f themselves
they've no good opinion to spare for anyone else. And what's more, I've
still half a mind to give you a good thrashing before I give you the
cheque. There's just about time, and I shouldn't wonder if it did you
good. You want some of the conceit taken out of you, my lad."

Hilliard seemed not to hear this. Again he fixed his eyes on the
other's countenance.

"Do you say you are going to pay me four hundred pounds?" he asked
slowly.

"Four hundred and thirty-six. You'll go to the devil with it, but
that's no business of mine."

"There's just one thing I must tell you. If this is a joke, keep out of
my way after you've played it out, that's all."

"It isn't a joke. And one thing I have to tell _you_. I reserve to
myself the right of thrashing you, if I feel in the humour for it."

Hilliard gave a laugh, then threw himself back into the corner, and did
not speak again until the train pulled up at New Street station.

CHAPTER II

An hour later he was at Old Square, waiting for the tram to Aston. Huge
steam-driven vehicles came and went, whirling about the open space with
monitory bell-clang. Amid a press of homeward-going workfolk, Hilliard
clambered to a place on the top and lit his pipe. He did not look the
same man who had waited gloomily at Dudley Port; his eyes gleamed with
life; answering a remark addressed to him by a neighbour on the car, he
spoke jovially.

No rain was falling, but the streets shone wet and muddy under lurid
lamp-lights. Just above the house-tops appeared the full moon, a
reddish disk, blurred athwart floating vapour. The car drove northward,
speedily passing from the region of main streets and great edifices
into a squalid district of factories and workshops and crowded by-ways.
At Aston Church the young man alighted, and walked rapidly for five
minutes, till he reached a row of small modern houses. Socially they
represented a step or two upwards in the gradation which, at
Birmingham, begins with the numbered court and culminates in the
mansions of Edgbaston.

He knocked at a door, and was answered by a girl, who nodded
recognition.

"Mrs. Hilliard in? Just tell her I'm here."

There was a natural abruptness in his voice, but it had a kindly note,
and a pleasant smile accompanied it. After a brief delay he received
permission to go upstairs, where the door of a sitting-room stood open.
Within was a young woman, slight, pale, and pretty, who showed
something of