Chapter 18 AN EXCHANGE OF MESSAGES

When youth was lord of my unchallenged fate,

And time seemed but the vassal of my will,

I entertained certain guests of state-

The great of older days, who, faithful still,

Have kept with me the pact my youth had made.

-S. Weir Mitchell.

"Who am I?" asked John Armitage soberly.

He tossed the stick of a match into the fireplace,