Accordingly, I made my start in the extreme distance, and gossiped away volubly enough; but after a while I perceived that I was making very little headway. I dilated on unimportant matters, and was no nearer the crucial question than when I began. Instead of preparing Floyd's mind for what was to come, I was leading him off on entirely discordant lines of thought--if, indeed, he were attending at all to my narrative, and not rather following out a train of ideas of his own, under cover of the smoke-wreaths he was coiling about him. Irritated at length both with myself and with him, I broke short off in the current of talk and said abruptly: 'By the way, Floyd, you haven't told me yet how you happened to turn up here in Dresden.' 'Ah--yes--is that all, then? A very interesting story too, my boy,' he grunted, with a yawn; and throwing his arms above his head, he indulged in a hearty stretch. It was too evident that he had not listened to a word. What, then, could be the subject of his extraordinary preoccupation? 'Ah--what was that you asked me? Oh, how I came here. Well, you know I wanted to find you.... But come, Tom, since you've made a clean breast of it, so will I. I'll make you my confidant, old fellow. The fact is, I'm here in a threefold capacity--as a friend, as a brother, and as a----humph!' 'A what?' Floyd rose to his feet and sauntered to the window. A pot of heliotrope stood upon the sill, and he pulled off the largest cluster of blossoms, and began abstractedly to pick away the flowers. I began to have my suspicions as to what he meant, but I said nothing. After a pause he continued, keeping his face turned towards the window: 'Well, you see it's this way. In the first place, I decided to come over here on your account--the reason why I'll tell you presently. Then, thought I, I shall see Gwendolen (that's my sister, you know), whom I haven't met for I don't know how many years; and instead of letting her know I'm coming, I'll give her a surprise-party; appear before her unexpectedly--she falls into my arms with a shriek--and all that. Now, after my dear old governor's death----' 'Is he dead, Floyd?' 'Eighteen months ago--yes. Well, after that she wrote me that she was going to live at her uncle's--our mother's brother--a good fellow, I believe, though I never saw him. So, as soon as I landed in Liverpool, I went straight there. They weren't at home, and the house was locked up. I made inquiries, and was told that they had started on their travels about three months before, and the fellow in charge of the house said he believed they had intended to take a run on the Continent first and then go to America.' 'To give you a surprise-party, I suppose?'