That same evening at six I paid, for the first time, a visit to my old self in Harley Street.  It was getting dark, and a bleak storm that hooted like whooping-cough swept the world.  At once I saw that even I had been invaded:  for my door swung open, banging, a lowered catch preventing it from slamming; in the passage the car-lamp shewed me a young man who seemed a Jew, sitting as if in sleep with dropped head, a back-tilted silk-hat pressed down upon his head to the ears; and lying on face, or back, or side, six more, one a girl with Arlesienne head-dress, one a negress, one a Deal lifeboat’s-man, and three of uncertain race; the first room—­the waiting-room—­is much more numerously occupied, though there still, on the table, lies the volume of Punch, the Gentlewoman, and the book of London views in heliograph.  Behind this, descending two steps, is the study and consulting-room, and there, as ever, the revolving-cover oak writing-desk:  but on my little shabby-red sofa, a large lady much too big for it, in shimmering brown silk, round her left wrist a trousseau of massive gold trinkets, her head dropped right back, almost severed by an infernal gash from the throat.  Here were two old silver candle-sticks, which I lit, and went upstairs:  in the drawing-room sat my old house-keeper, placidly dead in a rocking-chair, her left hand pressing down a batch of the open piano-keys, among many strangers.  But she was very good:  she had locked my bedroom against intrusion; and as the door stands across a corner behind a green-baize curtain, it had not been seen, or, at least, not forced.  I did not know where the key might be, but a few thumps with my back drove it open:  and there lay my bed intact, and everything tidy.  This was a strange coming-back to it, Adam.

But what intensely interested me in that room was a big thing standing at the maroon-and-gold wall between wardrobe and dressing-table—­that gilt frame—­and that man painted within it there.  It was myself in oils, done by—­I forget his name now:  a towering celebrity he was, and rather a close friend of mine at one time.  In a studio in St. John’s Wood, I remember, he did it; and many people said that it was quite a great work of art.  I suppose I was standing before it quite thirty minutes that night, holding up the bits of candle, lost in wonder, in amused contempt at that thing there.  It is I, certainly:  that I must admit.  There is the high-curving brow—­really a King’s brow, after all, it strikes me now—­and that vacillating look about the eyes and mouth which used to make my sister Ada say:  ‘Adam is weak and luxurious.’  Yes, that is wonderfully done, the eyes, that dear, vacillating look of mine; for although it is rather a staring look, yet one can almost see the dark pupils stir from side to side:  very well done.  And there is the longish face; and the rather thin, stuck-out moustache, shewing both lips which pout a bit; and there is the nearly black hair; and there is the rather visible paunch; and there is, oh good Heaven, the neat pink cravat—­ah, it must have been that—­the cravat—­that made me burst out into laughter so loud, mocking, and uncontrollable the moment my eye rested there!  ‘Adam Jeffson,’ I muttered reproachfully when it was over, ’could that poor thing in the frame have been you?’