and I have put before
you the exact sum total of the matter as I see it. You think me
irrational,--absurd. Good. Then I am content to be irrational and
absurd. In any case you can scarcely deny that what I have stated is a
simple fact,--a truth which cannot be denied?"

"It is a truth, certainly," replied his companion, pulling himself
upright in his chair with a certain vexed vehemence of action and
flinging away his half-smoked cigar, "but it is one of those unpleasant
truths which need not be looked at too closely or too often remembered.
We must all get old--unfortunately,--and we must all die, which in my
opinion is more unfortunate still. But we need not anticipate such a
disagreeable business before its time."

"Yet you are always drawing up Last Wills and Testaments," observed the
other, with a touch of humour in his tone.

"Oh well! That, of course, has to be done. The youngest persons should
make their wills if they have anything to leave, or else run the risk of
having all their household goods and other belongings fought for with
tooth and claw by their 'dearest' relations. Dearest relations are,
according to my experience, very much like wild cats: give them the
faintest hope of a legacy, and they scratch and squawl as though it were
raw meat for which they have been starving. In all my long career as a
solicitor I never knew one 'dearest relation' who honestly regretted the
dead."

"There you meet me on the very ground of our previous discussions," said
the elder man. "It is not the consciousness of old age that troubles me,
or the inevitable approach of that end which is common to all,--it is
merely the outlook into the void,--the teasing wonder as to who may step
into my place when I am gone, and what will be done with the results of
my life's labour."

He rose as he spoke, and moved towards the balcony's edge, resting one
hand upon its smooth stone. The change of attitude allowed the light
from the interior room to play more fully on his features, and showed
him to be well advanced in age, with a worn, yet strong face and
deep-set eyes, over which the shelving brows stooped benevolently as
though to guard the sinking vital fire in the wells of vision below. The
mouth was concealed by an ashen-grey moustache, while on the forehead
and at the sides of the temples the hair was perfectly white, though
still abundant. A certain military precision of manner was attached to
the whole bearing of the man,-