my voice to the top notes to get hearing for the
hymn. He was a reverent man, with the craving by fits. That should have
been a lesson to Madge.'

'A little girl at the greengrocer's hard by? She sold me apples; rather
pretty,' said Gower.

'A fine grown girl now--Madge Winch; a comely wench she is. It breaks her
sister Sarah's heart. They both manage the little shop; they make it
prosper in a small way; enough, and what need they more? Then Christopher
Ines has on one of his matches. Madge drives her cart out, if it 's near
town. She's off down into Kent to-day by coach, Sarah tells me. A great
nobleman patronizes Christopher; a Lord Fleetwood, a lord of wealth. And
he must be thoughtful for these people: he sent Sarah word that
Christopher should not touch drink. You may remember a butcher Ines in
the street next to us. Christopher was a wild lad, always at "best man"
with every boy he met: went to sea--ran away. He returned a pugilist. The
girl will be nursing him now. I have spoken to her of him; and I trust to
her; but I mourn her attachment to the man who drinks.'

'The lord's name?' said Gower.

'Lord Fleetwood, Sarah named him. And so it pleases him to spend his
money!'

'He has other tastes. I know something of him, sir. He promises to be a
patron of Literature as well. His mother was a South Wales woman.'

'Could he be persuaded to publish a grand edition of the Triads?' Mr.
Woodseer said at once.

'No man more likely.'

'If you see him, suggest it.'

'Very little chance of my meeting him again. But those Triads! They're in
our blood. They spring to tie knots in the head. They push me to condense
my thoughts to a tight ball. They were good for primitive times: but
they--or the trick of the mind engendered by them--trip my steps along
the lines of composition. I produce pellets instead of flowing sheets.
It'll come right. At present I 'm so bent to pick and perfect, polish my
phrase, that I lose my survey. As a consequence, my vocabulary falters.'

'Ah,' Mr. Woodseer breathed and smote. 'This Literature is to be your
profession for the means of living?'

'Nothing else. And I'm so low down in the market way of it, that I could
not count on twenty pounds per annum. Fifty would give me standing, an
independent fifty.'

'To whom are you crying, Gower?'

'Not to gamble, you may be sure.'

'You have a home.'

'Good work of the head wants an easy conscience. I've too much of you in
me for a comfort