With the others the exalted world he
moved in was so remote from theirs that no surprises were possible
there, and if informed that the little Doctor had been elected president
of Harvard University, it would have seemed all in the day's work to
William Klinker. Klinker was six feet high, red-faced and friendly, and
Queed preferred his conversation above any heard at Mrs. Paynter's
table. It reminded him very much of his friend the yeggman in New York.
What went on behind the door of the tiny Scriptorium the boarders could
only guess. It may be said that its owner's big grievance against the
world was that he had to leave it occasionally to earn his bread and
meat. Apart from this he never left it in those days except for one
reason, viz., the consumption three times a day of the said bread and
meat. Probably this was one explanation of the marked pallor of his
cheek, but of such details as this he never took the smallest notice.
Under the tiny bed were three boxes of books, chief fruit of the savings
of an inexpensive lifetime. But the books were now merely the occasional
stimulus of a mind already well stored with their strength, well
fortified against their weaknesses.
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