After this incident, Johnson, who for a brief time had loomed so large in our imaginations, faded into a sort of wraith. Years passed, bringing with them great changes for me. I left California and settled in England. I wrote a book which excited a certain amount of interest, and inspired some of my old school-fellows to renew acquaintance with me. By this time I had forgotten Johnson. He was part of a distant country, where the fine white dust settles thickly upon all things and persons. In England, where the expected, so to speak, comes to five o'clock tea, such surprising individuals as Johnson appear--if they ever do appear--as creatures of a disordered fancy or digestive apparatus. Once I told the story at the Scribblers' Club to a couple of journalists. They winked at each other, and said politely that I spun a good yarn, for an amateur! "I never tell a story," said the elder of my critics, "till I've worked out a climax. You leave us at the top of a confounded hill in California, bang up in the clouds." And then the climax flitted into sight, masquerading as a barrel of claret. The claret came from Bordeaux. It was Léoville Poyferré, 1899. Not a line of explanation came with it, but all charges were prepaid. I wrote to the shippers. A Monsieur had bought the wine and ordered it to be consigned to me. Readers of this story will say that I ought to have thought of Johnson. I didn't. I thanked effusively half a dozen persons in turn, who had not sent the claret; then, hopelessly befogged, I had the wine bottled. However, Johnson sent the wine, for he told me so. I had been passing a few days at Blois, and was staring at the Fragonard which hangs in the gallery of the château, when a languid voice said, "This is the best thing here." "Hullo, Johnson!" I exclaimed. "Hullo!" said he. He had recognised me first, and addressed the remark about the picture to me. Nobody else was near us. We shook hands solemnly, eyeing each other, noting the changes. Johnson appeared to be prosperous, but slightly Gallicised. "How is--Ajax?" he murmured. "Ajax has grown fat. Can't you dine with me?" "It's my turn. We must order a bottle of Léoville at once." "You sent that wine," I exclaimed. There was no note of interrogation in my voice. I knew. "Yes," he said indifferently; "it will be worth drinking in about ten years' time." We had an admirable dinner upon a terrace overhanging the Loire, but the measure of my enjoyment was stinted by Johnson's exasperating reticence concerning himself. He talked delightfully of the châteaux in Touraine; he displayed an intimate knowledge of French history and archaeology, but I was tingling with impatience to transport myself and him to California. And he knew this--the rogue! Finally, as the soft silvery twilight encompassed us, he told what I wanted to know.