One evening, in the summer term following the boy's matriculation, Elsmere brought him an essay after Hall, and they sat on talking afterward.

It was a rainy, cheerless evening; the first contest of the Boats week had been rowed in cold wind and sheet; a dreary blast whistled through the college.
Suddenly Langham reached out his hand for an open letter.

'I have had an offer, Elsmere,' he said, abruptly.
And he put it into his hand.

It was the offer of an important Scotch professorship, coming from the man most influential in assigning it.
The last occupant of the post had been a scholar of European eminence.
Langham's contributions to a great foreign review, and certain Oxford recommendations, were the basis of the present overture, which, coming from one who was himself a classic of the classics, was couched in terms flattering to any young man's vanity.
Robert looked up with a joyful exclamation when he had finished the letter.
'I congratulate you, sir.' 'I have refused it,' said Langham, abruptly.
His companion sat open-mouthed.

Young as he was, he know perfectly well that this particular appointment was one of the blue ribbons of British scholarship.
'Do you think--' said the other in a tone of singular vibration, which had in it a note of almost contemptuous irritation--'do you think _I_ am the man to get and keep a hold on a rampageous class of hundreds of Scotch lads?
Do you think _I_ am the man to carry on what Reid began--Reid, that old fighter, that preacher of all sorts of jubilant dogmas ?' He looked at Elsmere under his straight, black brows, imperiously.