ugged out a handful of half-crowns.

"That cove," he said, indicating the clockmaker "'as never been a-nigh
me this four months. The money's always bin 'ere for 'im if 'e'ed a-come
for it. What d'you take me for?" he asked savagely. "I ain't a wild
beast, am I? It's Government work, and somebody's got to do it." It
turned out upon inquiry that my collector had actually paid three or
four weeks' instalment out of his own pocket, rather than face the
hangman, after he had discovered the nature of his trade. I am not
writing melodrama, but it is a simple fact that I have never seen a
man more profoundly distressed. The hangman's speech was broken and
obstructed, his face worked strongly, and there was an actual glint of
moisture in his eyes. He and my collector had been cronies until his
dreadful secret was surprised, and had shared many a friendly half-pint
together.

His ostracism seemed to have hit him hard. Even a hangman, one supposes,
has some sort of human feeling.

At the time at which I wrote this narrative, I had gone into lodgings at
Barnsbury, and shared rooms with a struggling water-colour painter, who,
for the most part, in default of patrons, worked for the pawn-broker--a
harum-scarum, ripe-hearted Irishman; and on the Sunday on which I turned
out my first contribution to the _World_, he sat painting and smoking
close at hand, and I read out to him, paragraph after paragraph, as I
wrote. Those days are gone, but the glow, the passion, the very rage of
achievement, which possessed one's work, are not to be forgotten.
The work took Yates's fancy mightily, and he had the good sense and
generosity to let me know it. The Bentley Balladist wrote years ago:

"Excuse me, gents, but to poetic ponies,
One ounce of praise is worth ten tons of corn."

Yates did not stint the corn because he was generous with the praise,
and throughout our association he was most unfailingly good and kind.
He was a bitter enemy and a hard striker, and he went into battle with
a good heart and made for himself many foes, but a more loyal colleague
and leader it would have been hard to find.

My search for human oddities led me into strange places and made me
acquainted with strange people. The most astonishing and complete
example of human vanity and pretence I ever encountered was one of
these. He was a pavement artist and he had a pitch outside the railings
of the great terminus in Euston Road, where he used to sit and p