May I ?' So the miserable idea--the happy thought--had occurred to somebody else.
'Is there ?' I said, with interest and attention.
'It's something in the School of Art.

A man named Fry has died.' 'Ah!' I said, 'a man named Fry.

He, I think was Director of that institution.' I looked at Armour in the considering, measuring way with which we suggest to candidates for posts that their fitness to fill them is not to be absolutely taken for granted.

'Fry was a man of fifty-six,' I said.
'I am thirty.' He certainly did not look it, but years often fall lightly upon a temperament.
'It's a vile climate.' 'I know.

Is it too vile, do you think,' he said anxiously, 'to ask a lady to share ?' 'Lots of ladies do share it,' I replied, with amazing calmness; 'but I must decline absolutely to enter into that.' My frown was so forbidding that he couldn't and didn't dare to go on.
He looked dashed and disappointed; he was really a fool of an applicant, quite ready to retire from the siege on the first intimation that the gates were not to be thrown open at his approach.
'Do you think you would like teaching ?' I asked.
'I can teach.