got to London late last night. He slept at the Great
Eastern, and I went up to him in the City this morning. He hasn't
been here more than half an hour."

"Nobody told me," said Lightmark. "Gad! I am glad. I will take him
up the picture. Will you carry the other traps into the house,
Bullen?"

He packed them up, and then stood a trifle irresolutely, his hand
feeling over the coins in his pocket. Presently he produced two of
them, a sovereign and a shilling.

"By the way, Bullen!" he said, "there is a little function common in
your trade, the gift of a new hat. It costs a guinea, I am told;
though judging from the general appearance of longshoremen, the
result seems a little inadequate. Bullen, we are pretty old friends
now, and I expect I shall not be down here so often just at present.
Allow me--to give you a new hat."

The foreman's huge fist closed on the artist's slender one.

"Thank you, sir! You are such a facetious gentleman. You may depend
upon me."

"I do," said Lightmark, with a sudden lapse into seriousness, and
frowning a little.

If something had cast a shadow over the artist for the moment he
must have had a faculty of quick recovery, for there was certainly
no shade of constraint upon his handsome face when a minute later he
made his way up the balcony steps and into the office labelled
"Private," and, depositing his canvas upon the floor, treated his
friend to a prolonged handshaking.

"My dear Dick!" said Rainham, "this is a pleasant surprise. I had
not the remotest notion you were here."

"I thought you were at Bordighera, till Bullen told me of your
arrival ten minutes ago," said Lightmark, with a frank laugh. "And
how well----"

Rainham held up his hand--a very white, nervous hand with one ring
of quaint pattern on the forefinger--deprecatingly.

"My dear fellow, I know exactly what you are going to say. Don't be
conventional--don't say it. I have a fraudulent countenance if I do
look well; and I don't, and I am not. I am as bad as I ever was."

"Well, come now, Rainham, at any rate you are no worse."

"Oh, I am no worse!" admitted the dry dock proprietor. "But, then, I
could not afford to be much worse. However, my health is a subject
which palls on me after a time. Tell me about yourself."

He looked up with a smile, in which an onlooker might have detected
a spark of malice, as though Rainham were aware that his suggested
topic was not without attraction to his friend. He was a