So absolutely had he relived life that he had fainted just as he fainted years before on the Eighth Street Bridge.

For a full minute the blackness and the blankness endured.

Then, like one from the dead, he sprang upright, eyes flaming, sweat pouring down his face, shouting:- "I licked you, Cheese-Face! It took me eleven years, but I licked you!" His knees were trembling under him, he felt faint, and he staggered back to the bed, sinking down and sitting on the edge of it.

He was still in the clutch of the past.

He looked about the room, perplexed, alarmed, wondering where he was, until he caught sight of the pile of manuscripts in the corner.