dience had drained away; the great man and
the Secretary were closeted for a minute; there was a chinking sound of
gold. Ralston came out with a cheery 'Good-night,' and Paul was waiting
at the head of the stairs.

'Mr. Ralston,' said Paul.

'Oho!' said Ralston in his sounding bass, hoarse like the deeper notes
of a reed. 'My audience!'

'Will you read this, sir?'

Paul offered a paper-roll. The orator made a sideway skip out of the
range of the tube, as if it had held an explosive. Paul's face fell
woefully, and the great man laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.

'Walk to the station,' he said, and rolled downstairs, Paul after him,
and in seventh heaven. 'What have you there?' asked Ralston, as they
reached the street. 'Prose? verse? print? manuscript?--what?'

'It's in type,' said Paul. 'It is a poem, sir.'

'What will you bet on that?' asked Ralston.

'I'll take odds, sir,' said Paul 'It's never even betting.'

'Ha!' The orator turned and stopped and looked at him. 'You are in my
debt, young gentleman.'

'For years past, sir.'

'What? Eh?'

'For years past.'

'I never saw your face before to-night'

'No, sir. I walk in on Sunday nights to hear you, but I go to the back
of the gallery.'

'You tramp twelve miles of a Sunday night to hear me?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Summer-time, eh?'

'Any weather.'

'Present the deadly tube. I'll stand the charge.' He thrust Paul's poem
into the pocket of a loose alpaca overcoat 'I was saying that you were
in my debt. You made me talk ten minutes longer than I ought to have
done, and I've lost my train. There's not another for forty minutes.
Come and march the platform.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'What's your name?'

'Paul Armstrong, sir.'

'Armstrong? Armstrong? Father's house here in the High Street? Printer
and stationer? Ah! Old Bill Armstrong. Ayrshire Scotch. Anti-Corn Law.
Villiers' Committee. I know him. How do you get on together--eh?'

'My father, sir? He's the dearest friend I have in the world.'

'That's as it should be. Tell me about yourself. What are you?'

'I work in the office.'

'Compositor?'

'Compositor and pressman.'

'Many a nugget has come out of that pocket What do you read? Tennyson, I
know. Whom else?'

'Anything I can get, Mr. Ralston.9

'Tell me. You're eighteen at a guess. Tell me last year's love and this
year's love, and I'll prophesy.'

'It was Hazlitt at the beginning of last year, sir. Then it was Hunt,
and Lamb. No