head or hand, it is head or hand only, and the motion is slow, painful, and hesitating, as though mind functioned on body with difficulty, uncertain of its ground.  Nevertheless, when the door opens, and the small squat figure of a very old and dear friend advances towards him, his face lights instantly.  With tender reverence and affection the newcomer takes hold of his hand, lifts, presses it, lays it back again.  And when he has seated himself, the Shadow speaks.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Well, Collings?  Well?

JESSE COLLINGS.  Well, my dear Chamberlain, how are you?  I’m a little late,
I’m afraid.

CHAMBERLAIN.  I hadn’t noticed.  Time doesn’t matter to me now.

JESSE COLLINGS.  No; but I like to be punctual.  It’s my nature.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Habit...Habit and nature are different things, Collings.  I’ve been finding that out.

(At this, for a diversion, Collings, readjusting his pince-nez, tilts his head bird-like, and takes a genial look at his friend)

JESSE COLLINGS.  Joe, you are looking better to-day.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Well, even looks are not to be despised, I suppose, when one has nothing else left.

JESSE COLLINGS.  Come, come!

CHAMBERLAIN.  Yes?

JESSE COLLINGS.  Nothing else left, indeed!  Don’t—­don’t be so down,
Chamberlain.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Dear old friend!...  Just now you called me “Joe.”  You don’t often do that.  Why did you?

JESSE COLLINGS.  A reversion to old habits, I suppose.  One does as one gets older.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Yes.

JESSE COLLINGS (genially making conversation, which he sees to be advisable).  I was reading only the other day that, as we get on in years and begin to forget other things, our childhood comes back to us.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Yes?

JESSE COLLINGS.  Now I wonder if that’s true?

CHAMBERLAIN.  I wonder.

JESSE COLLINGS.  Mine hasn’t begun to come back to me.

CHAMBERLAIN.  You aren’t old yet.

JESSE COLLINGS.  I’m over eighty.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Good for another twenty years.  And once you were my senior. 
We weren’t quite boys together, Collings; but we’ve been good friends.

JESSE COLLINGS.  Thank God for that!—­Joe.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Yes, I do.  More now than I used to.

JESSE COLLINGS.  All the same, you haven’t so much cause to thank Him as we have.

CHAMBERLAIN.  No?

(The listless monotone makes the little old man fear that he is not succeeding.)

JESSE COLLINGS.  Is my talk tiring you?

CHAMBERLAIN.  Not at all....  Please go on!

JESSE COLLINGS.  I only want to say what I said just now:  Don’t be down, dear friend.  Your record will stand the test better than that of others.  Your work is still going on; it hasn’t finished just because you are—­laid up.