There was not a single familiar face in the hall, and I passed into the Morning Room, like a ghost ascending from Hades to call on Æneas. Around me in arm-chair groups by the fire, or quarrelsome knots suspended over the day's bill of fare, were sleek, full-bodied creatures of dignified girth and portentous gravity—fathers of families, successes in life. These—I told myself—were my contemporaries; their faces were for the most part unknown, but this was hardly surprising as many of my friends are dead and most of the survivors are to be found at the Bar. A barrister with anything of a practice cannot afford time to lunch in the spacious atmosphere of Pall Mall, and the smaller the practice, the greater his anxiety to conceal his leisure. For a moment I felt painfully insignificant, lonely and unfriended.
I was walking towards the Coffee Room when a heavy hand descended on my shoulder and an incredulous voice gasped out——
"Toby, by Gad!"
No one had called me by that name for fifteen years, and I turned to find a stout, middle-aged man with iron-grey hair and a red face extending a diffident palm.
"I beg your pardon," he added hastily, as he saw my expression of surprise. "I thought for a moment...."
"You were right," I interrupted.
"Toby Merivale," he said with profound deliberation. "I thought you were dead."
The same remark had already been made to me four times that morning.
"That's not original," I objected.
"Do you know who I am?" he asked.