ld
be the next?

Outside, sombre masses of lead-coloured clouds gathered ominously in
the tempestuous sky. The gale roared loudly round the old-fashioned
house and the windows rattled discordantly. Rain fell in torrents.

They said it meant getting wet through going home, but all the same,
Thank God it was nearly five o'clock!

Chapter 3

The Financiers

That night as Easton walked home through the rain he felt very
depressed. It had been a very bad summer for most people and he had
not fared better than the rest. A few weeks with one firm, a few days
with another, then out of a job, then on again for a month perhaps, and
so on.

William Easton was a man of medium height, about twenty-three years
old, with fair hair and moustache and blue eyes. He wore a stand-up
collar with a coloured tie and his clothes, though shabby, were clean
and neat.

He was married: his wife was a young woman whose acquaintance he had
made when he happened to be employed with others painting the outside
of the house where she was a general servant. They had 'walked out'
for about fifteen months. Easton had been in no hurry to marry, for he
knew that, taking good times with bad, his wages did no average a pound
a week. At the end of that time, however, he found that he could not
honourably delay longer, so they were married.

That was twelve months ago.

As a single man he had never troubled much if he happened to be out of
work; he always had enough to live on and pocket money besides; but now
that he was married it was different; the fear of being 'out' haunted
him all the time.

He had started for Rushton & Co. on the previous Monday after having
been idle for three weeks, and as the house where he was working had to
be done right through he had congratulated himself on having secured a
job that would last till Christmas; but he now began to fear that what
had befallen Jack Linden might also happen to himself at any time. He
would have to be very careful not to offend Crass in any way. He was
afraid the latter did not like him very much as it was. Easton knew
that Crass could get him the sack at any time, and would not scruple to
do so if he wanted to make room for some crony of his own. Crass was
the 'coddy' or foreman of the job. Considered as a workman he had no
very unusual abilities; he was if anything inferior to the majority of
his fellow workmen. But although he had but little real ability he
pretende