.

'M'm,' said Armstrong, with the merest dry tick of a tone which seemed
to express inquiry and surprise. Paul started as if an arrow had gone
through him, and dropped his composing-stick a second time. 'Ye're very
clumsy, there, my lad,' said the old man. 'What's happening?'

Paul made no answer, and the father went back to his papers.

'"Bilsby,"' the old man hummed, half aloud, '"Bilsby is fat--fat with
the comfortable fatness which has grown about him in the course of
five-and-forty years of perfect self-approval. Bilsby is not great,
or good, or magnanimous, or wise, or wealthy, or of long descent, or
handsome, or admired; but he is happy. He gets up with Bilsby in the
morning, has breakfast, dinner, tea and supper with him, and goes to bed
with him at night. If Bilsby had a choice--and Bilsby hasn't--he would
make no change. He has himself to feed on--an immortal feast He sits at
that eternal board, before that unfailing dish, which grows the more
he ruminates upon it. Fat of the fat, sweet of the sweet is Bilsby to
Bilsby's palate. What will become of Bilsby when he dies? There can be
no heaven for Bilsby, for he would have to hymn another glory there;
There can be no fate of pain, for even if the Devil take him, there will
still be Bilsby, and that fact alone would keep him happy."

'What's all this rampant wickedness, y' irreverent dog?' asked
Armstrong. 'This is your writing, isn't it?'

'Yes, sir,' said Paul, feeling his throat harsh and constricted like a
quill.

Armstrong said no more, but rolling up the bundle and sliding the
knotted string once more about it, put it in his pocket and walked
downstairs. Paul hardly dared to meet him at the mid-day dinner, but he
put the best face he could upon the matter--a very pale and disturbed
face it was--and presented himself at table. Nothing was said. The gray
man sat with his book propped up against the bread-basket, as usual,
and ate without knowing what passed his lips. The meal over, he took his
arm-chair by the kitchen fire, and lit his pipe, and read with the cat
perched on his shoulder. Mrs. Armstrong went to mind the shop, the rest
of the family dispersed to their various avocations, and Paul sat still,
listening to the ticking of the clock, and awaiting the stroke of two
to take him back to work. He felt as if it would be cowardice to go
earlier, but he was unhappy, and would willingly have been elsewhere.

Suddenly Armstrong reached out his hand t