men I have so far met with.

"If he were in London I really think I should take courage from my
desperation, and put my case before him and ask his help. However,
he's not in London, and so it's no use wishing. Well, I feel more of
a man for that shillingsworth of food and drink, and I'll go and wind
up my dissipation with a pipe and a quiet think on the Embankment."

CHAPTER II.

AT WAR WITH SOCIETY.

When Richard Arnold reached the Embankment dusk had deepened into
night, so far, at least, as nature was concerned. But in London in
the beginning of the twentieth century there was but little night to
speak of, save in the sense of a division of time. The date of the
paper which contained the account of the tragedy on the Russian
railway was September 3rd, 1903, and within the last ten years
enormous progress had been made in electric lighting.

The ebb and flow in the Thames had at last been turned to account,
and worked huge turbines which perpetually stored up electric power
that was used not only for lighting, but for cooking in hotels and
private houses, and for driving machinery. At all the great centres
of traffic huge electric suns cast their rays far and wide along the
streets, supplementing the light of the lesser lamps with which they
were lined on each side.

The Embankment from Westminster to Blackfriars was bathed in a flood
of soft white light from hundreds of great lamps running along both
sides, and from the centre of each bridge a million candle-power sun
cast rays upon the water that were continued in one unbroken stream
of light from Chelsea to the Tower.

On the north side of the river the scene was one of brilliant and
splendid opulence, that contrasted strongly with the half-lighted
gloom of the murky wilderness of South London, dark and forbidding in
its irredeemable ugliness.

From Blackfriars Arnold walked briskly towards Westminster, bitterly
contrasting as he went the lavish display of wealth around him with
the sordid and seemingly hopeless poverty of his own desperate
condition.

He was the maker and possessor of a far greater marvel than anything
that helped to make up this splendid scene, and yet the ragged tramps
who were remorselessly moved on from one seat to another by the
policemen as soon as they had settled themselves down for a rest and
a doze, were hardly poorer than he was.

For nearly four hours he paced backwards and forwards, every now and
then stopping