"My idea was--and this is another one of my theories--that you can restore a man's energies only when you restore his self-respect, and I intended to prove my theory on this Englishman. What I was after was first to bring him back to his old self--he taking his place where he belonged, shutting out the hideous nightmare that was pursuing him--and then get him a situation where he could be self-sustaining. This done, I proposed to write to his father and patch it up somehow between them, and the next time I went abroad we would go together and kill the fatted calf, haul in the Yule log, summon the tenants, build triumphal arches, and all that sort of thing. "The following morning promptly at ten o'clock he rapped at my studio door. Pitkin saw him and thought he had come to buy out the studio, he was so well dressed--you remember him, Pit?" Pitkin shook his head and smiled. "Then commenced the hunt for work, and I tell you it was hard sledding; but I stuck at it, and at the end of the week old Porterfield gave him a position as entry clerk in his foreign department. During all that week he was spending his time between my studio and my aunt's, I looking after his expenditures--not much, only a few dollars a day. Every evening we dined at home, and every evening we roamed the world: mountain climbing, pig sticking, pheasant shooting in Devonshire; who won the Derby, and why; English politics, English art, the tariff--every topic under the sun that I knew anything about and a lot I didn't, he leading or following in the talk, his eyes fixed on mine, his rich, musical voice filling the room, his handsome, well-bred body comfortably seated in my aunt's easiest chair. "And now comes the most interesting part of this story. The afternoon before he was to present himself at Porterfield's, about five o'clock--an hour before I reached home--he rang my aunt's front-door bell; told the servant that I had been called suddenly out of town for the night and had sent him post haste in a cab for my portmanteau and overcoat. Then he tripped upstairs to my apartment, waited beside the servant until she had stowed away in my best Gladstone my dress-suit, shirt with its links and pearl studs, collars--everything, even to my patent-leather shoes; and then, while she was out of the room in search of my overcoat, emptied into his pockets all my scarf-pins, my silver brandy-flask, and a lot of knick-knacks on my bureau, took the coat on his arm, preceded her leisurely downstairs, she carrying the bag, stepped into the cab, _and I haven't seen him since_!" * * * * * "There, Mac, that yarn is told for your especial benefit. What do you think of it?" "I think you're all white, Woods, and I'm glad to know you," cried Mac as he grasped the painter's hand and shook it warmly. "Yes, but what do you think of that cur of an Englishman?"