sfaction. Occasionally some man more thoughtful than the
rest would be drawn to him by curiosity, but, finding himself met with
so much reserve, involuntary in Gilbert, would become doubtful and turn
elsewhither for sympathy. Yet in this respect Grail improved as time
went on; as his character ripened, he was readier to gossip now and
then of common things with average associates. He knew, however, that
he was not much liked, and this naturally gave a certain coldness to
his behaviour. Perhaps the very first man for whom he found himself
entertaining something like warmth of kindness was Luke Ackroyd.
Ackroyd came to the factory shortly after Gilbert had gone to live in
Walnut Tree Walk, and in the course of a few weeks the two had got into
the habit of walking their common way homewards together. As might have
been anticipated, it was a character very unlike his own which had at
length attached Gilbert. To begin with, Ackroyd was pronounced in
radicalism, was aggressive and at times noisy; then, he was far from
possessing Grail's moral stability, and did not care to conceal his
ways of amusing himself; lastly, his intellectual tastes were of the
scientific order. Yet Gilbert from the first liked him; he felt that
there was no little good in the fellow, if only it could be fostered at
the expense of his weaker characteristics. Yet those very weaknesses
had much to do with his amiability. This they had in common: both
aspired to something that fortune had denied them. Ackroyd had his idea
of a social revolution, and, though it seemed doubtful whether he was
exactly the man to claim a larger sphere for the energies of his class,
his thought often had genuine nobleness, clearly recognisable by
Gilbert. Ackroyd had brain-power above the average, and it was his
right to strive for a better lot than the candle-factory could assure
him. So Grail listened with a smile of much indulgence to the young
fellow's fuming against the order of things, and if he now and then put
in a critical remark was not sorry to have it scornfully swept aside
with a flood of vehement words. He felt, perchance, that a share of
such vigour might have made his own existence more fruitful.

This was Gilbert Grail at the time with which we are now concerned. His
mother believed that she had discovered in him something of a new mood
of late, a tendency to quiet cheerfulness, and she attributed it in
part to the healthfulness of intercourse with a friend; p