days if he
chooses. But come, if you have no objection to make my better
acquaintance, I have a great desire to make yours. If you will pardon
my saying so, you are evidently not an ordinary man, or else,
something tells me, you would be rich. Have a smoke and let us talk,
since we apparently have a subject in common. Which way are you
going?"

"Nowhere--and therefore anywhere," replied Arnold, with a laugh that
had but little merriment in it. "I have reached a point from which
all roads are one to me."

"That being the case I propose that you shall take the one that leads
to my chambers in Savoy Mansions yonder. We shall find a bit of
supper ready, I expect, and then I shall ask you to talk. Come
along!"

There was no more mistaking the genuine kindness and sincerity of the
invitation than the delicacy with which it was given. To have refused
would not only have been churlish, but it would have been for a
drowning man to knock aside a kindly hand held out to help him; so
Arnold accepted, and the two new strangely met and strangely assorted
friends walked away together in the direction of the Savoy.

The suite of rooms occupied by Arnold's new acquaintance was the beau
ideal of a wealthy bachelor's abode. Small, compact, cosy, and richly
furnished, yet in the best of taste withal, the rooms looked like an
indoor paradise to him after the bare squalor of the one room that
had been his own home for over two years.

His host took him first into a dainty little bath-room to wash his
hands, and by the time he had performed his scanty toilet supper was
already on the table in the sitting-room. Nothing melts reserve like
a good well-cooked meal washed down by appropriate liquids, and
before supper was half over Arnold and his host were chatting
together as easily as though they stood on perfectly equal terms and
had known each other for years. His new friend seemed purposely to
keep the conversation to general subjects until the meal was over and
his pattern man-servant had removed the cloth and left them together
with the wine and cigars on the table.

As soon as he had closed the door behind him his host motioned Arnold
to an easy-chair on one side of the fireplace, threw himself into
another on the other side, and said--

"Now, my friend, plant yourself, as they say across the water, help
yourself to what there is as the spirit moves you, and talk--the more
about yourself the better. But stop. I forgot that we do