ow at his
sleeve and hand, as if looking for a flaw in it. Then he replaced it, and
pulled up the collar of his dressing-gown as if he was cold.

"Well, another night of it," he muttered; "but," he added, facing
suddenly round on me, "if your appointment was to meet your God Himself,
you must photograph me at ten to-morrow morning!"

"All right," I said, giving in (for he seemed horribly ill). "Draw up to
the stove and have a drink of something and a smoke."

"I neither drink nor smoke," he replied, moving towards the door.

"Sit down and have a chat, then," I urged; for I always like to be decent
with fellows, and it was a lonely sort of place, that yard.

He shook his head.

"Be ready by ten o'clock in the morning," he said; and he passed down my
stairs and crossed the yard to his studio without even having said "Good
night."

Well, he was at my door again at ten o'clock in the morning, and I
photographed him. I made three exposures; but the plates were some that
I'd had in the place for some time, and they'd gone off and fogged in the
developing.

"I'm awfully sorry," I said; "but I'm going out this afternoon, and will
get some more, and we'll have another shot in the morning."

One after the other, he was holding the negatives up to the light and
examining them. Presently he put them down quietly, leaning them
methodically up against the edge of the developing-bath.

"Never mind. It doesn't matter. Thank you," he said; and left me.

After that, I didn't see him for weeks; but at nights I could see the
light of his roof-window, shining through the wreathing river-mists, and
sometimes I heard him moving about, and the muffled knock-knocking of his
hammer on marble.

II

Of course I did see him again, or I shouldn't be telling you all this. He
came to my door, just as he had done before, and at about the same time
in the evening. He hadn't come to be photographed this time, but for all
that it was something about a camera--something he wanted to know. He'd
brought two books with him, big books, printed in German. They were on
Light, he said, and Physics (or else it was Psychics--I always get those
two words wrong). They were full of diagrams and equations and figures;
and, of course, it was all miles above my head.

He talked a lot about "hyper-space," whatever that is; and at first I
nodded, as if I knew all about it. But he very soon saw that I didn't,
and he came down to my level again. What he'd