‘Where did you get this, may I ask?’
‘I want your opinion first, and then I will tell you.’
The Professor moved towards the lamp, replaced the cardboard green shade, sat down, and with a strong magnifying-glass examined the papyrus with evident interest. Carrel, appreciating the interest he was exciting, talked on in rapid jerky sentences.
‘Yes. I think you will be able to help me. I am sure you will do so. Like yourself, I am a scholar, and might have occupied a position in Europe similar to your own.’
The Professor smiled grimly, but did not look up from the table as Carrel continued:
‘Mine has been a strange career. I was educated abroad. I became a scholar at Cambridge. There was no prize I did not carry off. I knew more Greek than both Universities put together. Then I was cursed not only with inclination for vices, but with capacity and courage to practise them—liquor, extravagance, gambling—amusements for rich people; but I was poor.’
‘It is a very sad and a very common story,’ said the Professor sententiously, but without looking up from the table. ‘I myself was an
Oxford man. Your name is quite unfamiliar to me.’
‘I fancy if you asked them at Cambridge they would certainly remember me.’
‘I shall make a point of doing so,’ said the professor drily. He affected to be giving only partial attention to the narrative; but though he seemed to be sedulous in his examination of the papyrus, he was listening intently.