ickel
candlestick, and, when he was ready for bed, he peered into his mirror
at his own face, which he took pains to consider thoughtfully. Like a
friend's it looked back at him, the marks of Life deep upon it.

At two o'clock he was in a heavy sleep when he was roused by the turning
of the handle of his door. Some one had come into the room and Antony,
bolt upright, heard the door drawn and the key turned. Then something
slipped and fell with a thud. He lit his candle, shielded it, and to his
amazement saw sitting on the floor, his big form taking up half the
little room, a young fellow in full evening dress, an opera hat on the
back of his head.

"Don't squeal," said the visitor gently with a hiccough; "I see I'm too
late or too early, or shomething or other."

He was evidently a gentleman out of his room and evidently drunk. Antony
laughed and got half-way out of bed.

"You're in the wrong room, that's clear, and how are you going to get
out of it? Can you get up with a lift?"

"Look here"--the young man who was an American and who would have been
agreeable-looking if he had not been drunk and hebetated, sat back and
leaned comfortably against the door--"roomsh all right, good roomsh,
just like mine; don't mind me, old man, go back to bed."

Antony came over and tried to pull him up, but the stranger was immense,
as big as himself, and determined and happy. He had made up his mind to
pass his night on the floor.

Antony rang his bell in vain, then sighed, himself overcome with sleep.
To the young man who barricaded the door, and who was already beginning
to drowse, he said pleasantly----

"Give us your hat, anyway, and take off your coat."

"Now you go back to bed, sir," ordered the other with solemn dignity,
"go back to bed, don't mind me. I'm nothing but a little mountain
flower," he quoted pathetically. His head fell over, his big body
followed it.

Antony took one of his pillows, put it under the fellow's head, and
turned in himself, amused by his singularly companioned night.

* * * * *

"What the deuce!" he heard the next morning from a voice not unpleasant,
although markedly Western. And he opened his eyes to see bending over
him a ruffled, untidy, pasty-looking individual whom he remembered to
have last seen sprawling on the floor.

"Say, are you in my bed or am I only out of my own?" asked the young
man.

Antony told him.

"George!" exclaimed the other, sitt