“Doubtless I should find your companionship very instructive.”
“You are kind to say so.”
“I don’t say so. I only say that from your account of yourself I should presume so. Of course I know of you only from your own statements. So you were a professor at Harvard University?”
“Yes, sir.”
“During what years?”
“I left there a year since, after serving for a term of five years.”
“That was a long period. Why did you leave, may I ask?”
“On account of my health. I labored so assiduously that it became seriously affected. My physician prescribed traveling for a year or more. My means are not large, partly because I have spent so much money on books and scientific research, and our salaries as professors were not munificent.”
“You have a large library?”
“About four hundred volumes,” answered Puffer promptly. “I think those books—many of them rare—must have cost over ten thousand dollars.”