Gabriel Hamburg was glad to talk to the youth, the outlines of whose English history were known to him.
Strelitski seemed to expand under the sunshine of a congenial spirit; he answered Hamburg's sympathetic inquiries about his work without reluctance and even made some remarks on his own initiative.
And as they spoke, an undercurrent of pensive thought was flowing in the old scholar's soul and his tones grew tenderer and tenderer.

The echoes of Ebenezer's effusive speech were in his ears and the artificial notes rang strangely genuine.

All round him sat happy fathers of happy children, men who warmed their hands at the home-fire of life, men who lived while he was thinking.

Yet he, too, had had his chance far back in the dim and dusty years, his chance of love and money with it.

He had let it slip away for poverty and learning, and only six men in Europe cared whether he lived or died.