The Opal Serpent

"They hated me, because they did not understand me, as you did."

"If that is so, Grexon, why did you let me slip out of your life? It is ten years since we parted. I was fifteen and you twenty."

"Which now makes us twenty-five and thirty respectively," said Hay, dryly; "you left school before I did."

"Yes; I had scarlet fever, and was taken home to be nursed. I never went back, and since then I have never met an old Torrington boy--"

"Have you not?" asked Hay, eagerly.

"No. My parents took me abroad, and I sampled a German university. I returned to idle about my father's place, till I grew sick of doing nothing, and, having ambitions, I came to try my luck in town." He looked round and laughed. "You see my luck."

"Well," said Hay, lighting a dainty cigarette produced from a gold case, "my uncle, who d