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21 been dismal just this very afternoon, absurdly so, merely in realizing it.»

«I infer that your friend is not dead?»

«Dead? No, no, not that!» He laughed. «But, all things concerned, he might as well be dead—for me. He is a marine-officer in the Royal Service. We met about four years ago. He has been doing some Government engineering work here. We have been constantly together, day in, day out. Our tastes are precisely the same. For only one of them, he is almost as much a music-fiend as I am! We've never had the least difference. He is the sort of man one never tires of. Everyone likes him! I never knew a finer character, not anyone quite his equal, who could count for as much in my own life. And then, "besides, he continued in a more earnest tone "he is the type to exert on such a fellow as, I happen to be, exactly the influences that are good for me. That I know. A man of iron resolution.....strong will....energies. Nothing stops him, once he sees what is worth