ited a certain amount of interest,
and inspired some of my old school-fellows to renew acquaintance with
me. By this time I had forgotten Johnson. He was part of a distant
country, where the fine white dust settles thickly upon all things and
persons. In England, where the expected, so to speak, comes to five
o'clock tea, such surprising individuals as Johnson appear--if they
ever do appear--as creatures of a disordered fancy or digestive
apparatus. Once I told the story at the Scribblers' Club to a couple
of journalists. They winked at each other, and said politely that I
spun a good yarn, for an amateur! "I never tell a story," said the
elder of my critics, "till I've worked out a climax. You leave us at
the top of a confounded hill in California, bang up in the clouds."

And then the climax flitted into sight, masquerading as a barrel of
claret. The claret came from Bordeaux. It was Leoville Poyferre, 1899.
Not a line of explanation came with it, but all charges were prepaid.
I wrote to the shippers. A Monsieur had bought the wine and ordered it
to be consigned to me. Readers of this story will say that I ought to
have thought of Johnson. I didn't. I thanked effusively half a dozen
persons in turn, who had not sent the claret; then, hopelessly
befogged, I had the wine bottled.

However, Johnson sent the wine, for he told me so. I had been passing
a few days at Blois, and was staring at the Fragonard which hangs in
the gallery of the chateau, when a languid voice said, "This is the
best thing here."

"Hullo, Johnson!" I exclaimed.

"Hullo!" said he.

He had recognised me first, and addressed the remark about the picture
to me. Nobody else was near us. We shook hands solemnly, eyeing each
other, noting the changes. Johnson appeared to be prosperous, but
slightly Gallicised.

"How is--Ajax?" he murmured.

"Ajax has grown fat. Can't you dine with me?"

"It's my turn. We must order a bottle of Leoville at once."

"You sent that wine," I exclaimed. There was no note of interrogation
in my voice. I knew.

"Yes," he said indifferently; "it will be worth drinking in about ten
years' time."

We had an admirable dinner upon a terrace overhanging the Loire, but
the measure of my enjoyment was stinted by Johnson's exasperating
reticence concerning himself. He talked delightfully of the chateaux
in Touraine; he displayed an intimate knowledge of French history and
archaeology, but I was tingling with impatience to t