crew-the canting humbugs! "Hope you
have many years of this life before you!" As if they cared for anything
but his money--their money rather! And becoming conscious of the length
of his reverie, he grasped the arms of his chair, heaved at his own
bulk, in an effort to rise, growing redder and redder in face and neck.
It was one of the hundred things his doctor had told him not to do for
fear of apoplexy, the humbug! Why didn't Farney or one of those young
fellows come and help him up? To call out was undignified. But was he to
sit there all night? Three times he failed, and after each failure sat
motionless again, crimson and exhausted; the fourth time he succeeded,
and slowly made for the office. Passing through, he stopped and said in
his extinct voice:

"You young gentlemen had forgotten me."

"Mr. Farney said you didn't wish to be disturbed, sir."

"Very good of him. Give me my hat and coat."

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you. What time is it?"

"Six o'clock, sir."

"Tell Mr. Farney to come and see me tomorrow at noon, about my speech
for the general meeting."

"Yes, Sir."

"Good-night to you."

"Good-night, Sir."

At his tortoise gait he passed between the office stools to the door,
opened it feebly, and slowly vanished.

Shutting the door behind him, a clerk said:

"Poor old chairman! He's on his last!"

Another answered:

"Gosh! He's a tough old hulk. He'll go down fightin'."

2

Issuing from the offices of "The Island Navigation Company," Sylvanus
Heythorp moved towards the corner whence he always took tram to Sefton
Park. The crowded street had all that prosperous air of catching or
missing something which characterises the town where London and New
York and Dublin meet. Old Heythorp had to cross to the far side, and he
sallied forth without regard to traffic. That snail-like passage had in
it a touch of the sublime; the old man seemed saying: "Knock me down and
be d---d to you--I'm not going to hurry." His life was saved perhaps ten
times a day by the British character at large, compounded of phlegm and
a liking to take something under its protection. The tram conductors on
that line were especially used to him, never failing to catch him under
the arms and heave him like a sack of coals, while with trembling hands
he pulled hard at the rail and strap.

"All right, sir?"

"Thank you."

He moved into the body of the tram, where somebody would always get up
from kindness and the fear t