"Mr. Timmons!" cried the man pathetically. "Couldn't you see who I was? I never came here on business, sir. I came for the pleasure of seeing you, and to try if you would do a favour for me." "Hold your tongue!" cried Timmons. "Hold your tongue, you fool." The man said no more, but leaning his back against the wall, looked up blankly at the unceiled rafters and boards of the floor above. The manner of Mr. John Timmons gradually became less volcanic. He arranged his necktie and thrust his hands deep into his trousers' pockets instead of swinging them round him, or running his fingers through his grizzled hair and whiskers. Suddenly he stopped before his visitor, and said grimly in a low voice, "Stamer, aren't you surprised you are alive?" Stamer stood up on his feet away from the wall and said in a tone of expostulation, "Now, Mr. Timmons, it isn't so bad as that with me yet. I may have let one or two people see the barrel, you know, just to help business; but I never pulled trigger yet, sir. Indeed, I didn't." "I mean, you fool, aren't you surprised I didn't kill you?" he asked heavily. "You kill me, sir! For what?" cried the man in astonishment. "For coming here at this time of the morning in the disgraceful state you are now in," he said, pointing scornfully at the other. "Disgraceful state, Mr. Timmons, sir! You don't mean to say you think I'm in liquor?" said Stamer in an injured tone. "In liquor, no. But worse. You are in masquerade, sir. In masquerade." "Indeed, I'm not, sir. Why, I couldn't be! I don't even as much as know what it is." "I mean, sir (and you know very well what I mean), that you are not here in your own clothes. What do you mean in coming here with your tomfoolery?" said Timmons severely. He was now quite recovered from his fright, and wanted to say nothing of his recent abject condition. The best way of taking a man's mind off you is to make an attack on him.