.."_

He was standing where I had left him, his small shabby figure in the
attitude of a diminutive colossus on my hearthrug. About him were the
recently vacated chairs, solemnly and ridiculously suggestive of still
continuing the high and choice conversation that had lately finished. The
same fancy had evidently taken Andriaovsky, for he was turning from chair
to chair, his head a little on one side, mischievously and aggravatingly
smiling. As one of them, the deep wicker chair that Jamison had occupied,
suddenly gave a little creak of itself, as wicker will when released from
a strain, his smile broadened to a grin. I had been on the point of
sitting down in that chair, but I changed my mind and took another.

"That's right," said Andriaovsky, in that wonderful English which he had
picked up in less than three years, "don't sit in the wisdom-seat; you
might profane it."

I knew what he meant. I felt for my pipe and slowly filled it, not
replying. Then, slowly wagging his head from side to side, with his eyes
humorously and banteringly on mine, he uttered the very words I had
mentally associated with that glance of his.

_"Et tu, Brute!"_ he said, wagging away, so that with each wag the lenses
of his spectacles caught the light of the lamp on the table.

I too smiled as I felt for a match.

"It _was_ rather much, wasn't it?" I said.

But he suddenly stopped his wagging, and held up a not very clean
forefinger. His whole face was altogether too confoundedly intelligent.

"Oh no, you don't!" he said peremptorily. "No getting out of it like
that the moment they've turned their backs! No running--what is it?--no
running with the hare and hunting with the hounds! _You_ helped, you
know!"

I confess I fidgeted a little.

"But hang it all, what could I do? They were in my place," I broke out.

He chuckled, enjoying my discomfiture. Then his eyes fell on those absurd
and solemn chairs again.

"Look at 'em--the Art Shades in conference!" he chuckled. "That
rush-seated one, it was talking half an hour ago about 'Scherzos in
Silver and Grey!' ... Nice, fresh green stuff!"

To shut him up I told him that he would find cigarettes and tobacco on
the table.

"'Scherzos in Silver and Grey'!" he chuckled again as he took a
cigarette....

All this, perhaps, needs some explanation. It had been the usual thing,
usual in those days, twenty years ago--smarming about Art and the Arts
and so forth. They--"we," as apparently