.
“Here’s Blackstone,” he said, taking down a book, “but it’s the second volume.”
“Second volume, eh? Don’t see the first around anywhere, do you?”