long shelf along one side of the
room, with dusty plaster casts and a small cheap lay figure of a horse,
of a table and something of grey wax partially covered with a cloth,
and of scattered drawings. There was a gas stove in one corner, and some
enameled ware that had been used for overnight cooking. The oilcloth on
the floor was streaked with a peculiar white dust. Ewart himself was not
in the first instance visible, but only a fourfold canvas screen at the
end of the room from which shouts proceeded of "Come on!" then his wiry
black hair, very much rumpled, and a staring red-brown eye and his stump
of a nose came round the edge of this at a height of about three feet
from the ground "It's old Ponderevo!" he said, "the Early bird! And he's
caught the worm! By Jove, but it's cold this morning! Come round here
and sit on the bed!"

I walked round, wrung his hand, and we surveyed one another.

He was lying on a small wooden fold-up bed, the scanty covering of which
was supplemented by an overcoat and an elderly but still cheerful pair
of check trousers, and he was wearing pajamas of a virulent pink and
green. His neck seemed longer and more stringy than it had been even in
our schooldays, and his upper lip had a wiry black moustache. The rest
of his ruddy, knobby countenance, his erratic hair and his general hairy
leanness had not even--to my perceptions grown.

"By Jove!" he said, "you've got quite decent-looking, Ponderevo! What do
you think of me?"

"You're all right. What are you doing here?"

"Art, my son--sculpture! And incidentally--" He hesitated. "I ply a
trade. Will you hand me that pipe and those smoking things? So!
You can't make coffee, eh? Well, try your hand. Cast down this
screen--no--fold it up and so we'll go into the other room. I'll keep
in bed all the same. The fire's a gas stove. Yes. Don't make it bang.
too loud as you light it--I can't stand it this morning. You won't smoke
... Well, it does me good to see you again, Ponderevo. Tell me what
you're doing, and how you're getting on."

He directed me in the service of his simple hospitality, and presently
I came back to his bed and sat down and smiled at him there, smoking
comfortably, with his hands under his head, surveying me.

"How's Life's Morning, Ponderevo? By Jove, it must be nearly six years
since we met! They've got moustaches. We've fleshed ourselves a bit, eh?
And you?"

I felt a pipe was becoming after all, and that lit, I gave