I--I hope you won't forget me--entirely." "I am the man people are forgetting," returned Siward, "not you.

It was very nice of you to come.

You are one of very few who remember me at all." "I have very few people to remember," said Plank; "and if I had as many as I could desire I should remember you first." Here he became very much embarrassed.

Siward offered his hand again.
Plank shook it awkwardly, and went away on tiptoe down the stairs which creaked decorously under his weight.
And that ended the first interview between Plank and Siward in the first days of the latter's decline.
The months that passed during Siward's absence from the city began to prove rather eventful for Plank.

He was finally elected a member of the Patroons Club, without serious opposition; he had dined twice with the Kemp Ferralls; he and Major Belwether were seen together at the Caithness dance, and in the Caithness box at the opera.