I had Shakespeare, Marlowe, Beaumont and Fletcher, translations of Homer and of other great Greeks and Latins." Mr.McLean's frosty eyes beamed.
"What a wonderful opportunity!" he said.

"Eight or nine months on a desert island with the best of the classics, and nobody to disturb you! No such chance will ever come to me, I fear.

Which book of the Iliad is the finest, Robert ?" "The first, I think.

'Tis the noble opening, the solemn note of tragedy that enchains the attention of us all." "Well answered.

But I wish to make a confession to you and Jacobus, one that would shock nearly all scholars, yet I think that I must speak it out, to you two at least, before I die.