life
than in a lively weekly. None the less I'll slate him. I'll slate him
ponderously in the Cataclysm.'

'Good luck to you; but I fancy nothing short of a crowbar would make
Dick wince. His soul seems to have been fired before we came across him.

He's intensely suspicious and utterly lawless.'

'Matter of temper,' said the Nilghai. 'It's the same with horses. Some
you wallop and they work, some you wallop and they jib, and some you
wallop and they go out for a walk with their hands in their pockets.'

'That's exactly what Dick has done,' said Torpenhow. 'Wait till he comes
back. In the meantime, you can begin your slating here. I'll show you
some of his last and worst work in his studio.'

Dick had instinctively sought running water for a comfort to his mood of
mind. He was leaning over the Embankment wall, watching the rush of the
Thames through the arches of Westminster Bridge. He began by thinking of
Torpenhow's advice, but, as of custom, lost himself in the study of the
faces flocking past. Some had death written on their features, and Dick
marvelled that they could laugh. Others, clumsy and coarse-built for
the most part, were alight with love; others were merely drawn and lined
with work; but there was something, Dick knew, to be made out of them
all. The poor at least should suffer that he might learn, and the rich
should pay for the output of his learning. Thus his credit in the world
and his cash balance at the bank would be increased. So much the better
for him. He had suffered. Now he would take toll of the ills of others.

The fog was driven apart for a moment, and the sun shone, a blood-red
wafer, on the water. Dick watched the spot till he heard the voice of
the tide between the piers die down like the wash of the sea at low
tide. A girl hard pressed by her lover shouted shamelessly, 'Ah, get
away, you beast!' and a shift of the same wind that had opened the fog
drove across Dick's face the black smoke of a river-steamer at her berth
below the wall. He was blinded for the moment, then spun round and found
himself face to face with--Maisie.

There was no mistaking. The years had turned the child to a woman, but
they had not altered the dark-gray eyes, the thin scarlet lips, or the
firmly modelled mouth and chin; and, that all should be as it was of
old, she wore a closely fitting gray dress.

Since the human soul is finite and not in the least under its own
command, Dick, advancing, said 'Halloo!