I'll be ready by then. Cross--evening, I suppose?"

"Very likely. But I shall see you again," I said, looking at my watch.
"By Jove! close to seven. I must go. Try and get rid of that confounded
jaundice. Good-bye!"

Howard extended his hand.

"By the way, what about the tin? Can you manage?"--

"Oh yes! That's all right," I said.

I was Howard's bank, upon which he drew fitfully and spasmodically:
that is to say, when any expensive little fancy seized him. He always
insisted on giving me I.O.U.'s and acknowledgments for the sums he
borrowed, which I as regularly tore in pieces and put in the fire. I
was half way down the stairs when I ran back and opened his door again.

"Howard!"

"Hullo!"

"Have you a copy of that verse? I have not half studied it this
evening."

"What?" he said, looking round his chair back. "Your precious Linked
Spheres? Yes; take that one if you like."

I took up the paper.

"Thanks!" I said, and re-descended the stairs.

Going down Baker Street, I stopped at the first lamp-post, and read
some lines of it again. A glow of admiration, almost of affection,
towards the curious lines, full of nascent genius, lit slowly in me.

"Splendid! magnificent!" I muttered. "If not here, I'll see it's got
out in Paris."

CHAPTER III.

The next week saw myself and Howard installed in Paris. We had two
large, comfortable rooms on the second floor, opening into each other,
well furnished and upholstered in every way as sitting-rooms, as most
of the French bedrooms are.

They faced a corner where several boulevards met and diverged, and
there was a constant stream of Paris life flowing beneath our windows
every hour of the day. A balcony ran outside, and on this in the
evening we used to stand and smoke and flick paper balls on to the
heads of the grisettes and the bonnes passing far underneath. On the
ground floor of the hotel was a cafe that extended also over the
pavement with its chairs and tables, and was open to the general public
as well as to those who were staying in the hotel.

Howard and I got on admirably as usual. Although we were so different
we had the common ground of a similarity in intellect. On all strictly
intellectual subjects, in psychological discussions, on points of
artistic merit, we seldom differed. His brain was, when he chose to
exert it, singularly brilliant, and in a companion this compensates me
for everything else almost that is wanting. I could not ce