uous friend to rush into the
nearest room.

'Why haven't you written?--confound you!' was again vociferated, amid
bursts of boyish laughter. 'Why hasn't anybody written?'

'If everybody was as well informed of your movements as I, I don't
wonder,' replied the journalist. 'Since you left Buenos Ayres, I have
had two letters, each containing twenty words, which gave me to
understand that no answer could by possibility reach you.'

'Humbug! You could have written to half-a-dozen likely places. Did I
really say that? Ha, ha, ha!--Shake hands again, confound you! How do
you do? Do I look well? Have I a tropical colour? I say, what a blessed
thing it was that I got beaten down at Wattleborough! All this time I
should have been sitting in the fog at Westminster. What a time I've
had! What a time I've had!'

It was more than twelve months since Malkin's departure from England.
Though sun and sea had doubtless contributed to his robustness, he must
always have been a fair example of the vigorous Briton. His broad
shoulders, upright bearing, open countenance, and frank resonant voice,
declared a youth passed amid the wholesome conditions which wealth
alone can command. The hearty extravagance of his friendliness was only
possible in a man who has never been humiliated by circumstances, never
restricted in his natural needs of body and mind. Yet he had more than
the heartiness of a contented Englishman. The vivacity which made a
whirlwind about him probably indicated some ancestral mingling with the
blood of a more ardent race. Earwaker examined him with a smile of
pleasure.

'It's unfortunate,' he said, 'that I have to go out to dinner.'

'Dinner! Pooh! we can get dinner anywhere.'

'No doubt, but I am engaged.'

'The devil you are! Who is she? Why didn't you write to tell me?'

'The word has a less specific meaning, my dear fellow,' replied
Earwaker, laughing. 'Only you of all men would have rushed at the wrong
one. I mean to say--if your excitement can take in so common a
fact--that I have promised to dine with some people at Notting Hill,
and mustn't disappoint them.'

Malkin laughed at his mistake, then shouted:

'Notting Hill! Isn't that somewhere near Fulham? We'll take a cab, and
I can drop you on my way.'

'It wouldn't be on the way at all.'

The journalist's quiet explanation was cut short by a petulant outcry.

'Oh, very well! Of course if you want to get rid of me! I should have
thought after sixteen