“Lon—ny Bruce!” reiterated the doctor, as he leaned against the wall which had stopped him in his backward reel—“Lon—ny Bruce! And you are really alive?” “I rather think I am; but are _you really_ sure you recognize me? Because, you see, if you want any of the proofs usually required on such occasions—the ripe strawberry on my breast, or the tattooed anchor on my back, or any other birthmark or branded scar, why, it will be very awkward, for I haven’t such a thing about me—no, not even so much as a mole. Nature and Fortune left all that out. So it is extremely important that you should be able to identify me without their help. Are you sure you know me now?” “Yes; I should know you among a thousand,” replied the doctor, who, still leaning for support against the wall, continued to stare at the returned exile. “Could you swear to me if called upon to do so?” “On a stack of Bibles as high as the Pyramids of Egypt.” “One will do,” said Lonny. “But how did you escape? Where have you been these seventeen years? Why didn’t you come home long ago or write? Have you seen your father?” “Whist! Whist! for Heaven’s sake! To answer a tithe of your questions, doctor, would keep me here all day long. Now that you see and know me, you must perceive that I am in want of everything and everything else. First and most of all a bath, a barber and a clean shirt. I must be metamorphosed into a Christian before I present myself again to my old father, when, it is to be hoped, he will acknowledge his son. And then in good time, dear friend, I will satisfy your curiosity. Oh! you shall hear a story as long and as full of adventure as the Arabian Nights Entertainments! Oh, what a fireside treat you will have this winter if you stay with us! But come. Are you going to help me?” The doctor, who had been thinking profoundly while the returned man spoke, now looked up and asked: “Why not go to your father just as you are?” “Like the prodigal son! Lord bless you, so I did! But the old gentleman didn’t fall on my neck and kiss me worth a cent! He didn’t know me from the king of the Cannibal Islands! He stormed and threatened me with the constable and a prison if I did not march double-quick! I obeyed him and an instinct of self-preservation and left the room. To have remained another minute would have been unwholesome.” “Ah! if I were blind, I should know you now for Lonny Bruce! Should know you from that buoyancy of spirit that no misfortune could repress,” said the doctor. “Thanks, but I want my father to know me,” said the tramp. “Very well, I will try to help you. Come with me,” said the doctor; and he led the way to the long drawing-room, which was now closed and vacant and never opened or tenanted except on “high days and holidays.” “Come in here, where no one will think of intruding on you, and remain while I go in search of your Cousin Ronald,” said the doctor, as he opened the door and preceded the stranger into the apartment.