“We were not speaking of child’s play,” said the visitor coolly; “nor am I concerned with the rules of the prize-ring, as applied to my theory. When one is in danger, one uses knife or gun, if at hand. I prefer a less deadly and more effective weapon. Kicking sidewise, either to the front or to the rear, I can disarm a man, break his leg, or lay him senseless. It is the special development of such muscles as the sartorius and plantaris,” he ran his long fingers down from the outside of his thigh round to the inside of his ankle, “that enables a human being, with practise, to kick like an ostrich. Since you found me exercising on your property, I owe you this explanation. I hope you won’t prosecute for trespass, Mr. Long-Lean-Leggy Sedgwick.” “Leggy!” The artist had whirled at the name. “Nobody’s called me that for ten years.” “Just ten years ago that you graduated, wasn’t it?” “Yes. Then I knew you in college. You must have been before my class.” The bearded one nodded. “Senior to your freshman,” said he. The younger man scrutinized him. “Chester Kent!” said he softly. “What on earth are you doing behind that bush?” Kent caressed the maligned whiskers. “Utility,” he explained. “Patent, impenetrable mosquito screen. I’ve been off in the wilds, and am—or was—going back presently.” “Not until you’ve stopped long enough to get reacquainted,” declared Sedgwick. “Just at present you’re going to stay to dinner.” “Very good. Just now you happen to be in my immediate line of interest. It is a fortunate circumstance for me, to find you here; possibly for you, too.” “Most assuredly,” returned the other with heartiness. “Come in on the porch and have a hammock and pipe.” ———— Old interests sprang to life and speech between them. And from the old interests blossomed the old easy familiarity that is never wholly lost to those who have been close friends in college days. Presently Francis Sedgwick was telling his friend the story of his feverish and thwarted ten years in the world. Within a year of his graduation his only surviving relative had died, willing to him a considerable fortune, the income of which he used in furtherance of a hitherto suppressed ambition to study art. Paris, his Mecca, was first a task-mistress, then a temptress, finally a vampire. Before succumbing he had gone far, in a few years, toward the development of a curious technique of his own. Followed then two years of dissipation, a year of travel to recuperate, and the return to Paris, which was to be once more the task-mistress. But, to his terror and self-loathing, he found the power of application gone. The muscles of his mind had become flabby. He quoted to Kent, with bitterness, the terrible final lines of Rossetti’s _Known in Vain_: