“Are they such cowards?” asked Harry. “But I say,” he added, as he looked in the other’s face, “is not your name Howard?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Don’t you remember Forsyth at Harton—your fag?”
“Remember little Forsyth! Of course I do. But you don’t mean to say—by George! Now I look at you I see a sort of a likeness. But I should never have known you.”
“I expect not. When you left I was thirteen, and I have altered a good bit since then. But you were eighteen or thereabouts, and have not changed so much.”
“That’s it; though I have had plenty to change me, too. But how do you come to be here, and in that toggery?”
“Well, it is rather a long story,” said Harry, “and I would sooner tell it sitting down somewhere out of the sun. What are you doing here—in private practice?”
“That is a long story, too,” cried Howard, laughing; “and I would also sooner tell it sitting out of the sun. Come to Yussuff’s, where we can wash this mess from our hands, and get anything we want.”
Yussuff’s was not far. It was a convenient establishment, where you could get a meal, or a bottle of wine, or even beer, if you would pay for it, or simply take a chibouque or narghile, and a cup of coffee or a sherbet.
“Try the lemonade; they make it first-rate here,” said Howard; and Harry took his advice, and swallowed a big glassful of nectar, which no iced champagne he had ever drunk could beat. And then they washed their hands and rested on a comfortable divan while they interchanged confidences.