“Then permit me to shake you by the hand; you are no stranger, and no mere acquaintance to me. Mr. Mayor, we will look into your ballroom later; do not let us keep you now from your other guests.” The mayor, not in the least offended by being thus summarily dismissed, smiled, walked on, and was soon lost amongst the crowd. Sir Philip, still retaining my hand, reseated himself on the sofa, and I took my place by his side. The room was still deserted; now and then a straggler from the ballroom looked in for a moment, and then sauntered back to the central place of attraction. “I am trying to guess,” said I, “how my name should be known to you. Possibly you may, in some visit to the Lakes, have known my father?” “No; I know none of your name but yourself,--if, indeed, as I doubt not, you are the Allen Fenwick to whom I owe no small obligation. You were a medical student at Edinburgh in the year ----?” “Yes.” “So! At that time there was also at Edinburgh a young man, named Richard Strahan. He lodged in a fourth flat in the Old Town.” “I remember him very well.” “And you remember, also, that a fire broke out at night in the house in which he lodged; that when it was discovered there seemed no hope of saving him. The flames wrapped the lower part of the house; the staircase had given way. A boy, scarcely so old as himself, was the only human being in the crowd who dared to scale the ladder that even then scarcely reached the windows from which the smoke rolled in volumes; that boy penetrated into the room, found the inmate almost insensible, rallied, supported, dragged him to the window, got him on the ladder,--saved his life then: and his life later, by nursing with a woman’s tenderness, through the fever caused by terror and excitement, the fellow-creature he had rescued by a man’s daring. The name of that gallant student was Allen Fenwick, and Richard Strahan is my nearest living relation. Are we friends now?” I answered confusedly. I had almost forgotten the circumstances referred to. Richard Strahan had not been one of my more intimate companions, and I had never seen nor heard of him since leaving college. I inquired what had become of him. “He is at the Scotch Bar,” said Sir Philip, “and of course without practice. I understand that he has fair average abilities, but no application. If I am rightly informed, he is, however, a thoroughly honourable, upright man, and of an affectionate and grateful disposition.” “I can answer for all you have said in his praise. He had the qualities you name too deeply rooted in youth to have lost them now.” Sir Philip remained for some moments in a musing silence; and I took advantage of that silence to examine him with more minute attention than I had done before, much as the first sight of him had struck me.