with an equal regret for what he once was and for what he once
hoped to be.

He was feeling all this dimly, as he drove from the station, on his
last visit; he was feeling it still as he alighted at the door of
his friend Mr. Johnstone Thomson, W.S., with whom he was to stay.
A hearty welcome, a face not altogether changed, a few words that
sounded of old days, a laugh provoked and shared, a glimpse in
passing of the snowy cloth and bright decanters and the Piranesis
on the dining-room wall, brought him to his bed-room with a
somewhat lightened cheer, and when he and Mr. Thomson sat down a
few minutes later, cheek by jowl, and pledged the past in a
preliminary bumper, he was already almost consoled, he had already
almost forgiven himself his two unpardonable errors, that he should
ever have left his native city, or ever returned to it.

"I have something quite in your way," said Mr. Thomson. "I wished
to do honour to your arrival; because, my dear fellow, it is my own
youth that comes back along with you; in a very tattered and
withered state, to be sure, but - well! - all that's left of it."

"A great deal better than nothing," said the editor. "But what is
this which is quite in my way?"

"I was coming to that," said Mr. Thomson: "Fate has put it in my
power to honour your arrival with something really original by way
of dessert. A mystery."

"A mystery?" I repeated.