uld generally "cadge," and if he failed to do so, he had long ago
learnt to go without. It was hard not to admire his gentleness, his
patience and forbearance. If you refused to lend him money he showed
no faintest trace of anger. Hall's friends were therefore delighted
that the chambers opposite were let on conditions so favourable to
Sands; they anticipated with roars of laughter the scene that would
happen at the close of the year, and looked forward to seeing, at
least during the interim, their friend in clean clothes, and reading
"his copy" in the best journals. But the luxury of having a fixed
place to sleep in, stimulated, not industry, but vicious laziness of
the most ineradicable kind. Henceforth Sands abandoned all effort to
help himself. Uncombed, unwashed, in dirty clothes, he lay in an
arm-chair through all the morning, rising from time to time to mess
some paint into the appearance of some incoherent landscape, or to
rasp out some bars of Beethoven on his violin.

"Never did I imagine any one so idle; he is fairly putrid with
idleness," said Hall after a short visit. "Would you believe it, he
has only ninepence for sole shield between him and starvation. The
editor of the _Moon_ has just telegraphed for the notice he should
have written of the Academy, and the brute is just sending a
'wire'--'nothing possible this week.' Did any one ever hear of such a
thing? To-night he won't dine, and he could write the notice in an
hour."

Besides having contributed to almost every paper in London, from the
_Times_ downwards, Sands had held positions as editor and sub-editor
of numerous journals. But he had lost each one in turn, and was
beginning to understand that he was fated to die of poverty, and was
beginning to grow tired of the useless struggle. No one was better
organized to earn his living than Peter Sands, and no one failed more
lamentably. Had fortune provided him with a dinner at Simpson's, a
cigar and a cup of coffee, he would have lived as successfully as
another. But our civilization is hard upon those who are only
conversationalists, it does not seem to have taken them into account
in its scheme, and, in truth, Peter could not do much more than
aestheticize agreeably.

Paul L'Estrange admitted freely that he was not fitted for a lawyer;
but even before he explained that he considered himself one of those
beings who had slipped into a hole that did not fit them, it was
probable that you had already b