"It was one's duty to resign, I assure you." As the enchanted hours passed, the discourse of the Sybarite grew more intimate, so rapt and so responsive was the young man with the deep eyes in his elemental simplicity. "It was most trying to have to leave one's warm bed in the middle of winter at eight o'clock, to breakfast hastily, merely for what? Merely to sustain an oaf from the public schools in a death grapple with an idyll of Theocritus. There's a labor of Sisyphus for you. We Horrobins are an old race; who knows what mysteries we have profaned in the immortal past! I hope I make myself clear."
Mr. Horrobin was not making himself at all clear, but the Sailor was striving hard to keep track of him. The Sybarite, a creature of intuitions when in the full enjoyment of "his personal ethos," was ready to help him to do so.
"We Horrobins are what is called in the physical world born-tired. We are as incapable of continuous effort as a dram drinker is of total abstinence. This absurd cosmos of airships and automobiles bores us to tears. A mere labor of Sisyphus, I assure you, my dear fellow. The whole human race striving to get to nowhere as fast as it can in order to return as quickly as possible. And why? I will tell you. Man himself has profaned the mysteries. The crime of Prometheus is not yet expiated on our miserable planet. Take my own case. I am fit for one thing only, and that is to lie in bed smoking good tobacco with my books around me, translating the 'Satyricon' of Petronius Arbiter. It seems an absurd thing to say, but given the bed, the tobacco, the books, and the right conjunction of the planetary bodies, which in these matters is most essential, and I honestly believe I am able to delve deeper into the matchless style of Petronius than any other person living or dead."
The Sailor was awed. The "Satyricon" of Petronius Arbiter was whole worlds away from Miss Fordal.
"Whether I shall ever finish my translation is not of the slightest importance. Personally, I am inclined to think not. That is one's own private labor of Sisyphus. It won me a fellowship and ultimately lost it me. Let us assume that I finish it. There is not a publisher or an academic body in Europe or America that would venture to publish it. Rome under Nero, my dear fellow, the feast of Trimalchio. And assuming it is finished and assuming it is published, it will be a thing entirely without value, either human or commercial. And why? Because there is no absolute canon of literary style existing in the world. It is one labor of Sisyphus the more for a man to say this is Petronius to a world for whom Petronius can never exist. Do I make myself clear?"
The Sailor was silent, but round eyes of wonder were trained upon the blue-eyed, yellow-bearded face of Mr. Esme Horrobin. The Sybarite, agreeably alive to the compliment, sighed deeply.
"It may have been right to resign one's fellowship, yet one doesn't say it was. It may not have been right, yet one doesn't say it was not. At least, a fellowship of Gamaliel in certain of its aspects is better than bear-leading the aristocracy, and a person of inadequate resources is sometimes driven even to that."
The next morning, the Sailor retrieved his bag from the cloak room at Marylebone Station, to which he went by bus from Victoria without much difficulty. He felt wonderfully better for his day's rest, and much fortified by the society of Mr. Esme Horrobin. Friendship had always been precious to Henry Harper. There was something in his nature that craved for it, yet he had never been able to satisfy the instinct easily. But this inspired muffin eater opened up a whole world of new and gorgeous promise now that he had Aladdin's lamp to read him by. Mr. Esme Horrobin was what Klondyke would have called a high-brow. But he was something more. He was a man who had the key to many hidden things.
When the Sailor had brought his bag to Bowdon House, the first thing he did was to find Marlow's Dictionary. Miss Foldal had presented him with her own private copy of this invaluable work, and the name Gwladys Foldal was to be seen on the flyleaf. "Ethos" was the first word he looked up, but it was not there. He then sought "oaf," whose definition was fairly clear. Then he went on to "bear-leading" and to "aristocracy." These proved less simple. Their private meanings were plain, more or less, but to correlate them was beyond the Sailor's powers, nor did it fall within the scope of Marlow's Dictionary to explain what the Sybarite meant when he spoke of bear-leading the aristocracy.