e reminded me.

The engagement had completely passed from my memory.

"I shall be unable to go, Wilson," I said.

"They haven't found Mr. Forrest, then, sir?" said the man respectfully.
He was simply brimming over with curiosity.

"No. I'm afraid we shall never see him alive again," I groaned.

"Dear me! Not so bad as that, I hope, sir," he responded
sympathetically, as he still lingered.

"Not half so bad as that, Wilson," remarked a cheery voice just outside
the door.

My man started, and I jumped to my feet with a shout of welcome.

"Forrest! Forrest!" I cried. "Come along in, man."

"Well, if I may?" replied Forrest's voice.

"If you may!" I answered. "Why--what the----!"

My astonishment at the appearance he presented as he entered the room
choked my further utterance.

The man who entered was a veritable scarecrow. A man with a torn coat
and rent trowsers, and a battered hat which barely held together upon
his head. He was covered from head to foot with mud. His face was dirty,
unshaven, disreputable.

"Forrest? Is it indeed you?" I could not but ask, when my speech
returned to me.

"I don't ask you to recognize me until I have had a bath and a shave,"
he replied. "But when I have sacrificed to Hygeia, I expect to be
presentable enough to dine with Mr. Winter to-night. I've been wondering
all day whether I should manage to get here in time. Meanwhile, the
least spot of whisky----"

I could not express my delight at his return, and unthinkingly I poured
out nearly a tumbler of the neat spirit, and felt almost hurt when he
returned all but one finger to the decanter.

"If you give me a dose like that, I shall certainly be unable to
accompany you," he said.

I could curb my curiosity no longer. I burst out with a string of
questions.

"Where have you been? What has happened to you? Why did you disappear?
How----"

He stopped me. "So that's why you gave me all that whisky. You wanted to
make me talk, eh?"

I laughingly disassociated myself from any such intention, and, putting
the curb on my curiosity, I turned him over to Wilson to be valeted out
of the semblance to a tramp.

The process took some time, and when he came downstairs in
irreproachable evening clothes, there was no time for him to give me the
history of his adventures unless we were to miss our dinner.

"And that," declared Forrest, "I absolutely refuse to do; for, with the
exception of sixpenny worth of rum and a crust of b