“Have I? I don’t think I have.”

“At any rate, you have some subject of interest there which used not to be there?”

“I really can’t say,” replied Eugene, shaking his head blankly, after pausing again to reconsider. “At times I have thought yes; at other times I have thought no. Now, I have been inclined to pursue such a subject; now I have felt that it was absurd, and that it tired and embarrassed me. Absolutely, I can’t say. Frankly and faithfully, I would if I could.”

So replying, he clapped a hand, in his turn, on his friend’s shoulder, as he rose from his seat upon the bed, and said: