crime of old age, and therefore "on the tramp" looking out for a
job. He wore a soft slouched felt hat, very much out of shape and
weather-stained,--and when he had been seated for a few minutes in a
kind of apathy of lassitude, he lifted the hat off, passing his hand
through his abundant rough white hair in a slow tired way, as though by
this movement he sought to soothe some teasing pain.

"I think," he murmured, addressing himself to a tiny brown bird which
had alighted on a branch of briar-rose hard by, and was looking at him
with bold and lively inquisitiveness,--"I think I have managed the whole
thing very well! I have left no clue anywhere. My portmanteau will tell
no tales, locked up in the cloak-room at Bristol. If it is ever sold
with its contents 'to defray expenses,' nothing will be found in it but
some unmarked clothes. And so far as all those who know me are
concerned, every trace of me ends at Southampton. Beyond Southampton
there is a blank, into which David Helmsley, the millionaire, has
vanished. And David Helmsley, the tramp, sits here in his place!"

The little brown bird preened its wing, and glanced at him sideways
intelligently, as much as to say: "I quite understand! You have become
one of us,--a wanderer, taking no thought for the morrow, but letting
to-morrow take thought for the things of itself. There is a bond of
sympathy between me, the bird, and you, the man--we are brothers!"

A sudden smile illumined his face. The situation was novel, and to him
enjoyable. He was greatly fatigued,--he had over-exerted himself during
the past three or four days, walking much further than he had ever been
accustomed to, and his limbs ached sorely--nevertheless, with the sense
of rest and relief from strain, came a certain exhilaration of spirit,
like the vivacious delight of a boy who has run away from school, and is
defiantly ready to take all the consequences of his disobedience to the
rules of discipline and order. For years he had wanted a "new"
experience of life. No one would give him what he sought. To him the
"social" round was ever the same dreary, heartless and witless thing, as
empty under the sway of one king or queen as another, and as utterly
profitless to peace or happiness as it has always been. The world of
finance was equally uninteresting so far as he was concerned; he had
exhausted it, and found it no more than a monotonous grind of gain which
ended in a loathing of the thing gained. O