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What? You protest once more that without a sense of humour he cannot be a hero? I am shocked. Who are we, to fall foul of Henry V, and Mr. Rochester, and Garth Dalmain? Nevertheless, if you insist——

To tell you the truth, I am rather glad that you do insist. Unless our hero and our heroine have a sense of humour there is no chance at all of a happy ending: and in these days a happy ending, for a conscientious scribbler holding the mirror to nature, would be so manifestly untrue to life, would be so consequently inartistic, would be, in short, such a blessed relief, that one is tempted to leave a small chance, a stray peg on which to hang a wedding garment, should sir and lady, at the last, combine to send out invitations and include their chroniclers.

So Justin is to have an embryonic sense of humour; that is to say, he shall have, at least, eyes in his head, and will one day, you are sure and I hope, learn to see with them; but at the crisis of his life I fear he will be still purblind, wearing the pedantry his own spiritual myopia has induced, like smoke-coloured spectacles upon his Roman nose.