eye were not unlike those of a hunted hare.

He reached the house door at nightfall, just as Mrs Penhaligon came
shepherding her offspring home down the dusky street, 'Biades had
yielded to the sleep of exhaustion, and lay like a log in his
mother's arms. 'Bert, for no other reason than that he had tired
himself out, was sulky and uncommunicative. But 'Beida--whose whole
manner ever changed when once she had been persuaded into fine
clothes--wore an air of sustained gentility.

"Squire Tresawna keeps seven gardeners," she reported. "He has three
motor-cars and two chauffeurs. The gardeners keep the front lawn so
short with their mowing-machines that 'Biades couldn't possibly have
made the front of his blouse in the mess it is unless he had
purposely crawled on his stomach to lower me in the eyes of all.
When it got to a certain point I pretended to have no connection with
him. There was nothing else to do. Then he felt sorry and wanted to
hug me in front of everybody. . . . Oh, thank you . . . yes, I've
enjoyed myself very much! Mrs Tresawna wears a toque: but I suppose
that when you get to a certain position you can carry on with toques
long after every one else has given them up. She has two maids; one
of them in a grey velours dress that must have been one of Mrs
Tresawna's cast-offs, for it couldn't possibly have come out of her
wages; though, by the fit, it might have been made for her."

A little before ten o'clock Nicky-Nan climbed the stairs painfully to
his bedroom, undressed in part, and lay down--but not to sleep.
For a while he lay without extinguishing the candle--his last candle.
He had measured it carefully, and it reached almost to an inch beyond
the knuckle of his forefinger. It would last him a good two hours at
least, perhaps three.

He lay for a while almost luxuriously, save for the pain in his leg,
and watched the light flickering on the rafters. They had a few more
days to abide, let Pamphlett's men be never so sharp: but this was
his last night under them. His enemies--some of them until this
morning unsuspected--were closing in around him. They had him, now,
in this last corner.

But that was for to-morrow. The very poor live always on the edge of
to-morrow; and for that reason the night's sleep, which parts them
from it, seems a long time.

After all, what could his enemies do to him? If he sat passive, the
onus would rest on them. If Policeman Rat-it-all flung him into t