tched disconsolately by a sallow,
careworn man who sat astride the one cane chair, his hat on the back of
his head, the discoloured end of a cigarette between his lips.

"It's all very well for you to take it cheerfully," said the latter.
"You're young. You're strong. You're rich. You've no one but yourself.
You haven't a wife and kids depending on you."

"I know it makes a devil of a difference," replied Paul, disregarding
the allusion to his wealth. As the leading man, he was the most highly
paid member of the disastrous company, and he had acquired sufficient
worldly wisdom to know that to him who has but a penny the possessor of
a shilling appears arrogantly opulent. "But still," said he, "what can
we do? We must get back to London and try again."

"If there was justice in this country that son of a thief would get
fifteen years for it. I never trusted the skunk. A fortnight's salary
gone and no railway fare to London. I wish to God I had never taken it
on. I could have gone with Garbutt in The White Woman--he's straight
enough--only this was a joint engagement. Oh, the swine!"

He rose with a clatter, threw his cigarette on the floor and stamped on
it violently.

"He's a pretty bad wrong 'un," said Paul. "We hadn't been going a
fortnight before he asked me to accept half salary, swearing he would
make it up, with a rise, as soon as business got better. Like an idiot,
I consented."

His friend sat down again hopelessly. "I don't know what's going to
become of us. The missus has pawned everything she has got, poor old
girl! Oh, it's damned hard! We had been out six months."

"Poor old chap!" said Paul, sitting on the bed beside his portmanteau.
"How does Mrs. Wilmer take it?"

"She's knocked endways. You see," cried Wilmer desperately, "we've had
to send home everything we could scrape together to keep the
kids--there's five of them; and now--and now there's nothing left. I'm
wrong. There's that." He fished three or four coppers from his pocket
and held them out with a harsh laugh. "There's that after twenty years'
work in this profession."

"Poor old chap!" said Paul again. He liked Wilmer, a sober, earnest,
ineffectual man, and his haggard, kindly-natured wife. They had put on
a brave face all through the tour, letting no one suspect their
straits, and doing both him and other members of the company many
little acts of kindness and simple hospitality. In the lower submerged
world of the theatrical profes