one before many weeks have passed. There was only one
man who never failed to put in an appearance at some hour of the day,
and on that man's coming Pat O'Shaughnessy this afternoon concentrated
every power in his possession.

"They say if you wish hard enough you can make a fellow do what you
like. If there's any truth in it, Glynn ought to come along pretty
soon. How am I going to lie here all afternoon and stare at those
miserable matches? That wretched woman might be buying the town ...
wish to goodness she'd fetch something fit to eat. If that doctor
fellow won't tell me to-morrow how much longer I have to lie here,
I'll--I'll get up and walk, just to spite him!" Pat jerked defiantly
and immediately gave a groan of pain. Not much chance of walking yet
awhile!

He wriggled to the edge of the sofa, and made another unsuccessful
stretch for the matchbox, but those baffling two inches refused to be
mastered. Pat looked around in a desperate search for help, seized a
biscuit, and aimed it carefully for the farther edge of the box, which,
hit at the right angle, might perhaps have been twitched nearer to the
sofa, but though Pat had considerable skill in the art of throwing, he
had no luck this afternoon. Biscuit after biscuit was hurled with
increasing violence, as temper suffered from the strain of failure, and
each time the matchbox jumped still farther _away_, while another shower
of biscuit crumbs bespattered the carpet. Then at last when the plate
was emptied, and the last hope gone, deliverance came at the sound of
the opening of the front door, and a quick, well-known whistle. Glynn!
No one else knew the secret of the hidden key. Pat halloed loudly in
response, and the next moment Stephen stood in the doorway, looking with
bewildered eyes at the bespattered carpet.

"What's this? Playing Aunt Sally? Rather a wanton waste of biscuits,
isn't it?"

"Try 'em, and see! Soft as dough. Give me that matchbox, Glynn, like a
good soul. It fell off my chair, and I've been lying here pining for a
smoke, and making pot shots of it, till I felt half mad.--If you only
knew--"

Stephen Glynn _did_ know. It was that knowledge which brought him
regularly day by day to the little flat at the top of eighty odd stairs.

He walked across the room, his limp decidedly less in evidence through
the passage of the years, reclaimed the matchbox, and seated himself on
the edge of the couch.

"Light up, old fellow!