or eight thousand miles to find
you.'

'On Madge's money?' asked the other, balancing the letter in a careless
grip between thumb and finger. 'Nobody asks you to stop to hear yourself
described. You were a cad from your cradle; you were a liar as soon as
you could learn to lisp, and a sponge from the happy hour when you found
the first fool to lend you half a crown. You needn't wait, George, but
so long as you are here I will do my best to tell you what you are. You
are a fruitful theme, and I could be fluent for a week or two. Going?
Well, luck go with you, of the sort you merit. I'd call you a cur, but
there isn't a cur in all the world who wouldn't walk himself blind
and lame to bite me in revenge for the insult I put upon him. Go--you
infinitesimal! you epitome of unpitiable little shames!'

The bearer of the letter, who had travelled so far for so curious a
welcome, had found a beaten trail which led him back to the woodland
road. He had gone a score of yards by this time; but the voice pursued
him--level, heavy, sonorous, driven by full lungs.

'Put your fingers in your ears, George, or I shall find a word to scorch
you. You are the poorest thing in Nature's bag of samples. A well-bred
woodlouse wouldn't employ you for a scavenger. If you shrank to your
soul's dimensions you might wander lost for a century on the point of
a cambric needle. You are the last rarefied essence of the
contemptible--the final word of the genius of the mean.'

This was not shouted, but was sent out in a steady trumpet-note
that swelled fuller and fuller, like the voice of a great speaker in
haranguing a clamorous audience, rising steadily, as if measured just
to dominate clamour, and no more. In the pauses of his speech the
camper-out had heard the noise of running feet. The sound seemed still
faintly audible, though perhaps only fancy caught it. He sent out one
clarion cry of 'Good-bye, George!' and surrendered himself to a fit of
uncontrolled laughter. This coming to an end of sudden gravity, he took
up the letter, which had fallen on the moss between his outstretched
legs, and looked at the superscription.

'Madge!' he said. 'Poor little Madge!'

He put the envelope to his bristly lips and kissed it. Then he broke the
seal and began to read:

'My own darling Husband,

'You _must_ have the enclosed, and George has promised not to rest until
he finds you and lays it in your hands. The last lines your father ever
wrote in this