w the girl addressed the boy, and the style always made him
feel, and wish to seem, something of a man. But his present effort in
that direction was sadly perfunctory: he almost ejected little Miss Platts
in his eagerness to shut the door on her and see the news.

It was neither unimportant nor at first sight reassuring. The dead man
had been identified by the police, who knew him of old, and were reported
as hopeful of obtaining a clue through his identity. The clue was the
point that stuck like a burr in the boyish brain; his idea of a clue was
one leading straight to himself; it took Dr. Baumgartner to explain the
true value of the identity clause, and bid the boy eat his meal.

"Trust the police!" said he. "They're on a false scent already; they may
try at that end till it turns their hair grey!"

Pocket disliked this tone; he had begun to think almost as reverentially
of his victim as of a dead member of his own family. It appeared thus
early, however, that in life the defunct had been by no means worthy of
respect. Rowton Houses had been his only home, except when his
undistinguished offences got him into gaol; the surreptitious practices of
the professional mendicant, his sole means of livelihood. So much was to
be read between the few brief lines in the stop-press column of the latest
evening paper. Again it required Baumgartner to extract comfort from such
items.

"At all events," said he, "you cannot reproach yourself with the
destruction of a valuable life! The man was evidently the worthless
creature that he looked. You talk about your undesirable aliens, but here
in England you breed undesirables enough to manure the world! It's a
public service to reduce their number."

This pitch of nauseous cynicism had not been reached at a bound; the
doctor had been working up to it all the evening, and this was the climax
of his cold-blooded consolation as the schoolboy mechanically undressed
himself for bed. His host had accompanied him up two pairs of stairs,
carrying candles, and his meerschaum pipe in aromatic blast. Pocket felt
a new chill through his veins, but he was not revolted as he would have
been at first. This extraordinary man had shown him still more
extraordinary kindness; the die was cast for them to stand or fall
together; and there was something about the gaunt old visionary, a
confidential candour, a dry intellectual plausibility, which could not but
stimulate respect for his ungo