, the waiters draw my
attention to the most expensive dishes and recommend me special brands of
their so-called champagne. They seem quite surprised if I only want a
chop and a glass of beer. I haven't always got the courage to disappoint
them. It is really becoming quite a curse to me. If I use it to stop a
'bus, three or four hansoms dash up and quarrel over me. I can't do
anything I want to do. I want to live simply and inexpensively: it will
not let me."

Tommy laughed. "Can't you lose it?"

The stranger laughed also. "Lose it! You have no idea how honest people
are. I hadn't myself. The whole world has gone up in my estimation
within the last few weeks. People run after me for quite long distances
and force it into my hand--people on rainy days who haven't got umbrellas
of their own. It is the same with this hat." The stranger sighed as he
took it up. "I am always trying to get _off_ with something reasonably
shabby in exchange for it. I am always found out and stopped."

"Why don't you pawn them?" suggested the practicable Tommy.

The stranger regarded her with admiration.

"Do you know, I never thought of that," said the stranger. "Of course.
What a good idea! Thank you so much."

The stranger departed, evidently much relieved.

"Silly fellow," mused Tommy. "They won't give him a quarter of the
value, and he will say: 'Thank you so much,' and be quite contented." It
worried Tommy a good deal that day, the thought of that stranger's
helplessness.

The stranger's name was Richard Danvers. He lived the other side of
Holborn, in Featherstone Buildings, but much of his time came to be spent
in the offices of _Good Humour_.

Peter liked him. "Full of promise," was Peter's opinion. "His criticism
of that article of mine on 'The Education of Woman' showed both sense and
feeling. A scholar and a thinker."

Flipp, the office-boy (spelt Philip), liked him; and Flipp's attitude, in
general, was censorial. "He's all right," pronounced Flipp; "nothing
stuck-up about him. He's got plenty of sense, lying hidden away."

Miss Ramsbotham liked him. "The men--the men we think about at all,"
explained Miss Ramsbotham--"may be divided into two classes: the men we
ought to like, but don't; and the men there is no particular reason for
our liking, but that we do. Personally I could get very fond of your
friend Dick. There is nothing whatever attractive about him except
himself."

Even Tommy li