years, wholly
unproductive. Mr. Woodstock explained that things were looking up with
the company in question, who had just declared a dividend of 4 per
cent. on all their paid-up shares.

"In other words," exclaimed Waymark eagerly, "they owe me some money?"

"Which you can do with, eh?" said Abraham, with a twinkle of
good-humoured commiseration in his eye.

"Perfectly. What are the details?"

"There are fifty ten-pound shares. Dividend accordingly twenty pounds."

"By Jingo! How is it to be got at?"

"Do you feel disposed to sell the shares?" asked the old man, looking
up sideways, and still smiling.

"No; on the whole I think not."

"Ho, ho, Osmond, where have you learnt prudence, eh?--Why don't you sit
down?--If you didn't come about the mines, why did you come, eh?"

"Not to mince matters," said Waymark, taking a chair, and speaking in
an off-hand way which cost him much effort, "I came to ask you to help
me to some way of getting a living."

"Hollo!" exclaimed the old man, chuckling. "Why, I should have thought
you'd made your fortune by this time. Poetry doesn't pay, it seems?"

"It doesn't. One has to buy experience. It's no good saying that I
ought to have been guided by you five years ago. Of course I wish I had
been, but it wasn't possible. The question is, do you care to help me
now?"

"What's your idea?" asked Abraham, playing with his watch-guard, a
smile as of inward triumph flitting about his lips.

"I have none. I only know that I've been half-starved for years in the
cursed business of teaching, and that I can't stand it any longer. I
want some kind of occupation that will allow me to have three good
meals every day, and leave me my evenings free. That isn't asking much,
I imagine; most men manage to find it. I don't care what the work is,
not a bit. If it's of a kind which gives a prospect of getting on, all
the better; if that's out of the question, well, three good meals and a
roof shall suffice."

"You're turning out a devilish sensible lad, Osmond," said Mr.
Woodstock, still smiling. "Better late than never, as they say. But I
don't see what you can do. You literary chaps get into the way of
thinking that any fool can make a man of business, and that it's only a
matter of condescending to turn your hands to desk work and the ways
clear before you. It's a mistake, and you're not the first that'll find
it out."

"This much I know," replied Waymark, with decision. "Set me to anythi