"I wonder you can get into these things," I whispered, for the place depressed me; and he answered, with similar caution, that he couldn't.

"I keep them lying about," he said, confidentially; "but after I think nobody is likely to call I put on an old pair of English ones." At this point the housekeeper knocked at the door, and Scrymgeour sprang like an acrobat into a Japanese dressing-gown before he cried "Come in!" As I left I asked him how he felt now, and he said that he had never been so happy in his life.

But his hand was hot, and he did not look me in the face.
[Illustration] Nearly a month elapsed before I looked in again.

The unfortunate man had now a Japanese rug over his legs to keep out the cold, and he was gazing dejectedly at an outlandish mess which he called his lunch.

He insisted that it was not at all bad; but it had evidently been on the table some time when I called, and he had not even tasted it.