r I have come out in great red blotches all over my arms and chest
and back, and I don't feel well."

"Have you consulted a doctor?"

"Oh, yes, but doctors are no good: they all advise you differently; the
best of it is they all listen to you with an air of intense interest
when you are talking about yourself--which is an excellent tonic."

"They sometimes tell one what's the matter; give a name and significance
to the unknown," I interjected.

"They bore me by forbidding me to smoke and drink. They are worse than
M----, who grudged me his wine."

"What do you mean?" I asked in wonder.

"A tragi-comic history, Frank. You were so right about M---- and I was
mistaken in him. You know he wanted me to stay with him at Gland in
Switzerland, begged me to come, said he would do everything for me. When
the weather got warm at Genoa I went to him. At first he seemed very
glad to see me and made me welcome. The food was not very good, the
drink anything but good, still I could not complain, and I put up with
the discomforts. But in a week or two the wine disappeared, and beer
took its place, and I suggested I must be going. He begged me so
cordially not to go that I stayed on; but in a little while I noticed
that the beer got less and less in quantity, and one day when I ventured
to ask for a second bottle at lunch he told me that it cost a great deal
and that he could not afford it. Of course I made some decent pretext
and left his house as soon as possible. If one has to suffer poverty,
one had best suffer alone. But to get discomforts grudgingly and as a
charity is the extremity of shame. I prefer to look on it from the other
side; M---- grudging me his small beer belongs to farce."

He spoke with bitterness and contempt, as he used never to speak of
anyone.

I could not help sympathising with him, though visibly the cloth was
wearing threadbare. He asked me now at once for money, and a little
later again and again. Formerly he had invented pretexts; he had not
received his allowance when he expected it, or he was bothered by a bill
and so forth; but now he simply begged and begged, railing the while at
fortune. It was distressing. He wanted money constantly, and spent it as
always like water, without a thought.

I asked him one day whether he had seen much of his soldier boy since he
had returned to Paris.

"I have seen him, Frank, but not often," and he laughed gaily. "It's a
farce-comedy; sentiment always begins