what interpretations the advertiser placed upon the terms "widely read"
and "good salary." I could not claim to be widely read in any
conventional sense, for I was not a university graduate, and the very
extensive reading I had done in my special line of study--the control
and development of tropical dependencies--though it might entitle me to
some consideration as a student in that field had left me woefully
ignorant of general literature. Would the ability to discuss with
intelligence the Bengal Regulation of 1818, or the British Guiana
Immigration Ordinance of 1891 be welcomed as a set-off to a complete
unfamiliarity with Milton's "Comus" and Gladstone's essay on the
epithets of motion in Homer?

On the subject of what constituted a "good salary" experience had taught
me to expect a very wide divergence of view, not only along the natural
line of cleavage between the person paying and the person receiving the
salary, but also between one employer and another and between one
employee and another; and I recalled a story, told me in my infancy, in
which a certain British laboring man had been heard to remark that he
would not be the Czar of Russia, no, not for thirty shillings a week.
But that element in the situation might, I reflected, very well be left
to take care of itself.

I finished my lunch, and then replied to the advertisement, giving my
English address. My letter, a composition bred of the conflicting
influences of pride, modesty, prudence, and curiosity, brought forth in
due course a brief reply in which I was bidden to an interview in that
part of London where fashion and business prosperity seek to ape each
other.

Upon presenting myself at the appointed hour I was confronted by a