Amelius. "Well, I call this a juicy morning,"
he said, just as if they had met at the cabin breakfast-table as usual.

For the moment, at least, Amelius brightened at the sight of his
fellow-traveller. "I am really glad to see you," he said. "It's lonely
in these new quarters, before one gets used to them."

Rufus relieved himself of his hat and great coat, and silently looked
about the room. "I'm big in the bones," he remarked, surveying the
rickety lodging-house furniture with some suspicion; "and I'm a trifle
heavier than I look. I shan't break one of these chairs if I sit down on
it, shall I?" Passing round the table (littered with books and letters)
in search of the nearest chair, he accidentally brushed against a sheet
of paper with writing on it. "Memorandum of friends in London, to be
informed of my change of address," he read, looking at the paper, as
he picked it up, with the friendly freedom that characterized him. "You
have made pretty good use of your time, my son, since I took my leave
of you in Queenstown harbour. I call this a reasonable long list of
acquaintances made by a young stranger in London."

"I met with an old friend of my family at the hotel," Amelius explained.
"He was a great loss to my poor father, when he got an appointment in
India; and, now he has returned, he has been equally kind to me. I am
indebted to his introduction for most of the names on that list."

"Yes?" said Rufus, in the interrogative tone of a man who was waiting to
hear more. "I'm listening, though I may not look like it. Git along."

Amelius looked at his visitor, wondering in what precise direction he
was to "git along."

"I'm no friend to partial information," Rufus proceeded; "I like to
round it off complete, as it were, in my own mind. There are names on
this list that you haven't accounted for yet. Who provided you, sir,
with the balance of your new friends?"

Amelius answered, not very willingly, "I met them at Mr. Farnaby's
house."

Rufus looked up from the list with the air of a man surprised by
disagreeable information, and unwilling to receive it too readily.
"How?" he exclaimed, using the old English equivalent (often heard in
America) for the modern "What?"

"I met them at Mr. Farnaby's," Amelius repeated.

"Did you happen to receive a letter of my writing, dated Dublin?" Rufus
asked.

"Yes."

"Do you set any particular value on my advice?"

"Certainly!"

"And you cultivate social relations