Harry thought his father thinner and older than when he had last seen him, and asked how he was in a more earnest and meaning manner than is customary in the conventional "How do you do?" "Do I look altered?" asked Mr Forsyth, quickly. "Oh, no, father, only a little pale; tired-looking, you know," said Harry, rather hesitatingly, in spite of the effort made to speak carelessly. "I have not been quite the thing, and have seen a physician about it. Only a little weakness about the heart, which affects the circulation. But do not mention it to your mother or sister; women are so easily frightened, and their serious faces would make me imagine myself seriously ill. Well, how did you get on with your uncle? You see he has turned me out of my private den." "Is he at all--a little--that is, a trifle cracked, father?" "A good deal, I should say. And yet he is a very clever man, and sensible enough at times, and upon some subjects. He was most useful to me out in Egypt on several occasions when we happened to meet. A great traveller and a wonderful linguist." "Was he badly treated by Government? He told me a story in the third person, but I expect that he referred to himself all the time," said Harry. "Well," replied Mr Forsyth, "it is difficult to tell all the rights of the story. Ever since he had an illness in India, as a very young man, he has been subject to delusions. No doubt he behaved well on the occasion of a certain shipwreck--if that is what you allude to--and incurred heavy expense, which ought to have been made up to him. But I doubt if he went the right way to work, and suspect that his failure was due very much to impatience and wrong-headedness, and the mixing up of political questions with his personal claims. He wrote a book, which made some noise, and caused him to lose his appointment. Then he came to me in Egypt, and was very useful. "I should have liked him for a partner, but he went off to discover the source of the Nile. He thought he had succeeded, and after a disappearance of some years came back triumphant. But he had followed the Blue Nile instead of the real branch, and the discoveries of Speke, Grant, Livingstone, and Stanley were terribly bitter to him--drove him quite mad, I think. Since then he has identified himself with the Arab race, and seems to hate all Europeans, except his sister and her family. With me he has never quarrelled, and I think remembers that I offered him a home and employment when his career was cut short. What he is in England for now I do not know. Perhaps only to see your mother once more, but I suspect there is something else. "He writes many letters, and makes a point of posting them himself. I fear that he takes opium, or some drug of that kind, and altogether, though it is inhospitable perhaps to say so, it will be a relief when he is gone, and that will not be many days now."