in was warmth, light, and gladness; without, a cold
place of shadows, limned in the grey of discontent and the black of want
and desolation.

"Every seat there," continued Sheard, as the company gazed vaguely from
the window, "has its burden of hopelessness and misery. Ranks of
homeless wretches form up in the arch yonder, awaiting the arrival of
the Salvation Army officials. Where, in the whole world, can misery in
bulk be found thus side by side with all that wealth can procure?"

There was a brief silence. Sheard was on his hobbyhorse, and there were
few there disposed to follow him. The views of the _Gleaner_ are not
everybody's money.

"What sort of gas are you handing us out?" asked Rohscheimer. "Those
lazy scamps don't deserve any comfort; they never worked to get it! The
people here are moneyed people."

"Just so!" interrupted Sheard, taking up the challenge with true
_Gleaner_ ardour. "Moneyed people! That's the whole distinction in two
words!"

"Well, then--what about it?"

"This--that if every guest now in the hotel would write a cheque for an
amount representing 1 per cent. of his weekly income, every man, woman,
and child under the arch yonder would be provided with board and lodging
for the next six months!"

"Why do it?" demanded Rohscheimer, not unreasonably. "Why feed 'em up on
idleness?"

"Their idleness may be compulsory," replied Sheard. "Few would employ a
starving man while a well-nourished one was available."

"Cut the Socialist twaddle!" directed the other coarsely. "It gets on my
nerves! You and your cheques! Who'd you make 'em payable to? Editor of
the _Gleaner_."

"I would suggest," said Sir Richard Haredale, smiling, "to Severac
Bablon."

"To who?" inquired Rohscheimer, with greater interest than grammar.

"Severac Bablon," said Sheard, informatively, "the man who gave a
hundred dollars to each of the hands discharged from the Runek Mill,
somewhere in Ontario. That's whom you mean, isn't it, Haredale?"

"Yes," assented the latter. "I was reading about it to-day."

"We had it in this morning," continued Sheard. "Two thousand men."

"Eh?" grunted Rohscheimer hoarsely.

"Two thousand men," repeated Sheard. "Each of them received notes to the
value of a hundred dollars on the morning after the mill closed down,
and a card, 'With the compliments of Severac Bablon.'"

"Forty thousand pounds!" shouted the millionaire. "I don't believe it!"

"It's confirmed by Reuter to-night."