As for J. Edward Johnson, it is enough to say that he was a tall, thin gentleman of forty-five, with an aquiline nose, narrow face, and military whiskers, which swooped upwards and met under his nose in a glossy black moustache.  His complexion was dark, from the bronzing of fifteen summers in New Orleans.  He was a member of a wholesale hardware firm in that city, and had now revisited his native North for the first time since his departure.  A year before, some letters relating to invoices of metal buttons, signed “Foster, Kirkup, & Co., per Enos Billings,” had accidentally revealed to him the whereabouts of the old friend of his youth, with whom we now find him domiciled.  The first thing he did, after attending to some necessary business matters in New York, was to take the train for Waterbury.

“Enos,” said he, as he stretched out his hand for the third cup of tea, (which he had taken only for the purpose of prolonging the pleasant table-chat,) “I wonder which of us is most changed.”

“You, of course,” said Mr. Billings, “with your brown face and big moustache.  Your own brother wouldn’t have known you, if he had seen you last, as I did, with smooth cheeks and hair of unmerciful length.  Why, not even your voice is the same!”

“That is easily accounted for,” replied Mr. Johnson.  “But in your case, Enos, I am puzzled to find where the difference lies.  Your features seem to be but little changed, now that I can examine them at leisure; yet it is not the same face.  But, really, I never looked at you for so long a time, in those days.  I beg pardon:  you used to be so—­so remarkably shy.”

Mr. Billings blushed slightly, and seemed at a loss what to answer.  His wife, however, burst into a merry laugh, exclaiming,—­

“Oh, that was before the days of the A.C.!”

He, catching the infection, laughed also:  in fact, Mr. Johnson laughed, but without knowing why.

“The ’A.C.’!” said Mr. Billings.  “Bless me, Eunice! how long it is since we have talked of that summer!  I had almost forgotten that there ever was an A.C.”

“Enos, could you ever forget Abel Mallory and the beer?—­or that scene between Hollins and Shelldrake?—­or” (here she blushed the least bit) “your own fit of candor?” And she laughed again, more heartily than ever.

“What a precious lot of fools, to be sure!” exclaimed her husband.

Mr. Johnson, meanwhile, though enjoying the cheerful humor of his hosts, was not a little puzzled with regard to its cause.

“What is the A.C.?” he ventured to ask.

Mr. and Mrs. Billings looked at each other, and smiled, without replying.

“Really, Ned,” said the former, finally, “the answer to your question involves the whole story.”

“Then why not tell him the whole story, Enos?” remarked his wife.

“You know I’ve never told it yet, and it’s rather a hard thing to do, seeing that I’m one of the heroes of the farce,—­for it wasn’t even genteel comedy, Ned,” said Mr. Billings.  “However,” he continued, “absurd as the story may seem, it’s the only key to the change in my life, and I must run the risk of being laughed at.”