Having no notion of his antecedents, he assumed him to be a friend of Rowlatt and met him on terms of social equality.

Paul expanded like a flower to the sun.

It was the first time he had spoken with an educated man on common ground--a man to whom the great imaginative English writers were familiar friends, who ran from Chaucer to Lamb and from Dryden to Browning with amazing facility.

The strong wine of allusive talk mounted to Paul's brain.

Tingling with excitement, he brought out all his small artillery of scholarship and acquitted himself so well that his host sent him off with a cordial letter to a manager of his acquaintance.
The letter opened the difficult door of the theatre.