to be worth telling. Some of us go up, you know. Some of us go down.
You're doing pretty well, I hear."

"I suppose so," I replied; "I've climbed a few feet up a greasy pole, and
am trying to stick there. But it is of you I want to talk. Can't I do
anything for you?"

We were passing under a gas-lamp at the moment. He thrust his face
forward close to mine, and the light fell full and pitilessly upon it.

"Do I look like a man you could do anything for?" he said.

We walked on in silence side by side, I casting about for words that
might seize hold of him.

"You needn't worry about me," he continued after a while, "I'm
comfortable enough. We take life easily down here where I am. We've no
disappointments."

"Why did you give up like a weak coward?" I burst out angrily. "You had
talent. You would have won with ordinary perseverance."

"Maybe," he replied, in the same even tone of indifference. "I suppose I
hadn't the grit. I think if somebody had believed in me it might have
helped me. But nobody did, and at last I lost belief in myself. And
when a man loses that, he's like a balloon with the gas let out."

I listened to his words in indignation and astonishment. "Nobody
believed in you!" I repeated. "Why, _I_ always believed in you, you know
that I--"

Then I paused, remembering our "candid criticism" of one another.

"Did you?" he replied quietly, "I never heard you say so. Good-night."

In the course of our Strandward walking we had come to the neighbourhood
of the Savoy, and, as he spoke, he disappeared down one of the dark
turnings thereabouts.

I hastened after him, calling him by name, but though I heard his quick
steps before me for a little way, they were soon swallowed up in the
sound of other steps, and, when I reached the square in which the chapel
stands, I had lost all trace of him.

A policeman was standing by the churchyard railings, and of him I made
inquiries.

"What sort of a gent was he, sir?" questioned the man.

"A tall thin gentleman, very shabbily dressed--might be mistaken for a
tramp."

"Ah, there's a good many of that sort living in this town," replied the
man. "I'm afraid you'll have some difficulty in finding him."

Thus for a second time had I heard his footsteps die away, knowing I
should never listen for their drawing near again.

I wondered as I walked on--I have wondered before and since--whether Art,
even with a capital A, is quite worth all the s