e as if he was
trying to remember what brought me there.

"This is my afternoon off," he said; "I have no pupils until to-morrow
at ten o'clock, and then I give a fencing-lesson to the Honourable Mr.
Bostock. Perhaps you know him?"

I said that I did not, and I thought the Professor was a snob.

"What can I do for you? Fencing or boxing? I trained Ted Tucker years
ago--you remember Ted Tucker, the Bermondsey Bantam as they called him?
My eye, he was a hot 'un with his fists."

I had never heard of Ted Tucker, and said so.

"You don't seem to know anybody," he replied, and for the life of me I
could not help laughing.

"Look here, young man, I'm not going to be laughed at. I may have my
little weakness, but I keep my self-respect, and I'd like you to
remember that, if you can remember anything. Who are you, I've asked
you that before, and where did you come from?" He glared angrily in my
direction and I did not like the look of him at all.

"I came to see your son," I answered; "I don't want to fence or box,
but his address."

His manner changed at once. "Are you from Oxford?" he asked.

"Yes."

"And you call on my afternoon off, that's most unlucky." He talked all
right but his legs were uncertain, and when he stood up he found the
mantelpiece useful. "Rheumatism, I'm a martyr to it," he said.

"Very painful," I remarked, and got off my soda-water case.

"Don't get up, it's passing off. If you're from Oxford, I must put on
a coat and collar. Would you oblige me with your name?"

"Godfrey Marten," I said.

"Colonel Marten's son? Here, sit in this chair. I must put on two
coats," and he made a most gurgly kind of sound which must have meant
that he was amused with himself. Then he looked towards the door as if
wondering whether he could reach it.

"Please don't put on anything for me," I said, and I took his arm and
directed him back to the chair.

"Your father saved my life, and you're the very image of him. It's
enough to upset an old man like me," and without the slightest warning
tears began to roll down his checks.

"Cheer up," I said, for I felt very uncomfortable.

"And you'll go and tell him that you found me--that you called on my
afternoon off."

"I shan't," I said stoutly.

"And you've been a good friend to Hubert."

"That's nothing; I want his address in West Ham."

"Don't say it's nothing, no deed of kindness was yet cast away in this
world of sin," and two more tea