aze. Worth while living near the station."

He had his hat on his head in a jiffy, and Henry hurried with him,
intent on seeing the journalist at work. The fire proved to be at a
brewery, and did considerable damage before it was got under. In the
excitement of the scene Henry lost his friend, who flitted from point to
point gleaning information, and looking quite the most important figure
present. He had got ahead of Griffin, the _Times_ reporter; his ten
shillings for duplicating reports to the daily papers seemed likely
enough. They were as good as spent already--a new hat for one thing, and
some new neckties for another.

The effect of the episode on Henry was fateful. He had been present
throughout the scene, he had seen the frightened horses being rescued
from the flaming stable, and had read about it all to the extent of
twenty lines in next morning's _Birmingham Gazette_--twenty glowing
lines from the pencil of Mr. Trevor Smith--twenty lines in which the
"conflagration" burned again.

He had tasted blood. This was better fun than idling the hours away with
Mr. Ephraim Griggs. The Temple of Literature had been a disappointment.

Here was Life.

CHAPTER V

IN WHICH HENRY DECIDES

UP to the night of the fire, Henry had only been dreaming of what he
wished to do in the world of work. Unless one of his age has had his
fate sharply settled for him by being placed at some trade or
profession--for which he is usually unsuited--by the masterful action of
his parents, he has, at best, a nebulous vision of the path he will
pursue.

With natural instinct, and aided by the accident of Edward John's
business relations in Stratford, Henry had looked to literature through
the gateway of the book-shop--of all, the most unlikely. But he had been
shorn speedily of his illusions in that quarter.

A month in the establishment of Mr. Ephraim Griggs had left him
wondering if he were a footstep nearer his goal than he had been before
he bade farewell to Hampton. If the Temple of Literature which he had
builded in his brain had not exactly crumbled into nothingness, it was
no longer possible to rub shoulders with the slatternly Griggs and the
insipid Pemble, and still to dream dreams such as had held his mind when
he determined to fare forth an adventurer into the unknown realms of
Bookland.

The weeks dragged on wearily. So rude had been Henry's experience of t