they had come to england for a year to break the monotony of their stateside routines , to see a little of the country they had so assiduously avoided until now as being too similar to their own , and he was thinking rather vaguely about the half dozen lectures he was to give during the coming year when the young man whose name he could not immediately recall and whose features he remembered only in a general way from his initial meeting with his seminar the previous week suddenly appeared at his side .