of Hanson's
clerks.

"My dear Rickman," it said, "where are you? And what are you
doing? I dined with Hanson the other night, and he showed me your
Elegy. It's too long for _The Courier_, and he's sending it back
to you with a string of compliments. If you have no other
designs, can you let us have it for _The Planet_? For Paterson's
sake it ought to appear at once. My dear fellow, I should like to
tell you what I think of it, but I will only state my profound
conviction that you have given poor Paterson the fame he should
have had and couldn't get, anymore than we could get it for him;
and I, as his friend, thank you for this magnificent tribute to
his genius. Will you do me the honour of dining with me on Sunday
if you have nothing better to do? There are many things I should
like to talk over with you, and my wife is anxious to make your
acquaintance.

"Sincerely yours,

"Herbert Rankin.

"PS.--Maddox is out of town at present, but you'll meet him if
you come on Sunday. By the way, I saw your friend Jewdwine the
other day. He explained at my request a certain matter which I
own with great regret should never have required explanation."

So Jewdwine had explained. And why had not Rankin asked for the
explanation sooner? Why had he had to ask for it at all? Still, it was
decent of him to admit that he ought not to have required it.

He supposed that he must accept Rankin's invitation to dine. Except
for his hunger, which made the prospect of dining so unique and great
a thing, he had no reason for refusing. Rankin had reckoned on a
scruple, and removed the ground of it. He knew that there was no
approaching Rickman as long as there remained the shadow of an
assumption that the explanation should have come from him.

The invitation had arrived just in time, before Rickman had sent the
last saleable remnants of his wardrobe to the place where his
dress-suit had gone before. He would have to apologize to Mrs. Rankin
for its absence, but his serge suit was still presentable, for he had
preserved it with much care, and there was one clean unfrayed shirt in
his drawer.

But when Sunday came, the first febrile excitement of anticipation was
succeeded by the apathy of an immense fatigue, and at the back of it
all a loathsome sense of the positive indecency of his going. It was
hunger that was driving him, the importun