ndow as he looked at it, as if his own
robust health and the light that dwelt about him startled its pinched
shabbiness into solitude. He set the tumbler of flowers upon the
window-ledge, and closing the window, made his toilet and returned to
the sitting-room. Then, having banked up the fire, and set the matches
in such a position that he could easily find them, he blew out the lamp,
left his chambers, and ran down the tortuous stairs. As he turned the
last corner a door clanged noisily, and the next thing of which he was
conscious was that he was struggling in the embrace of a stranger whom
he had doubled up in an angle of the wall.

'I beg your pardon,' he said gaspingly; 'I stumbled.'

'You did,' responded the stranger, gasping also. 'Rather heavily. It was
lucky you had something soft to fall on.'

Philip began to make apologies. The stranger, breathless still, but
jovially polite, begged him not to mention it. He was a tallish
young man, broad set, and a little too fleshy for his years. He had a
cleanshaven face, healthily pallid, the whitest of teeth, and a most
frank, engaging, and contagious smile.

'Pray don't say anything more about it,' he said in answer to Philip's
reiterated apologies. 'You are not hurt, I hope?'

'No, thanks; but I'm afraid you are.'

'Not at all. It was sharp for a minute; but I am all right now. The
stairs are very inconvenient, especially to strangers.'

'I haven't even that excuse for my clumsiness, said Philip; 'for I am
living here.'

'Indeed; then we are neighbours, and should know each other. Rather an
informal kind of introduction, eh?' The stranger said this with a mellow
laugh and a flash of his white teeth. He opened his overcoat as
he spoke, and produced a card-case, Philip catching the gleam of a
gold-studded shirt-front as he did so. 'That's my name, John Barter;
and these are my offices.' The outer oak, cracked and blistered to the
likeness of an ancient tar-barrel, bore an inscription, dim with long
years--'Fellowship, Freemantle, and Barter'--and the names were repeated
on the doorpost at the entrance.

'I have no card,' said Philip, accepting the stranger's. 'My name is
Bommaney--Philip Bom-maney;' Mr. Barter's smiling face was unchanged,
though he gave a slight but perceptible start at the name, and repeated
it.

'Do you know it?' asked Philip. To the ears of his companion there was
something of a challenge in the tone. 'It is not a common name.'

'No. No