tly believe.'

'And the woman?'

'She was scared too when it was finished. She used to cross herself
before she went down to look at it. Just three colours and no chance of
getting any more, and the sea outside and unlimited love-making inside,
and the fear of death atop of everything else, O Lord!' He had ceased to
look at the sketch, but was staring straight in front of him across the
room.

'Why don't you try something of the same kind now?' said the Nilghai.

'Because those things come not by fasting and prayer. When I find a
cargo-boat and a Jewess-Cuban and another notion and the same old life,
I may.'

'You won't find them here,' said the Nilghai.

'No, I shall not.' Dick shut the sketch-book with a bang. 'This room's
as hot as an oven. Open the window, some one.'

He leaned into the darkness, watching the greater darkness of London
below him. The chambers stood much higher than the other houses,
commanding a hundred chimneys--crooked cowls that looked like sitting
cats as they swung round, and other uncouth brick and zinc mysteries
supported by iron stanchions and clamped by 8-pieces. Northward the
lights of Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square threw a copper-coloured
glare above the black roofs, and southward by all the orderly lights of
the Thames. A train rolled out across one of the railway bridges, and
its thunder drowned for a minute the dull roar of the streets. The
Nilghai looked at his watch and said shortly, 'That's the Paris
night-mail. You can book from here to St. Petersburg if you choose.'

Dick crammed head and shoulders out of the window and looked across the
river. Torpenhow came to his side, while the Nilghai passed over quietly
to the piano and opened it. Binkie, making himself as large as possible,
spread out upon the sofa with the air of one who is not to be lightly
disturbed.

'Well,' said the Nilghai to the two pairs of shoulders, 'have you never
seen this place before?'

A steam-tug on the river hooted as she towed her barges to wharf. Then
the boom of the traffic came into the room. Torpenhow nudged Dick.

'Good place to bank in--bad place to bunk in, Dickie, isn't it?'

Dick's chin was in his hand as he answered, in the words of a general
not without fame, still looking out on the darkness--'"My God, what a
city to loot!"'

Binkie found the night air tickling his whiskers and sneezed
plaintively.

'We shall give the Binkie-dog a cold,' said Torpenhow. 'Come in,' and