in yaller
paint. When I _am_ shut up in a room of my own, which isn't often, I'm
shut up there. I can't give you the key of the house, because I want it
myself."

"Kirk Street? That's my way. Why can't we go on together? What do you
want to say good-night here for?"

"Because I want to be left by myself. It's not your fault; but you've
set me thinking of something that don't make me easy in my mind. I've
led a lonesome life of it, young 'un; straying away months and months
out in the wilderness, without a human being to speak to, I dare say
that wasn't a right sort of life for a man to take up with; but I _did_
take up with it; and I can't get over liking it sometimes still. When
I'm not easy in my mind, I want to be left lonesome as I used to be. I
want it now. Good night."

Before Zack could enter his new friend's address in his pocket-book, Mat
had crossed the road, and had disappeared in the dark distance dotted
with gaslights. In another moment, the last thump of his steady footstep
died away on the pavement, in the morning stillness of the street.

"That's rather an odd fellow"--thought Zack as he pursued his own
road--"and we have got acquainted with each other in rather an odd way.
I shall certainly go and see him though, on Thursday; something may come
of it, one of these days."

Zack was a careless guesser; but, in this case, he guessed right.
Something _did_ come of it.

CHAPTER II. THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN.

When Zack reached Baregrove Square, it was four in the morning. The
neighboring church clock struck the hour as he approached his own door.

Immediately after parting with Mat, malicious Fate so ordained it
that he passed one of those late--or, to speak more correctly,
early--public-houses, which are open to customers during the "small
hours" of the morning. He was parched with thirst; and the hiccuping
fit which had seized him in the company of his new friend had not yet
subsided. "Suppose I try what a drop of brandy will do for me," thought
Zack, stopping at the fatal entrance of the public-house.

He went in easily enough--but he came out with no little difficulty.
However, he had achieved his purpose of curing the hiccups. The remedy
employed acted, to be sure, on his legs as well as his stomach--but that
was a trifling physiological eccentricity quite unworthy of notice.

He was far too exclusively occupied in chuckling over the remembrance of
the agreeably riotous train of circumsta