lectual workers. I
think of them savagely now and then, but only when hunger gets a
trifle too keen. Their work answers a demand; ours--or mine at all
events--doesn't. They are in touch with the reading multitude; they have
the sentiments of the respectable; they write for their class. Well, you
had your circle of readers, and, if things hadn't gone against you, by
this time you certainly could have counted on your three or four hundred
a year.'

'It's unlikely that I should ever have got more than two hundred pounds
for a book; and, to have kept at my best, I must have been content to
publish once every two or three years. The position was untenable with
no private income. And I must needs marry a wife of dainty instincts!
What astounding impudence! No wonder Fate pitched me aside into the
gutter.'

They ate their ham and eggs, and exhilarated themselves with a cup
of chicory--called coffee. Then Biffen drew from the pocket of his
venerable overcoat the volume of Euripides he had brought, and their
talk turned once more to the land of the sun. Only when the coffee-shop
was closed did they go forth again into the foggy street, and at the
top of Pentonville Hill they stood for ten minutes debating a metrical
effect in one of the Fragments.

Day after day Reardon went about with a fever upon him. By evening his
pulse was always rapid, and no extremity of weariness brought him a
refreshing sleep. In conversation he seemed either depressed or
excited, more often the latter. Save when attending to his duties at the
hospital, he made no pretence of employing himself; if at home, he sat
for hours without opening a book, and his walks, excepting when they led
him to Clipstone Street, were aimless.

The hours of postal delivery found him waiting in an anguish of
suspense. At eight o'clock each morning he stood by his window,
listening for the postman's knock in the street. As it approached he
went out to the head of the stairs, and if the knock sounded at the door
of his house, he leaned over the banisters, trembling in expectation.
But the letter was never for him. When his agitation had subsided he
felt glad of the disappointment, and laughed and sang.

One day Carter appeared at the City Road establishment, and made an
opportunity of speaking to his clerk in private.

'I suppose,' he said with a smile, 'they'll have to look out for someone
else at Croydon?'

'By no means! The thing is settled. I go at Christmas.'