ser sorts.

It was difficult for one so transparently honest as Henry to pretend not
to notice the pitiable condition of his old friend, and there was a
forced cordiality in his tone when he greeted him.

"My dear fellow, I am delighted to meet you again. Odd, isn't it, that
we should meet among London's millions? Come along with me to the Press
Restaurant for a bit of lunch and a chat over old times."

"Thank you very much," said Trevor, "but the fact is I have just had
something to eat--"

"Never mind that; so have I. Let it be coffee and a chat."

Together they crossed the street and sought out a remote corner of the
restaurant, where, despite his protestations, Trevor submitted to adding
two poached eggs on toast to the sumptous repast he had taken at the
sausage-shop.

The story he had to tell was as threadbare as his clothes; with
variations, it might stand for that of fifty per cent, of Fleet Street's
wrecks; the other moiety being explained by the one word, Drink.

Some two years after Henry left Wheelton the Stratford edition of the
_Guardian_ had been discontinued. Despite the brilliancy of the "Notes
and Comments" from Trevor's pungent pen, the number of copies sold
brought no profit to the proprietors, and the journalist who had
demanded weekly "the liberty to know, to think, and to utter freely
above all other liberties," was given the liberty to find another
situation. Every effort to secure a reportership had failed, though he
confessed to having answered upwards of eighty advertisements; and then,
as a last resource, he had found his way to London, which calls for only
those who have fought and won their fight in the provinces, but receives
with every one such a waggon-load of wastrels.

"And now?" asked Henry.

"Writing introductions about different towns for the British
Directories, Limited, at half-a-crown a thousand words. Some weeks it
means as much as fifteen shillings, but the job will soon be finished,
and I see nothing ahead of it."

Trevor was near to weeping point, but perhaps Henry was more affected
than he by the recital of his woes. Gone was every vestige of his old
journalistic chatter, and in the very highway of the profession he
ranked as an alien compared with the position he had held when he and
Henry lodged together at Stratford. Stranger still, in dropping the old
jargon of the newspaper man, he seemed to have lost even the confidence
to ask a loan now that he stood more