It wouldn't matter so much if I had plenty of time; but I haven't.

You see"-- he coloured--"one doesn't get too well paid for this kind of work, and can't afford----" He coloured still more deeply, and his voice dropped below the regulation whisper in which one is permitted to speak in the Reading Room.

Celia glanced at him, and saw that he was poorly dressed, that his shirt-cuffs were frayed, and that he had the peculiar look which is stamped on the countenances of so many of the frequenters of the Reading Room.
"Just tell me what you would do if you were in my fix," he said.
Celia hesitated for a moment, then a smile broke over her face which transfigured it and made it seem to the young fellow absolutely lovely.
"I should invent histories for them," she said.

"It would be so much easier--and, perhaps, ever so much more interesting." "Oh, that's stunning!" he exclaimed, in a whisper.

"Of course, that's the way.