imed Murie at last, blowing a cloud of smoke from his lips,
"since we parted at Oxford I've been called to the Bar, as you see. As
for practice--well, I haven't any. The gov'nor wants me to go in for
politics, so I'm trying to please him by getting my hand in. I make an
odd speech or two sometimes in out-of-the-world villages, and I hope,
one day, to find myself the adopted candidate for some borough or other.
Last year I was sent round the world by my fond parents in order to
obtain a broader view of life. Is it not Tacitus who says, '_Sua cuique
vita obscura est_'?"

"Yes, my dear fellow," replied Hamilton, stretching himself lazily in
his chair. "And surely we can say with Martial, '_Non est vivere, sed
valere vita_'--I am well, therefore I am alive! Mine has been a rather
curious career up to the present. I only once heard of you after
Oxford--through Arthur Price, who was, you'll remember, at Balliol. He
wrote that he'd spoken one night to you when at supper at the Savoy. You
had a bevy of beauties with you, he said."

Both men laughed. In the old days, Edgar Hamilton had been essentially a
ladies' man; but, since they had parted one evening on the
station-platform at Oxford, Hamilton had gone up to town and completely
out of the life of Walter Murie. They had not met until the previous
evening, when Walter, having dined at the Devonshire--that comfortable
old-world club in St. James's Street which was the famous Crockford's
gaming-house in the days of the dandies--he had met his old friend in
the strangers' smoking-room, the guest of a City stockbroker who was
entertaining a party. A hurried greeting of surprise, and an invitation
to call in at the Temple resulted in that meeting on that grey
afternoon.

Six years had gone since they had parted; and, judging from Edgar's
exterior, he had been pretty prosperous.

Walter was laughing and commenting upon it when his friend, removing his
cigar from his lips, said, "My dear fellow, my success has been entirely
due to one incident which is quite romantic. In fact, if anybody wrote
it in a book people would declare it to be fiction."

"That's interesting! Tell me all about it. My own life has been humdrum
enough in all conscience. As a budding politician, I have to browse upon
blue-books and chew statistics."

"And mine has been one of travel, adventure, and considerable
excitement," declared Hamilton. "Six months after I left Oxford I found
myself out in Transcau