"Poor man!" I mused compassionately, with a touch of youthful sentiment affecting me.--"Poor man! Working himself into his very grave, and with never a sign or murmur of complaint--worn and weighed down with the burden of his work, and yet with a nobleness of spirit and resolve that still conceals behind glad smiles and laughing words the cares that lie so heavily upon him!" The long afternoon went by at last, and evening came; and, as promptly as my note requested, the jovial Mr. Clark appeared, laughing heartily, as we walked off down the street, at my explanation of the reason I had written my desires instead of verbally addressing him; and laughing still louder when I told him of my fears that he was overworking himself. "Oh, no, my friend," he answered gaily; "there's no occasion for anxiety on that account.-- But the fact is, old man," he went on, half apologetically, "the fact is, I haven't been so overworked, of late, as over-wakeful. There's something in the night I think, that does it. Do you know that the night is a great mystery to me--a great mystery! And it seems to be growing on me all the time. There's the trouble. The night to me is like some vast incomprehensible being. When I write the name 'night' I instinctively write it with a capital. And I like my night deep, and dark, and swarthy, don't you know. Now some like clear and starry nights, but they're too pale for me--too weak and fragile altogether! They're popular with the masses, of course, these blue-eyed, golden-haired, 'moonlight-on-the-lake' nights; but, somehow, I don't 'stand in' with them. My favorite night is the pronounced brunette--the darker the better. To- night is one of my kind, and she's growing more and more like it all the time. If it were not for depriving you of the theater, I'd rather just drift off now in the deepening gloom till swallowed up in it--lost utterly. Come with me, anyhow!" "Gladly," I answered, catching something of his own enthusiasm; "I myself prefer it to the play." "I heartily congratulate you on your taste," he said, diving violently for my hand and wringing it. "Oh, it's going to be grimly glorious!--a depth of darkness one can wade out into, and knead in his hands like dough!" And he laughed, himself, at this grotesque conceit. And so we walked--for hours. Our talk--or, rather, my friend's talk--lulled and soothed at last into a calmer flow, almost solemn in its tone, and yet fretted with an occasional wildness of utterance and expression.