Peter spoke in a Johnsonian manner, but his words were genuine enough and under the influence of this natural emotion, for the moment he forgot his primness. After a time, however, habit asserted its influence over nature, and Grench resumed his buckram civilities, while Philip, also recovering himself, relapsed into his usual nonchalant manners.

"So you kept this appointment, after all," said Cassim, as they settled themselves for a confidential conversation; "I thought it possible you might have forgotten about it."

"By no means," answered Grench, producing a piece of paper similar to that of Philip's. "I have often looked at this, and always intended, unless prevented by disease or death, to meet my old schoolfellows as agreed. Here we are, my dear friend; but Tim and Jack?"

"May be at the other end of the world, for all I know," responded the baronet, carelessly. "Special correspondents and engineers are the Wandering Jews of to-day. Still, as I came from the Guinea coast for this appointment, they will surely not grudge a lengthy journey for a similar purpose."

"Tim is in London," said Peter, unexpectedly.

"Ah!" remarked Philip, manifesting but little surprise, "you have seen him, then?"

"No! Since we parted at Bedford I have seen none of you; but I have heard of all three."

"Nothing good of me, I am afraid," said Cassim, with that amiable belief in his fellow-creatures which made them love him so.

"Nothing bad, at all events," answered Peter, serenely. "You are constantly travelling; you are still a bachelor; you open your heart to no one, and judge the world as though you were not its denizen."

"Which last remark is stolen from La Rochefoucauld. Yes! Your description is accurate if not original. However, let us not talk of Philip Cassim. I am terribly tired of him. What about Jack and Tim?"

"Of Jack I know nothing, save that he was last heard of in India. Tim, however, wrote to me the other day saying he intended to keep this appointment. Concerning his life, he volunteered no information."

"So like Tim! His private correspondence was always unsatisfactory. I like his newspaper letters however; the descriptions are so bright and vivid – plenty of gunpowder and adventure. Certainly Tim makes an excellent war correspondent. I wonder if he still has that strong brogue."

"Surely not. When he came to Bedford, he was fresh from Ireland; but now that he has been travelling so much, he must have lost his pronounced Irishisms."

"I'm not so sure of that," said Philip, with a smile, "Tim is Irish of the Irish. I believe he loves his brogue. You can't educate the race nature out of a man. Believe me, my dear Peter, Tim will be as noisy and as warm-hearted as of yore. I am very fond of Tim."

"Yet I should think Tim, such as you describe him, would be the last person to suit a fastidious individual such as yourself."

"Come now, Peter, I am not quite so hypercritical as all that. Besides, Tim, with all his noise and brogue, is a thorough gentleman. It is your veneered person I object to. However, Tim may have changed. Meanwhile what about yourself?"

"Like Canning's knife-grinder, I have no story to tell. When I left Bedford I went to Cambridge – afterwards came to London. Passed my examinations, walked the hospitals, took my degree, and hearing that a doctor was wanted down at Barnstaple, I went there. For some years I practised with more or less success. Then I retired to give – "

"Retired!" interrupted Philip, in surprise. "Have you made your fortune?"

"By no means. Country doctors never make fortunes. No! I inherit five hundred a year from my father, and as there is no necessity for me to physic people for a livelihood, I devote myself – "

"To sticking pins through unoffending butterflies!"

"Now, how did you guess that?" asked the little doctor, in mild surprise.

"Easily enough. You had a butterfly and beetle mania at school. If I remember rightly, we rolled you in nettles to cure you of entomology. Boys don't relish scientific urchins. So you are still at it. But five hundred a year and beetles. Peter, you are not ambitious."

"No," assented Grench, simply; "I am not at all ambitious. My entomology gives me great pleasure, or why should I not enjoy myself in my own way? Ah, Philip, you do not know what true enjoyment is."

"Certainly not – if it's butterflies."

"To see one of the Callidryas species for the first time is indeed a pleasure," said Peter, beaming with scientific rapture. "Then the Papilios, the Hesperidæ and the red Timitis – "

"Oh, oh!" yawned Philip, stretching himself, "how dry it sounds."

"Dry!" echoed Peter, indignantly; "the most fascinating pursuit in the world."

Philip looked kindly at the little man who appeared to be so satisfied with his simple pleasures.

"Decidedly, Peter, you are a happy person. Come with me on a cruise, and I will introduce you to the paradise of butterflies. Tropical America, Peter, where the insects are like flying flowers. Green butterflies, purple beetles, gilded moths – "

"Oh!" cried Peter, opening his eyes with delight, "I should like to go to South America. I would find a peculiar species there, the Heliconidæ. Why, Philip, if only – "

"Hark! there's the bell," exclaimed Cassim, rising with alacrity, rather thankful to escape Peter's lecture. "Is it Jack or Tim?"

"Tim," said Peter, promptly, "no one else would ring so violently."

"Where did ye say they were?" cried a hearty Irish voice half way up the stairs.

"That settles it," remarked Philip, comically, as he opened the door; "no two persons can possess such a strong brogue."

And Tim it was. Tim, large and burly, roaring like a Bull of Bashan, who hurled himself into the room, and flung himself on Philip's neck.

"My dear friend! my dear boy!" he thundered, squeezing Cassim in his athletic embrace, "it's glad I am to see you."

"Gently, Tim, gently," gasped Philip, helpless in the hug of this bear; "don't crush me to a jelly."

"And Peter!" exclaimed Tim, releasing the baronet to pounce on the doctor, "you fat little man, how splendid you look."

Warned by the fate of Philip, the doctor skilfully evaded the embrace of the giant, and Tim was only able to demonstrate his affection by a handgrip. He threw all his soul into this latter, and Peter's face wrinkled up like a monkey's with pain. It was like a fly struggling with an elephant, and Philip, thoroughly roused from his ordinary placidity, laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

"As soon as you've quite done murdering us, Tim," he said, placing a chair between himself and his too demonstrative friend, "perhaps you'll give your hat and coat to the servant."

Tim, who had rushed upstairs without pause, meekly delivered the articles in question to the servant, who stood grinning at the door. Looking on this respectful grin as a liberty, Philip frowned at the poor man, who thereupon vanished, while Tim, overcome by his late exertions, fell so heavily into a chair that the room rocked.

"Phew!" he said, wiping his heated brow, "it's hot. I am, anyhow."

"That's scarcely to be wondered at," returned Cassim dryly, "considering the enthusiasm of your greeting."

"And why not?" retorted Tim, with the broadest of brogues; "am I not glad to see you both?"

"Of course; and we are glad to see you," said Peter, examining his crushed hand; "but you needn't maim us for life."

Tim roared with laughter in the most unfeeling manner, and Cassim, with a smile, placed his hand on the giant's shoulder.

"The same noisy Tim as of old," he said kindly; "you were a large boy, Tim, and now you are a large man. I wouldn't have recognised you, though, save for the brogue. It's as strong as ever."

"That's true, anyhow," acknowledged Fletcher placing his huge paw on Philip's slender hand as it rested on his shoulder. "Wasn't I but one term at the school, and that didn't turn it into cockney speaking. Besides, I've been to Cork since."

"To freshen up the accent, I suppose," said Grench, with the air of a man who has made a cutting remark; "but a special correspondent should know more than one language."

"Especially if the language is Irish," finished Cassim, mischievously.

"Get along with you," replied Tim, with a twinkle in his eye; "why, it's a polyglot I am, French, Italian, Spanish, and a touch of Arabic. I can tell lies in any one of them. So here you are, lads. Where's Jack?"

"Lord knows!"

"He was in South America when I heard last; but I'll go bail he'll turn up soon. What is the time?"

"Half-past seven," rejoined Peter, consulting an eminently respectable watch of the family physician species.

Tim took out his piece of paper from a pocket-book commensurate to his size, and smoothed it carefully with his huge hand.

"Seven's the hour, and Jack's late. I never knew him early yet."

"Well, you were not renowned for punctuality at school, Tim!"

"True for you, Philip, and many's the hearing I've had for that same. But this is a special occasion, and Jack should be punctual. Confound him."

"Oh, he'll be here shortly," said Cassim, shrugging his shoulders. "We have plenty to talk about until he arrives. How are you, Tim? But I needn't ask, you look like the giant Goribuster."

"Six foot five in my stockings," replied Tim, complacently; "and a good thing it is for me that same. Special corresponding isn't knocking about the world in a gentleman's yacht, sir."

"Or collecting butterflies," added Philip, with a sly smile at Peter.

"Are you at that rubbish still, Peter?"

"Of course I am," answered Peter, in mild surprise; "in fact, since my father left me five hundred a year, I've devoted myself entirely to entomology."

"And to eating!" said Tim, with a grin. "Why, Peter, you've a paunch like a priest."

"Oh, really!" began Peter, scandalised; but his further protestations were drowned in the laughter of Philip, on hearing which Tim nodded approvingly.

"Come now, my dear friend, that's better. You are more like a Christian than when I last saw you."

"At Bedford?" inquired Philip, still smiling.

"No! In London – no less. Didn't I see you at the theatre six months ago, looking for all the world as if you were attending your own funeral?"

"Why didn't you speak to me?"

"You looked so supercilious and stand-off-the-grass like that I couldn't bring myself to it at all."

"You idiot!" said Philip, colouring with vexation. "You know I am always glad to see you."

"Is that a Chinese invitation, Philip?"

"No; I assure you, Tim. Don't think me such a prig. Why, I came all the way from the Guinea coast just to meet you."

"It's a fine boy you are," said Tim, stretching out his huge hand; "it's only joking I am. If you didn't recognise an old friend, it's thrashing you I'd be, as once I did at school."

"If I remember rightly, it was you who had the worst of that little encounter," retorted Philip, gripping Tim's hand strongly.

"It was a draw," said Peter, suddenly; "I remember the fight quite well. But we can talk of these things again. I want to know what Tim is doing."

"And this is fame," grunted Tim, nodding his head. "Haven't you seen my letters about the Soudan War to The Morning Planet, and my account of the Transvaal ructions? Am I not a special correspondent, you ignorant little person?"

"Oh yes, yes; I know all that," replied Peter, impatiently; "but tell us about your life."

"Isn't that my life, sir? When I left school, I went to Ireland and became a reporter. Then I was taken up by a paper in London, and went to the Soudan – afterwards to Burmah, where I was nearly drowned in the Irriwaddy. They know me in Algiers and Morocco. Now I've just returned from Burmah, where I parted with my dear friend, Pho Sa. He's in glory now – rest his soul! They hanged him for being a Dacoit, poor devil."

"You seem to have been all over the world, Tim," said Philip, when the Irishman stopped for breath, "it's queer I never knocked up against you."

"Why, you never stayed one day in one place. That boat of yours is a kind of Flying Dutchman."

"Not a bit of it; she has doubled the Cape lots of times. I was just trying to persuade Peter to take a cruise with me."

"I am seriously thinking of the advisability of doing so," observed Peter, judiciously selecting his words.

"Are you, indeed, Mr. Lindley Murray. Well, if Philip asks me, I'll come too."

"Will you really, Tim?" asked Philip, eagerly.

"Of course I will. There's no war on at present, and I'm not busy. If those squabbling South American Republics don't come to blows again, I'll be free for six months, more or less."

"Then come with me, by all means."

"I tell you what," observed Peter, who had been thinking; "Jack, if he turns up at all, will have travelled home from South America. Let us take him back in Philip's yacht."

"That's not a bad idea anyhow," from Tim, patting Peter's head, a familiarity much resented by the family physician. "You've got brains under this bald spot."

"I am quite agreeable, provided Jack turns up," said Sir Philip, yawning; "but it is now eight o'clock, and I'm hungry. It's no use waiting any longer for Jack, so I vote we have dinner."

"He'll arrive in the middle of it," said Grench, as Cassim touched the bell. "Jack was never in time, or Tim either."

"Don't be taking away my character, you mosquito," cried Tim, playfully, "or I'll put you on the top of the bookcase there. It's a mighty little chap you are, Peter!"

"Well, we can't all be giants!" retorted Peter, resentfully. "I'm tall enough for what I want to do."

"Collecting butterflies! You don't know the value of time, sir. Come along with me to the dining-room." And, in spite of Peter's struggles, he picked him up like a baby, and carried him as far as the study door. Indeed, he would have carried him into the dining-room had not the presence of the servant restrained him. Tim had no idea of the dignity of the medical profession.

The servant intimated that dinner was ready, so the three friends sat down to the meal rather regretting that Jack was not present to complete the quartette. Just as they finished their soup the servant announced —

"Mr. Duval!"

Simultaneously the three sprang up from the table, and on looking towards the door beheld a tall young fellow, arrayed in tweeds, standing on the threshold.

"Jack!" they cried, rushing towards him with unbounded delight. "Jack Duval!"

"My dear boys," said Jack, his voice shaking with emotion; "my dear old friends."