yclept Au Bon Plaisir in Dean
Street.

Your sincere
J. Cronshaw.

Philip went the day he received this letter. The restaurant, consisting of
one small room, was of the poorest class, and Cronshaw seemed to be its
only customer. He was sitting in the corner, well away from draughts,
wearing the same shabby great-coat which Philip had never seen him
without, with his old bowler on his head.

"I eat here because I can be alone," he said. "They are not doing well;
the only people who come are a few trollops and one or two waiters out of
a job; they are giving up business, and the food is execrable. But the
ruin of their fortunes is my advantage."

Cronshaw had before him a glass of absinthe. It was nearly three years
since they had met, and Philip was shocked by the change in his
appearance. He had been rather corpulent, but now he had a dried-up,
yellow look: the skin of his neck was loose and winkled; his clothes hung
about him as though they had been bought for someone else; and his collar,
three or four sizes too large, added to the slatternliness of his
appearance. His hands trembled continually. Philip remembered the
handwriting which scrawled over the page with shapeless, haphazard
letters. Cronshaw was evidently very ill.

"I eat little these days," he said. "I'm very sick in the morning. I'm
just having some soup for my dinner, and then I shall have a bit of
cheese."

Philip's glance unconsciously went to the absinthe, and Cronshaw, seeing
it, gave him the quizzical look with which he reproved the admonitions of
common sense.

"You have diagnosed my case, and you think it's very wrong of me to drink
absinthe."

"You've evidently got cirrhosis of the liver," said Philip.

"Evidently."

He looked at Philip in the way which had formerly had the power of making
him feel incredibly narrow. It seemed to point out that what he was
thinking was distressingly obvious; and when you have agreed with the
obvious what more is there to say? Philip changed the topic.

"When are you going back to Paris?"

"I'm not going back to Paris. I'm going to die."

The very naturalness with which he said this startled Philip. He thought
of half a dozen things to say, but they seemed futile. He knew that
Cronshaw was a dying man.

"Are you going to settle in London then?" he asked lamely.

"What is London to me? I am a fish out of