untry it stands I haven't the slightest recollection. I
can't remember any family, and as no one has inquired for me, I don't
suppose I had any. Many incidents--sporting, festive, amusing, and
discreditable--I remember distinctly, and many faces, but there's nothing
to piece them together with. Can you recall one or two incidents in town,
when people spoke to me or bowed to me?"

"Yes, vell; I vondered zen."

"I suppose they knew me. In a general sort of way I knew them. But when a
man doesn't know his own name, and will probably be replaced in an asylum
if he's identified, there isn't much encouragement for greeting old
friends. And do you remember my search for a name in the hotel at St
Egbert's?"

"Yah--zat is, yes."

"It was for my own I was looking."

"You found it not?"

"No. The worst of it is, I can't even remember what letter it began with.
Sometimes I think it was M, or perhaps N, and sometimes I'm almost sure it
was E. It will come to me some day, no doubt, Baron, but till it does I
shall have to wander about a nameless man, looking for it. And after all,
I am not without the consolations of a certain useful, workaday kind of
philosophy."

He rose from the bed and smiled humorously at his friend.

"And now, Baron," he said, "it only remains to offer you such thanks and
apologies as a lunatic may, and then clear out before the cock crows.
These are my brushes, I think."

There was still something on the Baron's mind: he lay for a moment
watching Mr Bunker collect a few odds and ends and put them rapidly into a
small bag, and then blurted out suddenly, "Ze Lady Alicia--do you loff
her?"

"By Jove!" exclaimed Mr Bunker, "I'd forgotten all about her. I ought to
have told you that I once met her before, when she showed
sympathy--practical sympathy, I may add--for an unfortunate gentleman in
Clankwood. That's all."

"You do not loff her?" persisted the Baron.

"I, my dear chap? No. You are most welcome to her--_and_ the countess."

"Does she not loff you?"

"On my honour, no. I told her a few early reminiscences; she happened to
discover they were not what is generally known as true, and took so absurd
a view of the case that I doubt whether she would speak to me again if she
met me. In fact, Baron, if I read the omens aright--and I've had some
experience--you only need courage and a voice."

The bed creaked, there was a volcanic upheaval of the clothes as the Baron
sprang out on to the floor, a