.

AFTER FIVE YEARS.
"You have forgotten me ?" Charley Steele's glance was serenely non-committal as he answered drily: "I cannot remember doing so." The other man's eyelids drew down with a look of anger, then the humour of the impertinence worked upon him, and he gave a nervous little laugh and said: "I am John Brown." "Then I'm sure my memory is not at fault," remarked Charley, with an outstretched hand.

"My dear Brown! Still preaching little sermons ?" "Do I look it ?" There was a curious glitter in John Brown's eyes.

"I'm not preaching little sermons, and you know it well enough." He laughed, but it was a hard sort of mirth.

"Perhaps you forgot to remember that, though," he sneeringly added.