varied. A fortnight in Monte Carlo and a week in Paris had succeeded
the Nile trip; and now the first week in March found him, free of
engagements, ensconced in the luxurious smoking-room of the Monolith
Club in Pall Mall, an enormous cigar between his teeth, and a feeling
of regret in his heart that he had been persuaded to leave the warmth
and sunshine of the favoured South for what he was now enduring. The
morning had been fairly bright, but the afternoon was cold, foggy, and
dreary in the extreme. Even the most weather-wise among the men
standing at the windows, looking out upon the street, had to admit that
they did not know what to make of it. It might only mean rain, they
said; it might also mean snow. But that it was, and was going to be
still more, unpleasant, nobody seemed for an instant to doubt. Browne
stretched himself in his chair beside the fire, and watched the flames
go roaring up the chimney, with an expression of weariness upon his
usually cheerful countenance.

"What a fool you were, my lad, to come back to this sort of thing!" he
said to himself. "You might have known the sort of welcome you would
receive. In Cannes the sun has been shining on the Boulevard de la
Croisette all day. Here it is all darkness and detestation. I've a
good mind to be off again to-night; this sort of thing would give the
happiest man the blues."

He was still pursuing this train of thought, when a hand was placed
upon his shoulder, and, turning round, he discovered Jimmy Foote
standing beside him.

"The very man I wanted to see," said Browne, springing to his feet and
holding out his hand. "I give you my word, old fellow, you couldn't
have come at a more opportune moment. I was in the act of setting off
to find you."

"My dear old chap," replied his friend, "that is my metier: I always
turn up at opportune moments, like the kind godmother in the fairy
tale. What is it you want of me?"

"I want your company."

"There's nothing I'd give you more willingly," said Jimmy; "I'm tired
of it myself. But seriously, what is the matter?"

"Look out of the window," Browne replied. "Do you see that fog?"

"I've not only seen it, I have swallowed several yards of it," Foote
answered. "I've been to tea with the Verneys in Arlington Street, and
I've fairly had to eat my way here. But why should the weather
irritate you? If you're idiot enough to come back from Cairo to London
in March, I don't see that you've