rough the maze of gilt lettering, a limousine standing just
round the corner. Its curtains were drawn: "an odd circumstance," I had
commented inwardly. All of a sudden the street-door of the bank burst
open, and three masked men, brandishing revolvers, rushed in.

"You cover the cashier!" cried one; "we'll take care of the vault!"

Johnny McComas flung open a drawer, seized a revolver of his own, sprang
to his feet--

Pardon me, dear reader. The simple fact is, I have suddenly been struck
by my lack of drama. You see how awkwardly I provide it, when I try.
What bank robbers, I ask you, would undertake such an adventure at
half-past four in the afternoon? I cannot compete with the films. As a
matter of fact, the vault stood locked, the tellers were gone, even the
office-boy had stolen away, and Johnny and I were left alone together,
exchanging rather feebly, and with increasing feebleness, some faint and
unimportant boyhood reminiscences.... I feel abysmally abashed; let us
open a new section.

II

As I have said, Raymond wrote. He wrote, for example, with a voluminous
duteousness, to his parents. His letters to them, so far as they came to
my notice, were curious; probably he meant that they should be saved and
should become a sort of journal of his travels. They were almost
completely impersonal. There was plenty of straight description; but
beyond some slight indications of his own movements, past or intended,
there was no narration. He never mentioned people he met; he never
described his adventures--if he had any. He seemed to be saying to
Europe, as Rastignac said to Paris, "_A nous deux, maintenant!_" He was
at grips with the Old World, and that sufficed.

His letters to me, however, were not devoid of personal reactions. These
commonly took an aesthetic turn. An early letter from Rome had a good
deal to say about the Baroque. He met it everywhere; it was an
abomination; it tried his soul. Fontana and Maderna, the Gog and Magog
of architecture, had flanked the portals of art and had let through a
hideous throng of artificialities and corruptions.... The word "Baroque"
was new to me, and I looked it up. I learned that it described, not a
current movement, as I had supposed, but an influence which had
exhausted itself nearly three hundred years ago. But it was still recent
and real to Raymond. And I learned, further, that this style had modern
champions who could say a good word for it. In any event, it migh