It was a house of copious meals and sleep. Mike stirred these sluggish livers, and they accepted him as a digestive; and they amused him, and he only dreamed vaguely of leaving them until he found his balance at the bank had fallen very low. Then he packed up his portmanteau and left them, and when he walked down the Strand he had forgotten them and all country pursuits, and wanted to talk of journalism; and he would have welcomed the obscurest paragraphist. Suddenly he saw Frank; and turning from a golden-haired actress who was smiling upon him, he said-- "How do you do?" The men shook hands, and stood constrainedly talking for a few minutes; then Mike suggested lunch, and they turned into Lubini's. The proprietor, a dapper little man, more like a rich man's valet than a waiter, whose fat fingers sparkled with rings, sat sipping sherry and reading the racing intelligence to a lord who offered to toss him for half-crowns. "Now then, Lubi," cried the lord, "which is it? Come on; just this once." Lubi demurred. "You toss too well for me; last night you did win seven times running--damn!" "Come on, Lubi; here it is flat on the table." Mike longed to pull his money out of his pocket, but he had not been on terms with Lubi since he had called him a _Marchand de Soupe_, an insult which Lubi had not been able to forgive, and it was the restaurateur's women-folk who welcomed him back to town after his long absence. "What an air of dissipation, hilarity, and drink there is about the place!" said Mike. "Look!" and his eyes rested on two gross men--music-hall singers--who sat with their agent, sipping Chartreuse. "Three years ago," he said, "they were crying artichokes in an alley, and the slum is still upon their faces." No one else was in the long gallery save the waiters, who dozed far away in the mean twilight of the glass-roofing. "How jolly it is," said Mike, "to order your own dinner! Let's have some oysters--three dozen. We'll have a Chateaubriand--what do you say? And an omelette soufflee--what do you think? And a bottle of champagne. Waiter, bring me the wine-list." Frank had spoken to Mike because he felt lonely; the world had turned a harsh face on him. Lord Mount Rorke had married, and the paper was losing its circulation. "And how is the paper going?" "Pretty well; just the same as usual. Do you ever see it? What do you think of my articles?" "Your continuation of my series, _Lions of the Season?_ Very good; I only saw one or two. I have been living in the country, and have hardly seen a paper for the last year and a half. You can't imagine the life I have been leading. Nice kind people 'tis true; I love them, but they never open a book. That is all very nice for a time--for three months, for six, for a year--but after that you feel a sense of alienation stealing over you."