h he takes the
most extravagant precautions. It is the strangest sight, he says, to
see Cullingworth at his meals; for he sits with an elaborate chemical
apparatus and numerous retorts and bottles at his elbow, with which he
tests samples of every course. I could not help laughing at Smeaton's
description, and yet it was a laugh with a groan underlying it. Of all
ruins, that of a fine man is the saddest.

I never thought I should have seen Cullingworth again, but fate has
brought us together. I have always had a kindly feeling for him, though
I feel that he used me atrociously. Often I have wondered whether, if I
were placed before him, I should take him by the throat or by the hand.
You will be interested to hear what actually occurred.

One day, just a week or so back, I was starting on my round, when a
boy arrived with a note. It fairly took my breath away when I saw the
familiar writing, and realised that Cullingworth was in Birchespool. I
called Winnie, and we read it together.

"Dear Munro," it said, "James is in lodgings here for a few days. We are
on the point of leaving England. He would be glad, for the sake of old
times, to have a chat with you before he goes.

"Yours faithfully,

"HETTY CULLINGWORTH."

The writing was his and the style of address, so that it was evidently
one of those queer little bits of transparent cunning which were
characteristic of him, to make it come from his wife, that he might not
lay himself open to a direct rebuff. The address, curiously enough, was
that very Cadogan Terrace at which I had lodged, but two doors higher
up.

Well, I was averse from going myself, but Winnie was all for peace and
forgiveness. Women who claim nothing invariably get everything, and so
my gentle little wife always carries her point. Half an hour later I was
in Cadogan Terrace with very mixed feelings, but the kindlier ones at
the top. I tried to think that Cullingworth's treatment of me had been
pathological--the result of a diseased brain. If a delirious man had
struck me, I should not have been angry with him. That must be my way of
looking at it.

If Cullingworth still bore any resentment, he concealed it most
admirably. But then I knew by experience that that genial loud-voiced
John-Bull manner of his COULD conceal many things. His wife was more
open; and I could read in her tightened lips and cold grey eyes, that
she at least stood fast to the old quarrel. Cullingworth was little
change