He opened his large valise, that lay beside the bed and took from its respectable inside, a handful of good cigars, these he deposited in his coat-pocket, he then thrust his head into a large rimmed felt hat, that partially covered his features, and otherwise gave him an appearance of disguise, and having carefully closed both window and door of his tidy room, went quietly out. Down through the familiar streets, where he had so often strolled a few little years ago, he strolled again to-night, but how different a man! The usual processions of the working-class were thickening as the "after tea," leisure hours advanced: the "loafers" of the old type with soft slouched hats bent over their eyes, and with mouths full of very strong tobacco and language were posed artistically here and there in classic- looking groups, at the corners of Sparks and its intersecting streets. Cabmen lounged around the vicinity of Dufferin Bridge, as it were in the very postures he had seen them take, when last he strolled along that path, a dissipated, reckless, love-sick youth. But it gratified him to-night beyond anything, as he looked in critical survey from corner to corner of the "Russell," to recognize among that never failing gathering which haunts the thresholds of this flourishing hotel, the "friends of his youth" without _him_. He had not realized the step he had taken, until these scenes brought back the past so forcibly, to lay it beside the prosperous present. How many times had he stood idly before those doors, reckoning it worthy sport indeed, to pass unscrupulous remarks on passers-by behind his half-smoked cheroot: he cast a sympathetic look, as he thought, at a couple of unsuspecting girls, who just then were making their way along that thoroughfare, and his face said very plainly, "Well, you hardly know poor creatures, what noble jests your tiny feet, and tiny waists, and faces and figures, your gait and your dress, are causing for that high-minded audience across the way." Sussex street had its same quaint, deserted, look, except that the different stocks in the melancholy business establishments looked a little more fly-stained, and time-worn, the sausages and meat-pies in the restaurant windows were a trifle staler looking, and more suggestive of sea-sickness; the thriving hotels, and boarding-houses were a degree dingier, time having laid his dusty finger unmolested, on their muslin-screened windows, telling a woeful tale of laziness and neglect. At last the bright broad "Ottawa," came in view, sparkling and rippling in the red sunset, like a mass of liquid gems.