It was Friday in Whitsun week before he came to a decision.  He called me down, quite late in the evening,—­nearly nine it was,—­from cramming chemical equations for my Preliminary Scientific examination.  He was standing in the passage under the feeble gas-lamp, and his face was a grotesque interplay of shadows.  He seemed more bowed than when I had first seen him, and his cheeks had sunk in a little.

His voice shook with emotion.  “Everything is satisfactory, Mr. Eden,” he said.  “Everything is quite, quite satisfactory.  And this night of all nights, you must dine with me and celebrate your—­accession.”  He was interrupted by a cough.  “You won’t have long to wait, either,” he said, wiping his handkerchief across his lips, and gripping my hand with his long bony claw that was disengaged.  “Certainly not very long to wait.”

We went into the street and called a cab.  I remember every incident of that drive vividly, the swift, easy motion, the vivid contrast of gas and oil and electric light, the crowds of people in the streets, the place in Regent Street to which we went, and the sumptuous dinner we were served with there.  I was disconcerted at first by the well-dressed waiter’s glances at my rough clothes, bothered by the stones of the olives, but as the champagne warmed my blood, my confidence revived.  At first the old man talked of himself.  He had already told me his name in the cab; he was Egbert Elvesham, the great philosopher, whose name I had known since I was a lad at school.  It seemed incredible to me that this man, whose intelligence had so early dominated mine, this great abstraction, should suddenly realise itself as this decrepit, familiar figure.  I daresay every young fellow who has suddenly fallen among celebrities has felt something of my disappointment.  He told me now of the future that the feeble streams of his life would presently leave dry for me, houses, copyrights, investments; I had never suspected that philosophers were so rich.  He watched me drink and eat with a touch of envy.  “What a capacity for living you have!” he said; and then with a sigh, a sigh of relief I could have thought it, “it will not be long.”

“Ay,” said I, my head swimming now with champagne; “I have a future perhaps—­of a passing agreeable sort, thanks to you.  I shall now have the honour of your name.  But you have a past.  Such a past as is worth all my future.”

He shook his head and smiled, as I thought, with half sad appreciation of my flattering admiration.  “That future,” he said, “would you in truth change it?” The waiter came with liqueurs.  “You will not perhaps mind taking my name, taking my position, but would you indeed—­willingly—­take my years?”

“With your achievements,” said I gallantly.

He smiled again.  “Kummel—­both,” he said to the waiter, and turned his attention to a little paper packet he had taken from his pocket.  “This hour,” said he, “this after-dinner hour is the hour of small things.  Here is a scrap of my unpublished wisdom.”  He opened the packet with his shaking yellow fingers, and showed a little pinkish powder on the paper.  “This,” said he—­“well, you must guess what it is.  But Kummel—­put but a dash of this powder in it—­is Himmel.”