"I speak to you," he began, uncompromisingly, "as to Mrs. Paynter's
agent. Professor Nicolovius is going to move in the spring and take an
apartment or small house. He has invited me to share such apartment or
house with him."
"What! But you declined?"
"On the contrary, I accepted at once."
Mrs. Paynter's agent was much surprised and interested by this news, and
said so. "But how in the world," she went on, puzzled, "did you make him
like you so? I always supposed that he hated everybody he does me, I
know."
"I believe he does hate everybody but me."
"Strange--extraordinary!" said Sharlee, picturing the two scholars alone
together in their flat, endeavoring to soft-boil eggs on one of those
little fixtures over the gas.
"I can see nothing in the least extraordinary in the refusal of a
cultured gentleman to hate me."
"I don't mean it that way at all-not at all! But Professor Nicolovius
must know cultured gentlemen, congenial roomers, who are nearer his own
age--"
"Oh, not necessarily," said Queed, and sat down in the chair by her,
Major Brooke's chair. "He is a most unsocial sort of man,"--this from
the little Doctor!--"and I doubt if he knows anybody better than he
knows me.
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