"Sir," said Nicholas, in alarm,—"I ought to explain myself,—I"——
But the old gentleman gave no heed to the interruption, and continued:——
—"And that you have published an article on the Value of Words. You sent me the paper, but I didn't find anything in it. I have no great opinion of the efforts of young men in this direction. It contained commonplace generalities which I never heard questioned. You can't show the value of words by wasting them. I told you I should be plain. Now you want me to give you some hints, you say, as to the best method of pursuing philological researches. In a hasty moment I said you might come, though I don't usually allow visitors. You praise me for what I have accomplished in philology. Young man, that is because I have not given myself up to idle gadding and gossiping. Do you think, if I had been making calls, and receiving anybody who chose to force himself upon me, during the last forty years, that I should have been able to master the digamma, which you think my worthiest labor?"
"Sir," interrupted Nicholas again, thinking that the question, though it admitted no answer, might give him a chance to stand on his own legs once more, "I really must ask your pardon."
"The best method of pursuing philological researches!" continued the old scholar, deaf to Nicholas's remonstrance. "That is one of your foolish general questions, that show how little you know what you are about. But do as I have done. Work by yourself, and dig, dig. Give up your senseless gabbling in the magazines, get over your astonishment at finding that cœlum and heaven contain the same idea etymologically, and that there was a large bread-bakery at Skōlos, and make up your mind to believe nothing till you can't help it. You haven't begun to work yet. Wait till you have lived as I have, forty years in one house, with your library likely to turn you out of doors, and only an old black woman to speak to, before you begin to think of calling yourself a scholar. Eh?"
And at this point the old gentleman adjusted the dipper, which was merely an ear-trumpet,—though for a moment more mysterious to Nicholas, in its new capacity, than when he had regarded it as a unique specimen of a familiar household-implement,—and thrust the bowl toward the embarrassed youth. In fact, having said all that he intended to say to his unwelcome supposed disciple, he showed enough churlish grace to permit him to make such reply or defence as seemed best.
The old gentleman had pulled up so suddenly in his harangue, and called for an answer so authoritatively, and with such a singular flourish of his trumpet, that Nicholas, losing command of the studied explanation of his conduct, which a moment before had been at his tongue's end, caught at the last sentence spoken, and gained a perilous advantage by asking,—
"Have you, indeed, lived in this house forty years, Sir?"
"Eh! what?" said the old gentleman, impatiently, perceiving that he had spoken. "Here, speak into my trumpet. What is the use of a trumpet, if you don't speak into it?"
"Oh," thought Nicholas to himself, "I see, he is excessively deaf"; and bending over the trumpet, where he saw a sieve-like frame, as if all speech were to be strained as it entered, he collected his force, and repeated the question, with measured and sonorous utterance, "Sir, have you lived in this house forty years?"