Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/252

 “I haven’t. Is there anything to pay?—Let’s go in for half-an-hour.”

It was an odd freak, but Bob began to have a pleasure in this renewal of intimacy; he wished he had been wearing his best suit. Years ago his father had brought him on a public holiday to the Museum, and his interest was chiefly excited by the collection of the Royal Seals. To that quarter he first led his companion, and thence directed her towards objects more likely to supply her with amusement; he talked freely, and was himself surprised at the show of information his memory allowed him to make,—desperately vague and often ludicrously wide of the mark, but still a something of knowledge, retained from all sorts of chance encounters by his capable mind. Had the British Museum been open to visitors in the hours of the evening, or on Sundays, Bob Hewett would possibly have been employing his leisure now-a-days in more profitable pursuits. Possibly; one cannot say more than that; for the world to which he belonged is above all