In a little while he saw Mr. Robert Carlaw approaching him, swinging along with something of the old jaunty step, and setting his hat a little more rakishly on his head as he approached his destination. Yet there was, with all his jauntiness, a certain lack of confidence about the man--in his movements and in his glances--which may have been inspired by the needy life he had led. Comethup stood watching him as he neared the hotel entrance, and saw that he did not turn boldly in, but lingered for a moment outside, looking in furtively. As Comethup walked toward him a look of relief stole over his face, and he went toward the young man with both hands outstretched. Comethup grasped one of the hands, and his own was immediately covered by the other and warmly pressed. "My dear young friend," exclaimed Mr. Robert Carlaw, "how good it is to set eyes once again upon you! May I dare say that I have hungered for a sight of you? I trust you have not waited long here for me?" "No," said Comethup. "But I thought that if you wished to see me we might talk here more easily than in the hotel." "True--true," murmured his uncle; "you are ever considerate. And I, who am, and have been for a long time, nothing but a houseless wanderer, a wretch who dare not meet the eye of his tailor, to say nothing of his butcher and his baker, I seem to shun the lighted halls of luxury, and to choose, as befitting my own fallen fortunes, the darker ways of life. But enough of me." He made a dramatic gesture, sighed, and linked his arm in that of the young man and strolled on with him. "You're in no fresh trouble, I hope," said Comethup. He longed to speak of 'Linda, to ask if she were happy, to be certain that all was well with her. "_Fresh_ trouble!" ejaculated Mr. Carlaw. "Would that any trouble which I suffered could, in any sense of the word, be termed 'fresh'! They are all too old and stale for that. I am buried to the neck in them, am forever struggling to the lips in a horrid sea of them, expecting to be drowned every moment. Once or twice a generous fellow, who shall be nameless"--he squeezed Comethup's arm--"has thrown, to carry the metaphor further, a life-line to me, and has drawn me ashore for a space. But ill fortune has thrust me back again in time, and each time I seem to sink deeper than ever. But enough of myself; I am the emissary of others." He said it with an air as though he felt it conferred a distinction upon him that he was not on this occasion personally begging. "Of others?" inquired Comethup, looking round at him.