e touch of fear and
homesickness that rose in him.

"I have seen a great play to-night," he said to the Lion, "nobly played
by great players. What will they care for my poor wares? I see that I
have been over-bold. But we cannot go back now--not yet."

He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and nodded "good-night" to the
great world beyond his window. "What fortunes lie with ye, ye lights of
London town?" he quoted, smiling. And they heard him close the door of
his bedroom, and lock it for the night.

The next morning he bought many geraniums from Prentiss and placed them
along the broad cornice that stretched across the front of the house
over the shop window. The flowers made a band of scarlet on either side
of the Lion as brilliant as a Tommy's jacket.

"I am trying to propitiate the British Lion by placing flowers before
his altar," the American said that morning to a visitor.

"The British public you mean," said the visitor; "they are each likely
to tear you to pieces."

"Yes, I have heard that the pit on the first night of a bad play is
something awful," hazarded the American.

"Wait and see," said the visitor.

"Thank you," said the American, meekly.

Every one who came to the first floor front talked about a play. It
seemed to be something of great moment to the American. It was only a
bundle of leaves printed in red and black inks and bound in brown
paper covers. There were two of them, and the American called them by
different names: one was his comedy and one was his tragedy.

"They are both likely to be tragedies," the Lion heard one of the
visitors say to another, as they drove away together. "Our young friend
takes it too seriously."

The American spent most of his time by his desk at the window writing on
little blue pads and tearing up what he wrote, or in reading over one of
the plays to himself in a loud voice. In time the number of his visitors
increased, and to some of these he would read his play; and after they
had left him he was either depressed and silent or excited and jubilant.
The Lion could always tell when he was happy because then he would go to
the side table and pour himself out a drink and say, "Here's to me," but
when he was depressed he would stand holding the glass in his hand, and
finally pour the liquor back into the bottle again and say, "What's the
use of that?"

After he had been in London a month he wrote less and was more
frequently abroad, sallying forth in beau