?"

"He likes me more than I deserve."

"Well, Max," my host pursued, "we can be good friends all the same. We
don't need a hocus-pocus of false sentiment. We are _men_, aren't
we?--men of sublime good sense." And just here, as the old man looked at
me, the pressure of his hands deepened to a convulsive grasp, and the
bloodless mask of his countenance was suddenly distorted with a nameless
fear. "Ah, my dear young man!" he cried, "come and be a son to me--the
son of my age and desolation! For God's sake, don't leave me to pine and
die alone!"

I was greatly surprised--and I may add I was moved. Is it true, then,
that this dilapidated organism contains such measureless depths of
horror and longing? He has evidently a mortal fear of death. I assured
him on my honor that he may henceforth call upon me for any service.

8th.--Theodore's little turn proved more serious than I expected. He has
been confined to his room till to-day. This evening he came down to the
library in his dressing-gown. Decidedly, Mr. Sloane is an eccentric, but
hardly, as Theodore thinks, a "charming" one. There is something
extremely curious in his humors and fancies--the incongruous fits and
starts, as it were, of his taste. For some reason, best known to
himself, he took it into his head to regard it as a want of delicacy, of
respect, of _savoir-vivre_--of heaven knows what--that poor Theodore,
who is still weak and languid, should enter the sacred precinct of his
study in the vulgar drapery of a dressing-gown. The sovereign trouble
with the _bonhomme_ is an absolute lack of the instinct of justice. He's
of the real feminine turn--I believe I have written it before--without
the redeeming fidelity of the sex. I honestly believe that I might come
into his study in my night-shirt and he would smile at it as a
picturesque _deshabille_. But for poor Theodore to-night there was
nothing but scowls and frowns, and barely a civil inquiry about his
health. But poor Theodore is not such a fool, either; he will not die of
a snubbing; I never said he was a weakling. Once he fairly saw from what
quarter the wind blew, he bore the master's brutality with the utmost
coolness and gallantry. Can it be that Mr. Sloane really wishes to drop
him? The delicious old brute! He understands favor and friendship only
as a selfish rapture--a reaction, an infatuation, an act of aggressive,
exclusive patronage. It's not a bestowal, with him, but a transfer, and
half his ple