“Follow me!” were his only words, and then we mounted silently, he in front and I behind, up the dark stairs, one, two, three floors and one considerably narrower flight above.  There he took my hand to guide me—­a very necessary proceeding, for, as far as I could make out, the way led across a dark loft, hung with clothes-lines.  He told me, too, to bend my head.

As I mounted I drew my own conclusions.  His hand—­I remembered that in old days he used to be rather proud of it—­was damp, perhaps with mental agitation, and he sometimes stopped as if to take breath.  The narrow garret-stairs whispered to me too, that my friend David, who in his time had given promise of good abilities, could not have made great use of them for his own worldly advancement.

He opened a door and bade me go in first.

Upon a table stood a lamp, whose shade concentrated the light round its foot, in a circle of scarcely more than half a yard’s radius, upon an inkstand and papers which lay there, leaving the ends of the table in apparent darkness.  Behind the table was what looked like a black grave, which, however, when the eye became accustomed to the abrupt transition from light to shadow, revealed itself as a sofa, before which stood an almost correspondingly long, painted, wooden table with square ends.

When two old friends meet in such a way, there is often, under their frank manner, a secret shyness to overcome; for there is a layer of the different experiences of many years that has to be cleared away.

After a short pause, my friend, as if with a sudden resolve, went quickly up to the table and took the shade off the lamp, so that the whole room became light.

“You see,” said he, “things are just the same with me as in the old days, only that there are now two garret windows instead of one, a few more shelves with books, and a rather better monthly salary, which I get by combining a teachership in one of the lower-class schools here, with an easy post on a daily paper.  It is all I need, you see.  I moved here from Bergen this spring, and ought properly to have paid you a call, but have not yet managed it; when I have seen you in the street, you have always looked as if you were too much taken up with your practice.  But now that I have you in my den, we will have a chat about old times, and what you are doing.  Take off your coat, while I go down and see about getting some toddy made.”  Whereupon he replaced the lamp shade, and disappeared through the doorway.

My friend’s somewhat forced introductory speech did not seem natural to me; it was as though, in his ready confidence, he were regulated rather by my circumstances than by his own, and the whole thing gave me the impression that at the outset he would parry all unnecessary questions.