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It was the sultriest of weather in London--days when the city lay in a fog of heat, when the paving cracked, and the broas daer was tortured by the thought of airy downs and running rivers The leaves in the Green Park ithered and dusty, the -boxes in Mayfair had a tarnished look, and horse and rey frockcoat searched the street for shadow, and finding none entered the doorway of a club which proe Winterhaht the sood-looking, with an elegant if soreat brown ave hi indeed that anomalous creature, the titular barrister, who shows his profession by rarely entering the chanorance of law more profound than Necessity's

He found the shadiest corner of the s room and ordered the coolest drink he could think of Then he s to him across the room another victim of the weather This was a small, thin man, with a finely-shaped dark head and theclothes He had been deep in a review, but at the sight of the wearied giant in the corner he had forgotten his interest in the "Ento of the artist or the man of letters, but in truth he had no taint of Bohe a very respectable person and a rising politician His name was Arthur Mordaunt, but because it was the fashion at the time for a certain class of people to address each other in monosyllables, his friends invariably knew hiarded his companion with half-closed eyes

"Well, John Dished, eh? Most infernal heat I ever endured! I can't stand it, you know I'll have to go away"

"Think," said the other, "think that at this reat, cool, deep woods and lakes and waterfalls, and weclothed in these gar of the kind Think of high upland glens and full brown rivers, and hillsides where there is alind Why do I tantalize myself and talk to a vexatious idiot like you?"