Masques & Phases

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.