I inclined my head stiffly, as though all London habitually climbed the storeys on the same errand and rather wearied me.
Then he delivered himself of a speech which he had evidently got by heart. He flushed painfully in the delivery.
"I am flattered," I said at the conclusion. "It's beastly gratifying. What do you want?"
"Advice, if you will be so good," said the young man.
"Then you had better go somewhere else," said I.
The young man turned pink. "But I thought, after I had read your works—all your works, on my word—I had hoped that you would understand me, and I really have come for advice." The bulge crackled more ominously than ever.
"I understand perfectly," said I. "You are oppressed with vague and nameless longings, are you not?"
"I am, terribly," said he.
"You do not wish to be as other men are? You desire to emerge from the common herd, to make your mark, and so forth?"