sequiousness which he had never received. He tried to
look haughtily indifferent, but he could not take his eyes from this
person. The stranger returned his glance. He advanced upon the
fashionable inebriate, and paused at his table. Harland Slack arose as
if he were accepting a challenge, and trembled. The two looked at each
other.

"I declare, old fellow. Is it you? Why, I haven't seen you since Class
Day. You know me, Slack, don't you?"

The speaker smiled and took off his hat. This action heightened the
impression of power which he had first made. His forehead was literally
the dome of his body. It was as if the Creator had determined on
granting this man an unusual supply of brains, and had then packed them
in until the pressure had distended the frontal lobes. His brow was an
overhanging arch, massive, high, compelling. This was so marked that the
head gave almost a painful impression of superabundant intellectuality.
Harland immediately recognized his classmate from that distinguishing
feature. It was the only recognizable one left.

"Randolph?"

"The same. Do you live in Boston now?"

"Oh yes, of course. Sit down--and you?"

"I? I am a practising physician, now: that's all. Am just back from
Paris a while ago, and have taken an office. I was telephoned suddenly
to a patient out of town and ran in here for a chop before I went home."

The keen eyes of Dr. Alaric Randolph examined his vis-a-vis as he gave
his brief explanation. He ordered his chops, declined an offer to
drink, and noticed with professional intelligence Harland's demand for
some more whiskey and the tremulous way with which it was taken. No
words were necessary to tell this student of human miseries the nature
of Harland Slack's disease.

Randolph was as much changed for the better as his classmate was for the
worse. It was a wonder that they recognized each other at all. Harland
felt the difference, but could not analyze it; while Randolph studied it
more than he felt it. The college student who did not room in "Beck,"
and who was not a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, who had no time for
society and theatricals, who was never seen at Carl's, who was suspected
of being a little diffident, had suddenly become the patron; and the
classmate whose father's wealth had given him an unassailable social
rank, yielded with feeble will to his own unspoken instinct of
inferiority.

Harland's face had become weazened since he had left college. His