on,
and he flatly refused to treat with Maddox or anybody else. He was
completely satisfied with this conclusion; it meant that Rickman, for
all his style and pluck, had lost the game and that he, Pilkington,
had done the handsome thing, as he could do it when the fancy took
him. For Dicky's heart had been touched by the tale that Poppy told
him, and it melted altogether when he went and saw for himself poor
Ricky lying in his cot in the North-Western Hospital. He had a great
deal of nice feeling about him after all, had Dicky.

Terrible days followed Rickman's removal to the hospital; days when
his friends seemed justified in their sad conviction; days when the
doctors gave up hope; days when he would relapse after some brief
recovery; days when he kept them all in agonizing suspense.

But Rickman did not die. As they said, it was not in him to take that
exquisitely mean revenge. It was not in him to truckle to the
tradition that ordains that unfortunate young poets shall starve in
garrets and die in hospitals. He had always been an upsetter of
conventions, and a law unto himself. So there came a day, about the
middle of March, when he astonished them all by appearing among them
suddenly in Maddox's rooms, less haggard than he had been that night
when he sat starving at Rankin's dinner-table.

And as he came back to them, to Jewdwine, to Maddox and to Rankin,
they each could say no more to him than they had said five years ago.
"What a fool you were, Rickman. Why didn't you come to _me_?" But when
the others had left, Maddox put his hands on Rickman's shoulders and
they looked each other in the face.

"I say, Ricky, what did you do it for?"

But that was more than Rickman could explain, even to Maddox.

They had all contended which should receive him when he came out of
hospital; but it was settled that for the present he should remain
with Maddox in his rooms. There Dicky, absolutely prepared to do the
handsome thing, called upon him at an early date. Dicky had promised
himself some exquisite sensations in the moment of magnanimity; but
the moment never came. Rickman remained firm in his determination that
every shilling of the debt should be paid and paid by him; it was more
than covered by the money Maddox advanced for his literary remains.
Dicky had to own that the plucky little fellow had won his game, but
he added, "You couldn't have done it, Razors, if I hadn't given you
points."

The great thing was th