was an abstraction to him at
this moment. His mind was absorbed by other things.

Though he looked neither to right nor to left, he was deeply affected by
all round him.

At last he came to a certain street, where he and his dogs travelled
more quickly. It opened into a square, where bells were booming in the
steeple of a church. Shops and offices in the street were shut, but
a saloon-door was open, and over the doorway was the legend: Jean
Jolicoeur, Licensed to sell Wine, Beer, and other Spirituous and
Fermented Liquors.

Nearly opposite was a lawyer's office, with a new-painted sign. It had
once read, in plain black letters, Charles Steele, Barrister, etc.; now
it read, in gold letters and many flourishes of the sign-painter's art,
Rockwell and Tremblay, Barristers, Attorneys, etc.

Here the man looked up with trouble in his eyes. He could see dimly the
desk and the window beside which he had sat for so many years, and on
the wall a map of the city glowed with the incoming sun.

He moved on, passing the saloon with the open door. The landlord, in his
shirt-sleeves, was standing in the doorway. He nodded, then came out to
the edge of the board-walk.

"Come a long way, M'sieu'?" he asked.

"Four days' journey," answered the man gruffly through his beard,
looking the landlord in the eyes. If this landlord, who in the past had
seen him so often and so closely, did not recognise him, surely no one
else would. It was, however, a curious recurrence of habit that, as he
looked at the landlord, he instinctively felt for his eye-glass, which
he had discarded when he left Chaudiere. For an instant there was an
involuntary arrest of Jean Jolicoeur's look, as though memory had been
roused, but this swiftly passed, and he said:

"Fine dogs, them! We never get that kind hereabouts now, M'sieu'. Ever
been to the city before?"

"I've never been far from home before," answered the Forgotten Man.

"You'd better keep your eyes open, my friend, though you've got a sharp
pair in your head--sharp as Beauty Steele's almost. There's rascals in
the river-side drinking-places that don't let the left hand know what
the right does."

"My dogs and I never trust anybody," said the Forgotten Man, as one of
the dogs snarled at the landlord's touch. "So I can take care of myself,
even if I haven't eyes as sharp as Beauty Steele's, whoever he is."

The landlord laughed. "Beauty's only skin-deep, they say. Charley Steele
was a lawyer; h