verybody and
everything, even, as the reader has seen above, those sedate men who go
out in stormy weather. An Indian does not steal more unperceived and
noiselessly through a primeval forest than I, when necessary, into my
patient's confidence; and my friend David had all at once become my
patient. He would scarcely succeed in deceiving _me_ any longer with his
talk about "old days" and a glass of punch in his "unchanged student's
den."

My first strategem was now hastily to continue the inspection of the
room, which my friend had somewhat cursorily allowed me to begin. I
took the lamp and began to look about me.

Under the sloping ceiling, against the wall opposite the sofa, was the
bed, with a little round table beside it. On some bookshelves, which
stood on the floor against the wall in the corner at the foot of the
bed, I recognised Henrik Wergeland's bust, even more defective about the
chin and nose than in my time, and now, in addition, blind in one eye;
he had fared almost as badly as the old pipe I used to smoke, which I
recognised again, in spite of its being cut and hacked in every
direction. For my friend had a habit of cutting marks in it while he sat
smoking, now and then throwing a word into the conversation to keep it
going, just as one throws fuel on a fire--it was the spirit of the
conversation, and that something should be said, rather than the thought
itself, he cared about. When sitting thus, his face often wore a
melancholy, peaceful expression, as if he were smiling at something
beautiful we others did not see.

Between the bed and the shelves I discovered some bottles, ordinary
spirit bottles, and the suspicion flashed like lightning through my
mind--I have, as I said, become suspicion personified, not naturally,
but through disappointment--that my friend was perhaps given to drink.

I put the lamp down upon the floor. In one bottle was ink, in the
second paraffin, and in the third, a smaller one, cod-liver oil, which
he probably took for his chest.

I remembered his clammy hand, his stopping, and heavy breathing on the
stairs, and I felt thoroughly ashamed that I could have been such a
wretch as to think the dear friend, I might also say ideal, of my youth,
was no better than any scamp in vulgar life, who positively ought to be
suspected.

I offered him, in silence, a penitent apology, while I read over the
titles on the backs of the books, recognising one and another. These
shelves seem