Most of all it wrought wonder in Matthew Makepeace. This unknown individual--was he possessed of those miraculous gifts of healing which Makepeace in 400 quarto pages had proved to be extinct? He would accost him and, if possible, learn from his lips whether what he had seen were the operation of nature or of the magic art. Descending in the majesty of his doctor’s robes he mingled in the crowd, and mildly laid his hand on the stranger’s arm. “Pardon, learned sir,” said he, “the curiosity of a scholar--alas! too ignorant of books and all unskilled in the manual acts of healing. I would fain question with you of these same cures that by chance I have witnessed from my chamber.” The stranger was engaged in giving parting words of counsel to some of his patients. He turned at the touch of the doctor’s hand, surveyed him up and down for a moment, and said, “Anon, Master Makepeace, anon: I will be with you presently.” Dr. Makepeace started to hear his name and threw a sharp look on the speaker. No; he was a complete stranger, and his accent betrayed him as a foreigner. Dr. Makepeace had certainly never seen him in his life before. He began to explain where his chamber was to be found. “I know it,” interrupted the stranger, “I know it. Bear with me for a moment and I will seek you there.” Makepeace was a little ruffled that the speaker, knowing his name, did not give him his academic title. “_Doctor_ Makepeace,” he said; “ask for _Doctor_ Makepeace.” “Surely, surely,” replied the stranger carelessly: “yet _Master_ Makepeace, methinks, served you then.” More than ever perplexed the doctor sought his room. Only a few minutes had passed when he heard his visitor mounting with no faltering step to his door, and Makepeace opened to him before he knocked. The stranger glanced rapidly round. He seemed to find something familiar in each article of furniture. He ran his eye, with a look of some amused contempt, over the array of worn volumes that lined the walls. “Old books, doctor Makepeace,” he said, “old books. I think you have not changed one these thirty years.” “Old books are old friends,” said the doctor with a touch of resentment at his tone: “I would not change them.” “Old friends die, doctor,” observed the stranger, “they die, and then we have no use for them but to bury them.”