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“Ah, yes, dear fellow, he was one of my greatest admirers.”

“He was about four years old when you knew him, wasn’t he?” suggested Jason meanly. “Yes, they usually WERE young, but so kind of you to recollect them. Young Sluysdael,” he continued, turning to me, “is–but of course you know that disgraceful story.”

I felt that I could stand this no longer. “Yes,” I said indignantly, “I know all about the school, and I don’t call his conduct disgraceful either.”

Jason stared. “I don’t know what you mean about the school,” he returned. “I am speaking of his stepfather.”

“His STEPFATHER!”

“Yes; his father, Van Buren Sluysdael, died, you know–a year after they left Greyport. The widow was left all the money in trust for Johnny, except about twenty-five hundred a year which he was in receipt of as a separate income, even as a boy. Well, a glib-tongued parson, a fellow by the name of Belcher, got round the widow–she was a desperate fool–and, by Jove! made her marry him. He made ducks and drakes of not only her money, but Johnny’s too, and had to skip to Spain to avoid the trustees. And Johnny–for the Sluysdaels are all fools or lunatics–made over his whole separate income to that wretched, fashionable fool of a mother, and went into a stockbroker’s office as a clerk.”

“And walks to business before eight every morning, and they say even takes down the shutters and sweeps out,” broke in Circe impulsively. “Works like a slave all day, wears out his old clothes, has given up his clubs and amusements, and shuns society.”

“But how about his health?” I asked. “Is he better and stronger?”

“I don’t know,” said Circe, “but he LOOKS as beautiful as Endymion.”

*****

At his bank, in Wall Street, Bracy that afternoon confirmed all that Jason had told me of young Sluysdael. “But his temper?” I asked. “You remember his temper–surely.”

“He’s as sweet as a lamb, never quarrels, never whines, never alludes to his lost fortune, and is never put out. For a youngster, he’s the most popular man in the street. Shall we nip round and see him?”

“By all means.”

“Come. It isn’t far.”

A few steps down the crowded street we dived into a den of plate-glass windows, of scraps of paper, of rattling, ticking machines, more voluble and excited than the careworn, abstracted men who leaned over them. But “Johnnyboy”–I started at the familiar name again–was not there. He was at luncheon.

“Let us join him,” I said, as we gained the street again and turned mechanically into Delmonico’s.

“Not there,” said Bracy with a laugh. “You forget! That’s not Johnnyboy’s gait just now. Come here.” He was descending a few steps that led to a humble cake-shop. As we entered I noticed a young fellow standing before the plain wooden counter with a cake of gingerbread in one hand and a glass of milk in the other. His profile was before me; I at once recognized the long lashes. But the happy, boyish, careless laugh that greeted Bracy, as he presented me, was a revelation.

Yet he was pleased to remember me. And then–it may have been embarrassment that led me to such tactlessness, but as I glanced at him and the glass of milk he was holding, I could not help reminding him of the first words I had ever heard him utter.

He tossed off the glass, colored slightly, as I thought, and said with a light laugh:–

“I suppose I have changed a good deal since then, sir.”

I looked at his demure and resolute mouth, and wondered if he had.