Mr. Brown’s day was spent simply. He found his way to the park and, sitting down on a bench, dozed and mused the hours away, basking in the glorious June sunlight and seemingly obvious to its heat.
Late in the afternoon he felt hungry and went to a refreshment kiosk in the park. Finishing his meal he found the nearest bench and continued his pleasant occupation of doing nothing. Mr. Wellington Brown was a born loafer; it is a knack which would prolong many lives in this strenuous age, if it could be acquired.
The stars were coming out in a velvet blue sky when, with a shiver, he aroused himself and made instinctively for the lights. As he slouched along one of the big main paths that cross the park, he overtook a man who was walking slowly in his direction. The man shot a quick glance at him and then turned suddenly away.
“Here,” said Mr. Brown truculently, “I know you. Why in hell are you running away from me? Think I’m a leper or something?”
The man stopped, glanced uneasily left and right.
“I don’t know you,” he said coldly.
“That’s a damned lie,” snarled Brown. The reaction of his bout was upon him. He would have quarrelled with anything or anybody. “I know you and I’ve met you.” He groped in his hazy mind for some string that would lead him to the identity of the stranger. “In China, wasn’t it? My name’s Brown—Wellington Brown.”
“Yes, perhaps it was in China,” said the other and of a sudden became friendly, gripped Wellington Brown’s arm and leaving the path, led him across the green spaces of the park.
A courting couple sitting under one of the trees saw them pass and heard Wellington Brown say:
“Don’t say that I was his storekeeper, because I wasn’t, or his servant! I was his equal, by gad. A partner in the firm, the blamed old swindler—”