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+Project Gutenberg’s Young Mr. Barter’s Repentance, by David Christie Murray
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Young Mr. Barter’s Repentance
+       From “Schwartz” by David Christie Murray
+
+Author: David Christie Murray
+
+Release Date: August 8, 2007 [EBook #22272]
+Last Updated: September 16, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUNG MR. BARTER’S REPENTANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+YOUNG MR. BARTER’S REPENTANCE
+
+By David Christie Murray
+
+Author Of ‘Aunt Rachel,’ ‘The Weaker Vessel,’ Etc.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+Mr Bommaney was a British merchant of the highest rectitude and the most
+spotless reputation. He traded still under the name of Bommaney, Waite,
+and Co., though Waite had been long since dead, and the Company had
+gone out of existence in his father’s time. The old offices, cramped and
+inconvenient, in which the firm had begun life eighty years before,
+were still good enough for Mr. Bommaney, and they had an air of solid
+respectability which newer and flashier places lacked. The building
+of which they formed a part stood in Coalporter’s Alley, opposite
+the Church of St. Mildred, and the hum of the City’s traffic scarcely
+sounded in that retired and quiet locality.
+
+Mr. Bommaney himself was a man of sixty, hale and hearty, with a rosy
+face and white whiskers. He was a broad-shouldered man, inclining to be
+portly, and he was currently accepted as a man of an indomitable
+will. There was no particular reason for the popular belief in his
+determination apart from the fact that it was a favourite boast of his
+that nothing ever got him down. On all occasions and in all companies he
+was wont to declare that no conceivable misfortune could really break
+a man of spirit. He confessed to a pitying sympathy for mealy-willed
+people (and everybody knew that Bommaney, in spite of his own strength
+of mind, was one of the kindliest creatures in the world); but, whenever
+he met a man in trouble, he would clip him by the shoulder, and would
+say, in his own hearty fashion, ‘You must look the thing in the face, my
+boy. Look it in the face. I’d never let anything break _me_ down.’
+
+Since his reputation for fortitude was as solid and as old-fashioned
+amongst the people who knew him as his business character itself, it
+would have come as something of a shock upon any of his friends if he
+could but have been seen by them, or any credible man amongst them, on a
+certain afternoon in the April of 1880. He had locked himself in his own
+room, and, sitting there in a big chair before a businesslike desk, with
+a great number of docketed papers in pigeon-holes, and a disordered mass
+of papers strewn before him, the determined Mr. Bommaney, the decided
+Mr. Bommaney, the Mr. Bommaney whom no misfortune could subdue, was
+crying, very feebly and quietly, and was mopping his rosy cheeks, and
+blowing his nose in an utter and unrestraining abandonment to trouble.
+
+There was another fact which would have come upon his friends with an
+equal shock of surprise if they could but have had it brought home to
+them. The man who sat unaffectedly crying in the big chair in helpless
+contemplation of the scattered papers was a hopeless bankrupt, and had
+seen himself sliding towards bankruptcy for years. When men who knew him
+wanted business advice, they went to him by preference, and nobody came
+away empty. He knew the City and its intricacies like a book. He knew
+who was safe and who was shaky, as if by a kind of instinct, and he knew
+where and when to invest, and where and when not to invest, as few men
+did. ‘You can’t get at me,’ he would say; for, old-fashioned as he was,
+he used a little of the new-fashioned slang to give spice and vigour to
+his conversation. ‘There isn’t a move on the board that I don’t know.’
+He advised his friends excellently, and there were perhaps half a score
+of fairly well-to-do speculative people who had to thank him, and him
+alone, for the comfort they lived in and the consideration they enjoyed.
+He had been wise for others all his life, and in his own interests he
+had always acted like a greenhorn. He talked loudly, he spent freely,
+he paid his way, he expressed the soundest business maxims, and was as
+shrewd in detail as he was wise in generalities, and these things made a
+natural reputation for him: whilst he traded for years at the expense of
+his capital, and went steadily and surely towards the bottomless gulf of
+insolvency. Now he was on the very verge of it, and to-morrow he would
+be in it. It lent a feeble sting to his sufferings to know how surprised
+people would be, and how completely men would find him out.
+
+He had not very profoundly involved other people in his own ruin, but he
+had gone a little farther than a man altogether brave, and honourable,
+and clearsighted would have ventured, and he knew that some would suffer
+with him. He might have made arrangements to go a little farther still
+if he had been courageous, clear-sighted, and dishonest, and might have
+held his head up for another matter too, perhaps. But he had lacked the
+nerve for that, and had never consciously been a rogue. He felt even
+now a pride of honesty. He had been unfortunate, and his creditors would
+have everything--everything.
+
+He thanked God that Phil’s mother had tied her money on her only son,
+and that the boy at least had enough to begin the world with. How should
+he face Phil when he came home again? How should he send the news to
+him? The lad was away enjoying himself, travelling all round the world
+with a wandering Baronet, who owned a yacht and had an unappeasable
+taste for the destruction of big game. He would have to surrender his
+fashionable and titled acquaintance now, poor fellow, and begin the
+world with a disgraced and broken frame to be a drag and hindrance
+to him. The more Mr. Bommaney thought of these things, the more
+unrestrainedly he cried; and the more he cried, the less he felt able or
+inclined to control his tears.
+
+He wept almost silently, only an occasional sniff betraying his emotion
+to his ear. He had always held his head so high, and had been so
+believed in. It was very bitter.
+
+Whilst he was in the midst of this childish abandonment to his grief a
+set of knuckles softly and hesitatingly tapped the door from without,
+and directly afterwards a hand made a tentative respectful sort of
+attempt upon the handle.
+
+‘Who’s there?’ cried Mr. Bommaney, steadying his voice as best he could.
+
+‘A gentleman to see you, sir,’ answered a smooth voice outside.
+
+Mr. Bommaney pushed back his chair, rose to his feet, and retiring to a
+smaller room consulted a little square looking-glass which hung upon
+the wall above his washing-stand. His blue eyes were very tearful and a
+little swollen, his cheeks and nose looked as if they had been scalded.
+
+‘Wait a moment,’ he said aloud, and his voice betrayed him by a break.
+He blushed and trembled, thinking that Mr. Hornett, his confidential
+clerk, would know how he was breaking down, and would speak of his
+want of courage and self-command hereafter. The reflection nerved
+him somewhat, and he sluiced his face with water, making a little
+unnecessary noise of splashing to tell the listener how he was engaged.
+He polished his face with the towel, and, consulting the mirror again,
+thought he looked a little better.
+
+Then he re-entered his business room, and turning the key in the lock
+opened the door slightly, a mere inch or two.
+
+‘Who is it?’
+
+‘A Mr. Brown, sir,’ said the smooth voice outside. The clerk insinuated
+a card through the space between the door and door-jamb, and Mr.
+Bommaney took it from his fingers without revealing himself. He had
+some difficulty in making out its inscription, for his eyes were newly
+tearful, and, whilst he peered at it, a reflex of his late emotions
+brought a sniffling sob again. He was freshly ashamed at this, and said
+hastily,
+
+‘Five minutes’ time. I will ring when I am ready. Ask the gentleman to
+wait.’
+
+Mr. James Hornett softly closed the door, and stood on the landing with
+long lean fingers scraping at his lantern jaws. He was a little man,
+short of stature, and sparely built. His skin was vealy in complexion,
+and he had wiry hair of a russet-red. Even when he was clean shaven his
+fingers rasped upon his hollow cheeks with a faint sound. His nose and
+chin were long and pointed, and his manner was meek and self-effacing
+even when he was alone. There was a tinge of wonder in his face, at war
+with an habitual smile, in which his eyes had no part.
+
+‘Something wrong?’ he said, under his breath. He went creeping softly
+down the stairs. ‘Something wrong? Mr. Bommaney in tears? Mr. Bommaney!’
+
+Could anything have happened to Mr. Phil? That was the only thing Mr.
+Hornett could think of as being likely to affect his employer in that
+way.
+
+Now Mr. Hornett had been in his present employ for thirty years, man
+and boy, and he was human. Therefore, when at the expiration of a
+little more than five minutes’ time Mr. Bommaney’s bell rang, he himself
+ushered the visitor upstairs, and in place of retiring to his own pew
+below stairs, lingered in a desert little apartment rarely used, and
+then stole out upon the landing and listened. He was the more prompted
+to this because the visitor, who had a bucolic hearty aspect, and was
+very talkative, had told him downstairs that Mr. Bommaney and himself
+were old friends and schoolfellows, and had been in each other’s
+confidence for years.
+
+‘I am afraid, sir,’ Mr. Hornett had said, when the visitor first
+presented himself, ‘that Mr. Bommaney may not be able to see you at
+present. He gave orders not to be disturbed.’
+
+‘Not see me?’ said the visitor with a laugh. ‘I’ll engage he will.’
+And then followed the statement about his old acquaintanceship with Mr.
+Hornett’s employer.
+
+If there were anything to be told at all, it seemed not unlikely that
+this visitor might be the recipient of the intelligence, and Mr. Hornett
+lingered to find if haply he might overhear. He heard nothing that
+enlightened him as to the reasons for his employer’s disturbance, but
+heard most that passed between the two.
+
+Bommaney had succeeded in composing himself and in washing away the
+traces of his tears. Then he had taken a stiffish dose of brandy and
+water, and was something like his own man again. He received his
+visitor cordially, and in his anxiety not to seem low-spirited was a
+little more boisterous than common.
+
+‘I’m busy, you see,’ he said, waving a hand at the papers scattered
+on the desk, and keeping up the farce of prosperous merchandise to the
+last, ‘but I can spare _you_ a minute or two, old man. What brings you
+up to town?’
+
+‘I’ve come here to settle,’ said the visitor. He was a florid man with
+crisp black hair with a hint of gray in it, and he was a countryman from
+head to heel. He seemed a little disposed to flaunt his bucolics upon
+the town, his hat, his necktie, his boots and gaiters, were of so
+countrified a fashion, and yet he looked somehow more of a gentleman
+than Bommaney.
+
+‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ve come to settle.’ He rubbed his hands and laughed
+here, not because there was anything humorous and amusing in his
+thoughts, but out of sheer health and jollity of nature. Bommaney,
+still distrustful of his own aspect, and afraid of being observed, sat
+opposite to him with bent head and fidgeted with his papers, blindly
+pretending to arrange them.
+
+‘To settle,’ he said absently. Then, rousing himself with an effort, ‘I
+thought you hated London?’
+
+‘Ah, my boy,’ said his visitor, ‘when you’re in the shafts with a whip
+behind you, you’ve got to go where you are driven.’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Bommaney mechanically, ‘that is so. That _is_ so.’
+
+The visitor was laughing and rubbing his hands again in perfect
+happiness and self-contentment, and had no eye for Bommaney’s
+abstraction.
+
+‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s Patty’s doing. I’ve sold up every stick and stone,
+and I’ve taken a house in Gower Street. Do you know, Bommaney,’ he
+added, with an air and voice suddenly serious and confidential, ‘the
+country’s going to the devil. Land’s sinking in value every year. I’ve
+been farming at a growing loss these six years, and rents don’t come in
+as they used to do. I got my chance and I took it. Lord Bellamy wanted
+to join the Mount Royal and the three estates. My little bit o’ land
+lay between ‘em, and I sold it to him. Sold it, too, begad, as well as I
+could have done half a dozen years ago.’
+
+Then he laughed once more with great heartiness, and unbuttoning his
+overcoat, groped in an inner pocket. After a struggle, in the course
+of which he grew very red in the face, he drew forth a pocket-book of
+unusual dimensions, and slapped it on the desk so vigorously that his
+companion started.
+
+‘I got a tip the other day,’ he went on; ‘that old bank at Mount Royal,
+Fellowes and Fellowes, is going to crack up, my boy. There’s something
+very queer in the commercial atmosphere just now, Bommaney. There are
+lots of old-fashioned solid people breaking up.’
+
+To Bommaney’s uneasy fancy there was in his visitor’s voice an accent
+which sounded personal.
+
+‘I--I hope not,’ he answered, somewhat feebly, ‘so much depends----’
+(he tried hard to rally himself), ‘so much depends upon a spirit of
+commercial confidence.’
+
+‘Exactly,’ cried the visitor, laying hands’ upon the pocket-book and
+opening it. ‘I went to the bank and saw young Fellowes myself. “Look
+here, Fellowes,” I told him, “I want my daughter’s money.” He stuck to
+it, sir; like a dog holding on to a bone. He growled about it, and he
+whined about it, said it wasn’t fair to withdraw the money on short
+notice. Said I couldn’t do better with it anywhere, and at last I told
+him, “Look here, Fellowes, I shall begin to think by and by there’s
+something wrong.” He went as red as a turkey-cock, begad, and drew a
+note on their London agent like a lord, and here I am with the money.
+Eight thousand pounds.’
+
+By this time he had drawn a bundle of bank-notes from the pocket-book,
+and now sat flicking the edges of the notes with the tips of his great
+broad fingers. Bommaney heard the crisp music, and looked up with a
+momentary glance of hunger in his eyes.
+
+‘That’s Patty’s little private handful,’ the visitor continued, opening
+the packet of notes, and smoothing it upon his knee. ‘Eighty notes of
+a hundred. Pretty little handful, isn’t it? They don’t look,’ he added,
+with his head reflectively on one side and his eyebrows raised a little,
+‘they don’t look as they’d buy as much as they will.’
+
+Bommaney tried to find a commonplace word by answer, and an inaudible
+something died drily in his throat. When his companion began to speak
+again, the bankrupt merchant wondered that he made no comment on his
+ghastly face--he knew his face was ghastly--or his shaking hands. There
+was an intuition in his mind so strong and clear that he trembled at its
+prophecy.
+
+‘Patty,’ said the visitor, ‘will have everything in time, and a pretty
+good handful, too. But she’s bent on being independent, and she wants to
+have her own money in her own hands. She pretends it’s all because she
+wants to pay her milliner’s bills, and that kind of thing, herself; but
+I know better. The fact is’--he lowered his voice and chuckled--‘the
+fact is, she doesn’t want me to know how much she spends in charity. You
+look here, Bommaney’--the merchant’s heart seemed to stand still, and
+then to beat so wild an alarum that he wondered the other did not hear
+it The intuition multiplied in strength. He heard beforehand the spoken
+words, the very tones which marked them. ‘You’re a safe man, you’re a
+smart man. I suppose there isn’t anybody in London who can lay out money
+to more advantage than you can. I know it’s a great favour to ask, but
+I think you’ll do it for Patty’s sake and mine, if I do ask you. Take
+this, and invest it for her. Will you, now?’
+
+He stood up with the bundle of notes outstretched in his hand. The
+merchant rose and accepted it, and looked him, with a sudden curious
+calm and steadiness, straight in the face.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Mr. Bommaney was alone again, and if it had not been for the actual
+presence of the bundle of bank-notes upon the table, he could well have
+thought that the whole episode had been no more than a dreadful and
+disturbing dream. It was very hard, he thought complainingly, that a man
+should come and put so horrible a temptation in his way. He would not
+yield to it--of course he would not yield to it. He had been an honest
+and honourable man all his life long, and had never so much as felt a
+monetary temptation until now. It was humiliating to feel it now--it
+was horrible to have his fingers itching for another man’s money, and
+his heart coveting it, and his brain, in spite of himself, devising
+countless means of use for it. It was quite unbearable to know that
+the money _might_ tide him over his troubles and land him in prosperity
+again, if he could only dare to use it, and risk engulfing it with the
+lost wreckage of his own fortunes.
+
+But no, no, no. He had never meant to use it. His only reason for
+accepting it had been that he had not found the courage to declare his
+true position to his old friend and school companion. Perhaps, he told
+himself (trying to silence and cajole that inward monitor and accuser
+who would not be silenced or cajoled), perhaps if Brown had been less
+confident and truthful--if he had had less faith in his old companion’s
+powers as a man of business--it would have come easier to tell the
+truth. And how futile a thing it was to stave off discovery for a single
+day! How doubly ashamed he would have to feel after that poor pretence
+of responsible solidity! If he had only been disposed to be tempted at
+all--here surely was an added reason for yielding to temptation.
+
+Obviously the first, and, indeed, the only thing to be done, was to
+bank this money in Brown’s name, and so have done with it; and yet
+any feeling of haste in that respect would seem to imply a fear of
+temptation, which he was, of course, quite resolute not to feel. He was
+not going any more to run away from his own suspicion of himself than
+he would have run from another man’s. So, in and out, and up and down,
+contradicting himself at every turning, with an underlying surety in his
+mind so fast rooted and so dreadful that he did not dare to look at it.
+
+When the adieux were being said between the old friends, Mr. James
+Hornett had slid noiselessly downstairs, his mind inflated by pride.
+He was not proud of having played the eavesdropper, for even in Mr.
+Hornett’s economy of things, that was an act to be proud of; but he was
+very proud, indeed, to be associated with a gentleman so magnificently
+respected as Mr. Bommaney. There were not so very many people, he
+told himself, even in the City of London, which was full of wealth and
+probity, into whose hands so large a sum would be placed with so little
+a sense of the necessity of precaution. He felt as if he himself had
+been treated in this majestic manner, and the feeling warmed his heart.
+He bowed Mr. Brown from the office door with an _empressement_ which he
+feared a moment later might almost have betrayed him, and he went about
+his duties for the rest of the day in a mood of unusual contentment. The
+earlier memory of his employer’s disturbance crossed him sometimes, and
+always excited his curiosity; but the later feeling dominated him. He
+was delighted by his association with a concern so eminently respectable
+as that of Bommaney, Waite, and Co.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Hornett’s employer, with that dreadful rooted secret in
+his mind, which he did not dare to look at, sat alone, looking with
+staring eyes before him, and drumming in a regular tune upon the topmost
+note of the terrible little pile. He had locked the notes away before
+Brown’s departure, but they had seemed to draw him to the safe with
+almost a physical compulsion, and he had brought them out again to look
+at them, to handle them, to count them, to resolve in his own mind that
+he did not hanker after them, and was honourable to the core. It was so
+new a thing to be tempted, that at times his own self-deception was made
+easy to him. It did not occur to him to reflect that the need and the
+means had never so presented themselves together until now, or that his
+life-long honour had depended upon their absence.
+
+When he had sat in silence for a while he awoke to the fact that the
+interview had been nothing but a succession of shocks to him, and that
+he was bodily exhausted. He rose, and, walking feebly to the inner room,
+applied himself anew to the brandy bottle he kept there. He had gone
+much too often to that deceptive solace lately, and he knew it; but each
+successive visit carried its own excuses with it, and it had never in
+any individual instance been worth while to resist a habit which it was
+always easy to condemn in the main.
+
+The brandy enlightened him and opened new sluices of emotion. Perhaps
+for the moment he was a better man because of it. He seemed to wake to a
+more determined sense of the enormity of the temptation which lay before
+him. He thought of his own son, and a shadow took him from head to
+foot as, in a brandified nervous vision, he beheld some shadowy
+supposititious creature in the act of telling the tale to Phil. The vice
+of drink has had the creation of many other vices laid to its charge,
+but for once in the world’s history the obfuscated vision was clearer
+than the natural, and Philip drunk a better man, and a more righteous
+and honourable, than Philip sober.
+
+At bottom, Philip Bommaney knew himself too well to be at all sure that
+this phase of feeling would endure with him; and in a half-conscious
+dread of the return of that baser self, whose first appearance in
+his history had so affrighted him, he hurriedly attired himself for
+out-of-doors, crammed the bundle of notes into an inner pocket of his
+overcoat, and, after a final appeal to the decanter, left his room with
+a somewhat hysteric sense of courage and self-approval. He had been
+tempted--he was ready to recognise that the temptation was over, that he
+had well-nigh succumbed to it--but he had triumphed! He was a man again.
+He had been weighed in the balances and not found wanting. There were
+some tears in his eyes compounded of brandy and nerves and affections
+and remorses as he hurried into the street. Phil should never be ashamed
+of his father. Old Brown, who had trusted him like a brother, should
+never learn to shun and hate him. He had to go under--the thing was
+inevitable, unescapable, but he would at least go under like a man. His
+heart beat to the tune of the ‘Conquering Hero,’ where it might have
+beat to the ‘Rogue’s March,’ but for that friendly nip of brandy and the
+all-covering mercies of Heaven.
+
+Quickly as his resolution had been taken, he had fully arranged for the
+details of the task which lay before him. With the notes he had thrust
+into his pocket a little handful of business papers involving a knotty
+and delicate point of business, and he intended that the discussion of
+the point they raised should act as the prelude to the disclosure and
+the restitution he desired to make. He could not, even in his newfound
+heroism, and with whatever hysteric hardihood he was prepared to meet
+the stroke of fate, he could not as yet encounter Brown, and lay bare
+before him the plot of the melancholy farce he had played an hour ago.
+But there was an old friend of his, and an old friend of Brown’s into
+the bargain, a solicitor, keen as a needle and kindly as sunshine, one
+Barter, whose business chambers were in Gable Inn, and who was of all
+men the man he could confide in with least shame and best hope of help.
+He hailed a cab, and bade the driver drive his fastest. Gable Inn lay
+tranquil, the afternoon shadows already settling deeper on the little
+quadrangle than on the broad and roaring thoroughfare without. There
+was no light in the windows of the rooms in which Messrs. Fellowship,
+Freemantle, and Barter had done business and received their clients
+fifty years ago, and in which the sole surviving member of the
+firm still maintained its old-established reputation for honour and
+astuteness.
+
+Bommaney was chilled by the silence and darkness of the rooms, and he
+shivered to see the temptation he had conquered looming again before
+him. He knocked loudly with a trembling hand, and the noise of iron
+on iron went rolling and echoing up the staircase and came back in a
+hollow, lonely, sounding murmur from the rooms within. His heart
+sank, and a horrible fear of himself got hold of him. He had actually
+conquered, and here was the fight to be fought over again with almost
+a certainty of defeat at the end of it. Indeed, the defeat in that bare
+moment of time had grown so certain, that he was conscious of a distinct
+state of disappointment when a sudden footstep within the rooms answered
+his noisy summons.
+
+The door opened, and a young man stood before him, peering at him with
+half-closed uncertain eyes through the dark. He was a young man of the
+fleshly school, something too stout for his years, very pallid, and more
+than commonly personable, with a fine broad forehead, fine frank eyes,
+and features modelled with an engaging regularity. When he recognised
+his visitor his pale and handsome face glittered with a sudden smile
+of welcome, teeth and eyes gleaming quite brightly, and the whole face
+lighting up in the pleasantest and friendliest fashion conceivable.
+
+This agreeable expression faded into one of almost mechanical dolor, and
+the personable young man shook hands with Mr. Bommaney sadly, and sighed
+as if he suddenly recalled an idea that sighing was a duty.
+
+‘Come in, Mr. Bommaney,’ he said. ‘Come in, sir. I have sent home all
+the clerks, and was just about to lock up for the night. To what do I
+owe the pleasure of this visit? Let me light the gas.’
+
+Bommaney, the door being closed behind him, stumbled along the darkened
+passage after the more assured and accustomed steps of young Mr. Barter,
+and the inner office being gained, and the gas being lighted, allowed
+himself to be motioned to a chair. What with having been too much
+agitated by the contemplation of his troubles to be able to eat at all
+that day, and what with the fight he had had with his temptations, and
+the too frequent applications he had made to the brandy, it happened
+that for the moment he was by no means certain of his purpose. He sat
+for a little while wondering rather hazily what had brought him there.
+As often happens with absent-minded people, his hands remembered what
+had been required of them before his brain began to act again, and by
+and by the fact that he had unbuttoned his overcoat, and had taken a
+bundle of papers from his pocket, recalled him to his purpose.
+
+‘I wanted,’ he said, emerging from his haze, and holding the bundle of
+papers nervously in both hands, ‘I wanted to see your father upon very
+special and urgent business.’
+
+‘My father?’ the young man answered, with a look and accent of pained
+surprise. ‘Do you mean to say, sir, that you haven’t heard the news?’
+
+‘The news?’ cried Bommaney, feeling blindly as if some new misfortune
+threatened him. ‘What news?’
+
+‘My father, sir,’ said young Mr. Barter, with a certain blending of
+professional airs, something of a legal impress mingled with something
+of the manner of a medical man conveying mournful intelligence to the
+relatives of a patient, ‘my father, sir, was struck down by an omnibus
+in the street this morning. He is terribly injured, and not expected to
+recover.’
+
+‘God bless my soul!’ Bommaney cried out. His chin fell upon his breast,
+and his eyes stared at the floor, seeing nothing. He felt like a man
+upon a raft, who sees the bindings of the frail thing break apart.
+Shipwrecked already, and now the last hope gone! He hardly knew, if he
+could have asked himself the question clearly, why he so particularly
+desired to see Barter. He hardly knew what Barter could have done for
+him, except to listen to his troubles and take charge of the eight
+thousand pounds which tempted him, and yet the disappointment seemed as
+heavy and as hard to bear as anything he had hitherto endured. He sat
+staring forlornly before him, with tears in his eyes, and young Mr.
+Barter, in much astonishment at his susceptibility and tenderness, sat
+watching him. Something slid from Bommaney’s hands with a rustle, and
+dropped upon the floor. Young Mr. Barter made a mere hint or beginning
+of a movement, as if he would have picked it up for him. Bommaney
+made no movement at all, but stared before him with his blue-gray eyes
+filling more and more with tears, until two or three brimmed over and
+trickled down his cheeks. He said, ‘God bless my soul!’ once more,
+mechanically, and restored what remained of his bundle of papers to his
+pocket. Young Mr. Barter looked with one swift and vivid glance from the
+fallen bundle to his guest’s face, then back again. Bommaney rose from
+his seat, buttoned his overcoat with awkward and lingering fingers, and
+put on his hat. He was evidently unconscious of his own tears, and made
+no attempt to disguise them, or to wipe them away. He said, ‘God bless
+my soul!’ a third time, and then, shaking young Mr. Barter by the hand,
+murmured that he was sorry, very sorry, and so went stupidly away.
+Young Mr. Barter accompanied him to the door, casting a strange backward
+glance at the papers as he left the room, and was curiously voluble in
+his dismissal of his visitor. Anything he could do--Mr. Bommaney might
+rest perfectly assured--the clerks would be back to-morrow in any
+case--he would advise Mr. Bommaney of his father’s condition by that
+night’s post--he himself was naturally most profoundly anxious. In this
+wise he talked Bommaney from the chambers, and when once he had closed
+the door behind him, went back along the dark little corridor with
+an unnecessarily catlike tread. He could hardly have been other than
+certain that he was alone, yet when he reached the inner room he looked
+about him with a keen quick darting suspicion, and for half a minute
+ignored the fallen papers on the floor.
+
+‘Dear me!’ he said, when at length he suffered his eyes to rest upon
+them. ‘What can that be? How did that come here?’
+
+He stooped, picked up the papers, laid them upon his desk, and smoothed
+them out, making a fold lengthways to counteract the creases into which
+they had already fallen. He saw a crisp clean Bank of England note for a
+hundred pounds, and, lifting it, found another. Then he lifted half the
+bundle, and, finding a note of the same value, gave an inward gasp, and
+expelled his breath slowly after it. Then he looked at the last note
+of all, and sat down with the whole bundle in his hands. His pale and
+fleshy features had taken an unusual colour, and his breathing was a
+good deal disturbed. A watcher might have guessed that he was profoundly
+agitated from the swift unintermittent rustle the paper made in his
+hands. He seemed to sit as steady as a rock, and yet the crisp paper
+rustled noisily.
+
+Mr. Brown’s bank-notes had been a fruitful source of emotion that day
+already, and, in Bommaney’s mind at least, had raised very dreadful
+doubts and perplexities. There were doubts and perplexities in the mind
+of young Mr. Barter, but they were altogether of another order. Young
+Mr. Barter was perfectly aware that he was being tempted, and felt that,
+in its way, the temptation wets a kind of godsend. He even said as much
+in a low murmur to himself. His perplexities related to other things
+than the fear of any fall from honour. Bommaney had evidently been very
+queer. Bommaney had been horribly cut up about something, even before
+he heard the news the young solicitor had to give him. But was he
+so disturbed as to be likely to forget where he had last secured so
+considerable a sum of money? This mental inquiry naturally set young Mr.
+Barter to work to discover how considerable the sum of money actually
+was. He laid the notes upon the table, and tried to wet his thumb upon
+his lips. There was no moisture there, and his mouth was as dry as
+touchwood. He drank a little water, and then began to count the notes.
+He made them eighty-one at first; and then, recounting, made them
+seventy-nine. Counting them a third time, he made them eighty.
+
+‘Damn it all!’ said young Mr. Barter, ‘can’t I count? I suppose the old
+buffer will come back for them.’ He tried a fourth time, and confirmed
+his third counting. ‘They’ll get stopped at the Bank,’ he said. ‘They’ll
+be no use to anybody.’ He sat for a while thinking, with his eyes
+half-closed, drumming out a tune upon the table with the tips of his
+fat white fingers, then he folded the notes with great precision
+and delicacy, put them into his pocket, found his hat, overcoat, and
+walking-stick, and made ready for the streets. In the quiet of these
+legal chambers many chance noises from without had from time to time
+been clearly audible. He heard now a hurrying step upon the pavement of
+the quadrangle, and, with a palpitation at the heart, he moved swiftly
+to put out the light, and listened. The step stumbled at the entrance to
+the staircase, at the foot of which the outer door stood closed. Young
+Mr. Barter’s heart beat, if possible, faster than before; and the veins
+in his head so throbbed, that only the confining rim of his hat seemed
+to keep his head itself from bursting. There came an eager summons at
+the door, an imperative rapping with the head of a stout walking-stick.
+He set his teeth, and, drawing back his lips with a horrible smile
+in the dark, breathed noiselessly. The rapping grew more and more
+imperative and urgent, and then came a preternatural silence, with an
+undercurrent of distant sound in it, and the sudden blare of a cornet in
+the street, which sounded to his nerves like the trumpet of the herald
+of the day of judgment He heard the hurrying feet plunge down the steps
+again, and cross the quadrangle, and listened until their sound merged
+into the dull noises of the London night. He stood in the dark after
+this for what seemed a long time, learning that his features twitched,
+and teaching himself to control them. Then he left his chambers with
+great secrecy, and broke into a cold sweat to think, as he stood half
+through the doorway, how narrowly he had escaped from slamming the
+door behind him. This was an act which might have been suicidal in
+its stupidity; for to give any sign of his presence there after that
+thundering summons at the door would have been to betray himself beyond
+redemption. He inserted his latch-key noiselessly, and, crouching to
+escape imagined observers, drew the door gently after him, and turned
+the key slowly in the lock. As he did this he heard a footstep and a
+cough together close at hand, and, turning with a start, beheld a pale
+and slender man of brief stature, who scraped his lantern jaws with
+apologetic thumb and finger, and looking at him with a startled
+meekness, as if he would fain propitiate anger for a possible intrusion,
+sidled to the foot of the stairs, mounted the stairway with a backward
+glance and a second cough of apology, and so disappeared.
+
+Young Mr. Barter, with his nerves already shaken by this small episode,
+walked into the main thoroughfare and merged with the crowd, bearing
+Mr. Bommaney’s eight thousand pounds with him. When he had walked for a
+while he hailed a cab, and was driven home. He had, or prided himself on
+having, an exceptional eye for horseflesh, but it was not his faculty
+in this direction which had led him to choose a cab horsed by a brute
+of unusual symmetry and swiftness. This was an accident, but, like other
+accidents in this perplexed world, it served its purpose. It landed him
+at the paternal door in Harley Street almost at the instant at which
+Bommaney arrived there in pursuit of him.
+
+Now, although young Mr. Barter had not calculated on meeting Bommaney
+so soon, and although the meeting was naturally something of a shock to
+him, he had already schooled himself for interview and inquiry. He went
+a little paler than common as he grasped his father’s old friend by the
+hand for the third time that evening, and trembled ever so little as he
+spoke.
+
+‘I half expected to find you here,’ he said. ‘I could see how moved you
+were by the news of my father’s illness.’ The door stood open, and the
+old-fashioned man-servant within had been in the act of closing it upon
+Bommaney’s retreating figure when cab number two had driven up, and the
+young master of the house had alighted from it. ‘Is the news worse
+or better?’ He laid both hands upon Bommaney’s arms as he put this
+question.
+
+The elderly servitor, who had never had reason given to him to believe
+that young Mr. Barter was above the reasonable attached to his father,
+was a little surprised to see the young man so moved. He drew the door
+gently after him, and came out upon the steps.
+
+‘I’m afraid, Mr. John,’ he murmured sympathetically, ‘that it’s
+practically all over, sir. The poor gentleman’s quite unconscious, and
+the doctor don’t expect him to last till morning.’
+
+Young Mr. Barter’s mind was active, and accustomed to rapid movement. He
+knew at once that the old servant read the signs of disturbance in
+his face and manner, and how far he misread them. So, to insure the
+misreading, he took out his handkerchief, and groaned at this melancholy
+intelligence.
+
+‘I----,’ began Bommaney, stammering and speaking a little thickly, ‘I
+didn’t come to ask about your father.’ Young Barter’s heart at
+this, though he was perfectly prepared for it, began to beat like a
+sledgehammer. ‘I’ve had a dreadful loss. I have called nowhere but at
+your office since I left my own, and I have lost eight thousand pounds.
+I am convinced that I must have left it there.’
+
+‘I can’t think so, Mr. Bommaney,’ said Barter, with a face of
+innocence.’ We can go back together, if you like, and look for it.’
+Bommaney’s driver lingered for him; the other cabman was already
+jingling leisurely down the street.
+
+‘Johnson,’ said young Barter, addressing the domestic, ‘you hear what
+Mr. Bommaney says. This is a matter of the most urgent importance, and
+must be looked into at once. Tell my mother that I have been home, and
+that I have been called suddenly back on urgent business.’ Bommaney
+stood in a kind of stupid trance, and the young man, taking him by the
+arm, had some ado to secure his attention. ‘Come! Come, sir,’ he said;
+‘we will look into this at once. You must not remain in suspense about
+such a matter.’
+
+They rustled together through the straw which had been laid down upon
+the roadway, and had been scattered by the feet of passers-by upon the
+pavement, and, mounting the cab, drove in a ghastly silence for a score
+of yards, and then, with a clatter which made conversation difficult,
+Bommaney, rousing himself at intervals, shouted his certainty that
+the notes would prove to have been left at Barter’s chambers. Barter,
+growing curiously inured to the circumstances of the case, shouted back
+that he dared to say they would be; that it was very likely; that he
+really did not see where else Mr. Bommaney could possibly have left
+them, furtively pressing the notes against his breast meanwhile, and
+once, at a quiet interval, when Bommaney had sunk into his former
+stupor, venturing to steal a hand to the pocket in which the stolen
+money lay, caressing the edges of the notes with the tips of his
+fingers.
+
+‘I’m sure,’ said Bommaney, as the cab pulled up at the gate of the
+quadrangle, ‘that we shall find them here.’ He spoke with a tremulous
+uncertainty, and so obviously appealed for a confirmation of his hope,
+that Barter felt constrained to answer,
+
+‘Oh, we are bound to find them.’
+
+The striking of a wax vesta at the door of the chambers, the shaky hunt
+for the key, the well-known obstinacy of the lock, the opening of
+the door, the fevered working of Bommaney’s fingers, and the flushed
+eagerness of his face, were all memorable to young Barter for many and
+many a day. They entered together the room in which their interview had
+taken place; and Barter, nursing the remnant of the flaming vesta, lit
+the gas with it, and then, dropping it on the floor, set his foot upon
+it, and looked at his companion.
+
+‘Where do you think you left the notes, sir?’ he asked. ‘Have you any
+idea? I think you took out some papers here. You wanted to consult my
+father about them, I fancy, and, if I remember, you returned them to
+your pocket.’
+
+Bommaney stood looking about him on the floor, trailing the point of
+his walking-cane purposelessly hither and thither; and it was at this
+moment, seeing how confused and broken his victim seemed, that young Mr.
+Barter tasted the first flavour of safety.
+
+‘I don’t see anything,’ he said.
+
+‘Did you,’ Bommaney asked him, with both trembling hands grasping the
+knob of his walking-cane, and shaking in appeal before the unsuspected
+thief--’ did you lock any papers away before you left?’
+
+As a matter of fact, young Barter had not had any papers to lock away
+that evening after Bommaney’s departure; but he thought the trick worth
+playing, and, producing his keys again, opened the heavy iron safe which
+stood against the wall.
+
+‘Yes,’ he said, with an air of hopeful alacrity. ‘By Jove, I did!’ He
+stood aside, with an outstretched hand, and motioned Bommaney to examine
+the contents of the safe. There was a parchment there, there were half
+a dozen bundles of documents tied in pink tape and docketed; but there
+were no bank-notes.
+
+‘You know,’ said Bommaney, with a fretful wail, ‘I must have left them
+here; I couldn’t have left them anywhere else. I put it to you--could
+I?’
+
+Barter looked at him mournfully, with raised eyebrows. There was just a
+hint of expostulation in his raised eyebrows, and in the expression of
+his voice.
+
+‘You see, sir,’ he said, waving his white hands--’ you see for yourself,
+there’s nothing here.’
+
+Bommaney walked to a chair, and, sitting down there, lifted up his voice
+and wept. ‘I’ve been an honest man, by God! all my life long; and now
+I’m not merely ruined, but I shall be taken for a thief.’ He cried
+bitterly after this outburst, with his head between his hands. His hat
+fell off, and his walking-stick tumbled noisily to the floor. Mr. Barter
+picked them up, and, having set them on the table, looked at the shaking
+shoulders, and listened to the ruined man’s sobs and wailings. It was a
+pity--of course it was a pity--but young Mr. Barter really did not see
+how it was in his power to help it.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+On a chill spring evening the sunset over London gave a brief radiance
+of colour to the dull gray roof and smoke-stained chimneys of many
+thoroughfares. Shadows thickened in the eastern skies as if fold after
+fold of finest crape were drawn over the field of watery and opalescent
+light the fallen sun had left behind it. In one great thoroughfare
+running east and west the sky-line of the houses stood distinct, and
+bathed in light of many colours; whilst down below there was a wall of
+shadow. Two parallel walls of shadow rose from a shadowy level, and the
+dusk had a thousand indistinguishable voices.
+
+The shadowy lines became accented by twin rows of flickering fire, the
+rear jets seen with a blurred halo of mist round each of them, the halo
+crawling feebly within itself, tormented by a feeble wind. The long
+vista of pavement became chequered like a chessboard, with patches of
+light from shop windows. Gable Inn, staring at the growing darkness with
+a single fiery eye, looked like a Rip Van Winkle. It had been old when
+Chaucer and the knights and ladies of whom he sang were young; and
+its hoary stunted angles and squat chimney cowls had the grave and
+impassive aspect proper to great age. It has stood there now for over
+seven hundred years hoarding a growing store of secrets. It is roughly
+picturesque in every detail, and its every chamber is a triumph of
+narrowness, obscurity, and inconvenience.
+
+In the quadrangle the shadows climbed the sturdy walls as if they were
+an exhalation from the paving-stones. The dim staircase sent down all
+manner of muffled and echoing voices. Footsteps sounded, and the clang
+of doors, and the shriek of unwilling keys in rusty locks, and
+the hurrying traffic of the street without, softened by the moist
+atmosphere, was like the fading echo of following feet upon the stairs.
+
+Lights sprang up in the basement windows, telling of protractive legal
+labours. Lights twinkled in the garrets, telling of lonely study or
+noisy conviviality in the coming hours of darkness. At length one side
+of the quadrangle viewed by a solitary watcher from a third-floor window
+of the opposing side, winked with a hundred windows through the wet air
+and deepening shadow like a blear-eyed Argus.
+
+This watcher, lounging at his own window, was Mr. Philip Bommaney,
+recently self-entitled the ‘Solitary of Gable Inn.’ He was
+eight-and-twenty years of age or thereabouts, a broad-shouldered,
+deep-chested, manly-looking fellow, with curling brown hair, and a face
+expressive of pugnacity, good-humour, and many capacities. He was a
+little weary now, after a long day of satisfactory work. He watched the
+mounting shadows, and listened to the weird gamut of the wind among
+the telegraph lines, until the outer voices made his own dull room seem
+homely. One ruddy tongue of flame from the expiring fire in the
+grate played on the narrow walls and low ceiling, and woke twinkling
+reflections in the spare and battered furniture. A man’s dwelling-place
+is always an index to his character when its arrangement depends upon
+himself; and signs of Philip Bommaney’s nature and pursuits were visible
+in plenty here. There were symmetrical rows of books on the shelves
+flanking the fire-place. An orderly stack of newspapers occupied one
+corner of the room, and a set of boxing-gloves lay on top of the pile,
+and a pair of dumb-bells beside it. A shaded reading-lamp stood upon the
+table in the midst of a great litter of papers. The barrels of a huge
+elephant gun flashed dimly from the wall as the firelight played upon
+them, and two or three lighter weapons were ranged together lower down.
+
+He turned from the window and lit the lamp, and, wheeling round, held
+up the light to a photograph, and studied it with a pleased face. It was
+the portrait of a pretty girl, very sweetly grave, and looking as if it
+could be very sweetly vivacious. When he had looked at it for a longish
+time he nodded and smiled, as if the pictured lips had actually spoken
+to him. There was a tumbler standing beside the photograph with a bunch
+of hothouse flowers in it, the one bright spot of colour in the dingy
+chamber. He took this in his disengaged hand, and nodding and smiling
+anew at the pretty girl’s portrait, he turned about again, and walked
+into a bedroom beyond a narrow and inconvenient little window. The
+strident voice of the clock over the entrance of the old Hall, answered
+or anticipated from multitudinous spires in the City far and near,
+sounded as Philip entered his bedroom. He stood and listened, counting
+six jarring strokes. The bedroom was a microscopic apartment, with as
+many corners in it as any room of its size in London, and the bed itself
+was a perfect triumph of littleness, so tucked under the sloping roof,
+and so surrounded by projecting corners, as to make the entry to it or
+the exit from it a gymnastic performance of considerable merit. The room
+was not over-light at the best of times, the fourth part of the space
+of one small window in the sloping wall was filled by its own heavy
+framework, and for half its height it was shielded by a parapet, which
+had at least its uses in hiding the occupant of the room from the
+too-curious observation of those who dwelt in the upper stories of the
+houses opposite. These houses opposite, compared with Gable Inn, are
+of a mushroom modernness, and yet are old enough (having begun with
+a debauched and sickly constitution) to have fallen into an almost
+complete decrepitude. Their stately neighbour seems to be less grimy
+with the London smoke than they are, has always been less susceptible to
+outside evil influences, even of that unescapable sort, and drives them
+to an added shabbiness of senility by contrast with its own hale old
+age. The bedroom window was already open for the admission of such fresh
+air as, disguised in London blacks, the exhalations of moist spring
+pavements, and the reeking odours of the cuisine of Fleeter’s Rents,
+might choose to wander thither. Philip, with the lamp in one hand and
+the tumbler of flowers in the other, put out his head and looked into
+the squalid depths below him, and having gazed there a while absently
+and with no object, drew back with a vague touch of pity upon him for
+the people who dwelt in so much squalor so near to healthy effort and
+reasonable competence. He could hardly have told as much, perhaps, but
+one pallid countenance, shining very dimly at an open window, was very
+much answerable for that vague touch of pity. The face in the darkness
+started away from the window as he looked at it, as if his own
+robust health and the light that dwelt about him startled its pinched
+shabbiness into solitude. He set the tumbler of flowers upon the
+window-ledge, and closing the window, made his toilet and returned to
+the sitting-room. Then, having banked up the fire, and set the matches
+in such a position that he could easily find them, he blew out the lamp,
+left his chambers, and ran down the tortuous stairs. As he turned the
+last corner a door clanged noisily, and the next thing of which he was
+conscious was that he was struggling in the embrace of a stranger whom
+he had doubled up in an angle of the wall.
+
+‘I beg your pardon,’ he said gaspingly; ‘I stumbled.’
+
+‘You did,’ responded the stranger, gasping also. ‘Rather heavily. It was
+lucky you had something soft to fall on.’
+
+Philip began to make apologies. The stranger, breathless still, but
+jovially polite, begged him not to mention it. He was a tallish
+young man, broad set, and a little too fleshy for his years. He had a
+cleanshaven face, healthily pallid, the whitest of teeth, and a most
+frank, engaging, and contagious smile.
+
+‘Pray don’t say anything more about it,’ he said in answer to Philip’s
+reiterated apologies. ‘You are not hurt, I hope?’
+
+‘No, thanks; but I’m afraid you are.’
+
+‘Not at all. It was sharp for a minute; but I am all right now. The
+stairs are very inconvenient, especially to strangers.’
+
+‘I haven’t even that excuse for my clumsiness, said Philip; ‘for I am
+living here.’
+
+‘Indeed; then we are neighbours, and should know each other. Rather an
+informal kind of introduction, eh?’ The stranger said this with a mellow
+laugh and a flash of his white teeth. He opened his overcoat as
+he spoke, and produced a card-case, Philip catching the gleam of a
+gold-studded shirt-front as he did so. ‘That’s my name, John Barter;
+and these are my offices.’ The outer oak, cracked and blistered to the
+likeness of an ancient tar-barrel, bore an inscription, dim with long
+years--‘Fellowship, Freemantle, and Barter’--and the names were repeated
+on the doorpost at the entrance.
+
+‘I have no card,’ said Philip, accepting the stranger’s. ‘My name is
+Bommaney--Philip Bom-maney;’ Mr. Barter’s smiling face was unchanged,
+though he gave a slight but perceptible start at the name, and repeated
+it.
+
+‘Do you know it?’ asked Philip. To the ears of his companion there was
+something of a challenge in the tone. ‘It is not a common name.’
+
+‘No. Not a common name. I think I have heard it somewhere.’
+
+They were under the archway by this time, in the brief shelter of which
+the sanguine-faced, red-waist-coated lodge-keeper was taking his nightly
+constitutional. They answered the touch of the hat with which he saluted
+them.
+
+‘Which is your way?’ asked Mr. Barter.
+
+‘Westward,’ said Phil.
+
+‘Mine is east,’ said Barter, ‘so we part here. We are bound to meet
+again before long. Good-night.’
+
+‘Good-night, and many thanks for taking my clumsiness in such good
+part.’
+
+Barter’s ready smile beamed out again. They shook hands before parting
+like old acquaintances, and Philip walked on, through the incessant
+noise of Holborn into quieter Bloomsbury Street, along the eastern side
+of Bedford Square, where the bare trees were shivering in a bath of fog,
+and into Gower Street. Half way down that hideous thoroughfare he came
+upon a house, one of the few which still retain the old lamp-iron and
+extinguisher before their doors, and knocking, was admitted by a trim
+maid, with the smiling alacrity due to a frequent and favoured visitor,
+and by her conducted to the drawing-room, where sat a young lady engaged
+in a transparent pretence of being absorbed in a novel. The pretence
+vanished as the door closed behind the handmaiden, and the young lady
+jumped up and ran forward to meet him, with such a glad welcome in her
+face as answered the appeal in his own. It does not need that we should
+look at her with Philip’s eyes to pronounce her charmingly pretty, or
+to admire the face, at once shy and frank, with which she nestled beside
+him.
+
+‘I thought you were never coming,’ she said.
+
+‘Am I so late, then?’
+
+‘It seemed so, and now you are come, tell me what you have been doing.’
+
+‘Working, and thinking of you.’
+
+‘You work too much, Phil.’ She did her best to ignore the second item
+of his day’s occupation, but the deepened flush and her avoidance of her
+lover’s eyes answered it more effectively than words could have done.
+‘You are getting quite pale and thin. No wonder, sitting all alone all
+day long in those musty old chambers.’
+
+‘Well, you see, Patty, the more I work, the sooner I shall cease to be
+all alone.’ The flush deepened again, and the hand trembled in his like
+a caught bird. ‘And as for working too much, I don’t believe that’s
+possible. Work never killed anybody yet, and idleness has killed a good
+many. It’s better to work than sit still and wait for briefs which never
+corns. There’s no sensation more delightful than that of looking at a
+good day’s work, and thinking that every line and word has brought me
+nearer to you.’
+
+His tenderness conquered her shyness, and she nestled closer still,
+looking up at him with a wholehearted admiration and affection. He felt
+a little sad and unworthy under it, as almost any honest fellow would
+have been sure to do, and yet it was wonderfully sweet to him, and more
+than reward enough for any effort.
+
+‘I wish I could help you, Phil. I wish I could do something for you,
+when you have given up so much for me.’
+
+‘Hush!’ he said, laying his hand lightly upon her lips. ‘We made up our
+minds long ago that no more was to be said about that.’ He was tender
+still--he could be nothing else with her--but there was a touch of
+sternness in his manner, too--as if the theme pained him.
+
+‘But I can’t help thinking of it. It was so noble of you, Phil.’
+
+‘It was the only thing to be done--the only thing possible. It was----’
+he paused for a second, and then went on resolutely--‘it was my father’s
+act by which you suffered. I should have been a scoundrel if I had done
+otherwise.’
+
+‘And are you to do all? and am I to do nothing? It is selfish to keep
+all the generosity to yourself.’
+
+He laughed as if he found this female paradox a pleasant fancy, but she
+was not to be put off so.
+
+‘If the subject pains you, as I know it does, dear, please understand
+why I speak of it I don’t want you to think I take your sacrifice as you
+pretend to take it. It isn’t a matter of course, as you pretend it is;
+and you may say what you like, Phil, but it isn’t a thing that everybody
+would have done. Don’t grudge me my gratitude; you did it for the love
+of me.’
+
+‘I didn’t do it for the love of you,’ said Phil, laughing tenderly; ‘how
+often am I to tell you that, you little mountain of obstinacy? I did it
+because it was the right thing. I don’t say, mind you, that it wasn’t
+easier to do it for you than it might have been for somebody I didn’t
+know or care for; but that--as you will see quite clearly if you’ll
+bring your naturally logical mind to bear upon it--makes the thing so
+much the less creditable, provided there was any credit due to it at
+all.’
+
+The loving feminine scorn of this masculine process of reasoning was
+expressed in a single glance, and was delightful to see.
+
+‘It only means waiting a little longer before I claim you.’
+
+The girl would fain have asked, ‘Why should you wait when I have enough
+for both by your gift? What does it matter which of us it is who has the
+money--you or I?’ But this question went unspoken, for obvious reasons.
+A woman is tongue-tied by the countless conventionalities of education.
+She must often let her thoughts lie silent in her heart, though she
+burns to express them, and find what answer she can to questions she
+dare not offer. Philip had repaired her loss by beggaring himself. That
+was noble. But now he persisted in deferring their marriage, and had
+buried himself in that lofty sarcophagus in Gable Inn, resolved only to
+claim her, though she was all his own already, when he had reinstated
+his fortunes by his labour. That was noble also, perhaps, but in her
+own heart she thought it a trifle foolish--say Quixotic, not to be too
+severe. She would rather have seen his ardour find a more commonplace
+expression. She had a general sort of belief that whatever Philip did
+was bound to be right, and yet this actual experience rather jarred with
+that assumption.
+
+They found other themes in a while, and talked of the future and the
+happiness it would bring. That Philip was going to be rich and famous
+was a prime article in Patty’s creed, and he himself, though he had
+soberer hopes, was not likely to miss any chance of success which labour
+might bring him. He was more than modest enough in his conception of his
+own powers, and was often doubtful as to the fulfilment of the higher
+ambitions which are the necessary fuel of all artistic fires. Without
+those fires the chill of modesty will fall to the frost of cowardice,
+and in Art cowardice means indolence. In his moments of exultation--and
+these came generally at their strongest when he was in his sweetheart’s
+society--success looked easy enough. The memory of her undoubted
+belief in him came upon him often with a glow reflected from those
+magnificently hopeful moments. But then at times of depression it grew
+to look no more than a foolish unattainable dream. All young artists
+have times when they are going to be great--when the glory proper to
+white hairs makes a halo round un-wrinkled fronts and curls, brown
+or golden. They have times when the smartest turn of verse, the most
+delightful inventions of narrative, the most exquisite contrast of
+colour or mould of form their genius can compass are stricken through
+and through with the horror of commonplace. But when a man of the
+artistic _genus_ has once so far learned his own nature he has made a
+great advance towards the fulfilment of his ambitions. He has to
+learn that just as the hot fit is followed by the cold the cold fit
+is succeeded by the hot. He knows how intermittent he is. He learns to
+mistrust his own mistrust of himself. The periods of depression grow
+less frequent, and the depression grows less lasting. And then, just
+as the cold fit becomes less chilling to the one, the fit of exultation
+grows less intoxicating. The halo beams less bright--loss near.
+
+Yet Philip, with the girl’s eyes worshipping him, and her sweet voice
+cooing hope and praise, and her hands knitted on his shoulder, and her
+warm breath fanning his cheek, gave himself up to the vision, and felt
+his heart warm with a world’s welcome as yet far away from him.
+
+The prose of life will assert itself, even to visionary eight-and-twenty
+and sweet eighteen in love with one another. On this occasion it came
+as a summons to supper. The summoner was a stout and jovial elderly
+gentleman, about whose somewhat commonplace British exterior there was,
+to Philip’s mind, a reflection of the nimbus which glorified Patty to
+his mind, for he was Patty’s father. He had been called Old Brown at
+school when he was young--he had been called Old Brown in the country,
+and the prefix had found him out in town without the need for anybody
+to breathe a whisper of it. He was Old Brown to his new acquaintances in
+London before a month had gone by. The name suggests a beverage which is
+not unlike Old Brown himself--being mild and nutty to the taste as he
+to the mental palate--ripe and genial. He had a moist twinkle of the
+eye,--the look which bespeaks the kindly humorist,--and his slightly
+protruding under lip seemed covertly to taste the flavour of unspoken
+jokes. Old Brown’s jokes were mainly left unspoken, but he spent a
+good part of his life in laughing without any very apparent reason for
+laughter, and may have been internally the way he looked to be.
+
+He shook hands with Philip, and chucked Patty under the chin with a
+waggish aspect, which called an appealing blush into the girl’s
+face. Perhaps the blush stayed the intended quip, but any way the old
+gentleman contented himself with a beaming laugh, and led the way to the
+supper table, rubbing his hands and chuckling.
+
+The meal was quietly jovial, and if, after it, Old Brown was not quite
+so fast asleep as he pretended to be, at least his patience gave the
+lovers the shelter they needed. He snored in mellow murmurs from behind
+his bandanna, and they sat and talked together in low tones lest they
+might awaken him, until the time came for parting.
+
+Outside the mist had given place to a dull persistent rain, and a
+peevish wind was complaining in area and chimney cowl. Philip turned to
+the street with a pleasantly haunting vision of Patty’s vivacious face
+outlined against the warmth and brightness of the hall. The touch of her
+good-night kiss lingered on his lips like live velvet, and he carried
+warmth and brightness enough within him to defy all the rain that ever
+rained, and all the wind that ever blew on smoky London.
+
+The rain had cleared the streets, and the occasional gleam of a
+policeman’s cape or a furtive figure seeking the shelter of a doorway
+against the drifting showers was all he saw as he bored his way against
+the rising wind to the corner of Holborn. He was so absorbed by that
+fancy of music to which his own quick tread kept time that a shuffling
+step behind him rapidly drawing nearer failed to reach his sense. But as
+he came to the corner, a hand clutched his arm.
+
+He turned, with the quick defensive gesture natural to a man so accosted
+at such a time, and faced the unexpected figure. An old man, clad in
+filthy fluttering rags, stood staring at him, with both hands stretched
+out. The rags shook as much with the horrible cough that tore him as
+with the cruel wind. He was a dreadful creature, with watery eyes, and a
+head and moustache of dirty gray. His long and unvenerable hairs strayed
+loose beneath the dunghill relic which crowned them. The rain was in his
+hair and beard, and had so soaked his tattered dress that it clung
+to him like the feathers of a drenched fowl. He shook and wheezed and
+panted, and gripped the air with tremulous fingers, and through the
+rents in his clothing his white flesh gleamed in the gaslight.
+
+The look of surprise and pity which Philip bent upon this unclean
+apparition was startled into one of sudden fear and horror. In the
+very instant when these emotions struck him, they were reflected in the
+other’s face. The man made a motion to run, but Philip clutched his arm,
+and he stood cowering and unresisting.
+
+‘You! Here in London?’
+
+‘Phil,’ said the spectre imploringly, ‘for God’s sake help me. I didn’t
+know it was you, when I followed you. I thought----’ his voice trailed
+into silence.
+
+‘You have come to this?’
+
+‘Yes, Phil; this is what I’ve come to.’ The cough took him here again,
+and tore him so that he was fain to lean against the shutters of a shop
+near at hand.
+
+‘Why do you come back here? Are you mad?’
+
+‘I am--almost. What could I do? I’m as safe here as I am anywhere.
+Who would know me? or, if they did, who would hurt a wretch like me?
+I haven’t slept in a bed for weeks, Phil. I haven’t eaten a morsel for
+three days. For God’s sake! give me some money. I’ll--I’ll go away; I’ll
+never trouble you again.’
+
+‘I’ll give you all I can. But you must go away from London.’
+
+Philip thrust his hand into his pocket and brought up all the pocket’s
+contents. He took his keys and an unvalued trifle or two from the
+handful, and held the rest out towards his father. The old man shrunk
+from him with a terrible appeal and shamefaced gratitude which cut the
+son’s heart like a knife.
+
+‘Where can I go to?’
+
+‘Anywhere out of London. You are not--safe here. Go away. Write to me
+here.’ He thrust an envelope on which his name and address were written
+into the old man’s dirty trembling hand. ‘You must never come to see me.
+Promise me that.’
+
+‘I promise,’ he said; and, thrusting the money and the envelope
+somewhere among his rags, stood silent for a while. ‘I’m afraid,’ he
+said, ‘I acted very foolishly and very----’
+
+Then his voice trailed away again.
+
+‘God help you!’ said Philip with a choking voice.
+
+‘You’ll shake hands, won’t you, Phil? ‘said the old man. Phil took the
+proffered hand. ‘It’s something,’ said Bommaney the elder, clinging
+to him, ‘to feel an honest man’s hand again, God bless you, Phil!--God
+bless you!’
+
+Philip stood silent, and the old man, with another shame-stricken glance
+upon him, moved away. His son watched him for a second or two, as he
+slunk, coughing and shivering, along the gleaming pavement, and then
+turned and went his own way heavily.
+
+Bommaney senior, discerning the welcome beacon of a public-house,
+shuffled eagerly towards it, hugging beneath his rags the money his son
+had given him.
+
+‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Bommaney; if you please, sir.’ He started at
+the sound of a voice which had been familiar to him for years. ‘I should
+like a word with you, sir; if you please.’
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+James Hornett was less changed than his old employer, but it was evident
+that he too had fallen upon evil times. For a mere second the familiar
+tones of his voice were no more than familiar to Bommaney, whose mind
+was confused by long misery and hunger and sleeplessness, and the shock
+of his late encounter. But when he turned and saw Hornett’s long thumb
+and finger scraping at his stubbly jaws, the gesture and the attitude
+of apology brought him back to mind at once. Hornett’s coat sleeve was
+torn, and showed his arm half way down to the elbow, but revealed no
+hint of linen, The collar of his frock-coat was buttoned tightly about
+his neck, and there was a sparkling metallic rime upon his cheeks and
+chin and upper lip. Bommaney was ashamed before him, and afraid of him,
+and only some faint reminder of self-respect and the pride of earlier
+days held him back from the impulse to run away.
+
+‘You’re not afraid of me, sir?’ said James Hornett. He had always
+smiled, and was smiling even now. The smile was no more than a
+contortion of the muscles of the face, which made a long mirthless
+crease on either cheek, and left the eyes untouched by the least light
+of sympathy. It gave him a propitiatory dog-like look, and there was a
+hint of fawning in his attitude which matched it perfectly and carried
+out the likeness. ‘You remember me, sir?’ he went on, for Bommaney
+stared at him so wildly that there seemed room for reasonable doubt
+on that point. ‘Hornett, sir. James Hornett Your faithful servant for
+thirty years, sir.’ Bommaney looked at him with haggard watering eyes,
+and said nothing as yet ‘It’s a bit of a surprise, sir, at first, isn’t
+it?’ Hornett went on, with his unchanging smile. There was a good deal
+of hunger and even triumph in his small soul, but they found no other
+outward expression, and his attitude and voice were as apologetic
+and retiring as of old. ‘It was rather a surprise to me, sir, when I
+recognised you. Isn’t it a little dangerous for you to be here, Mr.
+Bommaney?’
+
+They both started, and each looked about him at this mention of the
+fugitive’s name.
+
+‘Hush!’ said Bommaney. ‘Don’t call me by that name. Come away from
+here.’
+
+A policeman strolled along the street, with an echoing tread, and as
+the two slunk past him he turned a casual glance upon them. The glance
+touched them like a galvanic shock, and they would have run if they had
+had courage for such an indiscretion.
+
+‘What do you want with me?’ asked Bommaney, when the policeman was
+out of sight and hearing; Hornett walking beside him, with his lean,
+propitiatory fingers at his chin, looked up with hesitating meekness.
+
+‘Well, you see, sir,’ he responded, ‘your fall was mine, sir; I was
+supposed’--he coughed behind his hand here to indicate apology for
+the introduction of a theme so necessarily disagreeable to the other’s
+feelings--’ I was supposed, sir, to have been in your confidence. I made
+many applications for employment, and nobody would employ me. Young Mr.
+Weatherall, sir, promised, personally, that if I called again, he’d kick
+me down the steps.’
+
+Bommaney groaned.
+
+‘What do you want with me?’ he asked again.
+
+They were standing by this time outside the doors of a public-house, and
+the wind-driven rain was pelting down heavily.
+
+‘I thought, sir----’ said Hornett; ‘I’m very hard pressed, sir.’ The
+dog-like, propitiatory smile never varied. ‘I was following Mr. Phil
+myself, sir, in the hope that his kindness might run to a trifle.’
+
+‘Come in,’ said Bommaney; and Hornett eagerly accepting the invitation,
+they entered the house together. There was an odour of frying in the
+room, and a hissing noise proceeded from a soft of metal caldron which
+stood over a row of gas-jets on the pewter counter. A printed legend,
+‘Sausage and Mashed, 3d.’ was pasted on the wooden partition at the
+side of the box they entered, and on the mirror which faced them, and
+displayed their own squalid misery to themselves. A year ago the fare
+would have seemed uninviting to either at his hungriest moment, but now
+Bommaney called for it with a dreadful suppressed eagerness, and, the
+barman serving them with a tantalising leisure, they watched every
+movement with the eyes of famine.
+
+‘I’ve got a little place, sir, of my own,’ whispered Hornett, when the
+pangs of hunger were appeased. ‘It’s very humble, but you could put up
+for the night there.’ Bommaney made no answer, but the two set out again
+together through the rain, and, pausing once only for the purchase of a
+flat pint bottle of whisky, made straight for Fleeter’s Rents.
+
+All that nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand of the many
+thousands who pass it every day could tell you of Fleeter’s Rents
+is that it makes a narrow black gash in the walls of the great
+thoroughfare, and that it neighbours Gable Inn. It is slimy in its very
+atmosphere all winter through, and its air in summer time is made of
+dust and grit and shadow. The old Inn elbows it disdainfully on one
+side, and on the other a great modern stuccoed pile overtops it with
+a parvenu insolence. It is the home naturally of the very poor; for
+no hermit or hater of the world, however disposed to shun his fellows,
+would hide in its dingy solitudes whilst he had but a mere shilling a
+day for lodging and bodily sustenance elsewhere.
+
+Hornett led the way up a set of narrow and broken stairs, and having
+reached the uppermost story of the house, pushed open a broken door,
+which, depending from a single hinge, scratched, noisily upon the uneven
+flooring of the room. His guest stood shivering in the doorway until a
+match sputtered and fizzed in Hornett’s fingers. Then, guided by that
+precarious light, he advanced. Hornett lit a candle which adhered by its
+own grease to the filthy wall and had already made a great cone of smoke
+with a tremulous outline there. There was a small grate, with a mere
+double-handful of shavings, chips, and coal behind its rusty bars.
+Hornett applied the match to the shavings, and, as the fire leapt up,
+the two men knelt together, coughing and choking in the smoke, and
+bathing their chilled hands in the flame. Bommaney drew the flat bottle
+from a pocket hidden somewhere in his multitudinous rags, and drank.
+Hornett watched him greedily, with hands involuntarily and unconsciously
+extended. Then when he had drunk in turn, they each shivered over
+the fire again, stealing furtive glances at each other, each mightily
+disconcerted when he met the other’s eye. Bommaney had aged dreadfully
+during his year of hiding, and Hornett, who had drunk his employer’s
+health upon his birthdays often enough to know his age to a day, could
+yet scarce believe that the dreadful spectre who knelt beside him
+numbered less than fourscore years.
+
+One question perplexed Hornett’s mind. How came it, he asked himself
+over and over again, that in the space of a mere twelvemonths a man who
+started with at least eight thousand pounds could have fallen into such
+a depth of poverty? Eight thousand pounds, if absolutely nothing were
+done with it for its own increase, meant royal living for a score
+of years for an unencumbered man. Hornett longed to satisfy his own
+curiosity upon this point, and felt as if he dared not ask the question
+for his life. He framed a score of ways by which he might approach
+it, with a road of retreat behind him, and at last, as if in spite of
+himself, he said, with apologetic impudence,
+
+‘You don’t seem to have made the money last long, sir.’
+
+‘The money,’ cried Bommaney, turning furiously upon him. ‘What money?’
+
+Hornett edged away upon his knees, and his thumb and fingers traced the
+creases of his smile up and down his stubbly cheeks.
+
+‘Do you think,’ the old man demanded passionately, ‘that I took away a
+penny?’
+
+Hornett was afraid to rise. There was such a despair and so much fury in
+the other’s looks that he could do nothing but crouch at his feet with
+his mean meek face turned fearfully towards Bommaney, and his body
+cowering.
+
+‘You think I took that eight thousand pounds?’ Bommaney quavered, with a
+voice of bitter disdain.
+
+He had never in his life regretted anything so profoundly as he had
+regretted his resistance of that temptation. To have had all the blame
+and shame, and to endure all the miseries a convicted thief might earn
+for himself, to have been an outcast and a pauper, only because he
+had been resolute against temptation! It is easy enough for a man whom
+circumstances keep honest to think himself honourable beyond the chance
+of temptation. But misery has the virtue of Ithuriel’s spear, with a
+difference. As the one touched the beast and transformed him to the
+seeming of a high intelligence, so will the other touch a seemingly
+impregnable armour of bright honour, and turn it into tinder, leaving
+the poor beast revealed and unprotected from his own base natural
+longings. The poor Bommaney was maddened to think he had not done what
+the other’s thoughts charged him with, even though he passionately
+rebelled against the accusation.
+
+‘When did you ever know me to be a rogue, James Hornett?’ he asked, with
+an air and voice to which his passion lent something like dignity. ‘When
+did you ever know me defraud a man of a farthing?’
+
+‘Never, sir, I’m sure,’ Hornett responded, not doubting in his own mind
+that Bommaney was guilty. ‘But----’
+
+‘But what?’ cried Bommaney. ‘My own son, my own flesh and blood, would
+hardly shake hands with me. My clerk--I took him out of the gutter,
+_you_ know that, Hornett! I took you out of the gutter and made a man
+of you, and lavished kindness on you. Nobody has a minute’s trust in
+me--nobody thinks of misfortune or disaster. I was right to run away and
+hide myself, for nobody would have believed me if I had stayed and told
+the truth.’
+
+Hornett looked more frightened than before after this outburst, but
+Bommaney read incredulity in his face, and answered it with an added
+passion.
+
+‘What good would it do me to tell lies to you? Suppose I made you
+believe me, am I such a fool as to, think your pity could set me on my
+legs again?’
+
+He turned away, moved by his own wrath and anguish, and Hornett, rising,
+made himself as small as he could in the corner beside the grate.
+Bommaney, in his pitiful broken boots, went shuffling up and down the
+room.
+
+‘What became of the money, sir?’ the clerk asked with a shaky voice.
+
+He was ready to run for his life, and he was more than half afraid that
+the old man was mad--his eyes blazed so, and his voice and gestures were
+so tempestuous.
+
+‘It was lost,’ said Bommaney. ‘I lost it, Heaven knows how. I’ve thought
+a thousand times,’ he said, through his clenched teeth, ‘that that young
+Barter must have had it.’
+
+‘Young Barter, sir?’ said Hornett.
+
+Then Bommaney told all he knew of the story of his own loss, and at a
+certain point in the narrative Hornett started and made a step forward.
+He remembered the night well enough--he had reason to remember it. An
+appointment for the theatre that evening had led him to call upon a
+brother clerk in Gable Inn, and he had seen young Mr. Barter leaving his
+chambers in what had struck him at the time as being an odd and stealthy
+fashion. He had remarked it for the moment, and had forgotten it
+afterwards, as men forget a thousand things of the sort which have
+no interest personal to themselves. But now he saw young Mr. Barter’s
+figure with a singular distinctness, and the face turned round in the
+gaslight was again as visible as it had been at the moment. He thought
+he read a meaning in it now. But for this slight confirmation of
+his employer’s story he would probably have disbelieved it, but the
+accidental character of the clue weighed with him, an apparent touch of
+romance in it gave it a value beyond its merits.
+
+‘Could you tell me, sir,’ he asked, ‘exactly what time it was when you
+left Mr. Barter’s office?’
+
+‘No,’ said Bommaney, suddenly weary after his outburst of
+self-exculpation, ‘I don’t know. It was after banking hours. It was
+dark; he had to light the gas. What if I could? What would that have to
+do with it?’
+
+‘Well, you see, sir,’ Hornett answered, ‘I’m not likely to forget that
+evening. Of all the evenings of my life, sir, I made a call at Gable Inn
+myself, sir, at Number One. If young Mr. Barter had found the notes
+he wouldn’t care to face you again, and he mightn’t have answered your
+knock at the door, though he might have heard it.’
+
+‘Any fool could tell me that,’ said Bommaney roughly. ‘What do you
+mean?’
+
+‘I’ve noticed, sir,’ said Hornett, with marked humility, as if he
+apologised for having said anything, ‘that young Mr. Barter is a
+gentleman who goes about in rather a large way, and noisy way, sir. He’s
+a biggish man, as it is, and to look at him at first you’d fancy that he
+was bigger than he is. He talks very loud and cheery, sir, and he bangs
+things about a good deal.’
+
+‘Well?’ said Bommaney, irritated by these slow preliminaries, ‘what
+about it all?’
+
+He could see that his late clerk was leading to a point of some sort,
+and listened with a growing impatience.
+
+‘He was leaving his rooms that night, sir,’ said Hornett, ‘as sly as a
+cat. I was just on the ground-floor of Number One as he was locking
+the door behind him. Locking it, don’t you see, sir,’ said Hornett,
+beginning to be fired by his imagination, and speaking eagerly, ‘so as
+not to make a noise in pulling it to behind him. I suppose I made some
+sort of a noise in going behind him, but any way, he looked up at me--I
+can see him now!’ he cried, with a swift conviction, ‘as if he was here
+at this very minute, white and cowardly. That’s what he was, sir. White
+and cowardly, I can see him now.’
+
+Bommaney grasped him by the wrist.
+
+‘Do you remember the time?’ he asked, passing one hand confusedly
+through the tumbled and disgraceful old locks of his hair. ‘Do you
+remember when I left the office? Do you remember when you left it?’
+
+‘Almost directly, sir, after you. But you drove, sir, and I walked. I
+stopped, and had a little conversation with a friend, and just a social
+glass that might have kept me back five minutes, sir. I was going to
+dine with Mr. Marshall (White and Fielding’s Mr. Marshall, sir) before
+the theatre.’
+
+Bommaney released his wrist, and dropping on his knees before the fire
+again, warmed his hands absently and stared into the blaze.
+
+‘The notes were all hundreds, James,’ he said, after a pause. ‘They
+were stopped at the Bank, I know, because I saw the advertisement. It
+wouldn’t be easy to get rid of them.’
+
+‘There are ways and means, sir,’ said Hornett. ‘They’d have to be
+disposed of at a loss, of course--a heavy loss--and kept quiet for a
+considerable time.’
+
+‘Have you heard of any of them coming into circulation?’ asked Bommaney.
+
+‘I haven’t been in the way to hear of anything, sir,’ the clerk answered
+mournfully, ‘but,’ with a sidelong look at his old employer, ‘if I could
+only get to look a bit respectable, I could make inquiries in an hour. I
+have no doubt I could find out, sir.’
+
+‘My boy believes I’m guilty, like the rest,’ said the old man, moaning
+and shivering and coughing again. The passion of his protest and the
+warmth of heart which Hornett’s returning confidence had taught him
+had all died away, and he was his bankrupt, disgraced, and broken self
+again, old and maudlin, and strickenly conscious of his miseries.
+
+‘Phil might help me,’ he said shakily. ‘He ‘could, but he won’t. He’s
+got plenty of money. If I’d been a rogue, James Hornett,’ and there he
+flashed up again, ever so little, ‘I could have robbed my own flesh and
+blood with safety. A rogue would have done it. I was his sole trustee,
+and I could have had nine thousand by a stroke of the pen at any
+minute.’
+
+‘Mr. Phil, sir,’ said Hornett ‘Mr. Phil hasn’t got much money left’
+
+‘Why not?’ the old man asked, staring round at him with his watery eyes.
+
+‘He paid Mr. Brown the eight thousand in full, sir, and divided the
+rest, as far as it would go, amongst the poorest of the creditors.’
+
+Bommaney turned back towards the fire, and drooped there. He seemed very
+impassive under this intelligence, but he was deeply moved by it all
+the same. The sense of his son’s high feeling of honour gave him a
+keen throb of pride, and then he thought bitterly that his own ill-luck
+pursued his offspring.
+
+The loss was double. It had disgraced and ruined him, and had robbed his
+son of his inheritance.
+
+‘Hornett,’ he said, ‘James Hornett.’
+
+‘Yes, sir.’
+
+‘I was brought up,’ the old man said, in a muffled voice, advancing and
+retiring his hands before the fire, and chafing them automatically, ‘I
+was brought up by Christian parents. I never did a dishonourable act in
+all my days. I have been a God-fearing man and a--a steady church-goer.
+I give it all up. I renounce it. I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe
+in religion. I don’t believe in being honest. It’s a--it’s a vile wicked
+world, Hornett, and it’s my belief the devil rules it.’
+
+‘Oh, sir,’ cried Hornett,’ you mustn’t talk like this, sir. You must
+excuse me speaking free, sir, but I can’t stand by and hear you talk
+like that. I can’t listen to it, sir--I can’t really. I’ve never said
+a disrespectful word to you, Mr. Bommaney, but I really must speak out
+now, sir. It isn’t respectable, sir, to talk like that.’
+
+After this there was a long silence, and Bommaney, who had repouched the
+bottle after his last application to it, consulted it again, and handed
+it wordlessly to Hornett, without looking at him.
+
+‘Phil might,’ he murmured in a while--’ he might be brought to believe
+me. He’s an honest man himself, James--a very honest high-minded man
+indeed. I must look where he lives,’ he murmured, seeking for the
+envelope his son had given him. ‘He gave me his address.’
+
+‘His address, sir,’ said Hornett. ‘You could almost lay your hand on
+him. He lives there. That’s his window with the light in it.’ Bommaney
+moved to the window, and followed with his glance the direction of
+Hornett’s outstretched finger. There was a window a few feet higher than
+the one at which he stood, and half-hidden from observation by a stone
+parapet. A shadow obscured the light, and moved about the ceiling,
+visible from below.
+
+‘I saw him there to-night, sir,’ said Hornett ‘I saw his face at the
+window. He put a glass of flowers outside. That’s his shadow moving
+about there now.’
+
+‘Phil!’ groaned the wretched father, straining his dirty wasted hands
+together. ‘Phil!’
+
+‘I’m not the figure, sir,’ said Hornett, ‘to call upon a gentleman like
+Mr. Phil; nor yet are you, sir, if you’ll excuse my saying so. But if
+you’d let me go, sir, and put the case to him, he might come and see
+you here, sir, and you might set yourself straight with him, sir, which
+would at least,’ the seedy man added, somewhat moved by the old man’s
+tears and tremblings, ‘be an advantage to a father’s heart.’
+
+Bommaney stood in silence, looking upward. The moving shadow settled
+itself upon the ceiling in a huge silhouette, distinctly traceable.
+There was no doubting it was Phil’s dear head that threw the shadow,
+himself invisible, so near, so far. The foolish outcast’s heart ached
+bitterly, and he stretched both hands towards the shadow, not knowing
+that he moved.
+
+‘Shall I venture, sir?’ asked Mr. Hornett, more moved than ever, and
+coughing to clear a little huskiness in the throat. ‘Shall I venture,
+sir, to look in on Mr. Phil in the morning?’
+
+‘Yes, go, James,’ said Bommaney, sobbing outright by this time.
+‘Perhaps--perhaps he may believe me.’
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+When young Mr. Barter took time to think about things, he began,
+for more reasons than one, to be sorry. It is necessary for the due
+development of this history to go back a little, and to take up Mr.
+Barter on the day following the commission of his crime. The young man
+felt that he was unable to afford candour, and discreetly avoided the
+naming of his own action. Eight thousand pounds is a sum which most
+people would find tempting. Young Mr. Barter would never have found it
+tempting in the criminal way (though, if he had given his mind to
+the consideration, he could at any time have seen how enviable its
+unencumbered possessor might be) if he had not at the moment felt
+himself under considerable pressure. Mr. Barter’s fleshy and well-formed
+fingers were somewhat too familiar with the feel of cards. These fingers
+of his were peculiarly dexterous to look at, and had even an unnecessary
+braggadocio air of dexterity when he was engaged in his favourite
+occupation. Experienced people watched his shuffling and dealing with
+great care. In Mr. Barter’s frank and engaging countenance, and in that
+ready smile in which the faultless teeth shone so conspicuously, there
+was no hint of danger to the most unwary. Even the wariest, listening
+to his genial mellow laughter, and seeing the jolly shoulders shake with
+mirth, were inclined to think him a loyal honest-hearted fellow. His
+loud swagger, his frank rollicking gait, his hail-good-fellow-well-met
+shake of the hand, the other hand clapped upon the shoulder, the noisy
+greeting, and that unfailing smile, not merely disarmed suspicion, but
+made the mere fancy of it impossibly absurd. But young Mr. Barter had
+accustomed himself to associate with people whose experiences had forced
+them to be observant, and to these the dexterous caressing fingers with
+which he manipulated all instruments employed in games of chance seemed
+to justify a fairly constant watchfulness. The fingers handled the cards
+as if they loved them, as if they had been accustomed to them from the
+cradle. The tips turned back a good deal, and the nails hooked a little
+forward. There were little bulbs of tact at every tip, the hands were
+made for a gambler, and could by no possibility have belonged to anybody
+else.
+
+The chief ground for the young man’s sorrow may be very easily and
+briefly stated. The packet which the unfortunate cruelly-tempted
+Bommaney had let fall in his half-drunken abstraction on the floor of
+young Mr. Barter’s private room was made up exclusively, as we know
+already, of notes for one hundred pounds.
+
+Now Bank of England notes for one hundred pounds, though valuable, and
+easily enough employed in all civilised countries when honestly come by,
+are only to be got rid of when dishonestly acquired at great risk and
+loss. A note for a mere five pounds may pass through scores of hands
+before being stopped at the bank. Tens, so the experienced in such
+matters will tell you, are a little difficult. Twenties are inquired
+into rather carefully. Fifties are positively dangerous to handle
+in this way. Hundreds are, except after great lapse of time, almost
+impossible; and as for a thousand, a man might almost as well steal a
+white elephant as a bank-note of that value, except that it will cost
+him nothing for keep, unless you count the tremor of soul and nerve,
+which is surely worth something, in which a man criminally possessed of
+another’s property is almost certain to live.
+
+Mr. Barter, then, had eight thousand pounds in ready money, was liable,
+if discovered, to penal servitude, and was unable to touch a farthing
+of his ill-got gains. There are many men in the world, the world’s
+experience proves it hourly, who set so small a price upon their
+self-respect, that they will sell it for a shilling, for a drink, for
+a word. But there is hardly any man so lost to the natural human desire
+for self-approval that he will actually give away his self-respect for
+nothing. Now this absurd transaction young Mr. Barter, when he took time
+to think about things, appeared to himself to have made.
+
+He was not, and never had been, a great reader; he gave up his mind to
+pursuits which he found more attractive than the tranquil fields and
+lanes of literature. Yet he remembered, in a dim sort of way, either
+that he had read somewhere in his schoolboy days, or that a fanciful old
+nurse had told him, a story of a person somewhere, who, being possessed
+of a great chest of money, went one day to look at it, and found
+that his hard cash had changed to withered leaves. Precisely such a
+transformation had overtaken that eight thousand pounds, at the moment
+when it had fallen from the hands of a man who might have made an honest
+use of it. The fable was, and was not, true, so far as he remembered,
+and his fancy dwelt curiously about the history. There was no
+possibility of turning back the withered leaves to gold, and making them
+jingle and glitter again as only one’s own ready money can jingle and
+glitter. But, useless as these crisp and rustling leaves of paper were
+to him, they held still all their old potentialities, and in the hands
+of honest men or courageous rascals each leaf might still transmute
+itself into a hundred golden emblems of sovereignty and power. He was
+neither that honest man nor that courageous rascal, and the money grew
+to be a sort of devilish tantalising fetish to him. Before he had owned
+it a fortnight, he had felt a hundred times he could have burned it out
+of the exasperation of mere spite against it.
+
+He heard, of course, of Bommaney’s flight, and of the failure of the
+old-established business house. People talked about these things a
+good deal for a time, and he himself listened to and took part in many
+speculations as to Bommaney’s whereabouts, and the means he would take
+to get rid of the notes and make them available for his own purposes.
+He found it at first a little trying to the nerves. There was nothing,
+since Bommaney had accepted his own disgrace and run away, to connect
+young Mr. Barter with the lost eight thousand pounds, yet it took much
+courage, and a considerable amount of inward spurring, to bring himself
+to talk about the business. When a man carries a secret of a quite
+harmless nature, it happens often, as almost everybody knows, that
+casual words and quite innocent glances startle him with hints of
+understanding and participation. What is it when the detection of the
+secret involves open shame and penal servitude? Can a man of genuine
+courage be a thief? Is not courage after all at the very bottom of all
+manly honour, of all sound honesty, all true self-respect? How shall a
+thief be other than a lurking cur, whose whole soul, such as it is,
+is bent to a mean suspicion that he is suspected, a continuous
+terror-stricken watchfulness, a sleeping and waking dread of an awful
+hand-clap on the shoulder? There are constitutional differences in
+thieves, no doubt, as there are in other people, but the key-note of the
+dishonest man’s whole thought is fear. When, after a day or two, young
+Mr. Barter had accustomed himself to speak of Bommaney and the lost
+eight thousand, and had often spoken of them, he began to look out
+for suggestions that might be useful to himselt He even led the way at
+times, and speaking to solicitors and barristers of extensive criminal
+experience, he asked often, for example, how could a scoundrel get rid
+of such a clumsy handful? Why didn’t the fool cash the notes, he would
+ask contemptuously, before he left town, and before he was suspected?
+Everybody knew of course that the notes had not been presented, and
+their numbers were advertised in all the daily papers. Now what could a
+fellow do who had them, by Jingo? What _could_ he do? There was no
+way open, so far as young Mr. Barter could see, and he was wonderfully
+engaging and innocent of the world’s wickeder ways as he talked thus
+with the ablest of his fellow professionals.
+
+The fellow professionals cited cases. There was Rosenthal, a noted
+receiver in his day, to whom a dishonest clerk had sold five thousand
+pounds for five hundred. Rosenthal had held the notes for six years, and
+had then put them cautiously on the Continental market. He was an old
+hand, was Rosenthal, and very clever and leary, but they had bowled him
+out. The clerk was wanted on another charge, and turned Queen’s
+evidence against the receiver. Almost all the stories had this kind of
+termination, because the legal gentlemen whom young Mr. Barter consulted
+remembered mainly cases in which they or their friends had been engaged,
+or cases which had resulted in criminal proceedings. Others there
+certainly were, but they were vague and necessarily without those
+guiding particulars which he desired.
+
+It has been already hinted that the young man was a gambler, and it is
+likely that most of the reasons which made the money seem so welcome to
+him had their sources at the gaming table. He belonged to one of those
+clubs which deserve to be numbered among the blessings of
+modern society--where men do not meet for social intercourse and
+good-fellowship, or for dining purposes, or for any of the common and
+amiable reasons which draw men into club-life, but simply and purely
+to the end that they may win one another’s money. It was a joint-stock
+swindling company to which young Mr. Barter belonged, and within its
+limits every man proposed to himself to get the better of every other
+man by such means as lay in his power. A pigeon got in amongst them
+every now and then, of course--came in well-feathered and went out
+plucked, but for the main part the rooks pecked hungrily at one another,
+and made but little of their time and pains. The one solitary advantage
+of these corporations is that they gather the depredatory birds
+together, and lead them to prey upon themselves instead of wandering
+abroad for the defeathering of the innocent and artless who abound
+even in these days. The well-constituted mind can hardly fail to take
+pleasure in the contemplation of these resorts, where Greek meets Greek
+(in the modern French sense as well as the old heroic)--where scoundrel
+encounters scoundrel, and learns that the pleasure of being cheated is
+by no means so great as that of cheating.
+
+There were people of widely ranging social position in this curious
+contingent. One or two men of title, and one or two of the highest
+social or commercial respectability, lent their names for some
+inconceivable reason to grace the front page of the neatly-bound little
+volume of rules which govern, or sometimes fail to govern, the conduct
+of the corporation. Mr. Barter rubbed shoulders with young men--very
+young men they were--who would one day have handles to their names, and
+enjoy the control of considerable estates. He sat at the same table with
+men whose birth and antecedents, like those of the immortal Jeames, were
+shrouded in a mystery. He met men of his own position, who like himself
+were desperately glad of being numbered in the same club society with
+men eminent on the turf, or familiar in the gilded saloons of the great.
+He liked to think of those gilded saloons; it might be interesting
+to know what he thought they resembled--most probably a somewhat
+old-fashioned earthly paradise of ormolu. He bragged indefatigably
+of his club and the people whom he met there. He dated all his private
+correspondence from it, and spent hundreds of daylight hours above the
+ivories and the pasteboard.
+
+At the time of that foolish and weak-willed Bommaney’s disaster there
+were two or three I.O.U.’s for sums much more considerable than he
+could afford to part with in the hands of his fellow-members. Law is a
+necessity to human society. Even a band of brigands can’t hang together
+without it. Debt, outside the club, was by no means a thing to be
+harshly spoken of, but debt to a fellow-member was a literal millstone
+round a man’s neck, and would sink him out of sight in no time.
+
+The elder Barter had gone over to the majority, despatched by that
+street accident, and if the old man had known nothing of the young man’s
+courses, he had had it in his power to make him well-to-do. But he had
+paid his debts once at least, and had more than once had occasion to
+grieve over the boy’s handling of the firm’s money, and so had made his
+will entirely in his wife’s favour, leaving his son dependent upon her
+good graces. The mother was disposed to be a little sterner than the
+father had been. Perhaps if young Barter had dreaded her less poor
+Bommaney’s fallen notes might have been returned to him.
+
+But, to get on with the story, the young man’s chief creditor at the
+club was one Steinberg, a gentleman whose time appeared to be absolutely
+at his own disposal, though he was known by some of his fellow-members
+to have an address in Hatton Garden, and to be more or less of a diamond
+merchant there. He often carried about with him, in a pocket-book, or
+in neat little packages of grocer’s gay paper, borne in the
+waistcoat-pocket, a collection of gems of considerable value, and would
+show them to his intimates with the _insouciance_ of a man who was
+accustomed to handling things of price. He never was without money, made
+little journeys at times, which rarely took him away from town for more
+than a day or two, and was, almost always, wholly unoccupied except for
+the cards.
+
+Now young Barter had a prodigious idea of this gentleman’s astuteness.
+He had no particular belief in his honesty, and he believed him, not
+altogether unreasonably as the sequel proved, to be initiated into most
+of the mysteries of modern rascality. This was merely a general notion,
+based upon statements made by Steinberg himself, and supported by the
+opinion of his intimates. Nobody spoke ill of Steinberg; it was only
+understood that there was no move upon the board with which he was not
+familiar. Young Barter, meeting him one evening at the club, whilst
+Bommaney’s disappearance was still a fresh topic of town conversation,
+spoke to him about it, with an assurance clearly begotten of practice.
+
+‘Now, look here, Steinberg,’ he said, in his open and engaging way.
+‘Suppose you’d nobbled those notes, what should you do with ‘em?’
+
+Perhaps Mr. Steinberg resented the form of this inquiry. But be that as
+it may, he responded with some tartness,
+
+‘Suppose you’d nobbled them?’
+
+At this chance thrust young Barter turned curiously red and white, and
+had some ado to recover that open smile of his.
+
+‘Hang it,’ he said, ‘you can’t suppose I meant it that way. But,’ with a
+half-hysteric courage, ‘suppose you had--suppose I had--suppose anybody
+had--what would he do? You, I, anybody?’
+
+Mr. Steinberg sipped at his lemon squash--he drank that inspiring
+liquid all the year round, and nothing else until cards for the day
+were over--and puffed at his cigar, and looking young Barter full in the
+face, nodded and smiled with an odd mingling of meaning and humour.
+
+‘Put him on to me,’ he said, with perfect affability. ‘I’ll put him up
+to it.’
+
+‘Rather dangerous, wouldn’t it be?’ said Barter, showing his white teeth
+in a somewhat forced and ghastly manner.
+
+‘Everything’s dangerous for an ass,’ said Steinberg.
+
+‘I shouldn’t have thought,’ laughed Barter, ‘that that was your line.’
+
+He spoke as jestingly as he could, but he knew that his laugh was
+forced, and that the voice in which he spoke was unlike his voice of
+every day, and he wished, with the whole of his quaking heart, that he
+had left the theme alone.
+
+‘Well, no,’ said Steinberg, ‘I suppose you wouldn’t.’ He sipped his
+liquor through a straw, and blew half a dozen rings of smoke from his
+lips with practised dexterity, and kept a glittering German-Jewish eye
+on Barter. Perhaps he meant something by the glance, perhaps he meant
+nothing. He was a rather Machiavelian and sinister-looking personage,
+was Mr. Steinberg, and there was something even in the calm expression
+of those perfectly-formed rings of smoke and in the very way in which,
+he sipped his liquor, and most of all in the observant glitter of his
+eye, which spoke of a penetration and shrewdness very far out of the
+common. More and more young Barter wished that he had not broached this
+theme with Steinberg.
+
+He could not help it for his soul. He could feel that his colour was
+coming and going with a dreadful fluttering alternation. He quailed
+before the Israelitish eye so shrewdly cocked at him, and when in a very
+spasm of despair he tried to meet it, he was so abjectly quelled by it
+that he felt his face a proclamation of his secret.
+
+Steinberg went on sipping and smoking, and said nothing; but when the
+young scoundrel, his companion, had somewhat recovered himself and dared
+again to look at him, there was the same shrewd and wary glint in his
+eyes.
+
+Young Barter had been unhappy enough before this, but after it the money
+became a burden hateful and horrible. He met Steinberg often, and
+forced himself to be noisy in his company. In his dread of seeming
+low-spirited, or ill at ease, he said things about his dead father which
+he would have left unsaid, had he consulted the little good that was
+left in him; and Steinberg seemed to watch him very closely.
+
+Young Barter put off his creditor with promises. He would have lots of
+money by and by. That seemed credible enough in the position of affairs,
+and Steinberg waited. In a while, however, he became exigent, and
+declined any longer to be satisfied with promises. One night the unhappy
+rascal, playing all the more because of his troubles, all the more
+wildly, and certainly all the worse, fell back upon his LO.U.’s.
+Steinberg followed him from the club. It was late, and the streets were
+very quiet.
+
+‘This won’t do, you know, Barter,’ said Steinberg, tapping him on the
+shoulder as they walked side by side.
+
+‘Begad it won’t,’ said young Barter, doing his best to make light of it.
+‘They’ve been cutting into me pretty freely this past week or two.’
+
+‘Well,’ said Steinberg, puffing at his eternal cigar, and looking askant
+at Barter under the light of a street-lamp which they happened to be
+nearing at the moment, ‘what you’ve got to do, you know, is to find the
+man who knows Mr. Bommaney.’
+
+The commotion which assailed Barter at this speech was like an inward
+earthquake.
+
+‘What--what do you mean?’ he panted.
+
+‘That’s what you’ve got to do,’ said Steinberg tranquilly.
+
+‘Do you mean to insinuate----’ Barter began to bluster; but the older,
+cooler, and more accomplished scoundrel stopped him contemptuously.
+
+‘You know where they are,’ he said ‘Why don’t you get at ‘em?’
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+About noon on the following day Mr. Steinberg, seated in a small
+inner chamber in Hatton Garden, leisurely answering his sole business
+correspondent of that morning, was in no way surprised when the boy he
+employed to open the door and receive visitors brought in a card bearing
+the name of ‘Mr. John Barter, jun.’
+
+‘Show him in,’ said Mr. Steinberg; and young Mr. Barter, hearing this
+in the outer room, came in with a pale-faced and excited alacrity. The
+diamond merchant dismissed the boy with a word.
+
+‘Well,’ he said, turning the tip of his cigar upwards by a protrusion of
+the under lip, ‘what is it?’
+
+‘About that little matter,’ said young Barter nervously, ‘we were
+talking of last night.’
+
+‘The little matter we were talking of last night?’ asked Steinberg idly,
+looking at him with half-shut eyes. ‘That hundred you owe me?’
+
+‘Well, perhaps that afterwards,’ said Barter with a frightened
+breathless laugh in his voice. ‘But about the other matter first.’
+
+‘The other matter?’ Steinberg asked, in a lazier manner than before.
+‘What other matter?’ He took up his pen, dipped it in the inkstand
+before him, and tracing a line or two of his correspondent’s
+communication with it, turned to his own unfinished letter.
+
+Young Barter was already sufficiently agitated, and this curious
+reception made him more embarrassed than ever.
+
+‘About that affair of Bommaney’s,’ he said, feeling as if a rapid wheel
+had been somehow started in his brain.
+
+‘Ah!’ said Steinberg, writing rapidly, and speaking in a voice which
+seemed to indicate that he neither understood nor cared to understand,
+‘that affair of Bommaney’s, eh?’
+
+This reception was nothing less than dreadful to the young criminal. He
+had reckoned on having his way made easy for him. Steinberg had actually
+offered to become his accomplice in crime, and had lured him to
+disclosure. He could have wished that the floor would open and let
+him through. He saw that he had already exposed his hand, and began to
+imagine all manner of consequences resulting from the exposure. Not one
+of the consequences he foresaw promised to be of a nature agreeable to
+himself, and for the moment the hatred with which Steinberg inspired him
+was of so mad a nature that there was nothing he would not have done to
+him if he had had the courage and the power.
+
+Steinberg wrote on, shaking his fist in what seemed to be an unusual
+alert, and even threatening, manner. There was a great deal of
+unnecessary motion in Steinberg’s hand, and Barter, looking at its swift
+and resolute movements, got a blind sort of impression of strength out
+of it, and nullified the feeling with which it inspired him. The letter
+written, enveloped, addressed, and stamped, Steinberg tossed it on one
+side, and leaning back in his arm-chair, turned an uninterested look
+once more upon his visitor.
+
+‘That affair of Bommaney’s,’ he said. ‘What was that?’
+
+Mr. Barter thought this inquiry altogether too barefaced, and responded,
+with a hectic flush of courage,
+
+‘Come, Steinberg, don’t play the fool with a fellow. You know jolly well
+what it was last night.’
+
+Mr. Steinberg’s keen and impassive face underwent no change.
+
+‘What did I know last night?’ he asked.
+
+‘You know,’ Barter began angrily; and then the hectic flush of courage
+died, and a dreadful chill of fear succeeded it. What had he known? He
+had only guessed--till now. But now, young Mr. Barter felt, to employ
+the expressive ideas of his set, that he had given himself away.
+Steinberg capped the question in his mind. What did I know last night?
+
+‘You haven’t come to waste your time or mine, I suppose? You’ve come to
+say something. Why not say it?’
+
+His guest, sitting in a terrible confusion, and feeling himself
+altogether betrayed and lost, Steinberg marched to the door, and
+addressing the boy in the outer room, bade him carry the letter to the
+post and return no more that day. Then, having locked the outer door, he
+returned and resumed his seat.
+
+‘Now, what is it?’ he asked.
+
+Barter, recognising the fact that his own purpose was already exposed,
+made a desperate dash.
+
+‘About those notes old Bommaney was supposed to have run away with. I
+think--I think, mind you, that if there was any way of using them, I
+could lay my hands upon them.’
+
+‘I remember,’ said Steinberg, ‘you said something of the kind last
+night. I shouldn’t advise you to touch ‘em. It’s a dangerous game.
+They’re very worthless, and the game isn’t worth the candle.’
+
+‘Worthless?’ echoed Barter. ‘They’re worth eight thousand pounds.’
+
+‘They’re worth eight thousand pounds,’ responded Steinberg, ‘to the man
+they belong to. They’re not worth eight hundred to anybody else.’
+
+Young Mr. Barter’s whole soul seemed to rise in protest against this
+abominable fallacy. When he had screwed up his courage so far as to
+induce himself to accept this older and more experienced scoundrel’s
+partnership, he had conceived the possibility of the partner crying out
+for halves. But that he should want so enormous a share of the spoil was
+quite intolerable.
+
+‘Not worth eight hundred?’ He could only gasp the questioning protest.
+
+‘If I had ‘em to sell,’ Steinberg answered calmly, flicking the waste
+from his cigar by a movement of his little finger, ‘I should think eight
+hundred an uncommon good price for ‘em. Later on and sold at second hand
+they might fetch a thousand. Later on and sold at third hand they might
+fetch fifteen hundred. One can hardly tell. Of course the value will go
+on mounting with distance from the original source of danger and with
+the lapse of time.’
+
+He said all this very calmly and reflectively, and young Barter,
+collecting his whirling wits as well as he could, tried a stroke of
+diplomacy, which, as he fondly hoped, would answer a double purpose.
+
+‘She’ll never let them go for that, or for anything like it.’
+
+‘She won’t, won’t she?’ asked Steinberg, smiling brightly, as if the
+statement amused him. ‘Then she’ll never let ‘em go at all, my friend.
+How did you come to find she had ‘em?’
+
+‘I made a little bit of a discovery,’ Barter answered.
+
+‘Ah! That was it, was it,’ said the elder rascal, falling back into his
+utter want of interest. ‘You’ll let me have that hundred.’
+
+‘I will in a day or two,’ answered Barter, _arréanti_.
+
+‘Well, as for a day or two,’ returned Steinberg, rubbing his forehead
+with the tips of his fingers, and looking very careless and composed,
+‘I’m really very much afraid I can’t let you have it. It’s been
+outstanding a goodish time, and to tell you the truth, old man, I want
+it very badly. If you’ll let me have it to-night I shall be obliged to
+you. I’ve been hit rather hard this last day or two. Shall we make that
+a bargain? To-night?’
+
+‘I--I’m afraid,’ Barter stammered, ‘it’s no use talking about to-night.’
+
+‘Well,’ said Steinberg, with a pitiless uninterested suavity, ‘you know
+the rules.’
+
+He drew a little book from his pocket, and tossed it over the table to
+his guest.
+
+‘You’ll find it on page five. Rule fourteen. It’s ticked in red ink, if
+you’ll take the trouble to look at it.’
+
+Barter opened the book and consulted its pages blindly for a while, and
+then the mist which seemed to obstruct brain and eyesight clearing away,
+he read the pages indicated. It set forth the principle that all moneys
+lost at games of skill or chance, or upon bets made within the limits
+of the club, were payable within four-and-twenty hours. It set forth
+further that debts not paid within that time might be brought under the
+notice of the Committee, who were empowered to act under Rule nine. Rule
+nine ordained the public posting of the defaulter’s name, his suspension
+in default of payment, and, in case of continued obduracy or poverty,
+his expulsion.
+
+‘First and last, Steinberg,’ said the wretched criminal, who began to
+find the way of the transgressor unreasonably hard and thorny, ‘first
+and last, you’ve had a pretty tidy handful of money out of me.’
+
+‘Well, yes,’ said Steinberg tangibly. ‘Pretty fair.’
+
+His very admission of this fact made Barter’s case seem hopeless to
+himself. If he had brow-beaten, or blustered, if he had shown anger or
+impatience, or had been querulous, there might have seemed to exist some
+slenderest chance for him. But Steinberg was so unmoved that he seemed
+immovable.
+
+‘You’d better persuade her,’ he said, with a scarcely perceptible grin.
+Looking at Barter, and observing that he sat with his eyes still bent
+upon the book of rules, and head dejected, he allowed the grin to
+broaden. Barter, suddenly looking up at him, saw him smiling like a
+gargoyle, with a look of infinitely relishing cruelty and cunning.
+
+‘You won’t find her hard to persuade, I’m sure,’ said Steinberg. ‘Come,
+now, I’ll talk business to you. I’ll take ten of ‘em for it, and cry
+quits, and I wouldn’t do that for anybody but a friend.’
+
+The frank admission of the value of his own friendship was plainly
+legible in that gargoyle smile, and the unhappy Barter read it clearly.
+
+‘I’ll--I’ll see what I can do with her,’ he said, with a face and voice
+of pure misery.
+
+‘Do, my boy,’ said Steinberg, rising, and swinging the key of his
+chambers upon his forefinger, ‘see what you can do with her. I shan’t
+send any notification to the Committee before nine o’clock, old chap.
+You can trust me for that. You go off at once, old fellow, and see what
+you can do for her.’
+
+The fraudulent possessor of the notes felt their burthen more than ever
+insupportable. He rose, and went his way with remorse and rage and the
+bitterness of baffled stratagem in his heart. His wounded mind soared to
+so lofty a height of egotism in its struggles that he positively found
+the impudence to curse Bom-maney for having dropped the notes in
+his office. Then he cursed himself for having taken them, and cursed
+Steinberg for robbing him, and so moved off in a condition quite
+pitiable to one who could find the understanding and the heart to pity
+him.
+
+Steinberg stopped behind, and smoked smilingly. He was the successful
+scoundrel, and found the transaction as sweet as the young Barter found
+it bitter.
+
+‘I don’t think hell have much trouble with her,’ he said to himself; and
+he enjoyed that little jest so much that he caught himself smiling at it
+a hundred times in the course of the afternoon and evening.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+Old Brown, who was one of the sunniest-natured of men, went gloomy when
+the news of his old friend’s dreadful fall came to his ears. It does him
+no more than justice to say that he mourned Bommaney senior infinitely
+more than the money. He liked to trust people, and had all his life long
+been eager to find excuses for defaulters. He could find no excuse here.
+The theft was barefaced, insolent, dastardly. He puzzled over it, and
+grew more cynical and bitter in his thoughts of the world at large than
+he could have imagined himself. But then, when Bommaney junior came
+home, and insisted on the restoration of the missing eight thousand from
+his own small fortune, old Brown brightened up again. There was such
+a thing as honesty in the world, after all. The restoration warmed
+his heart anew. At first he fought against it, and would have none
+of it--the mere candid and honest offer of it was enough for him; but
+Philip was more resolute than himself, and the stronger man won. Phil
+should never have cause to repent his goodness, the old fellow declared
+to himself a thousand times. He should reap the proper reward of his own
+honour. Brown admired and loved Phil out of bounds for this little bit
+of natural honesty and justice. He thought there had never been a finer
+fellow in the world, and his heart warmed to him as if he had been a son
+of his own. As for that rascal of a father--and when he got so far in
+his thoughts he fumed so with wrath that he dared go no farther, and was
+compelled, for the sake of his own peace, to banish the friend of his
+schooldays from his mind a thousand times a week.
+
+It was about a year later than the disgrace of the house of Bommaney
+that old Brown, to his daughter’s perplexity and grief, began to show
+signs of trouble almost as marked as those he had displayed after his
+old friend’s defection. The old boy’s newspaper no longer interested him
+of a morning. He began to be lax about that morning ride which he had
+once regarded as being absolutely necessary to the preservation of
+health in London. He had been impassioned with the theatre, and had
+become a diligent attendant at first-night performances. Even these
+ceased to have any joy for him, and he neglected, in fine, all his old
+sources of amusement He went about sorrowful and grumpy, expressing the
+dolefullest opinions about everything. There was going to be war, stocks
+were going down, trade was crumbling, there was no virtue in man.
+
+Patty tried her best to coax him from these pessimistic moods, but
+the old boy was not to be persuaded. On fine evenings, when there was
+nothing better to be done, he had loved greatly, between the quiet
+old-fashioned tea and the quiet old-fashioned supper, to dress for out
+of doors, and with Patty on his arm to wander into Regent’s Park, and
+there inhale the best imitation of country atmosphere that London could
+afford. He dropped this amiable and affectionate habit, and took to
+rambling out alone, coming home late, and haggard, and not infrequently,
+at such times, staring at his daughter with an aspect so sorrowing and
+wretched that she knew not what to make of him.
+
+The girl, watching him with a constantly increasing solicitude, could at
+last endure this condition of affairs no longer. He came home one night,
+leaving neither his stick nor hat in the outer hall, and sat down in the
+dining-room, muffled and great-coated, the picture of dejection. Patty,
+kneeling before him, removed his hat, smoothed his hair, and began to
+unbutton his overcoat.
+
+‘Papa!’ she cried suddenly, ‘what _is_ the matter with you? Why are you
+so changed?’
+
+He breathed a great sigh, and laid his hand upon her head. Then he
+turned his face away from her--to hide his eyes, she fancied.
+
+‘You are in trouble,’ she went on. ‘It is not kind to keep it from me.
+Is it anything that I have done, or anything I could do.’
+
+‘No, no, my darling,’ he said softly, laying his hand upon her head
+again.
+
+‘Is it money, dear?’
+
+‘No, no. It isn’t money. Don’t talk about it, my dear. Don’t talk about
+it.’
+
+‘Now, papa, you make me think it very grave indeed.’
+
+‘There,’ he said, rising, ‘you shan’t see any more of it, and we’ll say
+no more about it Well be gay and bright again, and well hope that things
+will turn out for the best.’
+
+The attempt to be gay and bright again resulted in most mournful
+failure, and the girl grew frightened. She had nursed her fears for many
+days, and had hidden them.
+
+‘Papa!’ she said, trembling ever so little, ‘you must let me know what
+it is. Let us bear it together, dear. Whatever it may be it can’t matter
+very much if it leaves us two together--and----’
+
+‘Ah! ‘said old Brown, looking at her with a pitying smile.
+
+‘Is it anything----?’ She stopped short, and really found no courage to
+complete the question.
+
+‘My darling,’ he answered, folding her in his arms, and staring sadly
+over her shoulder. She felt the hands that embraced her quiver, and she
+knew he had understood her half-expressed query. This frightened her so
+much that it gave her boldness.
+
+‘There is something the matter with Phil,’ she said, pushing the old man
+away, and holding him at arm’s length. ‘Tell me what it is.’
+
+‘My dear,’ he answered, ‘you shouldn’t leap at conclusions in that way.’
+But the disclaimer was altogether too feeble to deceive her. Philip
+was the mysterious cause of her father’s trouble. Her wandering, pained
+eyes, her parted lips, the terror and inquiry in her face, frightened
+the old man. ‘No, no,’ he cried, ‘you must not think it too bad. I’m not
+sure of anything. I don’t suppose it’s at all a matter of consequence. I
+daresay he’s an old fool. I hope I am.’
+
+These hints and innuendoes were about the last thing in the world to
+satisfy a girl who had been made anxious about her lover.
+
+‘Tell me,’ she commanded. ‘I have a right to know. What has happened?’
+She was no more inclined to be jealous than girls who are in love
+commonly are. She had, indeed, a native fund of confidence, and her
+trust in Phil’s loyalty had been of the unquestioning sort, quite
+profound and settled. Yet for a moment there rose before her mental
+vision the dim picture of some possible rival, and at the mere hint of
+this she grew ashamed, and flamed into indignation against herself.
+
+‘Tell me,’ she said; ‘I insist on knowing.’
+
+‘Well, my dear,’ said the old man miserably and reluctantly, I’ve been
+told that his father hastened his own ruin with dice and cards.’ It
+was the first time he had mentioned Bommaney senior in his daughter’s
+hearing for a year. She looked at him with eyes still intent, but
+somehow milder and less alarmed. ‘Phil,’ the old boy continued, ‘I’m
+afraid that Phil is travelling in his father’s steps.’
+
+‘Phil a gambler!’ she said, with an honest scorn of conviction. ‘I know
+better. What makes you think it?’
+
+‘There are a lot of beastly clubs at the West End,’ said the old man,
+beginning to struggle with his overcoat, partly because he wished to
+avoid the girl’s look, and partly because the motion was a relief
+to him. ‘Gambling-places. Places where men meet for no other earthly
+purpose than to cheat one another. I’m as fond of a rubber at whist as
+anybody; but no honest man would put his head into one of those holes of
+infamy if he knew its character.’
+
+‘Are you speaking of Phil, papa?’ she asked. Her voice was low and
+tremulous, and there was almost a note of threatening in it. The
+gentlest creature will fight for her own--a fact for which some of us
+have reason to be grateful.
+
+‘Yes, my dear,’ her father answered with a kind of sullen sadness; ‘I’m
+talking about Phil. He’s a member of the vilest crowd of the whole
+lot, and he’s there night after night.’ He dashed his overcoat into an
+arm-chair with despairing anger, and went marching up and down the room.
+‘I saw him one night by accident as he was going in. I knew the place.
+You might have knocked me down with a feather. I’ve watched him there
+night after night. Don’t tell me I hadn’t the right to watch him. I had
+the right My little girl shan’t marry a gambler. I won’t have my fortune
+wasted by a gambler, and my child’s heart broken. I took a room,’ he
+pursued wrathfully, ‘opposite the place. I’ve sat there in the dark with
+the window open, and caught the d---- worst cold I ever had in my life
+watching for him. I’ve seen him go in again and again. He’s a lost man,
+I tell you,’ he cried in answer to his daughter’s look and gesture; ‘the
+man who has that vice in his blood is lost!’
+
+He was storming loudly, for he was one of those in whom emotion must
+have expression in noise, but a sudden loud peal at the bell cut short
+his harangue, and he and Patty stood in silence to know who it might be
+who called so late. As it happened, it was no other than the lost man
+himself. He was shown in according to wont and usage without previous
+announcement, and entered gay and smiling, elate and tender.
+
+As he looked from one to the other the expression of his face changed.
+He moved quickly towards Patty, and took her hands in his.
+
+‘There’s something the matter,’ he said gently. ‘You’re in trouble!’
+
+The old boy, glaring at him, growled, ‘We are,’ and snatching up his
+overcoat, threw it over his arm, and slipped his hat upon his head with
+a gesture which Philip took for one of defiance. As a matter of fact it
+expressed no more than wrathful grief, but then gesture and expression
+are hard to read unless you have the key to them.
+
+‘We’d better have it out, Phil,’ said the old man, ‘here and now. You’ve
+turned gambler, and I’ve found you out.’
+
+‘No,’ Phil answered, with an odd smile; ‘I haven’t turned gambler, I
+assure you. You’ve heard that I’ve joined the Pigeon Trap? That’s what
+they call it in the City. I prefer to call it the Hawks’ Roost. There
+are too few pigeons go there to be plucked to justify the other title,
+and I give you my word of honour, Mr. Brown, that I’m not one of them.’
+
+The young man’s air was candid and amused. There was an underlying
+gravity beneath the smile, and for people who had believed in him as
+devoutly as his two listeners it was hard to disbelieve him now.
+
+‘You’ve gone into the infernal hole,’ said old Brown, more than half
+abandoning suspicion, and yet inclined to leave it growlingly, as a dog
+might surrender a bone he conceived himself to have a right to. ‘What do
+you want there?’
+
+‘I want to do a very important stroke of business there, sir,’ Philip
+answered. The smile quite disappeared from his eyes at this moment, and
+he looked very grimly resolute. ‘I will tell you this much,’ he added,
+‘because you have a right to know it. I am in pursuit of a brace of
+scoundrels there. I think I’ve salted the tail of one of ‘em already.
+I believe with all my heart, sir, that I’m going to clear my father’s
+character, and I would go into worse places than the Pigeon Trap if I
+saw my way to doing that.’
+
+Patty of course was clinging to him without disguise by this time,
+anxious only to atone for having given an ear to any word against him,
+even for a moment. Phil put his arm about her waist and kissed her. He
+had never to his knowledge performed this act in the presence of a third
+person until now, but he got through it without embarrassment.
+
+‘You think you can clear your father’s character?’ asked his
+sweetheart’s father. There was a tinge of scepticism in his voice,
+though he tried to hide it.
+
+‘Yes, sir,’ said Phil, his head thrown back a little, and his eyes
+gleaming. Nobody had ever looked so handsome to Patty’s fancy as he did
+at that moment ‘I know already that there was no real stain upon his
+honour, and I’m surprised myself for thinking that there ever could have
+been, bad as things looked. My father never took wrongful possession of
+your money. He was robbed of it, and I think I can lay my hand upon the
+thief.’
+
+There was a prodigious excitement at this declaration, and the young man
+was overwhelmed with questions. He could name no names, of course,
+and give no clue, but he sketched the story. He contented himself by
+describing young Barter as Thief Number One, and he was satisfied to
+describe Steinberg as Probable Thief Number Two. He had learned, it
+appeared, that Thief Number One had succeeded on his father’s death to
+a carefully limited partnership in a business affair in the city. The
+guiding spirit in the concerns of Thief Number One had been his father’s
+managing clerk. The income of Thief Number One was strictly limited,
+and his actual control over the affairs of the firm was non-existent.
+Notwithstanding these facts, the young man was guilty of countless
+extravagances, and was a reckless gambler. Within the last twelve months
+he could hardly have paid away at the club less than a thousand pounds.
+He had been extremely hard up before the loss of the money, and it was
+in his offices that the roll of banknotes had been lost. As for Probable
+Thief Number Two, he played rook to Number One’s pigeon. He had a
+visible hold upon him; Number One trembled before him, and did what
+he was bidden to do. Number Two had plenty of money, and as shady a
+reputation as any man in London who was not among the known criminal
+classes. Phil’s belief was that Number Two was disposing of the notes
+for Number One, and that this simple fact accounted for his power over
+him.
+
+‘And I’m going to follow their track,’ said Phil, tapping the clenched
+knuckles of his right hand upon the open palm of his left with a quiet
+vehemence, ‘until I find out everything, if I follow it until I am
+gray.’
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+It would appear that a spider may be among the most daring, skilful, and
+predatory of his species, that he may be gifted with the most constant
+watchfulness and appetite, and yet, whether by the intrusion of
+an accidental walking-stick or broom (which would assuredly seem
+providential to the fly), or by stress of weather, or the desperate
+activity of a victim, may have his best laid schemes brought to
+nought, and his most mathematically laid web rent to tatters. In the
+entomological world a solitary interview between fly and spider is
+usually fatal to the one, and satisfactory to the other. But we of the
+higher developments, who model ourselves, or are modelled, upon the
+lines of myriads of remote ancestors, and far-away relatives, have
+refined upon their primitive proceedings, and have made their simple
+activities complex by development.
+
+In an absolutely primitive condition the Steinberg spider would have
+drained the Barter fly at a single orgie, and would have left him to
+wither on the lines. As things were, he came back to him with a constant
+gusto of appetite, tasting him on Monday, despatching him to buzz among
+his fellows until Saturday, and then tasting him again, the Barter fly
+seeming for a while--for quite a considerable time in fact--lusty and
+active and able-bodied, and looking as though this kind of thing might
+go on for ever without much damage to him, and the spider himself giving
+no sign of overtaxed digestive powers.
+
+Not to run this striking and original simile out of breath, the Barter
+fly endured for a round twelve months, without showing signs of anaemia
+so pronounced as to look dangerous to his constitution. At the end of
+that time, however, all the surplus blood had been drawn from his body,
+and the spider had grown so keen by the habit of constant recurrence to
+him that any prolonged connection between them began to look desperate.
+In plain English, the eight thousand pounds which had once so lightly
+passed from the hands of Mr. Brown to the hands of Mr. Bommaney had now
+passed, with just as little profit to the man who parted with them, from
+the hands of young Barter to the hands of Steinberg.
+
+It was just about the time when this lingering but inevitable
+transaction was completed that chance led young Barter to his encounter
+with the son of the man whose belongings he had appropriated. Everybody
+knows how apt newly-made acquaintances sometimes are to renew themselves
+again and again. You meet a man whom you have never seen before, see
+him just long enough to take a passing interest in him, and to know
+generally who and what he is, and you run against him on the morrow, and
+again on the morrow, and so on, until in a week he has grown as familiar
+to your thoughts as any other mere acquaintance of whose identity you
+may have been aware for years. This happened in the case of Philip
+Bommaney and younger Mr. Barter. They entered the Inn together, or left
+it together, or Philip ran upstairs or downstairs as Barter was in the
+very act of leaving or entering his chambers. Putting together a certain
+family resemblance which he thought he noticed, the identity of a rather
+uncommon name, and the curious frequency of these chance encounters,
+Barter found it hard to avoid the belief that his new-made acquaintance
+had a rather careful eye upon him. His nerve was a good deal shaken, and
+he was by no means the man he had been. To the unobservant stranger the
+frank gaiety of his laugh was as spontaneous as ever, but then that had
+never had much to do with Barter’s inward sensations. Perhaps he got the
+laugh in some remote fashion from an ancestor who really ought to have
+had it, and who may have been as dull and as little laughter-loving to
+look at as his successor was within. Philip rather took to the fellow
+at first sight, and was slow to suspect him, even when James Hornett
+had told his story. But the young Barter was not satisfied, as he
+should have been, with playing the part of one insect at a time. It
+was unwholesome enough, one might have thought, for him to play fly to
+Steinberg’s spider, and yet he must needs take to playing moth to Philip
+Bommaney’s candle, a light of danger to him, as he recognised almost
+from the first He was always polite to Phil, and always stopped him for
+a moment’s conversation at their chance encounters. Phil, having been
+inspired at least with a suspicion that this engaging young man was
+responsible for the actual disgrace which had fallen upon Bommaney
+senior, always bent a grave scrutiny upon him. Barter sometimes wondered
+whether his new-found acquaintance’s way of looking at him were habitual
+or particular, but he could never solve that problem. To Barter’s nerves
+the glance of dispassionate analysis always seemed to ask--Did you steal
+those notes? and whether his mind and nerves were at accord or no made
+but little difference to him. His mind rejected the idea of suspicion,
+but his nerves accepted it with trembling. He knew perfectly well that
+he could not endure the certainty of Phil Bommaney’s knowledge, but
+none the less he found the uncertainty tantalising and painful. This is
+perhaps one of the hardest things an undetected criminal has to endure,
+that he lives in a world of suspicion of his own making, where every
+imagination is real and as dreadful as the fact. In his own mind young
+Barter credited himself with courage when he made overtures for Philip’s
+companionship. In reality he made the overtures because he was a coward,
+and a braver scoundrel would have disdained them.
+
+Philip felt himself impelled to watch this young man, and was not
+altogether displeased that he found the opportunity thrust upon him.
+Almost facing the gateway of the old Inn there is an old-fashioned
+restaurant, deserted from its hour of opening until noon, and from then
+crowded inconveniently till two o’clock, deserted again till five, and
+once more inconveniently crowded till seven. Philip, having the power to
+choose his own time for meals, and frequenting this old house, sometimes
+met Barter in the act of coming away from it with the dregs of the
+stream of the late lunchers or diners. He fell into the habit of going
+a little earlier, and Barter would signal him to the table at which he
+sat, if by rare chance there happened to be a vacant seat at it. The
+young rascal’s tendency lay towards monologue, and since it was his cue
+to be open-hearted, and very unsuspicious of being suspected, he
+talked with much freedom of himself, his pursuits, and his affairs. The
+question which Barter’s nerves were always finding in Philip’s eyes was,
+as a matter of fact, not often absent from his mind. ‘Now, how did you
+steal those notes?’ was the one active query of his intelligence as he
+listened to Barter’s candid prattle.
+
+It was in the course of these confidences that Philip learned of the
+existence of that Pigeon Trap of which Mr. Barter was so proud to be an
+inhabitant. It was at Barter’s solicitation that he visited the place,
+and it was Barter who proposed him as a member.
+
+Being a member it was not long before he discovered the fact of
+Steinberg’s influence over the young solicitor. He noticed a terrified
+deference in Barter’s manner towards the other, a frightened alacrity of
+obedience to his suggestions. He noticed also that Steinberg and Barter
+played a good deal by themselves, and that Barter always lost.
+
+The men of Hawks’ Boost talked pretty freely about each other in the
+absence of such of their fellow clubmen as were under discussion. Barter
+was spoken of as Steinberg’s Mug, Berg’s Juggins, Stein’s Spoofmarker.
+It was generally admitted that Stein made a good thing out of him, and
+the wonder was where Barter got his money. There was a pretty general
+apprehension that the young man, at no very far future date, would come
+to grief. The contemplation of this probability affected the Boosters
+but little in an emotional way, but it made them keen to see that
+Mr. Barter paid up punctually, and though they were very shy of paper
+acceptances from their comrades as a general thing, they were shyer of
+his than of most men’s.
+
+These things Philip Bommaney junior attentively noted. At first the
+clubmen rather wondered at him. He was in their precincts often,
+and would smoke his pipe and watch whatever game might be going with
+tranquil interest, but he never played, and could not be induced to bet.
+_Que diable faisant-il dans cette gaière?_ the clubmen wanted to know.
+He never told them, and in a while they grew accustomed to him and
+his ways. He continued his quiet watch upon Mr. Barter, and included
+Steinberg in his field of observation. One evening, dining at the old
+restaurant, he marked Barter, melancholy and alone. He was sitting in an
+attitude of apparent dejection, tapping upon the table with a fork, and
+deep sunk in what seemed to be an uncomfortable contemplation. But when
+the moth saw his candle he brightened, and fluttered over to it.
+
+‘You might come over,’ said Barter, when they had sat together until the
+latest of the dining guests had gone away. ‘You might come over to my
+chambers and smoke a cigar if you’ve nothing else to do. I don’t care
+about going down to the club tonight.’
+
+The Steinberg spider was supposed to be waiting there, coldly patient
+and insatiable, and Barter dreaded him. Philip had never entered the
+rooms, but they had an attraction for him. He accepted his companion’s
+invitation, and they entered the chambers together. A fire lingered
+in the grate, and Barter replenished it, and, having produced a box of
+cigars and a bottle of cognac, proffered refreshment to his guest. The
+honest man began somewhat to recoil from himself and from his companion.
+What was he there for? The answer was pretty evident. There was nothing
+between this loud-babbling youth and himself which could have drawn them
+into even a momentary comradeship, if it had not been for the suspicion
+his father’s story had inspired in him. Frankly, he was there because he
+suspected the man, because he desired to watch him, because, if he found
+the chance, he was willing to set him in the dock. To smoke his tobacco
+and drink his liquor in those circumstances had undoubtedly an air of
+treachery. In a while he hardened himself, and closed his ears to all
+casuist pleadings, whether for or against the course he had adopted. He
+would clear his father if he could, and if there were any mere hope of
+doing it, he would watch this fellow as a cat watches a mouse, and would
+go on doing it until both of them were gray.
+
+‘By the way,’ said Barter innocently, ‘do you never take a hand at----’
+
+His supple fingers supplied the hiatus, dealing out an imaginary pack of
+cards with the flourishing dexterity native to them.
+
+‘That’s what I’m here for, is it?’ thought Philip in his own mind. ‘We
+shall see.’ He said aloud, ‘Sometimes,’ in an indifferent tone.
+
+‘There’s nothing worth seeing anywhere to-night,’ said young Barter.
+‘Suppose we try a hand. What do you say to a game at Napoleon?’
+
+Philip consented, and his host produced two packs of cards from the
+business safe.
+
+They fixed upon the points and they began to play. The points were not
+those for which Mr. Barter really cared to play; for he was one of those
+people who find no joy in cards unless they risk more than they can
+afford to lose. But little fish are sweet, and he thought he had
+secured a greenhorn. As it happened, the greenhorn, though he was
+but eight-and-twenty, had travelled the world all over, and had
+found himself compelled to survey mankind from China to Peru. He
+was, moreover, one of those men who like to know things, and those
+quietly-observant eyes of his had taken note of the proceedings of a
+hundred scoundrels in whose hands the redoubtable Steinberg himself
+would have had but poor chances. The Greek had been Philip’s standing
+joy, the dish best spiced to suit his intellectual palate. He had
+delighted over him aboard ship, on the monstrous dreary railway journey
+between Atlantic and Pacific, in the little towns which form the centre
+of scores of Texan ranches, in hells at the Cape and in California, in
+the free ports of China, and on the borders of the Bosphorus. In point
+of fact he was by experience as little fitted to be played upon by a
+gentleman of young Mr. Barter’s limited accomplishments as almost any
+man alive.
+
+Phil’s interest in the game had grown grimly observant in the first ten
+minutes. Young Mr. Barter had a knack, when he shuffled the cards,
+of slily inclining the painted sides upwards. He had another knack of
+leaving an honour at the bottom. He made a false cut with fair dexterity
+for an amateur. He could, when occasion seemed to make it profitable,
+discard with a fair air of unconsciousness. An ace dropped out of sight
+a hand or two earlier, was followed by a valueless card dropped openly.
+The ace was taken to supply its place with a perfect smiling effrontery.
+But Mr. Barter’s favourite trick came out when he had a weak hand. Then
+he smiled across at his opponent, breathed softly the words ‘six cards,’
+and dropped the worthless hand on the top of the pack, calling for a new
+deal All this Philip Bommaney watched with a complete seeming innocence
+and good temper. He lost his sixpences handsomely, made no protest, and
+looked unruffled.
+
+‘You play false for sixpences, do you?’ he said inwardly. ‘I suppose a
+scoundrel is a scoundrel all through, and that if you’ll sell your soul
+for so little, you could hardly object to driving a bargain for a larger
+sum.’
+
+He was often tempted in the course of a quarter of an hour to try Mr.
+Barter with a sudden challenge, and see what would come of it. Surveying
+his companion with that placid inquiry which Barter felt to be so
+excessively uncomfortable, he came to have but a poor opinion of his
+courage. He was one of those men who, even without knowing it, take
+profound observations of their fellow-creatures. The true observer of
+human nature is by no means a personage who is always on the strain
+after insight into character. He is, on the contrary, pretty generally
+an inward-looking man, who seems to notice little, and takes in his
+surroundings as the immortal Joey Ladle did his wine. Philip judged
+Barter to be a nervous man, and supposed him, even when strung to
+his bent, to have no great tenacity or continuance of courage. He had
+learned more and more to believe his father’s story, though he had
+perhaps too carefully guarded himself from his own eager desire to
+accept it Barter’s every action with the cards offered confirmation
+of the belief that he had taken possession of the lost notes. He
+was certainly a petty rascal, and there was obviously nothing but
+opportunity needed to make him bloom into a rascal on a larger scale. So
+the temptation to drop the cards upon the table, to look his companion
+in the face, and to ask simply, ‘How about that eight thousand pounds?’
+grew more and more upon him, and had to be more and more strenuously
+resisted. It seemed worth while to resist it To begin with, if young
+Barter should be innocent, the querist could evidently expect nothing
+else than to be taken for a madman. To continue, if his name and the
+likeness to his father had already set the thief upon his guard, and
+had prepared him for accusation, the question would only reveal his own
+suspicion, and thereby weaken the chances of discovery.
+
+Philip combated his inward desire, but could not quell it. There seemed
+a kind of intuition in it, a lurking certainty lay hidden behind all the
+doubts he saw, and pushed him forward.
+
+By and by young Mr. Barter tripped on the false cut, which he had
+hitherto executed with a fair amateur dexterity.
+
+‘Excuse me,’ said Phil, as he gathered the spilt cards together. ‘You
+should make the three separate motions look like one. Do the trick so.’
+
+He performed the trick slowly, looking Barter in the face, and then went
+through it swiftly.
+
+‘That is how the thing ought to be done, Mr. Barter,’ he said, with a
+placidity which his companion found singularly disquieting.
+
+And now, that same unhappy want of self-command which had given
+Steinberg so clear an insight into his young friend’s mind, fell once
+more upon Barter. He tried to look wondering, he tried to laugh. The
+result of that frightened contortion of the features was nothing less
+than ghastly. Unhappily for himself he knew it, and so he grew ghastlier
+yet, and for the life of him could not tell where to set his eyes.
+
+‘So you’re a sharper in a small way, are you, Mr. Barter?’ Philip
+inquired suavely.
+
+‘How dare you talk to me like that?’ the detected rascal stammered. ‘You
+come into a gentleman’s rooms, and lose an odd half-crown or two----’
+
+When he had got as far as this he ventured to look his companion in the
+face, and seeing there a very marked and readable prophecy of unpleasant
+things, he backed, and in the act of doing so, tripped, and fell into a
+chair. The intention in Phil’s mind became simply unconquerable. He cast
+rapidly about him for an instant, saw all the consequences of failure
+which might follow if he denounced the trembling wretch at once, and set
+him on his guard. And yet he could not help doing what he did, and could
+not restrain the words which rose to his lips. He took Barter by the
+collar, and lifted him to his feet with an unsuspected strength, and put
+the question to him quietly.
+
+‘How many of those stolen notes has Steinberg changed for you?’
+
+It was a bold thing to do, it was perhaps a foolish thing to do, and yet
+it was the game. Barter stared at him speechlessly. His lips moved, but
+he said nothing. Then his jaw fell as a dead man’s jaw falls, and being
+released at that instant, he dropped into the chair like a sack.
+
+‘Now the best thing for you to do,’ said Phil, sternly regarding him,
+‘will be to make a clean breast of it. I have been tracking you since
+the second day of our acquaintance.’
+
+Barter groaned, with a tremulous and hollow sound, but made no other
+answer.
+
+‘How many of those notes are in Steinberg’s hands?’ Phil asked.
+
+The rascal’s wits had begun to work again, if only a little, and he
+could by this time have answered if he would. But he knew that his
+own cowardice, if nothing else, had given away the game. After such a
+confession as his own terror had made, what was the use of bluster
+or pretence? He could not guess how much was known. He was completely
+cornered, and must fight or yield. His native instinct at any moment was
+ready to teach him how much discretion was the better part of valour,
+and now to fight seemed mere madness. In the very terror of the night
+which thus suddenly enveloped him he saw one gleam of hope. There was
+one stroke to be made which might save him, in part at least, from the
+consequences of his own misdeed.
+
+Philip gave these reflections but little time to grow distinct to
+Barter’s mind.
+
+‘How many of those notes?’ he asked slowly, emphasising almost every
+word by a tap of his knuckles upon the table, ‘have passed into
+Steinberg’s hands?’
+
+‘All,’ gasped Barter; ‘every one of them!’
+
+‘That will do for the present,’ said Philip, and at that instant there
+came a loud summons at the door, whereat the miserable Barter started,
+and clasped his hands in renewed terror. He fancied an officer of
+justice there, his arrival accurately timed.
+
+Philip, throwing a glance about the room, and assuring himself that
+there was no means of unobserved exit, answered the summons in person.
+He had until that moment kept perfect possession of himself except
+for his obedience to that overmastering intuition, but beholding Mr.
+Steinberg at the doorway he felt a great leap at his heart, and a sudden
+dryness in his throat. He examined these phenomena afterwards, and
+decided in his own mind that they were assignable to fear. He came to
+the belief which he cherishes until now, that he had to screw up his
+courage pretty tightly before he could face the idea of confronting the
+partners in rascality together. But here it may be observed in passing
+that this kind of self-depreciation is a favourite trick with men of
+unusual nerve, and is rarely resorted to by any but the most courageous.
+
+Steinberg recognised him by the light of the gas-lamp.
+
+‘Good-evening,’ he said, nodding. ‘Barter’s here, I suppose.’
+
+‘Sir,’ said Phil, with recovered coolness, a certain light of humour
+dawning in his mind, ‘Mr. Barter is within, and I have no doubt will be
+very happy to see you.’
+
+Steinberg cast a sidelong glance at him, and entered. Phil closed
+the door, and followed close upon his heels. Barter, with his pale
+complexion fallen to the tint of dead ashes, sat huddled in the
+arm-chair, staring white-eyed like a frightened madman. Steinberg stared
+back at him in sheer amazement at his looks, and Phil, closing the door,
+turned the key in the lock and pocketed it.
+
+‘Hillo!’ cried Steinberg, turning swiftly round at the click, ‘what’s
+this mean?’ He measured Philip with his eye--a very evil and wicked eye
+it was--and dropped back a step or two.
+
+‘What’s this mean?’ Steinberg asked again, his quick glance darting from
+one to the other.
+
+‘It means, sir,’ said Phil, with a glad tranquillity, ‘that your
+fellow-scoundrel, the courageous gentleman in the arm-chair there, is in
+the act of making his confession.’
+
+Steinberg sent one savage glance at Barter, and then dashed at him, and
+planting both hands within the collar of his shirt, so banged him to and
+fro that he would inevitably have done him a mischief of a serious
+sort but for Phil’s intervention. The method of intervention was
+less tranquil than Philip’s motion up to this time had been. He tore
+Steinberg from his grip of the betrayer with a force he had no time to
+measure, and hurled him across the room. He staggered at the door,
+and his head coming noisily in contact with it, he slipped down into a
+sitting posture with an expression suddenly changed from ferocity to a
+complete vacuity and indifference.
+
+Now Mr. Barter, scared as he had been, and shaken to his centre, had
+begun to think again, and when he saw that Steinberg’s chance in the
+enemy’s hands was less than nothing, that fact formed as it were the
+last necessary plank for the raft of safety he desired to construct. He
+got up from his place, animated by this great idea, and staggering to
+the helpless Steinberg, fell down beside him and gripped his hands.
+
+‘Tie him, Mr. Bommaney, tie him!’ gurgled Barter. ‘He’s been the ruin
+of me, curse him. I should have been an honest man if it hadn’t been for
+him. It’s him that led me into it, and he’s had every sixpence of the
+money. I’ve been his tool, his miserable tool. Tie him, Mr. Bommaney,
+before he comes round again. I’ll hold him for you.’
+
+One may get good advice from the most unexpected quarter, and
+whencesoever good advice may come it is worth while to follow it. Phil
+took a dandy scarf from Steinberg’s own neck, and tied him tightly,
+wrist to wrist Then he helped him to his feet, and set him in a chair.
+
+‘He came here to-night,’ Barter gurgled on, with tears of sincerest
+penitence, ‘to bleed me again. He’s got my I.O.U. for £82 he cheated me
+of last week. He’s had every penny of the money. I haven’t had so much
+as a single farthing of it myself. I’ll swear I haven’t.’
+
+‘That’s your lay, is it?’ said Steinberg, whose scattered wits were
+coming back to him. ‘You shall answer for this violence in the proper
+quarter, Bommaney.’
+
+‘I will answer for it in the proper quarter,’ Phil replied. ‘I will
+trouble you, Mr. Steinberg, to come to the proper quarter now.’
+
+‘You won’t forget,’ said Barter, ‘that I helped to capture him. You’ll
+speak a word for me, Mr. Bommaney?
+
+‘I’ve been that villain’s victim all along. I should never have gone
+wrong if it hadn’t been for him, and I’ve wanted to send the money back
+over and over again, but he got it into his own hands and wouldn’t
+listen to it, and after all I never took the money, Mr. Bommaney--I only
+found it. It was Steinberg kept it. He said I should be a fool to let it
+go.’
+
+What sentiments of contempt and rage inspired Mr. Steinberg’s bosom
+at this juncture must be imagined. He looked them all, but verbally
+expressed none of them.
+
+‘Get up,’ said Phil, addressing him. Steinberg obeyed. ‘Take a seat in
+that corner.’ Steinberg obeyed again. ‘Now you--’ to Barter, ‘take a
+place in that corner, behind the desk.’
+
+‘With pleasure, Mr. Bommaney,’ said Barter, ‘with the very greatest
+willingness. I desire to make no resistance to the law. I helped to
+capture the criminal Please remember that, Mr. Bommaney. Pray remember
+that.’
+
+He took hold of a heavy ruler which happened to be lying on the desk,
+and deeming that he and the other rascal were about to be left alone
+together, he showed it shakily to Steinberg, as a hint that he was not
+without means of protection against a man unarmed and bound.
+
+Phil unlocked the door, inserted the key on the other side, disappeared,
+and turned the lock anew. The two criminals heard his footstep sounding
+elate, triumphant, and threatening to their ears as he went along the
+boarded floor. They listened as the footstep crossed the square boulders
+of the courtyard, and listened still until their sound melted into the
+blended noises of the outer street. A minute later the step was heard
+returning, accompanied by another, solid and terrible. They knew it, and
+their hearts, low as they were already, sank at it. The door opened and
+Phil reappeared, followed by a policeman.
+
+‘I give these two in charge,’ the young man said, ‘the one as the thief,
+the other as the receiver of a bundle of bank-notes of the value of
+eight thousand pounds, the property of my father, Mr. Philip Bommaney of
+Coalporter’s Alley.’
+
+‘I’m quite willing to go without resistance,’ said Mr. Barter from
+behind the table. ‘I assisted in the capture, and I am ready to say
+anything.’
+
+‘That’s the first true word you’ve spoken,’ Steinberg snarled. ‘You can
+take this thing off,’ holding out his hands. ‘I’ll go quietly. I can get
+bail in an hour.’
+
+‘Don’t have it taken off, Mr. Bommaney, not if we’re to travel in the
+same vehicle. He threatened me while you were away. He said if they
+gave him fifty years he’d kill me when he came out again. He’ll do it,
+because I made a clean breast of it, didn’t I, Mr. Bommaney? I made a
+clean breast of it, officer. I’m ready to--tell everything. He’s ruined
+me, and now he says he’ll kill me because I’m ready to make a clean
+breast of it.’
+
+‘I choose to be taken separately, if you please. I myself will pay the
+fare. I won’t travel with that cackling idiot.’
+
+‘I will go with Mr. Bommaney with pleasure,’ said the penitent. ‘I’ll go
+with you with pleasure anywhere. I’d rather go with you a great deal.’
+
+It was hardly to be expected that Philip should feel very warmly towards
+either of his two companions, but of the two he misliked Steinberg the
+less. And, since it seemed humane and reasonable to choose, he chose
+Steinberg as his travelling companion. The officer set Steinberg’s hat
+upon his head, and the quartet set out. The sight of a man with his
+hands tightly bound with a scarlet muffler gathered a momentary little
+crowd at the Inn gate; but, a pair of hansoms being summoned, captives
+and captors were speedily relieved from vulgar observation. The station
+reached, it turned out that the communicative Mr. Barter, in the
+exuberance of his heart, had exposed to the officer _en route_ the
+whereabouts of the lost notes. He declared that to his knowledge they
+rested in a safe, the position of which he indicated, in Steinberg’s
+Hatton Garden office. The Inspector before whom the charge was made
+deemed this intelligence worthy of being acted on at once. The two
+prisoners were searched, and Mr. Barter was so good as to point out,
+among Steinberg’s keys, those which were necessary for the purposes of
+investigation. He even went so far as to offer his assistance as guide;
+but this was declined with a chilliness singularly at variance with the
+solicitous warmth of the proposal.
+
+‘I think, sir,’ said the Inspector, with an arctic disrespect which was
+so frozen as to be almost respectful, ‘that we can manage this without
+your assistance.’
+
+The Divisional Superintendent, being communicated with by telephone,
+arrived upon the scene. The matter in hand having been laid before him
+with curt official brevity, he asked for the keys, called to himself a
+constable, and was preparing to set out, when Philip begged permission
+to accompany him.
+
+‘The notes, sir,’ he said, ‘were left in my father’s trust by a dear
+old friend of his. My father himself was supposed to have made use of
+them--a thing of which he was incapable. If I can take to him the news
+that they are found, I can lift a load of undeserved disgrace from the
+mind of an honourable man.’
+
+‘I shall be pleased to have your company, Mr. Bommaney,’ the
+Superintendent answered, touched a little by the young man’s
+earnestness. So the three got into a four-wheeler, and bowled away to
+Hatton Garden, and there made entry into the chambers lately occupied by
+Mr. Steinberg. There was no gas here, but the constable’s dark lantern
+showed the way. It revealed the safe in the position the communicative
+criminal had assigned to it. It revealed the notes, snugly spread out in
+one crisp little heap, and arranged with business-like precision in the
+order of their numbers.
+
+This golden spectacle once seen, Phil dashed into the street, hailed a
+hansom, and drove pell-mell, exciting the cabman who conducted him by
+the promise of a double fare, to the residence of old Brown and old
+Brown’s daughter. There he told the glorious news, a little broken and
+halting in his speech. Patty threw her arms about him, and cried without
+concealment or restraint. Old Brown blew his nose with a suspicious
+frequency, and shook his adopted son-in-law by the hand at frequent
+intervals.
+
+‘Phil,’ he cried at last, ‘where’s your father? By God, sir, he never
+had any need to run away from me, because he happened to lose a handful
+of paltry money. What had he got to do but come and say, “Brown, it’s
+gone!” He hadn’t trust enough in me to think I’d believe him. Let’s get
+at him. Where is he?’
+
+The old boy tugged furiously at the bell-pull.
+
+‘Send Brenner round to the stable,’ he said to the servant. ‘Tell him
+to get the horses to, and bring the carriage round at once. Where’s your
+father, Phil?’
+
+‘He’s down Poplar way,’ said Phil. ‘Hornett, his old clerk, is living in
+the same house with him.’
+
+‘We’ll go down, and rouse him up,’ the old boy said, with a moist eye
+and trembling hand. ‘Phil, my lad,’ he went on, grasping the young
+fellow’s hand in his own, ‘I’m getting to be an old ‘un. You wouldn’t
+think it to look at me, because, thank God, I’ve always known how to
+take my trouble lightly, but I’ve seen a lot of it in my time, and you
+can take my word for this--there isn’t any trouble in the world that’s
+hardly so bitter as for an honest man to have to take another for a
+rogue.’
+
+So it came to pass that Bommaney senior, who after all, perhaps, hardly
+deserved to be made a hero of, was plenteously bedewed with the tears of
+three most honourable and high-minded people, and was, set up in their
+minds as a sort of live statue of undeserved martyrdom. They who learned
+the tale afterwards mourned his weakness, and supposed him to be the
+victim of a too sensitive organisation. He lives now with a genuine halo
+of sanctity about him, and seems in the minds of some to have suffered
+for the sake of a great principle, quite noble, but not quite definitely
+defined.
+
+Odd things happen every day in the world, and pass by unregarded. The
+worship of Bommaney senior’s sensibilities seems a trifle dull when all
+things are considered, though one has to be glad that an honest son can
+think of him with pity mixed with admiration. But perhaps the oddest
+thing of all in connection with this story may be looked for in the
+shorthand reporter’s notes of the Recorder’s speech at the Old Bailey,
+when the accusation against Messrs. Barter and Steinberg came to be
+heard.
+
+‘You, Barter,’ said the learned Recorder, ‘appear to have been drawn
+into this by the influence of an intelligence stronger and abler than
+your own. You appear, in a moment of weakness, to have been led away
+by that stronger intelligence from the paths of rectitude. But you have
+displayed so clear a sense of the enormity of your conduct, and have,
+by your complete disclosures of the crime committed by you and your
+companion, and, by your evidence in Court to-day, shown so complete a
+repentance for it, that I do not think that it would be politic or just
+to lay a severe term of imprisonment upon you. Nevertheless, the law of
+the land must be justified, and I feel a pleasure in believing that in
+justifying the law I am affording you an opportunity for reflection, for
+the formation of good resolutions for the future, and for a confirmation
+of those better desires which I believe--in spite of your association
+with this criminal enterprise--to animate your mind.’
+
+Now, to my fancy, this has a distinct element of comedy in it; but the
+learned Recorder resembled some of his unlearned brethren, in respect to
+the fact that he could not be expected to know everything.
+
+Mr. Barter thrives again, but he is even now awaiting, with the
+uneasiest sensations, the liberation of the man who betrayed him into
+crime.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Young Mr. Barter’s Repentance, by
+David Christie Murray
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+Project Gutenberg's Young Mr. Barter's Repentance, by David Christie Murray
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Young Mr. Barter's Repentance
+       From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray
+
+Author: David Christie Murray
+
+Release Date: August 8, 2007 [EBook #22272]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUNG MR. BARTER'S REPENTANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+YOUNG MR. BARTER'S REPENTANCE
+
+By David Christie Murray
+
+Author Of 'Aunt Rachel,' 'The Weaker Vessel,' Etc.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+Mr Bommaney was a British merchant of the highest rectitude and the most
+spotless reputation. He traded still under the name of Bommaney, Waite,
+and Co., though Waite had been long since dead, and the Company had
+gone out of existence in his father's time. The old offices, cramped and
+inconvenient, in which the firm had begun life eighty years before,
+were still good enough for Mr. Bommaney, and they had an air of solid
+respectability which newer and flashier places lacked. The building
+of which they formed a part stood in Coalporter's Alley, opposite
+the Church of St. Mildred, and the hum of the City's traffic scarcely
+sounded in that retired and quiet locality.
+
+Mr. Bommaney himself was a man of sixty, hale and hearty, with a rosy
+face and white whiskers. He was a broad-shouldered man, inclining to be
+portly, and he was currently accepted as a man of an indomitable
+will. There was no particular reason for the popular belief in his
+determination apart from the fact that it was a favourite boast of his
+that nothing ever got him down. On all occasions and in all companies he
+was wont to declare that no conceivable misfortune could really break
+a man of spirit. He confessed to a pitying sympathy for mealy-willed
+people (and everybody knew that Bommaney, in spite of his own strength
+of mind, was one of the kindliest creatures in the world); but, whenever
+he met a man in trouble, he would clip him by the shoulder, and would
+say, in his own hearty fashion, 'You must look the thing in the face, my
+boy. Look it in the face. I'd never let anything break _me_ down.'
+
+Since his reputation for fortitude was as solid and as old-fashioned
+amongst the people who knew him as his business character itself, it
+would have come as something of a shock upon any of his friends if he
+could but have been seen by them, or any credible man amongst them, on a
+certain afternoon in the April of 1880. He had locked himself in his own
+room, and, sitting there in a big chair before a businesslike desk, with
+a great number of docketed papers in pigeon-holes, and a disordered mass
+of papers strewn before him, the determined Mr. Bommaney, the decided
+Mr. Bommaney, the Mr. Bommaney whom no misfortune could subdue, was
+crying, very feebly and quietly, and was mopping his rosy cheeks, and
+blowing his nose in an utter and unrestraining abandonment to trouble.
+
+There was another fact which would have come upon his friends with an
+equal shock of surprise if they could but have had it brought home to
+them. The man who sat unaffectedly crying in the big chair in helpless
+contemplation of the scattered papers was a hopeless bankrupt, and had
+seen himself sliding towards bankruptcy for years. When men who knew him
+wanted business advice, they went to him by preference, and nobody came
+away empty. He knew the City and its intricacies like a book. He knew
+who was safe and who was shaky, as if by a kind of instinct, and he knew
+where and when to invest, and where and when not to invest, as few men
+did. 'You can't get at me,' he would say; for, old-fashioned as he was,
+he used a little of the new-fashioned slang to give spice and vigour to
+his conversation. 'There isn't a move on the board that I don't know.'
+He advised his friends excellently, and there were perhaps half a score
+of fairly well-to-do speculative people who had to thank him, and him
+alone, for the comfort they lived in and the consideration they enjoyed.
+He had been wise for others all his life, and in his own interests he
+had always acted like a greenhorn. He talked loudly, he spent freely,
+he paid his way, he expressed the soundest business maxims, and was as
+shrewd in detail as he was wise in generalities, and these things made a
+natural reputation for him: whilst he traded for years at the expense of
+his capital, and went steadily and surely towards the bottomless gulf of
+insolvency. Now he was on the very verge of it, and to-morrow he would
+be in it. It lent a feeble sting to his sufferings to know how surprised
+people would be, and how completely men would find him out.
+
+He had not very profoundly involved other people in his own ruin, but he
+had gone a little farther than a man altogether brave, and honourable,
+and clearsighted would have ventured, and he knew that some would suffer
+with him. He might have made arrangements to go a little farther still
+if he had been courageous, clear-sighted, and dishonest, and might have
+held his head up for another matter too, perhaps. But he had lacked the
+nerve for that, and had never consciously been a rogue. He felt even
+now a pride of honesty. He had been unfortunate, and his creditors would
+have everything--everything.
+
+He thanked God that Phil's mother had tied her money on her only son,
+and that the boy at least had enough to begin the world with. How should
+he face Phil when he came home again? How should he send the news to
+him? The lad was away enjoying himself, travelling all round the world
+with a wandering Baronet, who owned a yacht and had an unappeasable
+taste for the destruction of big game. He would have to surrender his
+fashionable and titled acquaintance now, poor fellow, and begin the
+world with a disgraced and broken frame to be a drag and hindrance
+to him. The more Mr. Bommaney thought of these things, the more
+unrestrainedly he cried; and the more he cried, the less he felt able or
+inclined to control his tears.
+
+He wept almost silently, only an occasional sniff betraying his emotion
+to his ear. He had always held his head so high, and had been so
+believed in. It was very bitter.
+
+Whilst he was in the midst of this childish abandonment to his grief a
+set of knuckles softly and hesitatingly tapped the door from without,
+and directly afterwards a hand made a tentative respectful sort of
+attempt upon the handle.
+
+'Who's there?' cried Mr. Bommaney, steadying his voice as best he could.
+
+'A gentleman to see you, sir,' answered a smooth voice outside.
+
+Mr. Bommaney pushed back his chair, rose to his feet, and retiring to a
+smaller room consulted a little square looking-glass which hung upon
+the wall above his washing-stand. His blue eyes were very tearful and a
+little swollen, his cheeks and nose looked as if they had been scalded.
+
+'Wait a moment,' he said aloud, and his voice betrayed him by a break.
+He blushed and trembled, thinking that Mr. Hornett, his confidential
+clerk, would know how he was breaking down, and would speak of his
+want of courage and self-command hereafter. The reflection nerved
+him somewhat, and he sluiced his face with water, making a little
+unnecessary noise of splashing to tell the listener how he was engaged.
+He polished his face with the towel, and, consulting the mirror again,
+thought he looked a little better.
+
+Then he re-entered his business room, and turning the key in the lock
+opened the door slightly, a mere inch or two.
+
+'Who is it?'
+
+'A Mr. Brown, sir,' said the smooth voice outside. The clerk insinuated
+a card through the space between the door and door-jamb, and Mr.
+Bommaney took it from his fingers without revealing himself. He had
+some difficulty in making out its inscription, for his eyes were newly
+tearful, and, whilst he peered at it, a reflex of his late emotions
+brought a sniffling sob again. He was freshly ashamed at this, and said
+hastily,
+
+'Five minutes' time. I will ring when I am ready. Ask the gentleman to
+wait.'
+
+Mr. James Hornett softly closed the door, and stood on the landing with
+long lean fingers scraping at his lantern jaws. He was a little man,
+short of stature, and sparely built. His skin was vealy in complexion,
+and he had wiry hair of a russet-red. Even when he was clean shaven his
+fingers rasped upon his hollow cheeks with a faint sound. His nose and
+chin were long and pointed, and his manner was meek and self-effacing
+even when he was alone. There was a tinge of wonder in his face, at war
+with an habitual smile, in which his eyes had no part.
+
+'Something wrong?' he said, under his breath. He went creeping softly
+down the stairs. 'Something wrong? Mr. Bommaney in tears? Mr. Bommaney!'
+
+Could anything have happened to Mr. Phil? That was the only thing Mr.
+Hornett could think of as being likely to affect his employer in that
+way.
+
+Now Mr. Hornett had been in his present employ for thirty years, man
+and boy, and he was human. Therefore, when at the expiration of a
+little more than five minutes' time Mr. Bommaney's bell rang, he himself
+ushered the visitor upstairs, and in place of retiring to his own pew
+below stairs, lingered in a desert little apartment rarely used, and
+then stole out upon the landing and listened. He was the more prompted
+to this because the visitor, who had a bucolic hearty aspect, and was
+very talkative, had told him downstairs that Mr. Bommaney and himself
+were old friends and schoolfellows, and had been in each other's
+confidence for years.
+
+'I am afraid, sir,' Mr. Hornett had said, when the visitor first
+presented himself, 'that Mr. Bommaney may not be able to see you at
+present. He gave orders not to be disturbed.'
+
+'Not see me?' said the visitor with a laugh. 'I'll engage he will.'
+And then followed the statement about his old acquaintanceship with Mr.
+Hornett's employer.
+
+If there were anything to be told at all, it seemed not unlikely that
+this visitor might be the recipient of the intelligence, and Mr. Hornett
+lingered to find if haply he might overhear. He heard nothing that
+enlightened him as to the reasons for his employer's disturbance, but
+heard most that passed between the two.
+
+Bommaney had succeeded in composing himself and in washing away the
+traces of his tears. Then he had taken a stiffish dose of brandy and
+water, and was something like his own man again. He received his
+visitor cordially, and in his anxiety not to seem low-spirited was a
+little more boisterous than common.
+
+'I'm busy, you see,' he said, waving a hand at the papers scattered
+on the desk, and keeping up the farce of prosperous merchandise to the
+last, 'but I can spare _you_ a minute or two, old man. What brings you
+up to town?'
+
+'I've come here to settle,' said the visitor. He was a florid man with
+crisp black hair with a hint of gray in it, and he was a countryman from
+head to heel. He seemed a little disposed to flaunt his bucolics upon
+the town, his hat, his necktie, his boots and gaiters, were of so
+countrified a fashion, and yet he looked somehow more of a gentleman
+than Bommaney.
+
+'Yes,' he said, 'I've come to settle.' He rubbed his hands and laughed
+here, not because there was anything humorous and amusing in his
+thoughts, but out of sheer health and jollity of nature. Bommaney,
+still distrustful of his own aspect, and afraid of being observed, sat
+opposite to him with bent head and fidgeted with his papers, blindly
+pretending to arrange them.
+
+'To settle,' he said absently. Then, rousing himself with an effort, 'I
+thought you hated London?'
+
+'Ah, my boy,' said his visitor, 'when you're in the shafts with a whip
+behind you, you've got to go where you are driven.'
+
+'Yes,' said Bommaney mechanically, 'that is so. That _is_ so.'
+
+The visitor was laughing and rubbing his hands again in perfect
+happiness and self-contentment, and had no eye for Bommaney's
+abstraction.
+
+'Yes,' he said, 'it's Patty's doing. I've sold up every stick and stone,
+and I've taken a house in Gower Street. Do you know, Bommaney,' he
+added, with an air and voice suddenly serious and confidential, 'the
+country's going to the devil. Land's sinking in value every year. I've
+been farming at a growing loss these six years, and rents don't come in
+as they used to do. I got my chance and I took it. Lord Bellamy wanted
+to join the Mount Royal and the three estates. My little bit o' land
+lay between 'em, and I sold it to him. Sold it, too, begad, as well as I
+could have done half a dozen years ago.'
+
+Then he laughed once more with great heartiness, and unbuttoning his
+overcoat, groped in an inner pocket. After a struggle, in the course
+of which he grew very red in the face, he drew forth a pocket-book of
+unusual dimensions, and slapped it on the desk so vigorously that his
+companion started.
+
+'I got a tip the other day,' he went on; 'that old bank at Mount Royal,
+Fellowes and Fellowes, is going to crack up, my boy. There's something
+very queer in the commercial atmosphere just now, Bommaney. There are
+lots of old-fashioned solid people breaking up.'
+
+To Bommaney's uneasy fancy there was in his visitor's voice an accent
+which sounded personal.
+
+'I--I hope not,' he answered, somewhat feebly, 'so much depends----'
+(he tried hard to rally himself), 'so much depends upon a spirit of
+commercial confidence.'
+
+'Exactly,' cried the visitor, laying hands' upon the pocket-book and
+opening it. 'I went to the bank and saw young Fellowes myself. "Look
+here, Fellowes," I told him, "I want my daughter's money." He stuck to
+it, sir; like a dog holding on to a bone. He growled about it, and he
+whined about it, said it wasn't fair to withdraw the money on short
+notice. Said I couldn't do better with it anywhere, and at last I told
+him, "Look here, Fellowes, I shall begin to think by and by there's
+something wrong." He went as red as a turkey-cock, begad, and drew a
+note on their London agent like a lord, and here I am with the money.
+Eight thousand pounds.'
+
+By this time he had drawn a bundle of bank-notes from the pocket-book,
+and now sat flicking the edges of the notes with the tips of his great
+broad fingers. Bommaney heard the crisp music, and looked up with a
+momentary glance of hunger in his eyes.
+
+'That's Patty's little private handful,' the visitor continued, opening
+the packet of notes, and smoothing it upon his knee. 'Eighty notes of
+a hundred. Pretty little handful, isn't it? They don't look,' he added,
+with his head reflectively on one side and his eyebrows raised a little,
+'they don't look as they'd buy as much as they will.'
+
+Bommaney tried to find a commonplace word by answer, and an inaudible
+something died drily in his throat. When his companion began to speak
+again, the bankrupt merchant wondered that he made no comment on his
+ghastly face--he knew his face was ghastly--or his shaking hands. There
+was an intuition in his mind so strong and clear that he trembled at its
+prophecy.
+
+'Patty,' said the visitor, 'will have everything in time, and a pretty
+good handful, too. But she's bent on being independent, and she wants to
+have her own money in her own hands. She pretends it's all because she
+wants to pay her milliner's bills, and that kind of thing, herself; but
+I know better. The fact is'--he lowered his voice and chuckled--'the
+fact is, she doesn't want me to know how much she spends in charity. You
+look here, Bommaney'--the merchant's heart seemed to stand still, and
+then to beat so wild an alarum that he wondered the other did not hear
+it The intuition multiplied in strength. He heard beforehand the spoken
+words, the very tones which marked them. 'You're a safe man, you're a
+smart man. I suppose there isn't anybody in London who can lay out money
+to more advantage than you can. I know it's a great favour to ask, but
+I think you'll do it for Patty's sake and mine, if I do ask you. Take
+this, and invest it for her. Will you, now?'
+
+He stood up with the bundle of notes outstretched in his hand. The
+merchant rose and accepted it, and looked him, with a sudden curious
+calm and steadiness, straight in the face.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Mr. Bommaney was alone again, and if it had not been for the actual
+presence of the bundle of bank-notes upon the table, he could well have
+thought that the whole episode had been no more than a dreadful and
+disturbing dream. It was very hard, he thought complainingly, that a man
+should come and put so horrible a temptation in his way. He would not
+yield to it--of course he would not yield to it. He had been an honest
+and honourable man all his life long, and had never so much as felt a
+monetary temptation until now. It was humiliating to feel it now--it
+was horrible to have his fingers itching for another man's money, and
+his heart coveting it, and his brain, in spite of himself, devising
+countless means of use for it. It was quite unbearable to know that
+the money _might_ tide him over his troubles and land him in prosperity
+again, if he could only dare to use it, and risk engulfing it with the
+lost wreckage of his own fortunes.
+
+But no, no, no. He had never meant to use it. His only reason for
+accepting it had been that he had not found the courage to declare his
+true position to his old friend and school companion. Perhaps, he told
+himself (trying to silence and cajole that inward monitor and accuser
+who would not be silenced or cajoled), perhaps if Brown had been less
+confident and truthful--if he had had less faith in his old companion's
+powers as a man of business--it would have come easier to tell the
+truth. And how futile a thing it was to stave off discovery for a single
+day! How doubly ashamed he would have to feel after that poor pretence
+of responsible solidity! If he had only been disposed to be tempted at
+all--here surely was an added reason for yielding to temptation.
+
+Obviously the first, and, indeed, the only thing to be done, was to
+bank this money in Brown's name, and so have done with it; and yet
+any feeling of haste in that respect would seem to imply a fear of
+temptation, which he was, of course, quite resolute not to feel. He was
+not going any more to run away from his own suspicion of himself than
+he would have run from another man's. So, in and out, and up and down,
+contradicting himself at every turning, with an underlying surety in his
+mind so fast rooted and so dreadful that he did not dare to look at it.
+
+When the adieux were being said between the old friends, Mr. James
+Hornett had slid noiselessly downstairs, his mind inflated by pride.
+He was not proud of having played the eavesdropper, for even in Mr.
+Hornett's economy of things, that was an act to be proud of; but he was
+very proud, indeed, to be associated with a gentleman so magnificently
+respected as Mr. Bommaney. There were not so very many people, he
+told himself, even in the City of London, which was full of wealth and
+probity, into whose hands so large a sum would be placed with so little
+a sense of the necessity of precaution. He felt as if he himself had
+been treated in this majestic manner, and the feeling warmed his heart.
+He bowed Mr. Brown from the office door with an _empressement_ which he
+feared a moment later might almost have betrayed him, and he went about
+his duties for the rest of the day in a mood of unusual contentment. The
+earlier memory of his employer's disturbance crossed him sometimes, and
+always excited his curiosity; but the later feeling dominated him. He
+was delighted by his association with a concern so eminently respectable
+as that of Bommaney, Waite, and Co.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Hornett's employer, with that dreadful rooted secret in
+his mind, which he did not dare to look at, sat alone, looking with
+staring eyes before him, and drumming in a regular tune upon the topmost
+note of the terrible little pile. He had locked the notes away before
+Brown's departure, but they had seemed to draw him to the safe with
+almost a physical compulsion, and he had brought them out again to look
+at them, to handle them, to count them, to resolve in his own mind that
+he did not hanker after them, and was honourable to the core. It was so
+new a thing to be tempted, that at times his own self-deception was made
+easy to him. It did not occur to him to reflect that the need and the
+means had never so presented themselves together until now, or that his
+life-long honour had depended upon their absence.
+
+When he had sat in silence for a while he awoke to the fact that the
+interview had been nothing but a succession of shocks to him, and that
+he was bodily exhausted. He rose, and, walking feebly to the inner room,
+applied himself anew to the brandy bottle he kept there. He had gone
+much too often to that deceptive solace lately, and he knew it; but each
+successive visit carried its own excuses with it, and it had never in
+any individual instance been worth while to resist a habit which it was
+always easy to condemn in the main.
+
+The brandy enlightened him and opened new sluices of emotion. Perhaps
+for the moment he was a better man because of it. He seemed to wake to a
+more determined sense of the enormity of the temptation which lay before
+him. He thought of his own son, and a shadow took him from head to
+foot as, in a brandified nervous vision, he beheld some shadowy
+supposititious creature in the act of telling the tale to Phil. The vice
+of drink has had the creation of many other vices laid to its charge,
+but for once in the world's history the obfuscated vision was clearer
+than the natural, and Philip drunk a better man, and a more righteous
+and honourable, than Philip sober.
+
+At bottom, Philip Bommaney knew himself too well to be at all sure that
+this phase of feeling would endure with him; and in a half-conscious
+dread of the return of that baser self, whose first appearance in
+his history had so affrighted him, he hurriedly attired himself for
+out-of-doors, crammed the bundle of notes into an inner pocket of his
+overcoat, and, after a final appeal to the decanter, left his room with
+a somewhat hysteric sense of courage and self-approval. He had been
+tempted--he was ready to recognise that the temptation was over, that he
+had well-nigh succumbed to it--but he had triumphed! He was a man again.
+He had been weighed in the balances and not found wanting. There were
+some tears in his eyes compounded of brandy and nerves and affections
+and remorses as he hurried into the street. Phil should never be ashamed
+of his father. Old Brown, who had trusted him like a brother, should
+never learn to shun and hate him. He had to go under--the thing was
+inevitable, unescapable, but he would at least go under like a man. His
+heart beat to the tune of the 'Conquering Hero,' where it might have
+beat to the 'Rogue's March,' but for that friendly nip of brandy and the
+all-covering mercies of Heaven.
+
+Quickly as his resolution had been taken, he had fully arranged for the
+details of the task which lay before him. With the notes he had thrust
+into his pocket a little handful of business papers involving a knotty
+and delicate point of business, and he intended that the discussion of
+the point they raised should act as the prelude to the disclosure and
+the restitution he desired to make. He could not, even in his newfound
+heroism, and with whatever hysteric hardihood he was prepared to meet
+the stroke of fate, he could not as yet encounter Brown, and lay bare
+before him the plot of the melancholy farce he had played an hour ago.
+But there was an old friend of his, and an old friend of Brown's into
+the bargain, a solicitor, keen as a needle and kindly as sunshine, one
+Barter, whose business chambers were in Gable Inn, and who was of all
+men the man he could confide in with least shame and best hope of help.
+He hailed a cab, and bade the driver drive his fastest. Gable Inn lay
+tranquil, the afternoon shadows already settling deeper on the little
+quadrangle than on the broad and roaring thoroughfare without. There
+was no light in the windows of the rooms in which Messrs. Fellowship,
+Freemantle, and Barter had done business and received their clients
+fifty years ago, and in which the sole surviving member of the
+firm still maintained its old-established reputation for honour and
+astuteness.
+
+Bommaney was chilled by the silence and darkness of the rooms, and he
+shivered to see the temptation he had conquered looming again before
+him. He knocked loudly with a trembling hand, and the noise of iron
+on iron went rolling and echoing up the staircase and came back in a
+hollow, lonely, sounding murmur from the rooms within. His heart
+sank, and a horrible fear of himself got hold of him. He had actually
+conquered, and here was the fight to be fought over again with almost
+a certainty of defeat at the end of it. Indeed, the defeat in that bare
+moment of time had grown so certain, that he was conscious of a distinct
+state of disappointment when a sudden footstep within the rooms answered
+his noisy summons.
+
+The door opened, and a young man stood before him, peering at him with
+half-closed uncertain eyes through the dark. He was a young man of the
+fleshly school, something too stout for his years, very pallid, and more
+than commonly personable, with a fine broad forehead, fine frank eyes,
+and features modelled with an engaging regularity. When he recognised
+his visitor his pale and handsome face glittered with a sudden smile
+of welcome, teeth and eyes gleaming quite brightly, and the whole face
+lighting up in the pleasantest and friendliest fashion conceivable.
+
+This agreeable expression faded into one of almost mechanical dolor, and
+the personable young man shook hands with Mr. Bommaney sadly, and sighed
+as if he suddenly recalled an idea that sighing was a duty.
+
+'Come in, Mr. Bommaney,' he said. 'Come in, sir. I have sent home all
+the clerks, and was just about to lock up for the night. To what do I
+owe the pleasure of this visit? Let me light the gas.'
+
+Bommaney, the door being closed behind him, stumbled along the darkened
+passage after the more assured and accustomed steps of young Mr. Barter,
+and the inner office being gained, and the gas being lighted, allowed
+himself to be motioned to a chair. What with having been too much
+agitated by the contemplation of his troubles to be able to eat at all
+that day, and what with the fight he had had with his temptations, and
+the too frequent applications he had made to the brandy, it happened
+that for the moment he was by no means certain of his purpose. He sat
+for a little while wondering rather hazily what had brought him there.
+As often happens with absent-minded people, his hands remembered what
+had been required of them before his brain began to act again, and by
+and by the fact that he had unbuttoned his overcoat, and had taken a
+bundle of papers from his pocket, recalled him to his purpose.
+
+'I wanted,' he said, emerging from his haze, and holding the bundle of
+papers nervously in both hands, 'I wanted to see your father upon very
+special and urgent business.'
+
+'My father?' the young man answered, with a look and accent of pained
+surprise. 'Do you mean to say, sir, that you haven't heard the news?'
+
+'The news?' cried Bommaney, feeling blindly as if some new misfortune
+threatened him. 'What news?'
+
+'My father, sir,' said young Mr. Barter, with a certain blending of
+professional airs, something of a legal impress mingled with something
+of the manner of a medical man conveying mournful intelligence to the
+relatives of a patient, 'my father, sir, was struck down by an omnibus
+in the street this morning. He is terribly injured, and not expected to
+recover.'
+
+'God bless my soul!' Bommaney cried out. His chin fell upon his breast,
+and his eyes stared at the floor, seeing nothing. He felt like a man
+upon a raft, who sees the bindings of the frail thing break apart.
+Shipwrecked already, and now the last hope gone! He hardly knew, if he
+could have asked himself the question clearly, why he so particularly
+desired to see Barter. He hardly knew what Barter could have done for
+him, except to listen to his troubles and take charge of the eight
+thousand pounds which tempted him, and yet the disappointment seemed as
+heavy and as hard to bear as anything he had hitherto endured. He sat
+staring forlornly before him, with tears in his eyes, and young Mr.
+Barter, in much astonishment at his susceptibility and tenderness, sat
+watching him. Something slid from Bommaney's hands with a rustle, and
+dropped upon the floor. Young Mr. Barter made a mere hint or beginning
+of a movement, as if he would have picked it up for him. Bommaney
+made no movement at all, but stared before him with his blue-gray eyes
+filling more and more with tears, until two or three brimmed over and
+trickled down his cheeks. He said, 'God bless my soul!' once more,
+mechanically, and restored what remained of his bundle of papers to his
+pocket. Young Mr. Barter looked with one swift and vivid glance from the
+fallen bundle to his guest's face, then back again. Bommaney rose from
+his seat, buttoned his overcoat with awkward and lingering fingers, and
+put on his hat. He was evidently unconscious of his own tears, and made
+no attempt to disguise them, or to wipe them away. He said, 'God bless
+my soul!' a third time, and then, shaking young Mr. Barter by the hand,
+murmured that he was sorry, very sorry, and so went stupidly away.
+Young Mr. Barter accompanied him to the door, casting a strange backward
+glance at the papers as he left the room, and was curiously voluble in
+his dismissal of his visitor. Anything he could do--Mr. Bommaney might
+rest perfectly assured--the clerks would be back to-morrow in any
+case--he would advise Mr. Bommaney of his father's condition by that
+night's post--he himself was naturally most profoundly anxious. In this
+wise he talked Bommaney from the chambers, and when once he had closed
+the door behind him, went back along the dark little corridor with
+an unnecessarily catlike tread. He could hardly have been other than
+certain that he was alone, yet when he reached the inner room he looked
+about him with a keen quick darting suspicion, and for half a minute
+ignored the fallen papers on the floor.
+
+'Dear me!' he said, when at length he suffered his eyes to rest upon
+them. 'What can that be? How did that come here?'
+
+He stooped, picked up the papers, laid them upon his desk, and smoothed
+them out, making a fold lengthways to counteract the creases into which
+they had already fallen. He saw a crisp clean Bank of England note for a
+hundred pounds, and, lifting it, found another. Then he lifted half the
+bundle, and, finding a note of the same value, gave an inward gasp, and
+expelled his breath slowly after it. Then he looked at the last note
+of all, and sat down with the whole bundle in his hands. His pale and
+fleshy features had taken an unusual colour, and his breathing was a
+good deal disturbed. A watcher might have guessed that he was profoundly
+agitated from the swift unintermittent rustle the paper made in his
+hands. He seemed to sit as steady as a rock, and yet the crisp paper
+rustled noisily.
+
+Mr. Brown's bank-notes had been a fruitful source of emotion that day
+already, and, in Bommaney's mind at least, had raised very dreadful
+doubts and perplexities. There were doubts and perplexities in the mind
+of young Mr. Barter, but they were altogether of another order. Young
+Mr. Barter was perfectly aware that he was being tempted, and felt that,
+in its way, the temptation wets a kind of godsend. He even said as much
+in a low murmur to himself. His perplexities related to other things
+than the fear of any fall from honour. Bommaney had evidently been very
+queer. Bommaney had been horribly cut up about something, even before
+he heard the news the young solicitor had to give him. But was he
+so disturbed as to be likely to forget where he had last secured so
+considerable a sum of money? This mental inquiry naturally set young Mr.
+Barter to work to discover how considerable the sum of money actually
+was. He laid the notes upon the table, and tried to wet his thumb upon
+his lips. There was no moisture there, and his mouth was as dry as
+touchwood. He drank a little water, and then began to count the notes.
+He made them eighty-one at first; and then, recounting, made them
+seventy-nine. Counting them a third time, he made them eighty.
+
+'Damn it all!' said young Mr. Barter, 'can't I count? I suppose the old
+buffer will come back for them.' He tried a fourth time, and confirmed
+his third counting. 'They'll get stopped at the Bank,' he said. 'They'll
+be no use to anybody.' He sat for a while thinking, with his eyes
+half-closed, drumming out a tune upon the table with the tips of his
+fat white fingers, then he folded the notes with great precision
+and delicacy, put them into his pocket, found his hat, overcoat, and
+walking-stick, and made ready for the streets. In the quiet of these
+legal chambers many chance noises from without had from time to time
+been clearly audible. He heard now a hurrying step upon the pavement of
+the quadrangle, and, with a palpitation at the heart, he moved swiftly
+to put out the light, and listened. The step stumbled at the entrance to
+the staircase, at the foot of which the outer door stood closed. Young
+Mr. Barter's heart beat, if possible, faster than before; and the veins
+in his head so throbbed, that only the confining rim of his hat seemed
+to keep his head itself from bursting. There came an eager summons at
+the door, an imperative rapping with the head of a stout walking-stick.
+He set his teeth, and, drawing back his lips with a horrible smile
+in the dark, breathed noiselessly. The rapping grew more and more
+imperative and urgent, and then came a preternatural silence, with an
+undercurrent of distant sound in it, and the sudden blare of a cornet in
+the street, which sounded to his nerves like the trumpet of the herald
+of the day of judgment He heard the hurrying feet plunge down the steps
+again, and cross the quadrangle, and listened until their sound merged
+into the dull noises of the London night. He stood in the dark after
+this for what seemed a long time, learning that his features twitched,
+and teaching himself to control them. Then he left his chambers with
+great secrecy, and broke into a cold sweat to think, as he stood half
+through the doorway, how narrowly he had escaped from slamming the
+door behind him. This was an act which might have been suicidal in
+its stupidity; for to give any sign of his presence there after that
+thundering summons at the door would have been to betray himself beyond
+redemption. He inserted his latch-key noiselessly, and, crouching to
+escape imagined observers, drew the door gently after him, and turned
+the key slowly in the lock. As he did this he heard a footstep and a
+cough together close at hand, and, turning with a start, beheld a pale
+and slender man of brief stature, who scraped his lantern jaws with
+apologetic thumb and finger, and looking at him with a startled
+meekness, as if he would fain propitiate anger for a possible intrusion,
+sidled to the foot of the stairs, mounted the stairway with a backward
+glance and a second cough of apology, and so disappeared.
+
+Young Mr. Barter, with his nerves already shaken by this small episode,
+walked into the main thoroughfare and merged with the crowd, bearing
+Mr. Bommaney's eight thousand pounds with him. When he had walked for a
+while he hailed a cab, and was driven home. He had, or prided himself on
+having, an exceptional eye for horseflesh, but it was not his faculty
+in this direction which had led him to choose a cab horsed by a brute
+of unusual symmetry and swiftness. This was an accident, but, like other
+accidents in this perplexed world, it served its purpose. It landed him
+at the paternal door in Harley Street almost at the instant at which
+Bommaney arrived there in pursuit of him.
+
+Now, although young Mr. Barter had not calculated on meeting Bommaney
+so soon, and although the meeting was naturally something of a shock to
+him, he had already schooled himself for interview and inquiry. He went
+a little paler than common as he grasped his father's old friend by the
+hand for the third time that evening, and trembled ever so little as he
+spoke.
+
+'I half expected to find you here,' he said. 'I could see how moved you
+were by the news of my father's illness.' The door stood open, and the
+old-fashioned man-servant within had been in the act of closing it upon
+Bommaney's retreating figure when cab number two had driven up, and the
+young master of the house had alighted from it. 'Is the news worse
+or better?' He laid both hands upon Bommaney's arms as he put this
+question.
+
+The elderly servitor, who had never had reason given to him to believe
+that young Mr. Barter was above the reasonable attached to his father,
+was a little surprised to see the young man so moved. He drew the door
+gently after him, and came out upon the steps.
+
+'I'm afraid, Mr. John,' he murmured sympathetically, 'that it's
+practically all over, sir. The poor gentleman's quite unconscious, and
+the doctor don't expect him to last till morning.'
+
+Young Mr. Barter's mind was active, and accustomed to rapid movement. He
+knew at once that the old servant read the signs of disturbance in
+his face and manner, and how far he misread them. So, to insure the
+misreading, he took out his handkerchief, and groaned at this melancholy
+intelligence.
+
+'I----,' began Bommaney, stammering and speaking a little thickly, 'I
+didn't come to ask about your father.' Young Barter's heart at
+this, though he was perfectly prepared for it, began to beat like a
+sledgehammer. 'I've had a dreadful loss. I have called nowhere but at
+your office since I left my own, and I have lost eight thousand pounds.
+I am convinced that I must have left it there.'
+
+'I can't think so, Mr. Bommaney,' said Barter, with a face of
+innocence.' We can go back together, if you like, and look for it.'
+Bommaney's driver lingered for him; the other cabman was already
+jingling leisurely down the street.
+
+'Johnson,' said young Barter, addressing the domestic, 'you hear what
+Mr. Bommaney says. This is a matter of the most urgent importance, and
+must be looked into at once. Tell my mother that I have been home, and
+that I have been called suddenly back on urgent business.' Bommaney
+stood in a kind of stupid trance, and the young man, taking him by the
+arm, had some ado to secure his attention. 'Come! Come, sir,' he said;
+'we will look into this at once. You must not remain in suspense about
+such a matter.'
+
+They rustled together through the straw which had been laid down upon
+the roadway, and had been scattered by the feet of passers-by upon the
+pavement, and, mounting the cab, drove in a ghastly silence for a score
+of yards, and then, with a clatter which made conversation difficult,
+Bommaney, rousing himself at intervals, shouted his certainty that
+the notes would prove to have been left at Barter's chambers. Barter,
+growing curiously inured to the circumstances of the case, shouted back
+that he dared to say they would be; that it was very likely; that he
+really did not see where else Mr. Bommaney could possibly have left
+them, furtively pressing the notes against his breast meanwhile, and
+once, at a quiet interval, when Bommaney had sunk into his former
+stupor, venturing to steal a hand to the pocket in which the stolen
+money lay, caressing the edges of the notes with the tips of his
+fingers.
+
+'I'm sure,' said Bommaney, as the cab pulled up at the gate of the
+quadrangle, 'that we shall find them here.' He spoke with a tremulous
+uncertainty, and so obviously appealed for a confirmation of his hope,
+that Barter felt constrained to answer,
+
+'Oh, we are bound to find them.'
+
+The striking of a wax vesta at the door of the chambers, the shaky hunt
+for the key, the well-known obstinacy of the lock, the opening of
+the door, the fevered working of Bommaney's fingers, and the flushed
+eagerness of his face, were all memorable to young Barter for many and
+many a day. They entered together the room in which their interview had
+taken place; and Barter, nursing the remnant of the flaming vesta, lit
+the gas with it, and then, dropping it on the floor, set his foot upon
+it, and looked at his companion.
+
+'Where do you think you left the notes, sir?' he asked. 'Have you any
+idea? I think you took out some papers here. You wanted to consult my
+father about them, I fancy, and, if I remember, you returned them to
+your pocket.'
+
+Bommaney stood looking about him on the floor, trailing the point of
+his walking-cane purposelessly hither and thither; and it was at this
+moment, seeing how confused and broken his victim seemed, that young Mr.
+Barter tasted the first flavour of safety.
+
+'I don't see anything,' he said.
+
+'Did you,' Bommaney asked him, with both trembling hands grasping the
+knob of his walking-cane, and shaking in appeal before the unsuspected
+thief--' did you lock any papers away before you left?'
+
+As a matter of fact, young Barter had not had any papers to lock away
+that evening after Bommaney's departure; but he thought the trick worth
+playing, and, producing his keys again, opened the heavy iron safe which
+stood against the wall.
+
+'Yes,' he said, with an air of hopeful alacrity. 'By Jove, I did!' He
+stood aside, with an outstretched hand, and motioned Bommaney to examine
+the contents of the safe. There was a parchment there, there were half
+a dozen bundles of documents tied in pink tape and docketed; but there
+were no bank-notes.
+
+'You know,' said Bommaney, with a fretful wail, 'I must have left them
+here; I couldn't have left them anywhere else. I put it to you--could
+I?'
+
+Barter looked at him mournfully, with raised eyebrows. There was just a
+hint of expostulation in his raised eyebrows, and in the expression of
+his voice.
+
+'You see, sir,' he said, waving his white hands--' you see for yourself,
+there's nothing here.'
+
+Bommaney walked to a chair, and, sitting down there, lifted up his voice
+and wept. 'I've been an honest man, by God! all my life long; and now
+I'm not merely ruined, but I shall be taken for a thief.' He cried
+bitterly after this outburst, with his head between his hands. His hat
+fell off, and his walking-stick tumbled noisily to the floor. Mr. Barter
+picked them up, and, having set them on the table, looked at the shaking
+shoulders, and listened to the ruined man's sobs and wailings. It was a
+pity--of course it was a pity--but young Mr. Barter really did not see
+how it was in his power to help it.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+On a chill spring evening the sunset over London gave a brief radiance
+of colour to the dull gray roof and smoke-stained chimneys of many
+thoroughfares. Shadows thickened in the eastern skies as if fold after
+fold of finest crape were drawn over the field of watery and opalescent
+light the fallen sun had left behind it. In one great thoroughfare
+running east and west the sky-line of the houses stood distinct, and
+bathed in light of many colours; whilst down below there was a wall of
+shadow. Two parallel walls of shadow rose from a shadowy level, and the
+dusk had a thousand indistinguishable voices.
+
+The shadowy lines became accented by twin rows of flickering fire, the
+rear jets seen with a blurred halo of mist round each of them, the halo
+crawling feebly within itself, tormented by a feeble wind. The long
+vista of pavement became chequered like a chessboard, with patches of
+light from shop windows. Gable Inn, staring at the growing darkness with
+a single fiery eye, looked like a Rip Van Winkle. It had been old when
+Chaucer and the knights and ladies of whom he sang were young; and
+its hoary stunted angles and squat chimney cowls had the grave and
+impassive aspect proper to great age. It has stood there now for over
+seven hundred years hoarding a growing store of secrets. It is roughly
+picturesque in every detail, and its every chamber is a triumph of
+narrowness, obscurity, and inconvenience.
+
+In the quadrangle the shadows climbed the sturdy walls as if they were
+an exhalation from the paving-stones. The dim staircase sent down all
+manner of muffled and echoing voices. Footsteps sounded, and the clang
+of doors, and the shriek of unwilling keys in rusty locks, and
+the hurrying traffic of the street without, softened by the moist
+atmosphere, was like the fading echo of following feet upon the stairs.
+
+Lights sprang up in the basement windows, telling of protractive legal
+labours. Lights twinkled in the garrets, telling of lonely study or
+noisy conviviality in the coming hours of darkness. At length one side
+of the quadrangle viewed by a solitary watcher from a third-floor window
+of the opposing side, winked with a hundred windows through the wet air
+and deepening shadow like a blear-eyed Argus.
+
+This watcher, lounging at his own window, was Mr. Philip Bommaney,
+recently self-entitled the 'Solitary of Gable Inn.' He was
+eight-and-twenty years of age or thereabouts, a broad-shouldered,
+deep-chested, manly-looking fellow, with curling brown hair, and a face
+expressive of pugnacity, good-humour, and many capacities. He was a
+little weary now, after a long day of satisfactory work. He watched the
+mounting shadows, and listened to the weird gamut of the wind among
+the telegraph lines, until the outer voices made his own dull room seem
+homely. One ruddy tongue of flame from the expiring fire in the
+grate played on the narrow walls and low ceiling, and woke twinkling
+reflections in the spare and battered furniture. A man's dwelling-place
+is always an index to his character when its arrangement depends upon
+himself; and signs of Philip Bommaney's nature and pursuits were visible
+in plenty here. There were symmetrical rows of books on the shelves
+flanking the fire-place. An orderly stack of newspapers occupied one
+corner of the room, and a set of boxing-gloves lay on top of the pile,
+and a pair of dumb-bells beside it. A shaded reading-lamp stood upon the
+table in the midst of a great litter of papers. The barrels of a huge
+elephant gun flashed dimly from the wall as the firelight played upon
+them, and two or three lighter weapons were ranged together lower down.
+
+He turned from the window and lit the lamp, and, wheeling round, held
+up the light to a photograph, and studied it with a pleased face. It was
+the portrait of a pretty girl, very sweetly grave, and looking as if it
+could be very sweetly vivacious. When he had looked at it for a longish
+time he nodded and smiled, as if the pictured lips had actually spoken
+to him. There was a tumbler standing beside the photograph with a bunch
+of hothouse flowers in it, the one bright spot of colour in the dingy
+chamber. He took this in his disengaged hand, and nodding and smiling
+anew at the pretty girl's portrait, he turned about again, and walked
+into a bedroom beyond a narrow and inconvenient little window. The
+strident voice of the clock over the entrance of the old Hall, answered
+or anticipated from multitudinous spires in the City far and near,
+sounded as Philip entered his bedroom. He stood and listened, counting
+six jarring strokes. The bedroom was a microscopic apartment, with as
+many corners in it as any room of its size in London, and the bed itself
+was a perfect triumph of littleness, so tucked under the sloping roof,
+and so surrounded by projecting corners, as to make the entry to it or
+the exit from it a gymnastic performance of considerable merit. The room
+was not over-light at the best of times, the fourth part of the space
+of one small window in the sloping wall was filled by its own heavy
+framework, and for half its height it was shielded by a parapet, which
+had at least its uses in hiding the occupant of the room from the
+too-curious observation of those who dwelt in the upper stories of the
+houses opposite. These houses opposite, compared with Gable Inn, are
+of a mushroom modernness, and yet are old enough (having begun with
+a debauched and sickly constitution) to have fallen into an almost
+complete decrepitude. Their stately neighbour seems to be less grimy
+with the London smoke than they are, has always been less susceptible to
+outside evil influences, even of that unescapable sort, and drives them
+to an added shabbiness of senility by contrast with its own hale old
+age. The bedroom window was already open for the admission of such fresh
+air as, disguised in London blacks, the exhalations of moist spring
+pavements, and the reeking odours of the cuisine of Fleeter's Rents,
+might choose to wander thither. Philip, with the lamp in one hand and
+the tumbler of flowers in the other, put out his head and looked into
+the squalid depths below him, and having gazed there a while absently
+and with no object, drew back with a vague touch of pity upon him for
+the people who dwelt in so much squalor so near to healthy effort and
+reasonable competence. He could hardly have told as much, perhaps, but
+one pallid countenance, shining very dimly at an open window, was very
+much answerable for that vague touch of pity. The face in the darkness
+started away from the window as he looked at it, as if his own
+robust health and the light that dwelt about him startled its pinched
+shabbiness into solitude. He set the tumbler of flowers upon the
+window-ledge, and closing the window, made his toilet and returned to
+the sitting-room. Then, having banked up the fire, and set the matches
+in such a position that he could easily find them, he blew out the lamp,
+left his chambers, and ran down the tortuous stairs. As he turned the
+last corner a door clanged noisily, and the next thing of which he was
+conscious was that he was struggling in the embrace of a stranger whom
+he had doubled up in an angle of the wall.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' he said gaspingly; 'I stumbled.'
+
+'You did,' responded the stranger, gasping also. 'Rather heavily. It was
+lucky you had something soft to fall on.'
+
+Philip began to make apologies. The stranger, breathless still, but
+jovially polite, begged him not to mention it. He was a tallish
+young man, broad set, and a little too fleshy for his years. He had a
+cleanshaven face, healthily pallid, the whitest of teeth, and a most
+frank, engaging, and contagious smile.
+
+'Pray don't say anything more about it,' he said in answer to Philip's
+reiterated apologies. 'You are not hurt, I hope?'
+
+'No, thanks; but I'm afraid you are.'
+
+'Not at all. It was sharp for a minute; but I am all right now. The
+stairs are very inconvenient, especially to strangers.'
+
+'I haven't even that excuse for my clumsiness, said Philip; 'for I am
+living here.'
+
+'Indeed; then we are neighbours, and should know each other. Rather an
+informal kind of introduction, eh?' The stranger said this with a mellow
+laugh and a flash of his white teeth. He opened his overcoat as
+he spoke, and produced a card-case, Philip catching the gleam of a
+gold-studded shirt-front as he did so. 'That's my name, John Barter;
+and these are my offices.' The outer oak, cracked and blistered to the
+likeness of an ancient tar-barrel, bore an inscription, dim with long
+years--'Fellowship, Freemantle, and Barter'--and the names were repeated
+on the doorpost at the entrance.
+
+'I have no card,' said Philip, accepting the stranger's. 'My name is
+Bommaney--Philip Bom-maney;' Mr. Barter's smiling face was unchanged,
+though he gave a slight but perceptible start at the name, and repeated
+it.
+
+'Do you know it?' asked Philip. To the ears of his companion there was
+something of a challenge in the tone. 'It is not a common name.'
+
+'No. Not a common name. I think I have heard it somewhere.'
+
+They were under the archway by this time, in the brief shelter of which
+the sanguine-faced, red-waist-coated lodge-keeper was taking his nightly
+constitutional. They answered the touch of the hat with which he saluted
+them.
+
+'Which is your way?' asked Mr. Barter.
+
+'Westward,' said Phil.
+
+'Mine is east,' said Barter, 'so we part here. We are bound to meet
+again before long. Good-night.'
+
+'Good-night, and many thanks for taking my clumsiness in such good
+part.'
+
+Barter's ready smile beamed out again. They shook hands before parting
+like old acquaintances, and Philip walked on, through the incessant
+noise of Holborn into quieter Bloomsbury Street, along the eastern side
+of Bedford Square, where the bare trees were shivering in a bath of fog,
+and into Gower Street. Half way down that hideous thoroughfare he came
+upon a house, one of the few which still retain the old lamp-iron and
+extinguisher before their doors, and knocking, was admitted by a trim
+maid, with the smiling alacrity due to a frequent and favoured visitor,
+and by her conducted to the drawing-room, where sat a young lady engaged
+in a transparent pretence of being absorbed in a novel. The pretence
+vanished as the door closed behind the handmaiden, and the young lady
+jumped up and ran forward to meet him, with such a glad welcome in her
+face as answered the appeal in his own. It does not need that we should
+look at her with Philip's eyes to pronounce her charmingly pretty, or
+to admire the face, at once shy and frank, with which she nestled beside
+him.
+
+'I thought you were never coming,' she said.
+
+'Am I so late, then?'
+
+'It seemed so, and now you are come, tell me what you have been doing.'
+
+'Working, and thinking of you.'
+
+'You work too much, Phil.' She did her best to ignore the second item
+of his day's occupation, but the deepened flush and her avoidance of her
+lover's eyes answered it more effectively than words could have done.
+'You are getting quite pale and thin. No wonder, sitting all alone all
+day long in those musty old chambers.'
+
+'Well, you see, Patty, the more I work, the sooner I shall cease to be
+all alone.' The flush deepened again, and the hand trembled in his like
+a caught bird. 'And as for working too much, I don't believe that's
+possible. Work never killed anybody yet, and idleness has killed a good
+many. It's better to work than sit still and wait for briefs which never
+corns. There's no sensation more delightful than that of looking at a
+good day's work, and thinking that every line and word has brought me
+nearer to you.'
+
+His tenderness conquered her shyness, and she nestled closer still,
+looking up at him with a wholehearted admiration and affection. He felt
+a little sad and unworthy under it, as almost any honest fellow would
+have been sure to do, and yet it was wonderfully sweet to him, and more
+than reward enough for any effort.
+
+'I wish I could help you, Phil. I wish I could do something for you,
+when you have given up so much for me.'
+
+'Hush!' he said, laying his hand lightly upon her lips. 'We made up our
+minds long ago that no more was to be said about that.' He was tender
+still--he could be nothing else with her--but there was a touch of
+sternness in his manner, too--as if the theme pained him.
+
+'But I can't help thinking of it. It was so noble of you, Phil.'
+
+'It was the only thing to be done--the only thing possible. It was----'
+he paused for a second, and then went on resolutely--'it was my father's
+act by which you suffered. I should have been a scoundrel if I had done
+otherwise.'
+
+'And are you to do all? and am I to do nothing? It is selfish to keep
+all the generosity to yourself.'
+
+He laughed as if he found this female paradox a pleasant fancy, but she
+was not to be put off so.
+
+'If the subject pains you, as I know it does, dear, please understand
+why I speak of it I don't want you to think I take your sacrifice as you
+pretend to take it. It isn't a matter of course, as you pretend it is;
+and you may say what you like, Phil, but it isn't a thing that everybody
+would have done. Don't grudge me my gratitude; you did it for the love
+of me.'
+
+'I didn't do it for the love of you,' said Phil, laughing tenderly; 'how
+often am I to tell you that, you little mountain of obstinacy? I did it
+because it was the right thing. I don't say, mind you, that it wasn't
+easier to do it for you than it might have been for somebody I didn't
+know or care for; but that--as you will see quite clearly if you'll
+bring your naturally logical mind to bear upon it--makes the thing so
+much the less creditable, provided there was any credit due to it at
+all.'
+
+The loving feminine scorn of this masculine process of reasoning was
+expressed in a single glance, and was delightful to see.
+
+'It only means waiting a little longer before I claim you.'
+
+The girl would fain have asked, 'Why should you wait when I have enough
+for both by your gift? What does it matter which of us it is who has the
+money--you or I?' But this question went unspoken, for obvious reasons.
+A woman is tongue-tied by the countless conventionalities of education.
+She must often let her thoughts lie silent in her heart, though she
+burns to express them, and find what answer she can to questions she
+dare not offer. Philip had repaired her loss by beggaring himself. That
+was noble. But now he persisted in deferring their marriage, and had
+buried himself in that lofty sarcophagus in Gable Inn, resolved only to
+claim her, though she was all his own already, when he had reinstated
+his fortunes by his labour. That was noble also, perhaps, but in her
+own heart she thought it a trifle foolish--say Quixotic, not to be too
+severe. She would rather have seen his ardour find a more commonplace
+expression. She had a general sort of belief that whatever Philip did
+was bound to be right, and yet this actual experience rather jarred with
+that assumption.
+
+They found other themes in a while, and talked of the future and the
+happiness it would bring. That Philip was going to be rich and famous
+was a prime article in Patty's creed, and he himself, though he had
+soberer hopes, was not likely to miss any chance of success which labour
+might bring him. He was more than modest enough in his conception of his
+own powers, and was often doubtful as to the fulfilment of the higher
+ambitions which are the necessary fuel of all artistic fires. Without
+those fires the chill of modesty will fall to the frost of cowardice,
+and in Art cowardice means indolence. In his moments of exultation--and
+these came generally at their strongest when he was in his sweetheart's
+society--success looked easy enough. The memory of her undoubted
+belief in him came upon him often with a glow reflected from those
+magnificently hopeful moments. But then at times of depression it grew
+to look no more than a foolish unattainable dream. All young artists
+have times when they are going to be great--when the glory proper to
+white hairs makes a halo round un-wrinkled fronts and curls, brown
+or golden. They have times when the smartest turn of verse, the most
+delightful inventions of narrative, the most exquisite contrast of
+colour or mould of form their genius can compass are stricken through
+and through with the horror of commonplace. But when a man of the
+artistic _genus_ has once so far learned his own nature he has made a
+great advance towards the fulfilment of his ambitions. He has to
+learn that just as the hot fit is followed by the cold the cold fit
+is succeeded by the hot. He knows how intermittent he is. He learns to
+mistrust his own mistrust of himself. The periods of depression grow
+less frequent, and the depression grows less lasting. And then, just
+as the cold fit becomes less chilling to the one, the fit of exultation
+grows less intoxicating. The halo beams less bright--loss near.
+
+Yet Philip, with the girl's eyes worshipping him, and her sweet voice
+cooing hope and praise, and her hands knitted on his shoulder, and her
+warm breath fanning his cheek, gave himself up to the vision, and felt
+his heart warm with a world's welcome as yet far away from him.
+
+The prose of life will assert itself, even to visionary eight-and-twenty
+and sweet eighteen in love with one another. On this occasion it came
+as a summons to supper. The summoner was a stout and jovial elderly
+gentleman, about whose somewhat commonplace British exterior there was,
+to Philip's mind, a reflection of the nimbus which glorified Patty to
+his mind, for he was Patty's father. He had been called Old Brown at
+school when he was young--he had been called Old Brown in the country,
+and the prefix had found him out in town without the need for anybody
+to breathe a whisper of it. He was Old Brown to his new acquaintances in
+London before a month had gone by. The name suggests a beverage which is
+not unlike Old Brown himself--being mild and nutty to the taste as he
+to the mental palate--ripe and genial. He had a moist twinkle of the
+eye,--the look which bespeaks the kindly humorist,--and his slightly
+protruding under lip seemed covertly to taste the flavour of unspoken
+jokes. Old Brown's jokes were mainly left unspoken, but he spent a
+good part of his life in laughing without any very apparent reason for
+laughter, and may have been internally the way he looked to be.
+
+He shook hands with Philip, and chucked Patty under the chin with a
+waggish aspect, which called an appealing blush into the girl's
+face. Perhaps the blush stayed the intended quip, but any way the old
+gentleman contented himself with a beaming laugh, and led the way to the
+supper table, rubbing his hands and chuckling.
+
+The meal was quietly jovial, and if, after it, Old Brown was not quite
+so fast asleep as he pretended to be, at least his patience gave the
+lovers the shelter they needed. He snored in mellow murmurs from behind
+his bandanna, and they sat and talked together in low tones lest they
+might awaken him, until the time came for parting.
+
+Outside the mist had given place to a dull persistent rain, and a
+peevish wind was complaining in area and chimney cowl. Philip turned to
+the street with a pleasantly haunting vision of Patty's vivacious face
+outlined against the warmth and brightness of the hall. The touch of her
+good-night kiss lingered on his lips like live velvet, and he carried
+warmth and brightness enough within him to defy all the rain that ever
+rained, and all the wind that ever blew on smoky London.
+
+The rain had cleared the streets, and the occasional gleam of a
+policeman's cape or a furtive figure seeking the shelter of a doorway
+against the drifting showers was all he saw as he bored his way against
+the rising wind to the corner of Holborn. He was so absorbed by that
+fancy of music to which his own quick tread kept time that a shuffling
+step behind him rapidly drawing nearer failed to reach his sense. But as
+he came to the corner, a hand clutched his arm.
+
+He turned, with the quick defensive gesture natural to a man so accosted
+at such a time, and faced the unexpected figure. An old man, clad in
+filthy fluttering rags, stood staring at him, with both hands stretched
+out. The rags shook as much with the horrible cough that tore him as
+with the cruel wind. He was a dreadful creature, with watery eyes, and a
+head and moustache of dirty gray. His long and unvenerable hairs strayed
+loose beneath the dunghill relic which crowned them. The rain was in his
+hair and beard, and had so soaked his tattered dress that it clung
+to him like the feathers of a drenched fowl. He shook and wheezed and
+panted, and gripped the air with tremulous fingers, and through the
+rents in his clothing his white flesh gleamed in the gaslight.
+
+The look of surprise and pity which Philip bent upon this unclean
+apparition was startled into one of sudden fear and horror. In the
+very instant when these emotions struck him, they were reflected in the
+other's face. The man made a motion to run, but Philip clutched his arm,
+and he stood cowering and unresisting.
+
+'You! Here in London?'
+
+'Phil,' said the spectre imploringly, 'for God's sake help me. I didn't
+know it was you, when I followed you. I thought----' his voice trailed
+into silence.
+
+'You have come to this?'
+
+'Yes, Phil; this is what I've come to.' The cough took him here again,
+and tore him so that he was fain to lean against the shutters of a shop
+near at hand.
+
+'Why do you come back here? Are you mad?'
+
+'I am--almost. What could I do? I'm as safe here as I am anywhere.
+Who would know me? or, if they did, who would hurt a wretch like me?
+I haven't slept in a bed for weeks, Phil. I haven't eaten a morsel for
+three days. For God's sake! give me some money. I'll--I'll go away; I'll
+never trouble you again.'
+
+'I'll give you all I can. But you must go away from London.'
+
+Philip thrust his hand into his pocket and brought up all the pocket's
+contents. He took his keys and an unvalued trifle or two from the
+handful, and held the rest out towards his father. The old man shrunk
+from him with a terrible appeal and shamefaced gratitude which cut the
+son's heart like a knife.
+
+'Where can I go to?'
+
+'Anywhere out of London. You are not--safe here. Go away. Write to me
+here.' He thrust an envelope on which his name and address were written
+into the old man's dirty trembling hand. 'You must never come to see me.
+Promise me that.'
+
+'I promise,' he said; and, thrusting the money and the envelope
+somewhere among his rags, stood silent for a while. 'I'm afraid,' he
+said, 'I acted very foolishly and very----'
+
+Then his voice trailed away again.
+
+'God help you!' said Philip with a choking voice.
+
+'You'll shake hands, won't you, Phil? 'said the old man. Phil took the
+proffered hand. 'It's something,' said Bommaney the elder, clinging
+to him, 'to feel an honest man's hand again, God bless you, Phil!--God
+bless you!'
+
+Philip stood silent, and the old man, with another shame-stricken glance
+upon him, moved away. His son watched him for a second or two, as he
+slunk, coughing and shivering, along the gleaming pavement, and then
+turned and went his own way heavily.
+
+Bommaney senior, discerning the welcome beacon of a public-house,
+shuffled eagerly towards it, hugging beneath his rags the money his son
+had given him.
+
+'I beg your pardon, Mr. Bommaney; if you please, sir.' He started at
+the sound of a voice which had been familiar to him for years. 'I should
+like a word with you, sir; if you please.'
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+James Hornett was less changed than his old employer, but it was evident
+that he too had fallen upon evil times. For a mere second the familiar
+tones of his voice were no more than familiar to Bommaney, whose mind
+was confused by long misery and hunger and sleeplessness, and the shock
+of his late encounter. But when he turned and saw Hornett's long thumb
+and finger scraping at his stubbly jaws, the gesture and the attitude
+of apology brought him back to mind at once. Hornett's coat sleeve was
+torn, and showed his arm half way down to the elbow, but revealed no
+hint of linen, The collar of his frock-coat was buttoned tightly about
+his neck, and there was a sparkling metallic rime upon his cheeks and
+chin and upper lip. Bommaney was ashamed before him, and afraid of him,
+and only some faint reminder of self-respect and the pride of earlier
+days held him back from the impulse to run away.
+
+'You're not afraid of me, sir?' said James Hornett. He had always
+smiled, and was smiling even now. The smile was no more than a
+contortion of the muscles of the face, which made a long mirthless
+crease on either cheek, and left the eyes untouched by the least light
+of sympathy. It gave him a propitiatory dog-like look, and there was a
+hint of fawning in his attitude which matched it perfectly and carried
+out the likeness. 'You remember me, sir?' he went on, for Bommaney
+stared at him so wildly that there seemed room for reasonable doubt
+on that point. 'Hornett, sir. James Hornett Your faithful servant for
+thirty years, sir.' Bommaney looked at him with haggard watering eyes,
+and said nothing as yet 'It's a bit of a surprise, sir, at first, isn't
+it?' Hornett went on, with his unchanging smile. There was a good deal
+of hunger and even triumph in his small soul, but they found no other
+outward expression, and his attitude and voice were as apologetic
+and retiring as of old. 'It was rather a surprise to me, sir, when I
+recognised you. Isn't it a little dangerous for you to be here, Mr.
+Bommaney?'
+
+They both started, and each looked about him at this mention of the
+fugitive's name.
+
+'Hush!' said Bommaney. 'Don't call me by that name. Come away from
+here.'
+
+A policeman strolled along the street, with an echoing tread, and as
+the two slunk past him he turned a casual glance upon them. The glance
+touched them like a galvanic shock, and they would have run if they had
+had courage for such an indiscretion.
+
+'What do you want with me?' asked Bommaney, when the policeman was
+out of sight and hearing; Hornett walking beside him, with his lean,
+propitiatory fingers at his chin, looked up with hesitating meekness.
+
+'Well, you see, sir,' he responded, 'your fall was mine, sir; I was
+supposed'--he coughed behind his hand here to indicate apology for
+the introduction of a theme so necessarily disagreeable to the other's
+feelings--' I was supposed, sir, to have been in your confidence. I made
+many applications for employment, and nobody would employ me. Young Mr.
+Weatherall, sir, promised, personally, that if I called again, he'd kick
+me down the steps.'
+
+Bommaney groaned.
+
+'What do you want with me?' he asked again.
+
+They were standing by this time outside the doors of a public-house, and
+the wind-driven rain was pelting down heavily.
+
+'I thought, sir----' said Hornett; 'I'm very hard pressed, sir.' The
+dog-like, propitiatory smile never varied. 'I was following Mr. Phil
+myself, sir, in the hope that his kindness might run to a trifle.'
+
+'Come in,' said Bommaney; and Hornett eagerly accepting the invitation,
+they entered the house together. There was an odour of frying in the
+room, and a hissing noise proceeded from a soft of metal caldron which
+stood over a row of gas-jets on the pewter counter. A printed legend,
+'Sausage and Mashed, 3d.' was pasted on the wooden partition at the
+side of the box they entered, and on the mirror which faced them, and
+displayed their own squalid misery to themselves. A year ago the fare
+would have seemed uninviting to either at his hungriest moment, but now
+Bommaney called for it with a dreadful suppressed eagerness, and, the
+barman serving them with a tantalising leisure, they watched every
+movement with the eyes of famine.
+
+'I've got a little place, sir, of my own,' whispered Hornett, when the
+pangs of hunger were appeased. 'It's very humble, but you could put up
+for the night there.' Bommaney made no answer, but the two set out again
+together through the rain, and, pausing once only for the purchase of a
+flat pint bottle of whisky, made straight for Fleeter's Rents.
+
+All that nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand of the many
+thousands who pass it every day could tell you of Fleeter's Rents
+is that it makes a narrow black gash in the walls of the great
+thoroughfare, and that it neighbours Gable Inn. It is slimy in its very
+atmosphere all winter through, and its air in summer time is made of
+dust and grit and shadow. The old Inn elbows it disdainfully on one
+side, and on the other a great modern stuccoed pile overtops it with
+a parvenu insolence. It is the home naturally of the very poor; for
+no hermit or hater of the world, however disposed to shun his fellows,
+would hide in its dingy solitudes whilst he had but a mere shilling a
+day for lodging and bodily sustenance elsewhere.
+
+Hornett led the way up a set of narrow and broken stairs, and having
+reached the uppermost story of the house, pushed open a broken door,
+which, depending from a single hinge, scratched, noisily upon the uneven
+flooring of the room. His guest stood shivering in the doorway until a
+match sputtered and fizzed in Hornett's fingers. Then, guided by that
+precarious light, he advanced. Hornett lit a candle which adhered by its
+own grease to the filthy wall and had already made a great cone of smoke
+with a tremulous outline there. There was a small grate, with a mere
+double-handful of shavings, chips, and coal behind its rusty bars.
+Hornett applied the match to the shavings, and, as the fire leapt up,
+the two men knelt together, coughing and choking in the smoke, and
+bathing their chilled hands in the flame. Bommaney drew the flat bottle
+from a pocket hidden somewhere in his multitudinous rags, and drank.
+Hornett watched him greedily, with hands involuntarily and unconsciously
+extended. Then when he had drunk in turn, they each shivered over
+the fire again, stealing furtive glances at each other, each mightily
+disconcerted when he met the other's eye. Bommaney had aged dreadfully
+during his year of hiding, and Hornett, who had drunk his employer's
+health upon his birthdays often enough to know his age to a day, could
+yet scarce believe that the dreadful spectre who knelt beside him
+numbered less than fourscore years.
+
+One question perplexed Hornett's mind. How came it, he asked himself
+over and over again, that in the space of a mere twelvemonths a man who
+started with at least eight thousand pounds could have fallen into such
+a depth of poverty? Eight thousand pounds, if absolutely nothing were
+done with it for its own increase, meant royal living for a score
+of years for an unencumbered man. Hornett longed to satisfy his own
+curiosity upon this point, and felt as if he dared not ask the question
+for his life. He framed a score of ways by which he might approach
+it, with a road of retreat behind him, and at last, as if in spite of
+himself, he said, with apologetic impudence,
+
+'You don't seem to have made the money last long, sir.'
+
+'The money,' cried Bommaney, turning furiously upon him. 'What money?'
+
+Hornett edged away upon his knees, and his thumb and fingers traced the
+creases of his smile up and down his stubbly cheeks.
+
+'Do you think,' the old man demanded passionately, 'that I took away a
+penny?'
+
+Hornett was afraid to rise. There was such a despair and so much fury in
+the other's looks that he could do nothing but crouch at his feet with
+his mean meek face turned fearfully towards Bommaney, and his body
+cowering.
+
+'You think I took that eight thousand pounds?' Bommaney quavered, with a
+voice of bitter disdain.
+
+He had never in his life regretted anything so profoundly as he had
+regretted his resistance of that temptation. To have had all the blame
+and shame, and to endure all the miseries a convicted thief might earn
+for himself, to have been an outcast and a pauper, only because he
+had been resolute against temptation! It is easy enough for a man whom
+circumstances keep honest to think himself honourable beyond the chance
+of temptation. But misery has the virtue of Ithuriel's spear, with a
+difference. As the one touched the beast and transformed him to the
+seeming of a high intelligence, so will the other touch a seemingly
+impregnable armour of bright honour, and turn it into tinder, leaving
+the poor beast revealed and unprotected from his own base natural
+longings. The poor Bommaney was maddened to think he had not done what
+the other's thoughts charged him with, even though he passionately
+rebelled against the accusation.
+
+'When did you ever know me to be a rogue, James Hornett?' he asked, with
+an air and voice to which his passion lent something like dignity. 'When
+did you ever know me defraud a man of a farthing?'
+
+'Never, sir, I'm sure,' Hornett responded, not doubting in his own mind
+that Bommaney was guilty. 'But----'
+
+'But what?' cried Bommaney. 'My own son, my own flesh and blood, would
+hardly shake hands with me. My clerk--I took him out of the gutter,
+_you_ know that, Hornett! I took you out of the gutter and made a man
+of you, and lavished kindness on you. Nobody has a minute's trust in
+me--nobody thinks of misfortune or disaster. I was right to run away and
+hide myself, for nobody would have believed me if I had stayed and told
+the truth.'
+
+Hornett looked more frightened than before after this outburst, but
+Bommaney read incredulity in his face, and answered it with an added
+passion.
+
+'What good would it do me to tell lies to you? Suppose I made you
+believe me, am I such a fool as to, think your pity could set me on my
+legs again?'
+
+He turned away, moved by his own wrath and anguish, and Hornett, rising,
+made himself as small as he could in the corner beside the grate.
+Bommaney, in his pitiful broken boots, went shuffling up and down the
+room.
+
+'What became of the money, sir?' the clerk asked with a shaky voice.
+
+He was ready to run for his life, and he was more than half afraid that
+the old man was mad--his eyes blazed so, and his voice and gestures were
+so tempestuous.
+
+'It was lost,' said Bommaney. 'I lost it, Heaven knows how. I've thought
+a thousand times,' he said, through his clenched teeth, 'that that young
+Barter must have had it.'
+
+'Young Barter, sir?' said Hornett.
+
+Then Bommaney told all he knew of the story of his own loss, and at a
+certain point in the narrative Hornett started and made a step forward.
+He remembered the night well enough--he had reason to remember it. An
+appointment for the theatre that evening had led him to call upon a
+brother clerk in Gable Inn, and he had seen young Mr. Barter leaving his
+chambers in what had struck him at the time as being an odd and stealthy
+fashion. He had remarked it for the moment, and had forgotten it
+afterwards, as men forget a thousand things of the sort which have
+no interest personal to themselves. But now he saw young Mr. Barter's
+figure with a singular distinctness, and the face turned round in the
+gaslight was again as visible as it had been at the moment. He thought
+he read a meaning in it now. But for this slight confirmation of
+his employer's story he would probably have disbelieved it, but the
+accidental character of the clue weighed with him, an apparent touch of
+romance in it gave it a value beyond its merits.
+
+'Could you tell me, sir,' he asked, 'exactly what time it was when you
+left Mr. Barter's office?'
+
+'No,' said Bommaney, suddenly weary after his outburst of
+self-exculpation, 'I don't know. It was after banking hours. It was
+dark; he had to light the gas. What if I could? What would that have to
+do with it?'
+
+'Well, you see, sir,' Hornett answered, 'I'm not likely to forget that
+evening. Of all the evenings of my life, sir, I made a call at Gable Inn
+myself, sir, at Number One. If young Mr. Barter had found the notes
+he wouldn't care to face you again, and he mightn't have answered your
+knock at the door, though he might have heard it.'
+
+'Any fool could tell me that,' said Bommaney roughly. 'What do you
+mean?'
+
+'I've noticed, sir,' said Hornett, with marked humility, as if he
+apologised for having said anything, 'that young Mr. Barter is a
+gentleman who goes about in rather a large way, and noisy way, sir. He's
+a biggish man, as it is, and to look at him at first you'd fancy that he
+was bigger than he is. He talks very loud and cheery, sir, and he bangs
+things about a good deal.'
+
+'Well?' said Bommaney, irritated by these slow preliminaries, 'what
+about it all?'
+
+He could see that his late clerk was leading to a point of some sort,
+and listened with a growing impatience.
+
+'He was leaving his rooms that night, sir,' said Hornett, 'as sly as a
+cat. I was just on the ground-floor of Number One as he was locking
+the door behind him. Locking it, don't you see, sir,' said Hornett,
+beginning to be fired by his imagination, and speaking eagerly, 'so as
+not to make a noise in pulling it to behind him. I suppose I made some
+sort of a noise in going behind him, but any way, he looked up at me--I
+can see him now!' he cried, with a swift conviction, 'as if he was here
+at this very minute, white and cowardly. That's what he was, sir. White
+and cowardly, I can see him now.'
+
+Bommaney grasped him by the wrist.
+
+'Do you remember the time?' he asked, passing one hand confusedly
+through the tumbled and disgraceful old locks of his hair. 'Do you
+remember when I left the office? Do you remember when you left it?'
+
+'Almost directly, sir, after you. But you drove, sir, and I walked. I
+stopped, and had a little conversation with a friend, and just a social
+glass that might have kept me back five minutes, sir. I was going to
+dine with Mr. Marshall (White and Fielding's Mr. Marshall, sir) before
+the theatre.'
+
+Bommaney released his wrist, and dropping on his knees before the fire
+again, warmed his hands absently and stared into the blaze.
+
+'The notes were all hundreds, James,' he said, after a pause. 'They
+were stopped at the Bank, I know, because I saw the advertisement. It
+wouldn't be easy to get rid of them.'
+
+'There are ways and means, sir,' said Hornett. 'They'd have to be
+disposed of at a loss, of course--a heavy loss--and kept quiet for a
+considerable time.'
+
+'Have you heard of any of them coming into circulation?' asked Bommaney.
+
+'I haven't been in the way to hear of anything, sir,' the clerk answered
+mournfully, 'but,' with a sidelong look at his old employer, 'if I could
+only get to look a bit respectable, I could make inquiries in an hour. I
+have no doubt I could find out, sir.'
+
+'My boy believes I'm guilty, like the rest,' said the old man, moaning
+and shivering and coughing again. The passion of his protest and the
+warmth of heart which Hornett's returning confidence had taught him
+had all died away, and he was his bankrupt, disgraced, and broken self
+again, old and maudlin, and strickenly conscious of his miseries.
+
+'Phil might help me,' he said shakily. 'He 'could, but he won't. He's
+got plenty of money. If I'd been a rogue, James Hornett,' and there he
+flashed up again, ever so little, 'I could have robbed my own flesh and
+blood with safety. A rogue would have done it. I was his sole trustee,
+and I could have had nine thousand by a stroke of the pen at any
+minute.'
+
+'Mr. Phil, sir,' said Hornett 'Mr. Phil hasn't got much money left'
+
+'Why not?' the old man asked, staring round at him with his watery eyes.
+
+'He paid Mr. Brown the eight thousand in full, sir, and divided the
+rest, as far as it would go, amongst the poorest of the creditors.'
+
+Bommaney turned back towards the fire, and drooped there. He seemed very
+impassive under this intelligence, but he was deeply moved by it all
+the same. The sense of his son's high feeling of honour gave him a
+keen throb of pride, and then he thought bitterly that his own ill-luck
+pursued his offspring.
+
+The loss was double. It had disgraced and ruined him, and had robbed his
+son of his inheritance.
+
+'Hornett,' he said, 'James Hornett.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'I was brought up,' the old man said, in a muffled voice, advancing and
+retiring his hands before the fire, and chafing them automatically, 'I
+was brought up by Christian parents. I never did a dishonourable act in
+all my days. I have been a God-fearing man and a--a steady church-goer.
+I give it all up. I renounce it. I don't believe in God. I don't believe
+in religion. I don't believe in being honest. It's a--it's a vile wicked
+world, Hornett, and it's my belief the devil rules it.'
+
+'Oh, sir,' cried Hornett,' you mustn't talk like this, sir. You must
+excuse me speaking free, sir, but I can't stand by and hear you talk
+like that. I can't listen to it, sir--I can't really. I've never said
+a disrespectful word to you, Mr. Bommaney, but I really must speak out
+now, sir. It isn't respectable, sir, to talk like that.'
+
+After this there was a long silence, and Bommaney, who had repouched the
+bottle after his last application to it, consulted it again, and handed
+it wordlessly to Hornett, without looking at him.
+
+'Phil might,' he murmured in a while--' he might be brought to believe
+me. He's an honest man himself, James--a very honest high-minded man
+indeed. I must look where he lives,' he murmured, seeking for the
+envelope his son had given him. 'He gave me his address.'
+
+'His address, sir,' said Hornett. 'You could almost lay your hand on
+him. He lives there. That's his window with the light in it.' Bommaney
+moved to the window, and followed with his glance the direction of
+Hornett's outstretched finger. There was a window a few feet higher than
+the one at which he stood, and half-hidden from observation by a stone
+parapet. A shadow obscured the light, and moved about the ceiling,
+visible from below.
+
+'I saw him there to-night, sir,' said Hornett 'I saw his face at the
+window. He put a glass of flowers outside. That's his shadow moving
+about there now.'
+
+'Phil!' groaned the wretched father, straining his dirty wasted hands
+together. 'Phil!'
+
+'I'm not the figure, sir,' said Hornett, 'to call upon a gentleman like
+Mr. Phil; nor yet are you, sir, if you'll excuse my saying so. But if
+you'd let me go, sir, and put the case to him, he might come and see
+you here, sir, and you might set yourself straight with him, sir, which
+would at least,' the seedy man added, somewhat moved by the old man's
+tears and tremblings, 'be an advantage to a father's heart.'
+
+Bommaney stood in silence, looking upward. The moving shadow settled
+itself upon the ceiling in a huge silhouette, distinctly traceable.
+There was no doubting it was Phil's dear head that threw the shadow,
+himself invisible, so near, so far. The foolish outcast's heart ached
+bitterly, and he stretched both hands towards the shadow, not knowing
+that he moved.
+
+'Shall I venture, sir?' asked Mr. Hornett, more moved than ever, and
+coughing to clear a little huskiness in the throat. 'Shall I venture,
+sir, to look in on Mr. Phil in the morning?'
+
+'Yes, go, James,' said Bommaney, sobbing outright by this time.
+'Perhaps--perhaps he may believe me.'
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+When young Mr. Barter took time to think about things, he began,
+for more reasons than one, to be sorry. It is necessary for the due
+development of this history to go back a little, and to take up Mr.
+Barter on the day following the commission of his crime. The young man
+felt that he was unable to afford candour, and discreetly avoided the
+naming of his own action. Eight thousand pounds is a sum which most
+people would find tempting. Young Mr. Barter would never have found it
+tempting in the criminal way (though, if he had given his mind to
+the consideration, he could at any time have seen how enviable its
+unencumbered possessor might be) if he had not at the moment felt
+himself under considerable pressure. Mr. Barter's fleshy and well-formed
+fingers were somewhat too familiar with the feel of cards. These fingers
+of his were peculiarly dexterous to look at, and had even an unnecessary
+braggadocio air of dexterity when he was engaged in his favourite
+occupation. Experienced people watched his shuffling and dealing with
+great care. In Mr. Barter's frank and engaging countenance, and in that
+ready smile in which the faultless teeth shone so conspicuously, there
+was no hint of danger to the most unwary. Even the wariest, listening
+to his genial mellow laughter, and seeing the jolly shoulders shake with
+mirth, were inclined to think him a loyal honest-hearted fellow. His
+loud swagger, his frank rollicking gait, his hail-good-fellow-well-met
+shake of the hand, the other hand clapped upon the shoulder, the noisy
+greeting, and that unfailing smile, not merely disarmed suspicion, but
+made the mere fancy of it impossibly absurd. But young Mr. Barter had
+accustomed himself to associate with people whose experiences had forced
+them to be observant, and to these the dexterous caressing fingers with
+which he manipulated all instruments employed in games of chance seemed
+to justify a fairly constant watchfulness. The fingers handled the cards
+as if they loved them, as if they had been accustomed to them from the
+cradle. The tips turned back a good deal, and the nails hooked a little
+forward. There were little bulbs of tact at every tip, the hands were
+made for a gambler, and could by no possibility have belonged to anybody
+else.
+
+The chief ground for the young man's sorrow may be very easily and
+briefly stated. The packet which the unfortunate cruelly-tempted
+Bommaney had let fall in his half-drunken abstraction on the floor of
+young Mr. Barter's private room was made up exclusively, as we know
+already, of notes for one hundred pounds.
+
+Now Bank of England notes for one hundred pounds, though valuable, and
+easily enough employed in all civilised countries when honestly come by,
+are only to be got rid of when dishonestly acquired at great risk and
+loss. A note for a mere five pounds may pass through scores of hands
+before being stopped at the bank. Tens, so the experienced in such
+matters will tell you, are a little difficult. Twenties are inquired
+into rather carefully. Fifties are positively dangerous to handle
+in this way. Hundreds are, except after great lapse of time, almost
+impossible; and as for a thousand, a man might almost as well steal a
+white elephant as a bank-note of that value, except that it will cost
+him nothing for keep, unless you count the tremor of soul and nerve,
+which is surely worth something, in which a man criminally possessed of
+another's property is almost certain to live.
+
+Mr. Barter, then, had eight thousand pounds in ready money, was liable,
+if discovered, to penal servitude, and was unable to touch a farthing
+of his ill-got gains. There are many men in the world, the world's
+experience proves it hourly, who set so small a price upon their
+self-respect, that they will sell it for a shilling, for a drink, for
+a word. But there is hardly any man so lost to the natural human desire
+for self-approval that he will actually give away his self-respect for
+nothing. Now this absurd transaction young Mr. Barter, when he took time
+to think about things, appeared to himself to have made.
+
+He was not, and never had been, a great reader; he gave up his mind to
+pursuits which he found more attractive than the tranquil fields and
+lanes of literature. Yet he remembered, in a dim sort of way, either
+that he had read somewhere in his schoolboy days, or that a fanciful old
+nurse had told him, a story of a person somewhere, who, being possessed
+of a great chest of money, went one day to look at it, and found
+that his hard cash had changed to withered leaves. Precisely such a
+transformation had overtaken that eight thousand pounds, at the moment
+when it had fallen from the hands of a man who might have made an honest
+use of it. The fable was, and was not, true, so far as he remembered,
+and his fancy dwelt curiously about the history. There was no
+possibility of turning back the withered leaves to gold, and making them
+jingle and glitter again as only one's own ready money can jingle and
+glitter. But, useless as these crisp and rustling leaves of paper were
+to him, they held still all their old potentialities, and in the hands
+of honest men or courageous rascals each leaf might still transmute
+itself into a hundred golden emblems of sovereignty and power. He was
+neither that honest man nor that courageous rascal, and the money grew
+to be a sort of devilish tantalising fetish to him. Before he had owned
+it a fortnight, he had felt a hundred times he could have burned it out
+of the exasperation of mere spite against it.
+
+He heard, of course, of Bommaney's flight, and of the failure of the
+old-established business house. People talked about these things a
+good deal for a time, and he himself listened to and took part in many
+speculations as to Bommaney's whereabouts, and the means he would take
+to get rid of the notes and make them available for his own purposes.
+He found it at first a little trying to the nerves. There was nothing,
+since Bommaney had accepted his own disgrace and run away, to connect
+young Mr. Barter with the lost eight thousand pounds, yet it took much
+courage, and a considerable amount of inward spurring, to bring himself
+to talk about the business. When a man carries a secret of a quite
+harmless nature, it happens often, as almost everybody knows, that
+casual words and quite innocent glances startle him with hints of
+understanding and participation. What is it when the detection of the
+secret involves open shame and penal servitude? Can a man of genuine
+courage be a thief? Is not courage after all at the very bottom of all
+manly honour, of all sound honesty, all true self-respect? How shall a
+thief be other than a lurking cur, whose whole soul, such as it is,
+is bent to a mean suspicion that he is suspected, a continuous
+terror-stricken watchfulness, a sleeping and waking dread of an awful
+hand-clap on the shoulder? There are constitutional differences in
+thieves, no doubt, as there are in other people, but the key-note of the
+dishonest man's whole thought is fear. When, after a day or two, young
+Mr. Barter had accustomed himself to speak of Bommaney and the lost
+eight thousand, and had often spoken of them, he began to look out
+for suggestions that might be useful to himselt He even led the way at
+times, and speaking to solicitors and barristers of extensive criminal
+experience, he asked often, for example, how could a scoundrel get rid
+of such a clumsy handful? Why didn't the fool cash the notes, he would
+ask contemptuously, before he left town, and before he was suspected?
+Everybody knew of course that the notes had not been presented, and
+their numbers were advertised in all the daily papers. Now what could a
+fellow do who had them, by Jingo? What _could_ he do? There was no
+way open, so far as young Mr. Barter could see, and he was wonderfully
+engaging and innocent of the world's wickeder ways as he talked thus
+with the ablest of his fellow professionals.
+
+The fellow professionals cited cases. There was Rosenthal, a noted
+receiver in his day, to whom a dishonest clerk had sold five thousand
+pounds for five hundred. Rosenthal had held the notes for six years, and
+had then put them cautiously on the Continental market. He was an old
+hand, was Rosenthal, and very clever and leary, but they had bowled him
+out. The clerk was wanted on another charge, and turned Queen's
+evidence against the receiver. Almost all the stories had this kind of
+termination, because the legal gentlemen whom young Mr. Barter consulted
+remembered mainly cases in which they or their friends had been engaged,
+or cases which had resulted in criminal proceedings. Others there
+certainly were, but they were vague and necessarily without those
+guiding particulars which he desired.
+
+It has been already hinted that the young man was a gambler, and it is
+likely that most of the reasons which made the money seem so welcome to
+him had their sources at the gaming table. He belonged to one of those
+clubs which deserve to be numbered among the blessings of
+modern society--where men do not meet for social intercourse and
+good-fellowship, or for dining purposes, or for any of the common and
+amiable reasons which draw men into club-life, but simply and purely
+to the end that they may win one another's money. It was a joint-stock
+swindling company to which young Mr. Barter belonged, and within its
+limits every man proposed to himself to get the better of every other
+man by such means as lay in his power. A pigeon got in amongst them
+every now and then, of course--came in well-feathered and went out
+plucked, but for the main part the rooks pecked hungrily at one another,
+and made but little of their time and pains. The one solitary advantage
+of these corporations is that they gather the depredatory birds
+together, and lead them to prey upon themselves instead of wandering
+abroad for the defeathering of the innocent and artless who abound
+even in these days. The well-constituted mind can hardly fail to take
+pleasure in the contemplation of these resorts, where Greek meets Greek
+(in the modern French sense as well as the old heroic)--where scoundrel
+encounters scoundrel, and learns that the pleasure of being cheated is
+by no means so great as that of cheating.
+
+There were people of widely ranging social position in this curious
+contingent. One or two men of title, and one or two of the highest
+social or commercial respectability, lent their names for some
+inconceivable reason to grace the front page of the neatly-bound little
+volume of rules which govern, or sometimes fail to govern, the conduct
+of the corporation. Mr. Barter rubbed shoulders with young men--very
+young men they were--who would one day have handles to their names, and
+enjoy the control of considerable estates. He sat at the same table with
+men whose birth and antecedents, like those of the immortal Jeames, were
+shrouded in a mystery. He met men of his own position, who like himself
+were desperately glad of being numbered in the same club society with
+men eminent on the turf, or familiar in the gilded saloons of the great.
+He liked to think of those gilded saloons; it might be interesting
+to know what he thought they resembled--most probably a somewhat
+old-fashioned earthly paradise of ormolu. He bragged indefatigably
+of his club and the people whom he met there. He dated all his private
+correspondence from it, and spent hundreds of daylight hours above the
+ivories and the pasteboard.
+
+At the time of that foolish and weak-willed Bommaney's disaster there
+were two or three I.O.U.'s for sums much more considerable than he
+could afford to part with in the hands of his fellow-members. Law is a
+necessity to human society. Even a band of brigands can't hang together
+without it. Debt, outside the club, was by no means a thing to be
+harshly spoken of, but debt to a fellow-member was a literal millstone
+round a man's neck, and would sink him out of sight in no time.
+
+The elder Barter had gone over to the majority, despatched by that
+street accident, and if the old man had known nothing of the young man's
+courses, he had had it in his power to make him well-to-do. But he had
+paid his debts once at least, and had more than once had occasion to
+grieve over the boy's handling of the firm's money, and so had made his
+will entirely in his wife's favour, leaving his son dependent upon her
+good graces. The mother was disposed to be a little sterner than the
+father had been. Perhaps if young Barter had dreaded her less poor
+Bommaney's fallen notes might have been returned to him.
+
+But, to get on with the story, the young man's chief creditor at the
+club was one Steinberg, a gentleman whose time appeared to be absolutely
+at his own disposal, though he was known by some of his fellow-members
+to have an address in Hatton Garden, and to be more or less of a diamond
+merchant there. He often carried about with him, in a pocket-book, or
+in neat little packages of grocer's gay paper, borne in the
+waistcoat-pocket, a collection of gems of considerable value, and would
+show them to his intimates with the _insouciance_ of a man who was
+accustomed to handling things of price. He never was without money, made
+little journeys at times, which rarely took him away from town for more
+than a day or two, and was, almost always, wholly unoccupied except for
+the cards.
+
+Now young Barter had a prodigious idea of this gentleman's astuteness.
+He had no particular belief in his honesty, and he believed him, not
+altogether unreasonably as the sequel proved, to be initiated into most
+of the mysteries of modern rascality. This was merely a general notion,
+based upon statements made by Steinberg himself, and supported by the
+opinion of his intimates. Nobody spoke ill of Steinberg; it was only
+understood that there was no move upon the board with which he was not
+familiar. Young Barter, meeting him one evening at the club, whilst
+Bommaney's disappearance was still a fresh topic of town conversation,
+spoke to him about it, with an assurance clearly begotten of practice.
+
+'Now, look here, Steinberg,' he said, in his open and engaging way.
+'Suppose you'd nobbled those notes, what should you do with 'em?'
+
+Perhaps Mr. Steinberg resented the form of this inquiry. But be that as
+it may, he responded with some tartness,
+
+'Suppose you'd nobbled them?'
+
+At this chance thrust young Barter turned curiously red and white, and
+had some ado to recover that open smile of his.
+
+'Hang it,' he said, 'you can't suppose I meant it that way. But,' with a
+half-hysteric courage, 'suppose you had--suppose I had--suppose anybody
+had--what would he do? You, I, anybody?'
+
+Mr. Steinberg sipped at his lemon squash--he drank that inspiring
+liquid all the year round, and nothing else until cards for the day
+were over--and puffed at his cigar, and looking young Barter full in the
+face, nodded and smiled with an odd mingling of meaning and humour.
+
+'Put him on to me,' he said, with perfect affability. 'I'll put him up
+to it.'
+
+'Rather dangerous, wouldn't it be?' said Barter, showing his white teeth
+in a somewhat forced and ghastly manner.
+
+'Everything's dangerous for an ass,' said Steinberg.
+
+'I shouldn't have thought,' laughed Barter, 'that that was your line.'
+
+He spoke as jestingly as he could, but he knew that his laugh was
+forced, and that the voice in which he spoke was unlike his voice of
+every day, and he wished, with the whole of his quaking heart, that he
+had left the theme alone.
+
+'Well, no,' said Steinberg, 'I suppose you wouldn't.' He sipped his
+liquor through a straw, and blew half a dozen rings of smoke from his
+lips with practised dexterity, and kept a glittering German-Jewish eye
+on Barter. Perhaps he meant something by the glance, perhaps he meant
+nothing. He was a rather Machiavelian and sinister-looking personage,
+was Mr. Steinberg, and there was something even in the calm expression
+of those perfectly-formed rings of smoke and in the very way in which,
+he sipped his liquor, and most of all in the observant glitter of his
+eye, which spoke of a penetration and shrewdness very far out of the
+common. More and more young Barter wished that he had not broached this
+theme with Steinberg.
+
+He could not help it for his soul. He could feel that his colour was
+coming and going with a dreadful fluttering alternation. He quailed
+before the Israelitish eye so shrewdly cocked at him, and when in a very
+spasm of despair he tried to meet it, he was so abjectly quelled by it
+that he felt his face a proclamation of his secret.
+
+Steinberg went on sipping and smoking, and said nothing; but when the
+young scoundrel, his companion, had somewhat recovered himself and dared
+again to look at him, there was the same shrewd and wary glint in his
+eyes.
+
+Young Barter had been unhappy enough before this, but after it the money
+became a burden hateful and horrible. He met Steinberg often, and
+forced himself to be noisy in his company. In his dread of seeming
+low-spirited, or ill at ease, he said things about his dead father which
+he would have left unsaid, had he consulted the little good that was
+left in him; and Steinberg seemed to watch him very closely.
+
+Young Barter put off his creditor with promises. He would have lots of
+money by and by. That seemed credible enough in the position of affairs,
+and Steinberg waited. In a while, however, he became exigent, and
+declined any longer to be satisfied with promises. One night the unhappy
+rascal, playing all the more because of his troubles, all the more
+wildly, and certainly all the worse, fell back upon his LO.U.'s.
+Steinberg followed him from the club. It was late, and the streets were
+very quiet.
+
+'This won't do, you know, Barter,' said Steinberg, tapping him on the
+shoulder as they walked side by side.
+
+'Begad it won't,' said young Barter, doing his best to make light of it.
+'They've been cutting into me pretty freely this past week or two.'
+
+'Well,' said Steinberg, puffing at his eternal cigar, and looking askant
+at Barter under the light of a street-lamp which they happened to be
+nearing at the moment, 'what you've got to do, you know, is to find the
+man who knows Mr. Bommaney.'
+
+The commotion which assailed Barter at this speech was like an inward
+earthquake.
+
+'What--what do you mean?' he panted.
+
+'That's what you've got to do,' said Steinberg tranquilly.
+
+'Do you mean to insinuate----' Barter began to bluster; but the older,
+cooler, and more accomplished scoundrel stopped him contemptuously.
+
+'You know where they are,' he said 'Why don't you get at 'em?'
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+About noon on the following day Mr. Steinberg, seated in a small
+inner chamber in Hatton Garden, leisurely answering his sole business
+correspondent of that morning, was in no way surprised when the boy he
+employed to open the door and receive visitors brought in a card bearing
+the name of 'Mr. John Barter, jun.'
+
+'Show him in,' said Mr. Steinberg; and young Mr. Barter, hearing this
+in the outer room, came in with a pale-faced and excited alacrity. The
+diamond merchant dismissed the boy with a word.
+
+'Well,' he said, turning the tip of his cigar upwards by a protrusion of
+the under lip, 'what is it?'
+
+'About that little matter,' said young Barter nervously, 'we were
+talking of last night.'
+
+'The little matter we were talking of last night?' asked Steinberg idly,
+looking at him with half-shut eyes. 'That hundred you owe me?'
+
+'Well, perhaps that afterwards,' said Barter with a frightened
+breathless laugh in his voice. 'But about the other matter first.'
+
+'The other matter?' Steinberg asked, in a lazier manner than before.
+'What other matter?' He took up his pen, dipped it in the inkstand
+before him, and tracing a line or two of his correspondent's
+communication with it, turned to his own unfinished letter.
+
+Young Barter was already sufficiently agitated, and this curious
+reception made him more embarrassed than ever.
+
+'About that affair of Bommaney's,' he said, feeling as if a rapid wheel
+had been somehow started in his brain.
+
+'Ah!' said Steinberg, writing rapidly, and speaking in a voice which
+seemed to indicate that he neither understood nor cared to understand,
+'that affair of Bommaney's, eh?'
+
+This reception was nothing less than dreadful to the young criminal. He
+had reckoned on having his way made easy for him. Steinberg had actually
+offered to become his accomplice in crime, and had lured him to
+disclosure. He could have wished that the floor would open and let
+him through. He saw that he had already exposed his hand, and began to
+imagine all manner of consequences resulting from the exposure. Not one
+of the consequences he foresaw promised to be of a nature agreeable to
+himself, and for the moment the hatred with which Steinberg inspired him
+was of so mad a nature that there was nothing he would not have done to
+him if he had had the courage and the power.
+
+Steinberg wrote on, shaking his fist in what seemed to be an unusual
+alert, and even threatening, manner. There was a great deal of
+unnecessary motion in Steinberg's hand, and Barter, looking at its swift
+and resolute movements, got a blind sort of impression of strength out
+of it, and nullified the feeling with which it inspired him. The letter
+written, enveloped, addressed, and stamped, Steinberg tossed it on one
+side, and leaning back in his arm-chair, turned an uninterested look
+once more upon his visitor.
+
+'That affair of Bommaney's,' he said. 'What was that?'
+
+Mr. Barter thought this inquiry altogether too barefaced, and responded,
+with a hectic flush of courage,
+
+'Come, Steinberg, don't play the fool with a fellow. You know jolly well
+what it was last night.'
+
+Mr. Steinberg's keen and impassive face underwent no change.
+
+'What did I know last night?' he asked.
+
+'You know,' Barter began angrily; and then the hectic flush of courage
+died, and a dreadful chill of fear succeeded it. What had he known? He
+had only guessed--till now. But now, young Mr. Barter felt, to employ
+the expressive ideas of his set, that he had given himself away.
+Steinberg capped the question in his mind. What did I know last night?
+
+'You haven't come to waste your time or mine, I suppose? You've come to
+say something. Why not say it?'
+
+His guest, sitting in a terrible confusion, and feeling himself
+altogether betrayed and lost, Steinberg marched to the door, and
+addressing the boy in the outer room, bade him carry the letter to the
+post and return no more that day. Then, having locked the outer door, he
+returned and resumed his seat.
+
+'Now, what is it?' he asked.
+
+Barter, recognising the fact that his own purpose was already exposed,
+made a desperate dash.
+
+'About those notes old Bommaney was supposed to have run away with. I
+think--I think, mind you, that if there was any way of using them, I
+could lay my hands upon them.'
+
+'I remember,' said Steinberg, 'you said something of the kind last
+night. I shouldn't advise you to touch 'em. It's a dangerous game.
+They're very worthless, and the game isn't worth the candle.'
+
+'Worthless?' echoed Barter. 'They're worth eight thousand pounds.'
+
+'They're worth eight thousand pounds,' responded Steinberg, 'to the man
+they belong to. They're not worth eight hundred to anybody else.'
+
+Young Mr. Barter's whole soul seemed to rise in protest against this
+abominable fallacy. When he had screwed up his courage so far as to
+induce himself to accept this older and more experienced scoundrel's
+partnership, he had conceived the possibility of the partner crying out
+for halves. But that he should want so enormous a share of the spoil was
+quite intolerable.
+
+'Not worth eight hundred?' He could only gasp the questioning protest.
+
+'If I had 'em to sell,' Steinberg answered calmly, flicking the waste
+from his cigar by a movement of his little finger, 'I should think eight
+hundred an uncommon good price for 'em. Later on and sold at second hand
+they might fetch a thousand. Later on and sold at third hand they might
+fetch fifteen hundred. One can hardly tell. Of course the value will go
+on mounting with distance from the original source of danger and with
+the lapse of time.'
+
+He said all this very calmly and reflectively, and young Barter,
+collecting his whirling wits as well as he could, tried a stroke of
+diplomacy, which, as he fondly hoped, would answer a double purpose.
+
+'She'll never let them go for that, or for anything like it.'
+
+'She won't, won't she?' asked Steinberg, smiling brightly, as if the
+statement amused him. 'Then she'll never let 'em go at all, my friend.
+How did you come to find she had 'em?'
+
+'I made a little bit of a discovery,' Barter answered.
+
+'Ah! That was it, was it,' said the elder rascal, falling back into his
+utter want of interest. 'You'll let me have that hundred.'
+
+'I will in a day or two,' answered Barter, _arr�anti_.
+
+'Well, as for a day or two,' returned Steinberg, rubbing his forehead
+with the tips of his fingers, and looking very careless and composed,
+'I'm really very much afraid I can't let you have it. It's been
+outstanding a goodish time, and to tell you the truth, old man, I want
+it very badly. If you'll let me have it to-night I shall be obliged to
+you. I've been hit rather hard this last day or two. Shall we make that
+a bargain? To-night?'
+
+'I--I'm afraid,' Barter stammered, 'it's no use talking about to-night.'
+
+'Well,' said Steinberg, with a pitiless uninterested suavity, 'you know
+the rules.'
+
+He drew a little book from his pocket, and tossed it over the table to
+his guest.
+
+'You'll find it on page five. Rule fourteen. It's ticked in red ink, if
+you'll take the trouble to look at it.'
+
+Barter opened the book and consulted its pages blindly for a while, and
+then the mist which seemed to obstruct brain and eyesight clearing away,
+he read the pages indicated. It set forth the principle that all moneys
+lost at games of skill or chance, or upon bets made within the limits
+of the club, were payable within four-and-twenty hours. It set forth
+further that debts not paid within that time might be brought under the
+notice of the Committee, who were empowered to act under Rule nine. Rule
+nine ordained the public posting of the defaulter's name, his suspension
+in default of payment, and, in case of continued obduracy or poverty,
+his expulsion.
+
+'First and last, Steinberg,' said the wretched criminal, who began to
+find the way of the transgressor unreasonably hard and thorny, 'first
+and last, you've had a pretty tidy handful of money out of me.'
+
+'Well, yes,' said Steinberg tangibly. 'Pretty fair.'
+
+His very admission of this fact made Barter's case seem hopeless to
+himself. If he had brow-beaten, or blustered, if he had shown anger or
+impatience, or had been querulous, there might have seemed to exist some
+slenderest chance for him. But Steinberg was so unmoved that he seemed
+immovable.
+
+'You'd better persuade her,' he said, with a scarcely perceptible grin.
+Looking at Barter, and observing that he sat with his eyes still bent
+upon the book of rules, and head dejected, he allowed the grin to
+broaden. Barter, suddenly looking up at him, saw him smiling like a
+gargoyle, with a look of infinitely relishing cruelty and cunning.
+
+'You won't find her hard to persuade, I'm sure,' said Steinberg. 'Come,
+now, I'll talk business to you. I'll take ten of 'em for it, and cry
+quits, and I wouldn't do that for anybody but a friend.'
+
+The frank admission of the value of his own friendship was plainly
+legible in that gargoyle smile, and the unhappy Barter read it clearly.
+
+'I'll--I'll see what I can do with her,' he said, with a face and voice
+of pure misery.
+
+'Do, my boy,' said Steinberg, rising, and swinging the key of his
+chambers upon his forefinger, 'see what you can do with her. I shan't
+send any notification to the Committee before nine o'clock, old chap.
+You can trust me for that. You go off at once, old fellow, and see what
+you can do for her.'
+
+The fraudulent possessor of the notes felt their burthen more than ever
+insupportable. He rose, and went his way with remorse and rage and the
+bitterness of baffled stratagem in his heart. His wounded mind soared to
+so lofty a height of egotism in its struggles that he positively found
+the impudence to curse Bom-maney for having dropped the notes in
+his office. Then he cursed himself for having taken them, and cursed
+Steinberg for robbing him, and so moved off in a condition quite
+pitiable to one who could find the understanding and the heart to pity
+him.
+
+Steinberg stopped behind, and smoked smilingly. He was the successful
+scoundrel, and found the transaction as sweet as the young Barter found
+it bitter.
+
+'I don't think hell have much trouble with her,' he said to himself; and
+he enjoyed that little jest so much that he caught himself smiling at it
+a hundred times in the course of the afternoon and evening.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+Old Brown, who was one of the sunniest-natured of men, went gloomy when
+the news of his old friend's dreadful fall came to his ears. It does him
+no more than justice to say that he mourned Bommaney senior infinitely
+more than the money. He liked to trust people, and had all his life long
+been eager to find excuses for defaulters. He could find no excuse here.
+The theft was barefaced, insolent, dastardly. He puzzled over it, and
+grew more cynical and bitter in his thoughts of the world at large than
+he could have imagined himself. But then, when Bommaney junior came
+home, and insisted on the restoration of the missing eight thousand from
+his own small fortune, old Brown brightened up again. There was such
+a thing as honesty in the world, after all. The restoration warmed
+his heart anew. At first he fought against it, and would have none
+of it--the mere candid and honest offer of it was enough for him; but
+Philip was more resolute than himself, and the stronger man won. Phil
+should never have cause to repent his goodness, the old fellow declared
+to himself a thousand times. He should reap the proper reward of his own
+honour. Brown admired and loved Phil out of bounds for this little bit
+of natural honesty and justice. He thought there had never been a finer
+fellow in the world, and his heart warmed to him as if he had been a son
+of his own. As for that rascal of a father--and when he got so far in
+his thoughts he fumed so with wrath that he dared go no farther, and was
+compelled, for the sake of his own peace, to banish the friend of his
+schooldays from his mind a thousand times a week.
+
+It was about a year later than the disgrace of the house of Bommaney
+that old Brown, to his daughter's perplexity and grief, began to show
+signs of trouble almost as marked as those he had displayed after his
+old friend's defection. The old boy's newspaper no longer interested him
+of a morning. He began to be lax about that morning ride which he had
+once regarded as being absolutely necessary to the preservation of
+health in London. He had been impassioned with the theatre, and had
+become a diligent attendant at first-night performances. Even these
+ceased to have any joy for him, and he neglected, in fine, all his old
+sources of amusement He went about sorrowful and grumpy, expressing the
+dolefullest opinions about everything. There was going to be war, stocks
+were going down, trade was crumbling, there was no virtue in man.
+
+Patty tried her best to coax him from these pessimistic moods, but
+the old boy was not to be persuaded. On fine evenings, when there was
+nothing better to be done, he had loved greatly, between the quiet
+old-fashioned tea and the quiet old-fashioned supper, to dress for out
+of doors, and with Patty on his arm to wander into Regent's Park, and
+there inhale the best imitation of country atmosphere that London could
+afford. He dropped this amiable and affectionate habit, and took to
+rambling out alone, coming home late, and haggard, and not infrequently,
+at such times, staring at his daughter with an aspect so sorrowing and
+wretched that she knew not what to make of him.
+
+The girl, watching him with a constantly increasing solicitude, could at
+last endure this condition of affairs no longer. He came home one night,
+leaving neither his stick nor hat in the outer hall, and sat down in the
+dining-room, muffled and great-coated, the picture of dejection. Patty,
+kneeling before him, removed his hat, smoothed his hair, and began to
+unbutton his overcoat.
+
+'Papa!' she cried suddenly, 'what _is_ the matter with you? Why are you
+so changed?'
+
+He breathed a great sigh, and laid his hand upon her head. Then he
+turned his face away from her--to hide his eyes, she fancied.
+
+'You are in trouble,' she went on. 'It is not kind to keep it from me.
+Is it anything that I have done, or anything I could do.'
+
+'No, no, my darling,' he said softly, laying his hand upon her head
+again.
+
+'Is it money, dear?'
+
+'No, no. It isn't money. Don't talk about it, my dear. Don't talk about
+it.'
+
+'Now, papa, you make me think it very grave indeed.'
+
+'There,' he said, rising, 'you shan't see any more of it, and we'll say
+no more about it Well be gay and bright again, and well hope that things
+will turn out for the best.'
+
+The attempt to be gay and bright again resulted in most mournful
+failure, and the girl grew frightened. She had nursed her fears for many
+days, and had hidden them.
+
+'Papa!' she said, trembling ever so little, 'you must let me know what
+it is. Let us bear it together, dear. Whatever it may be it can't matter
+very much if it leaves us two together--and----'
+
+'Ah! 'said old Brown, looking at her with a pitying smile.
+
+'Is it anything----?' She stopped short, and really found no courage to
+complete the question.
+
+'My darling,' he answered, folding her in his arms, and staring sadly
+over her shoulder. She felt the hands that embraced her quiver, and she
+knew he had understood her half-expressed query. This frightened her so
+much that it gave her boldness.
+
+'There is something the matter with Phil,' she said, pushing the old man
+away, and holding him at arm's length. 'Tell me what it is.'
+
+'My dear,' he answered, 'you shouldn't leap at conclusions in that way.'
+But the disclaimer was altogether too feeble to deceive her. Philip
+was the mysterious cause of her father's trouble. Her wandering, pained
+eyes, her parted lips, the terror and inquiry in her face, frightened
+the old man. 'No, no,' he cried, 'you must not think it too bad. I'm not
+sure of anything. I don't suppose it's at all a matter of consequence. I
+daresay he's an old fool. I hope I am.'
+
+These hints and innuendoes were about the last thing in the world to
+satisfy a girl who had been made anxious about her lover.
+
+'Tell me,' she commanded. 'I have a right to know. What has happened?'
+She was no more inclined to be jealous than girls who are in love
+commonly are. She had, indeed, a native fund of confidence, and her
+trust in Phil's loyalty had been of the unquestioning sort, quite
+profound and settled. Yet for a moment there rose before her mental
+vision the dim picture of some possible rival, and at the mere hint of
+this she grew ashamed, and flamed into indignation against herself.
+
+'Tell me,' she said; 'I insist on knowing.'
+
+'Well, my dear,' said the old man miserably and reluctantly, I've been
+told that his father hastened his own ruin with dice and cards.' It
+was the first time he had mentioned Bommaney senior in his daughter's
+hearing for a year. She looked at him with eyes still intent, but
+somehow milder and less alarmed. 'Phil,' the old boy continued, 'I'm
+afraid that Phil is travelling in his father's steps.'
+
+'Phil a gambler!' she said, with an honest scorn of conviction. 'I know
+better. What makes you think it?'
+
+'There are a lot of beastly clubs at the West End,' said the old man,
+beginning to struggle with his overcoat, partly because he wished to
+avoid the girl's look, and partly because the motion was a relief
+to him. 'Gambling-places. Places where men meet for no other earthly
+purpose than to cheat one another. I'm as fond of a rubber at whist as
+anybody; but no honest man would put his head into one of those holes of
+infamy if he knew its character.'
+
+'Are you speaking of Phil, papa?' she asked. Her voice was low and
+tremulous, and there was almost a note of threatening in it. The
+gentlest creature will fight for her own--a fact for which some of us
+have reason to be grateful.
+
+'Yes, my dear,' her father answered with a kind of sullen sadness; 'I'm
+talking about Phil. He's a member of the vilest crowd of the whole
+lot, and he's there night after night.' He dashed his overcoat into an
+arm-chair with despairing anger, and went marching up and down the room.
+'I saw him one night by accident as he was going in. I knew the place.
+You might have knocked me down with a feather. I've watched him there
+night after night. Don't tell me I hadn't the right to watch him. I had
+the right My little girl shan't marry a gambler. I won't have my fortune
+wasted by a gambler, and my child's heart broken. I took a room,' he
+pursued wrathfully, 'opposite the place. I've sat there in the dark with
+the window open, and caught the d---- worst cold I ever had in my life
+watching for him. I've seen him go in again and again. He's a lost man,
+I tell you,' he cried in answer to his daughter's look and gesture; 'the
+man who has that vice in his blood is lost!'
+
+He was storming loudly, for he was one of those in whom emotion must
+have expression in noise, but a sudden loud peal at the bell cut short
+his harangue, and he and Patty stood in silence to know who it might be
+who called so late. As it happened, it was no other than the lost man
+himself. He was shown in according to wont and usage without previous
+announcement, and entered gay and smiling, elate and tender.
+
+As he looked from one to the other the expression of his face changed.
+He moved quickly towards Patty, and took her hands in his.
+
+'There's something the matter,' he said gently. 'You're in trouble!'
+
+The old boy, glaring at him, growled, 'We are,' and snatching up his
+overcoat, threw it over his arm, and slipped his hat upon his head with
+a gesture which Philip took for one of defiance. As a matter of fact it
+expressed no more than wrathful grief, but then gesture and expression
+are hard to read unless you have the key to them.
+
+'We'd better have it out, Phil,' said the old man, 'here and now. You've
+turned gambler, and I've found you out.'
+
+'No,' Phil answered, with an odd smile; 'I haven't turned gambler, I
+assure you. You've heard that I've joined the Pigeon Trap? That's what
+they call it in the City. I prefer to call it the Hawks' Roost. There
+are too few pigeons go there to be plucked to justify the other title,
+and I give you my word of honour, Mr. Brown, that I'm not one of them.'
+
+The young man's air was candid and amused. There was an underlying
+gravity beneath the smile, and for people who had believed in him as
+devoutly as his two listeners it was hard to disbelieve him now.
+
+'You've gone into the infernal hole,' said old Brown, more than half
+abandoning suspicion, and yet inclined to leave it growlingly, as a dog
+might surrender a bone he conceived himself to have a right to. 'What do
+you want there?'
+
+'I want to do a very important stroke of business there, sir,' Philip
+answered. The smile quite disappeared from his eyes at this moment, and
+he looked very grimly resolute. 'I will tell you this much,' he added,
+'because you have a right to know it. I am in pursuit of a brace of
+scoundrels there. I think I've salted the tail of one of 'em already.
+I believe with all my heart, sir, that I'm going to clear my father's
+character, and I would go into worse places than the Pigeon Trap if I
+saw my way to doing that.'
+
+Patty of course was clinging to him without disguise by this time,
+anxious only to atone for having given an ear to any word against him,
+even for a moment. Phil put his arm about her waist and kissed her. He
+had never to his knowledge performed this act in the presence of a third
+person until now, but he got through it without embarrassment.
+
+'You think you can clear your father's character?' asked his
+sweetheart's father. There was a tinge of scepticism in his voice,
+though he tried to hide it.
+
+'Yes, sir,' said Phil, his head thrown back a little, and his eyes
+gleaming. Nobody had ever looked so handsome to Patty's fancy as he did
+at that moment 'I know already that there was no real stain upon his
+honour, and I'm surprised myself for thinking that there ever could have
+been, bad as things looked. My father never took wrongful possession of
+your money. He was robbed of it, and I think I can lay my hand upon the
+thief.'
+
+There was a prodigious excitement at this declaration, and the young man
+was overwhelmed with questions. He could name no names, of course,
+and give no clue, but he sketched the story. He contented himself by
+describing young Barter as Thief Number One, and he was satisfied to
+describe Steinberg as Probable Thief Number Two. He had learned, it
+appeared, that Thief Number One had succeeded on his father's death to
+a carefully limited partnership in a business affair in the city. The
+guiding spirit in the concerns of Thief Number One had been his father's
+managing clerk. The income of Thief Number One was strictly limited,
+and his actual control over the affairs of the firm was non-existent.
+Notwithstanding these facts, the young man was guilty of countless
+extravagances, and was a reckless gambler. Within the last twelve months
+he could hardly have paid away at the club less than a thousand pounds.
+He had been extremely hard up before the loss of the money, and it was
+in his offices that the roll of banknotes had been lost. As for Probable
+Thief Number Two, he played rook to Number One's pigeon. He had a
+visible hold upon him; Number One trembled before him, and did what
+he was bidden to do. Number Two had plenty of money, and as shady a
+reputation as any man in London who was not among the known criminal
+classes. Phil's belief was that Number Two was disposing of the notes
+for Number One, and that this simple fact accounted for his power over
+him.
+
+'And I'm going to follow their track,' said Phil, tapping the clenched
+knuckles of his right hand upon the open palm of his left with a quiet
+vehemence, 'until I find out everything, if I follow it until I am
+gray.'
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+It would appear that a spider may be among the most daring, skilful, and
+predatory of his species, that he may be gifted with the most constant
+watchfulness and appetite, and yet, whether by the intrusion of
+an accidental walking-stick or broom (which would assuredly seem
+providential to the fly), or by stress of weather, or the desperate
+activity of a victim, may have his best laid schemes brought to
+nought, and his most mathematically laid web rent to tatters. In the
+entomological world a solitary interview between fly and spider is
+usually fatal to the one, and satisfactory to the other. But we of the
+higher developments, who model ourselves, or are modelled, upon the
+lines of myriads of remote ancestors, and far-away relatives, have
+refined upon their primitive proceedings, and have made their simple
+activities complex by development.
+
+In an absolutely primitive condition the Steinberg spider would have
+drained the Barter fly at a single orgie, and would have left him to
+wither on the lines. As things were, he came back to him with a constant
+gusto of appetite, tasting him on Monday, despatching him to buzz among
+his fellows until Saturday, and then tasting him again, the Barter fly
+seeming for a while--for quite a considerable time in fact--lusty and
+active and able-bodied, and looking as though this kind of thing might
+go on for ever without much damage to him, and the spider himself giving
+no sign of overtaxed digestive powers.
+
+Not to run this striking and original simile out of breath, the Barter
+fly endured for a round twelve months, without showing signs of anaemia
+so pronounced as to look dangerous to his constitution. At the end of
+that time, however, all the surplus blood had been drawn from his body,
+and the spider had grown so keen by the habit of constant recurrence to
+him that any prolonged connection between them began to look desperate.
+In plain English, the eight thousand pounds which had once so lightly
+passed from the hands of Mr. Brown to the hands of Mr. Bommaney had now
+passed, with just as little profit to the man who parted with them, from
+the hands of young Barter to the hands of Steinberg.
+
+It was just about the time when this lingering but inevitable
+transaction was completed that chance led young Barter to his encounter
+with the son of the man whose belongings he had appropriated. Everybody
+knows how apt newly-made acquaintances sometimes are to renew themselves
+again and again. You meet a man whom you have never seen before, see
+him just long enough to take a passing interest in him, and to know
+generally who and what he is, and you run against him on the morrow, and
+again on the morrow, and so on, until in a week he has grown as familiar
+to your thoughts as any other mere acquaintance of whose identity you
+may have been aware for years. This happened in the case of Philip
+Bommaney and younger Mr. Barter. They entered the Inn together, or left
+it together, or Philip ran upstairs or downstairs as Barter was in the
+very act of leaving or entering his chambers. Putting together a certain
+family resemblance which he thought he noticed, the identity of a rather
+uncommon name, and the curious frequency of these chance encounters,
+Barter found it hard to avoid the belief that his new-made acquaintance
+had a rather careful eye upon him. His nerve was a good deal shaken, and
+he was by no means the man he had been. To the unobservant stranger the
+frank gaiety of his laugh was as spontaneous as ever, but then that had
+never had much to do with Barter's inward sensations. Perhaps he got the
+laugh in some remote fashion from an ancestor who really ought to have
+had it, and who may have been as dull and as little laughter-loving to
+look at as his successor was within. Philip rather took to the fellow
+at first sight, and was slow to suspect him, even when James Hornett
+had told his story. But the young Barter was not satisfied, as he
+should have been, with playing the part of one insect at a time. It
+was unwholesome enough, one might have thought, for him to play fly to
+Steinberg's spider, and yet he must needs take to playing moth to Philip
+Bommaney's candle, a light of danger to him, as he recognised almost
+from the first He was always polite to Phil, and always stopped him for
+a moment's conversation at their chance encounters. Phil, having been
+inspired at least with a suspicion that this engaging young man was
+responsible for the actual disgrace which had fallen upon Bommaney
+senior, always bent a grave scrutiny upon him. Barter sometimes wondered
+whether his new-found acquaintance's way of looking at him were habitual
+or particular, but he could never solve that problem. To Barter's nerves
+the glance of dispassionate analysis always seemed to ask--Did you steal
+those notes? and whether his mind and nerves were at accord or no made
+but little difference to him. His mind rejected the idea of suspicion,
+but his nerves accepted it with trembling. He knew perfectly well that
+he could not endure the certainty of Phil Bommaney's knowledge, but
+none the less he found the uncertainty tantalising and painful. This is
+perhaps one of the hardest things an undetected criminal has to endure,
+that he lives in a world of suspicion of his own making, where every
+imagination is real and as dreadful as the fact. In his own mind young
+Barter credited himself with courage when he made overtures for Philip's
+companionship. In reality he made the overtures because he was a coward,
+and a braver scoundrel would have disdained them.
+
+Philip felt himself impelled to watch this young man, and was not
+altogether displeased that he found the opportunity thrust upon him.
+Almost facing the gateway of the old Inn there is an old-fashioned
+restaurant, deserted from its hour of opening until noon, and from then
+crowded inconveniently till two o'clock, deserted again till five, and
+once more inconveniently crowded till seven. Philip, having the power to
+choose his own time for meals, and frequenting this old house, sometimes
+met Barter in the act of coming away from it with the dregs of the
+stream of the late lunchers or diners. He fell into the habit of going
+a little earlier, and Barter would signal him to the table at which he
+sat, if by rare chance there happened to be a vacant seat at it. The
+young rascal's tendency lay towards monologue, and since it was his cue
+to be open-hearted, and very unsuspicious of being suspected, he
+talked with much freedom of himself, his pursuits, and his affairs. The
+question which Barter's nerves were always finding in Philip's eyes was,
+as a matter of fact, not often absent from his mind. 'Now, how did you
+steal those notes?' was the one active query of his intelligence as he
+listened to Barter's candid prattle.
+
+It was in the course of these confidences that Philip learned of the
+existence of that Pigeon Trap of which Mr. Barter was so proud to be an
+inhabitant. It was at Barter's solicitation that he visited the place,
+and it was Barter who proposed him as a member.
+
+Being a member it was not long before he discovered the fact of
+Steinberg's influence over the young solicitor. He noticed a terrified
+deference in Barter's manner towards the other, a frightened alacrity of
+obedience to his suggestions. He noticed also that Steinberg and Barter
+played a good deal by themselves, and that Barter always lost.
+
+The men of Hawks' Boost talked pretty freely about each other in the
+absence of such of their fellow clubmen as were under discussion. Barter
+was spoken of as Steinberg's Mug, Berg's Juggins, Stein's Spoofmarker.
+It was generally admitted that Stein made a good thing out of him, and
+the wonder was where Barter got his money. There was a pretty general
+apprehension that the young man, at no very far future date, would come
+to grief. The contemplation of this probability affected the Boosters
+but little in an emotional way, but it made them keen to see that
+Mr. Barter paid up punctually, and though they were very shy of paper
+acceptances from their comrades as a general thing, they were shyer of
+his than of most men's.
+
+These things Philip Bommaney junior attentively noted. At first the
+clubmen rather wondered at him. He was in their precincts often,
+and would smoke his pipe and watch whatever game might be going with
+tranquil interest, but he never played, and could not be induced to bet.
+_Que diable faisant-il dans cette gai�re?_ the clubmen wanted to know.
+He never told them, and in a while they grew accustomed to him and
+his ways. He continued his quiet watch upon Mr. Barter, and included
+Steinberg in his field of observation. One evening, dining at the old
+restaurant, he marked Barter, melancholy and alone. He was sitting in an
+attitude of apparent dejection, tapping upon the table with a fork, and
+deep sunk in what seemed to be an uncomfortable contemplation. But when
+the moth saw his candle he brightened, and fluttered over to it.
+
+'You might come over,' said Barter, when they had sat together until the
+latest of the dining guests had gone away. 'You might come over to my
+chambers and smoke a cigar if you've nothing else to do. I don't care
+about going down to the club tonight.'
+
+The Steinberg spider was supposed to be waiting there, coldly patient
+and insatiable, and Barter dreaded him. Philip had never entered the
+rooms, but they had an attraction for him. He accepted his companion's
+invitation, and they entered the chambers together. A fire lingered
+in the grate, and Barter replenished it, and, having produced a box of
+cigars and a bottle of cognac, proffered refreshment to his guest. The
+honest man began somewhat to recoil from himself and from his companion.
+What was he there for? The answer was pretty evident. There was nothing
+between this loud-babbling youth and himself which could have drawn them
+into even a momentary comradeship, if it had not been for the suspicion
+his father's story had inspired in him. Frankly, he was there because he
+suspected the man, because he desired to watch him, because, if he found
+the chance, he was willing to set him in the dock. To smoke his tobacco
+and drink his liquor in those circumstances had undoubtedly an air of
+treachery. In a while he hardened himself, and closed his ears to all
+casuist pleadings, whether for or against the course he had adopted. He
+would clear his father if he could, and if there were any mere hope of
+doing it, he would watch this fellow as a cat watches a mouse, and would
+go on doing it until both of them were gray.
+
+'By the way,' said Barter innocently, 'do you never take a hand at----'
+
+His supple fingers supplied the hiatus, dealing out an imaginary pack of
+cards with the flourishing dexterity native to them.
+
+'That's what I'm here for, is it?' thought Philip in his own mind. 'We
+shall see.' He said aloud, 'Sometimes,' in an indifferent tone.
+
+'There's nothing worth seeing anywhere to-night,' said young Barter.
+'Suppose we try a hand. What do you say to a game at Napoleon?'
+
+Philip consented, and his host produced two packs of cards from the
+business safe.
+
+They fixed upon the points and they began to play. The points were not
+those for which Mr. Barter really cared to play; for he was one of those
+people who find no joy in cards unless they risk more than they can
+afford to lose. But little fish are sweet, and he thought he had
+secured a greenhorn. As it happened, the greenhorn, though he was
+but eight-and-twenty, had travelled the world all over, and had
+found himself compelled to survey mankind from China to Peru. He
+was, moreover, one of those men who like to know things, and those
+quietly-observant eyes of his had taken note of the proceedings of a
+hundred scoundrels in whose hands the redoubtable Steinberg himself
+would have had but poor chances. The Greek had been Philip's standing
+joy, the dish best spiced to suit his intellectual palate. He had
+delighted over him aboard ship, on the monstrous dreary railway journey
+between Atlantic and Pacific, in the little towns which form the centre
+of scores of Texan ranches, in hells at the Cape and in California, in
+the free ports of China, and on the borders of the Bosphorus. In point
+of fact he was by experience as little fitted to be played upon by a
+gentleman of young Mr. Barter's limited accomplishments as almost any
+man alive.
+
+Phil's interest in the game had grown grimly observant in the first ten
+minutes. Young Mr. Barter had a knack, when he shuffled the cards,
+of slily inclining the painted sides upwards. He had another knack of
+leaving an honour at the bottom. He made a false cut with fair dexterity
+for an amateur. He could, when occasion seemed to make it profitable,
+discard with a fair air of unconsciousness. An ace dropped out of sight
+a hand or two earlier, was followed by a valueless card dropped openly.
+The ace was taken to supply its place with a perfect smiling effrontery.
+But Mr. Barter's favourite trick came out when he had a weak hand. Then
+he smiled across at his opponent, breathed softly the words 'six cards,'
+and dropped the worthless hand on the top of the pack, calling for a new
+deal All this Philip Bommaney watched with a complete seeming innocence
+and good temper. He lost his sixpences handsomely, made no protest, and
+looked unruffled.
+
+'You play false for sixpences, do you?' he said inwardly. 'I suppose a
+scoundrel is a scoundrel all through, and that if you'll sell your soul
+for so little, you could hardly object to driving a bargain for a larger
+sum.'
+
+He was often tempted in the course of a quarter of an hour to try Mr.
+Barter with a sudden challenge, and see what would come of it. Surveying
+his companion with that placid inquiry which Barter felt to be so
+excessively uncomfortable, he came to have but a poor opinion of his
+courage. He was one of those men who, even without knowing it, take
+profound observations of their fellow-creatures. The true observer of
+human nature is by no means a personage who is always on the strain
+after insight into character. He is, on the contrary, pretty generally
+an inward-looking man, who seems to notice little, and takes in his
+surroundings as the immortal Joey Ladle did his wine. Philip judged
+Barter to be a nervous man, and supposed him, even when strung to
+his bent, to have no great tenacity or continuance of courage. He had
+learned more and more to believe his father's story, though he had
+perhaps too carefully guarded himself from his own eager desire to
+accept it Barter's every action with the cards offered confirmation
+of the belief that he had taken possession of the lost notes. He
+was certainly a petty rascal, and there was obviously nothing but
+opportunity needed to make him bloom into a rascal on a larger scale. So
+the temptation to drop the cards upon the table, to look his companion
+in the face, and to ask simply, 'How about that eight thousand pounds?'
+grew more and more upon him, and had to be more and more strenuously
+resisted. It seemed worth while to resist it To begin with, if young
+Barter should be innocent, the querist could evidently expect nothing
+else than to be taken for a madman. To continue, if his name and the
+likeness to his father had already set the thief upon his guard, and
+had prepared him for accusation, the question would only reveal his own
+suspicion, and thereby weaken the chances of discovery.
+
+Philip combated his inward desire, but could not quell it. There seemed
+a kind of intuition in it, a lurking certainty lay hidden behind all the
+doubts he saw, and pushed him forward.
+
+By and by young Mr. Barter tripped on the false cut, which he had
+hitherto executed with a fair amateur dexterity.
+
+'Excuse me,' said Phil, as he gathered the spilt cards together. 'You
+should make the three separate motions look like one. Do the trick so.'
+
+He performed the trick slowly, looking Barter in the face, and then went
+through it swiftly.
+
+'That is how the thing ought to be done, Mr. Barter,' he said, with a
+placidity which his companion found singularly disquieting.
+
+And now, that same unhappy want of self-command which had given
+Steinberg so clear an insight into his young friend's mind, fell once
+more upon Barter. He tried to look wondering, he tried to laugh. The
+result of that frightened contortion of the features was nothing less
+than ghastly. Unhappily for himself he knew it, and so he grew ghastlier
+yet, and for the life of him could not tell where to set his eyes.
+
+'So you're a sharper in a small way, are you, Mr. Barter?' Philip
+inquired suavely.
+
+'How dare you talk to me like that?' the detected rascal stammered. 'You
+come into a gentleman's rooms, and lose an odd half-crown or two----'
+
+When he had got as far as this he ventured to look his companion in the
+face, and seeing there a very marked and readable prophecy of unpleasant
+things, he backed, and in the act of doing so, tripped, and fell into a
+chair. The intention in Phil's mind became simply unconquerable. He cast
+rapidly about him for an instant, saw all the consequences of failure
+which might follow if he denounced the trembling wretch at once, and set
+him on his guard. And yet he could not help doing what he did, and could
+not restrain the words which rose to his lips. He took Barter by the
+collar, and lifted him to his feet with an unsuspected strength, and put
+the question to him quietly.
+
+'How many of those stolen notes has Steinberg changed for you?'
+
+It was a bold thing to do, it was perhaps a foolish thing to do, and yet
+it was the game. Barter stared at him speechlessly. His lips moved, but
+he said nothing. Then his jaw fell as a dead man's jaw falls, and being
+released at that instant, he dropped into the chair like a sack.
+
+'Now the best thing for you to do,' said Phil, sternly regarding him,
+'will be to make a clean breast of it. I have been tracking you since
+the second day of our acquaintance.'
+
+Barter groaned, with a tremulous and hollow sound, but made no other
+answer.
+
+'How many of those notes are in Steinberg's hands?' Phil asked.
+
+The rascal's wits had begun to work again, if only a little, and he
+could by this time have answered if he would. But he knew that his
+own cowardice, if nothing else, had given away the game. After such a
+confession as his own terror had made, what was the use of bluster
+or pretence? He could not guess how much was known. He was completely
+cornered, and must fight or yield. His native instinct at any moment was
+ready to teach him how much discretion was the better part of valour,
+and now to fight seemed mere madness. In the very terror of the night
+which thus suddenly enveloped him he saw one gleam of hope. There was
+one stroke to be made which might save him, in part at least, from the
+consequences of his own misdeed.
+
+Philip gave these reflections but little time to grow distinct to
+Barter's mind.
+
+'How many of those notes?' he asked slowly, emphasising almost every
+word by a tap of his knuckles upon the table, 'have passed into
+Steinberg's hands?'
+
+'All,' gasped Barter; 'every one of them!'
+
+'That will do for the present,' said Philip, and at that instant there
+came a loud summons at the door, whereat the miserable Barter started,
+and clasped his hands in renewed terror. He fancied an officer of
+justice there, his arrival accurately timed.
+
+Philip, throwing a glance about the room, and assuring himself that
+there was no means of unobserved exit, answered the summons in person.
+He had until that moment kept perfect possession of himself except
+for his obedience to that overmastering intuition, but beholding Mr.
+Steinberg at the doorway he felt a great leap at his heart, and a sudden
+dryness in his throat. He examined these phenomena afterwards, and
+decided in his own mind that they were assignable to fear. He came to
+the belief which he cherishes until now, that he had to screw up his
+courage pretty tightly before he could face the idea of confronting the
+partners in rascality together. But here it may be observed in passing
+that this kind of self-depreciation is a favourite trick with men of
+unusual nerve, and is rarely resorted to by any but the most courageous.
+
+Steinberg recognised him by the light of the gas-lamp.
+
+'Good-evening,' he said, nodding. 'Barter's here, I suppose.'
+
+'Sir,' said Phil, with recovered coolness, a certain light of humour
+dawning in his mind, 'Mr. Barter is within, and I have no doubt will be
+very happy to see you.'
+
+Steinberg cast a sidelong glance at him, and entered. Phil closed
+the door, and followed close upon his heels. Barter, with his pale
+complexion fallen to the tint of dead ashes, sat huddled in the
+arm-chair, staring white-eyed like a frightened madman. Steinberg stared
+back at him in sheer amazement at his looks, and Phil, closing the door,
+turned the key in the lock and pocketed it.
+
+'Hillo!' cried Steinberg, turning swiftly round at the click, 'what's
+this mean?' He measured Philip with his eye--a very evil and wicked eye
+it was--and dropped back a step or two.
+
+'What's this mean?' Steinberg asked again, his quick glance darting from
+one to the other.
+
+'It means, sir,' said Phil, with a glad tranquillity, 'that your
+fellow-scoundrel, the courageous gentleman in the arm-chair there, is in
+the act of making his confession.'
+
+Steinberg sent one savage glance at Barter, and then dashed at him, and
+planting both hands within the collar of his shirt, so banged him to and
+fro that he would inevitably have done him a mischief of a serious
+sort but for Phil's intervention. The method of intervention was
+less tranquil than Philip's motion up to this time had been. He tore
+Steinberg from his grip of the betrayer with a force he had no time to
+measure, and hurled him across the room. He staggered at the door,
+and his head coming noisily in contact with it, he slipped down into a
+sitting posture with an expression suddenly changed from ferocity to a
+complete vacuity and indifference.
+
+Now Mr. Barter, scared as he had been, and shaken to his centre, had
+begun to think again, and when he saw that Steinberg's chance in the
+enemy's hands was less than nothing, that fact formed as it were the
+last necessary plank for the raft of safety he desired to construct. He
+got up from his place, animated by this great idea, and staggering to
+the helpless Steinberg, fell down beside him and gripped his hands.
+
+'Tie him, Mr. Bommaney, tie him!' gurgled Barter. 'He's been the ruin
+of me, curse him. I should have been an honest man if it hadn't been for
+him. It's him that led me into it, and he's had every sixpence of the
+money. I've been his tool, his miserable tool. Tie him, Mr. Bommaney,
+before he comes round again. I'll hold him for you.'
+
+One may get good advice from the most unexpected quarter, and
+whencesoever good advice may come it is worth while to follow it. Phil
+took a dandy scarf from Steinberg's own neck, and tied him tightly,
+wrist to wrist Then he helped him to his feet, and set him in a chair.
+
+'He came here to-night,' Barter gurgled on, with tears of sincerest
+penitence, 'to bleed me again. He's got my I.O.U. for �82 he cheated me
+of last week. He's had every penny of the money. I haven't had so much
+as a single farthing of it myself. I'll swear I haven't.'
+
+'That's your lay, is it?' said Steinberg, whose scattered wits were
+coming back to him. 'You shall answer for this violence in the proper
+quarter, Bommaney.'
+
+'I will answer for it in the proper quarter,' Phil replied. 'I will
+trouble you, Mr. Steinberg, to come to the proper quarter now.'
+
+'You won't forget,' said Barter, 'that I helped to capture him. You'll
+speak a word for me, Mr. Bommaney?
+
+'I've been that villain's victim all along. I should never have gone
+wrong if it hadn't been for him, and I've wanted to send the money back
+over and over again, but he got it into his own hands and wouldn't
+listen to it, and after all I never took the money, Mr. Bommaney--I only
+found it. It was Steinberg kept it. He said I should be a fool to let it
+go.'
+
+What sentiments of contempt and rage inspired Mr. Steinberg's bosom
+at this juncture must be imagined. He looked them all, but verbally
+expressed none of them.
+
+'Get up,' said Phil, addressing him. Steinberg obeyed. 'Take a seat in
+that corner.' Steinberg obeyed again. 'Now you--' to Barter, 'take a
+place in that corner, behind the desk.'
+
+'With pleasure, Mr. Bommaney,' said Barter, 'with the very greatest
+willingness. I desire to make no resistance to the law. I helped to
+capture the criminal Please remember that, Mr. Bommaney. Pray remember
+that.'
+
+He took hold of a heavy ruler which happened to be lying on the desk,
+and deeming that he and the other rascal were about to be left alone
+together, he showed it shakily to Steinberg, as a hint that he was not
+without means of protection against a man unarmed and bound.
+
+Phil unlocked the door, inserted the key on the other side, disappeared,
+and turned the lock anew. The two criminals heard his footstep sounding
+elate, triumphant, and threatening to their ears as he went along the
+boarded floor. They listened as the footstep crossed the square boulders
+of the courtyard, and listened still until their sound melted into the
+blended noises of the outer street. A minute later the step was heard
+returning, accompanied by another, solid and terrible. They knew it, and
+their hearts, low as they were already, sank at it. The door opened and
+Phil reappeared, followed by a policeman.
+
+'I give these two in charge,' the young man said, 'the one as the thief,
+the other as the receiver of a bundle of bank-notes of the value of
+eight thousand pounds, the property of my father, Mr. Philip Bommaney of
+Coalporter's Alley.'
+
+'I'm quite willing to go without resistance,' said Mr. Barter from
+behind the table. 'I assisted in the capture, and I am ready to say
+anything.'
+
+'That's the first true word you've spoken,' Steinberg snarled. 'You can
+take this thing off,' holding out his hands. 'I'll go quietly. I can get
+bail in an hour.'
+
+'Don't have it taken off, Mr. Bommaney, not if we're to travel in the
+same vehicle. He threatened me while you were away. He said if they
+gave him fifty years he'd kill me when he came out again. He'll do it,
+because I made a clean breast of it, didn't I, Mr. Bommaney? I made a
+clean breast of it, officer. I'm ready to--tell everything. He's ruined
+me, and now he says he'll kill me because I'm ready to make a clean
+breast of it.'
+
+'I choose to be taken separately, if you please. I myself will pay the
+fare. I won't travel with that cackling idiot.'
+
+'I will go with Mr. Bommaney with pleasure,' said the penitent. 'I'll go
+with you with pleasure anywhere. I'd rather go with you a great deal.'
+
+It was hardly to be expected that Philip should feel very warmly towards
+either of his two companions, but of the two he misliked Steinberg the
+less. And, since it seemed humane and reasonable to choose, he chose
+Steinberg as his travelling companion. The officer set Steinberg's hat
+upon his head, and the quartet set out. The sight of a man with his
+hands tightly bound with a scarlet muffler gathered a momentary little
+crowd at the Inn gate; but, a pair of hansoms being summoned, captives
+and captors were speedily relieved from vulgar observation. The station
+reached, it turned out that the communicative Mr. Barter, in the
+exuberance of his heart, had exposed to the officer _en route_ the
+whereabouts of the lost notes. He declared that to his knowledge they
+rested in a safe, the position of which he indicated, in Steinberg's
+Hatton Garden office. The Inspector before whom the charge was made
+deemed this intelligence worthy of being acted on at once. The two
+prisoners were searched, and Mr. Barter was so good as to point out,
+among Steinberg's keys, those which were necessary for the purposes of
+investigation. He even went so far as to offer his assistance as guide;
+but this was declined with a chilliness singularly at variance with the
+solicitous warmth of the proposal.
+
+'I think, sir,' said the Inspector, with an arctic disrespect which was
+so frozen as to be almost respectful, 'that we can manage this without
+your assistance.'
+
+The Divisional Superintendent, being communicated with by telephone,
+arrived upon the scene. The matter in hand having been laid before him
+with curt official brevity, he asked for the keys, called to himself a
+constable, and was preparing to set out, when Philip begged permission
+to accompany him.
+
+'The notes, sir,' he said, 'were left in my father's trust by a dear
+old friend of his. My father himself was supposed to have made use of
+them--a thing of which he was incapable. If I can take to him the news
+that they are found, I can lift a load of undeserved disgrace from the
+mind of an honourable man.'
+
+'I shall be pleased to have your company, Mr. Bommaney,' the
+Superintendent answered, touched a little by the young man's
+earnestness. So the three got into a four-wheeler, and bowled away to
+Hatton Garden, and there made entry into the chambers lately occupied by
+Mr. Steinberg. There was no gas here, but the constable's dark lantern
+showed the way. It revealed the safe in the position the communicative
+criminal had assigned to it. It revealed the notes, snugly spread out in
+one crisp little heap, and arranged with business-like precision in the
+order of their numbers.
+
+This golden spectacle once seen, Phil dashed into the street, hailed a
+hansom, and drove pell-mell, exciting the cabman who conducted him by
+the promise of a double fare, to the residence of old Brown and old
+Brown's daughter. There he told the glorious news, a little broken and
+halting in his speech. Patty threw her arms about him, and cried without
+concealment or restraint. Old Brown blew his nose with a suspicious
+frequency, and shook his adopted son-in-law by the hand at frequent
+intervals.
+
+'Phil,' he cried at last, 'where's your father? By God, sir, he never
+had any need to run away from me, because he happened to lose a handful
+of paltry money. What had he got to do but come and say, "Brown, it's
+gone!" He hadn't trust enough in me to think I'd believe him. Let's get
+at him. Where is he?'
+
+The old boy tugged furiously at the bell-pull.
+
+'Send Brenner round to the stable,' he said to the servant. 'Tell him
+to get the horses to, and bring the carriage round at once. Where's your
+father, Phil?'
+
+'He's down Poplar way,' said Phil. 'Hornett, his old clerk, is living in
+the same house with him.'
+
+'We'll go down, and rouse him up,' the old boy said, with a moist eye
+and trembling hand. 'Phil, my lad,' he went on, grasping the young
+fellow's hand in his own, 'I'm getting to be an old 'un. You wouldn't
+think it to look at me, because, thank God, I've always known how to
+take my trouble lightly, but I've seen a lot of it in my time, and you
+can take my word for this--there isn't any trouble in the world that's
+hardly so bitter as for an honest man to have to take another for a
+rogue.'
+
+So it came to pass that Bommaney senior, who after all, perhaps, hardly
+deserved to be made a hero of, was plenteously bedewed with the tears of
+three most honourable and high-minded people, and was, set up in their
+minds as a sort of live statue of undeserved martyrdom. They who learned
+the tale afterwards mourned his weakness, and supposed him to be the
+victim of a too sensitive organisation. He lives now with a genuine halo
+of sanctity about him, and seems in the minds of some to have suffered
+for the sake of a great principle, quite noble, but not quite definitely
+defined.
+
+Odd things happen every day in the world, and pass by unregarded. The
+worship of Bommaney senior's sensibilities seems a trifle dull when all
+things are considered, though one has to be glad that an honest son can
+think of him with pity mixed with admiration. But perhaps the oddest
+thing of all in connection with this story may be looked for in the
+shorthand reporter's notes of the Recorder's speech at the Old Bailey,
+when the accusation against Messrs. Barter and Steinberg came to be
+heard.
+
+'You, Barter,' said the learned Recorder, 'appear to have been drawn
+into this by the influence of an intelligence stronger and abler than
+your own. You appear, in a moment of weakness, to have been led away
+by that stronger intelligence from the paths of rectitude. But you have
+displayed so clear a sense of the enormity of your conduct, and have,
+by your complete disclosures of the crime committed by you and your
+companion, and, by your evidence in Court to-day, shown so complete a
+repentance for it, that I do not think that it would be politic or just
+to lay a severe term of imprisonment upon you. Nevertheless, the law of
+the land must be justified, and I feel a pleasure in believing that in
+justifying the law I am affording you an opportunity for reflection, for
+the formation of good resolutions for the future, and for a confirmation
+of those better desires which I believe--in spite of your association
+with this criminal enterprise--to animate your mind.'
+
+Now, to my fancy, this has a distinct element of comedy in it; but the
+learned Recorder resembled some of his unlearned brethren, in respect to
+the fact that he could not be expected to know everything.
+
+Mr. Barter thrives again, but he is even now awaiting, with the
+uneasiest sensations, the liberation of the man who betrayed him into
+crime.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Young Mr. Barter's Repentance, by 
+David Christie Murray
+
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+      Young Mr. Barter's Repentance, by David Christie Murray
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+
+Project Gutenberg's Young Mr. Barter's Repentance, by David Christie Murray
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Young Mr. Barter's Repentance
+       From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray
+
+Author: David Christie Murray
+
+Release Date: August 8, 2007 [EBook #22272]
+Last Updated: September 16, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUNG MR. BARTER'S REPENTANCE ***
+
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+Produced by David Widger
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+
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      YOUNG MR. BARTER&rsquo;S REPENTANCE
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By David Christie Murray
+    </h2>
+    <h4>
+      Author Of &lsquo;Aunt Rachel,&rsquo; &lsquo;The Weaker Vessel,&rsquo; Etc.
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Contents
+    </h2>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> IV </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> V </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> VI </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VII </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VIII </a>
+          </p>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr Bommaney was a British merchant of the highest rectitude and the most
+      spotless reputation. He traded still under the name of Bommaney, Waite,
+      and Co., though Waite had been long since dead, and the Company had gone
+      out of existence in his father&rsquo;s time. The old offices, cramped and
+      inconvenient, in which the firm had begun life eighty years before, were
+      still good enough for Mr. Bommaney, and they had an air of solid
+      respectability which newer and flashier places lacked. The building of
+      which they formed a part stood in Coalporter&rsquo;s Alley, opposite the Church
+      of St. Mildred, and the hum of the City&rsquo;s traffic scarcely sounded in that
+      retired and quiet locality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Bommaney himself was a man of sixty, hale and hearty, with a rosy face
+      and white whiskers. He was a broad-shouldered man, inclining to be portly,
+      and he was currently accepted as a man of an indomitable will. There was
+      no particular reason for the popular belief in his determination apart
+      from the fact that it was a favourite boast of his that nothing ever got
+      him down. On all occasions and in all companies he was wont to declare
+      that no conceivable misfortune could really break a man of spirit. He
+      confessed to a pitying sympathy for mealy-willed people (and everybody
+      knew that Bommaney, in spite of his own strength of mind, was one of the
+      kindliest creatures in the world); but, whenever he met a man in trouble,
+      he would clip him by the shoulder, and would say, in his own hearty
+      fashion, &lsquo;You must look the thing in the face, my boy. Look it in the
+      face. I&rsquo;d never let anything break <i>me</i> down.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since his reputation for fortitude was as solid and as old-fashioned
+      amongst the people who knew him as his business character itself, it would
+      have come as something of a shock upon any of his friends if he could but
+      have been seen by them, or any credible man amongst them, on a certain
+      afternoon in the April of 1880. He had locked himself in his own room,
+      and, sitting there in a big chair before a businesslike desk, with a great
+      number of docketed papers in pigeon-holes, and a disordered mass of papers
+      strewn before him, the determined Mr. Bommaney, the decided Mr. Bommaney,
+      the Mr. Bommaney whom no misfortune could subdue, was crying, very feebly
+      and quietly, and was mopping his rosy cheeks, and blowing his nose in an
+      utter and unrestraining abandonment to trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another fact which would have come upon his friends with an
+      equal shock of surprise if they could but have had it brought home to
+      them. The man who sat unaffectedly crying in the big chair in helpless
+      contemplation of the scattered papers was a hopeless bankrupt, and had
+      seen himself sliding towards bankruptcy for years. When men who knew him
+      wanted business advice, they went to him by preference, and nobody came
+      away empty. He knew the City and its intricacies like a book. He knew who
+      was safe and who was shaky, as if by a kind of instinct, and he knew where
+      and when to invest, and where and when not to invest, as few men did. &lsquo;You
+      can&rsquo;t get at me,&rsquo; he would say; for, old-fashioned as he was, he used a
+      little of the new-fashioned slang to give spice and vigour to his
+      conversation. &lsquo;There isn&rsquo;t a move on the board that I don&rsquo;t know.&rsquo; He
+      advised his friends excellently, and there were perhaps half a score of
+      fairly well-to-do speculative people who had to thank him, and him alone,
+      for the comfort they lived in and the consideration they enjoyed. He had
+      been wise for others all his life, and in his own interests he had always
+      acted like a greenhorn. He talked loudly, he spent freely, he paid his
+      way, he expressed the soundest business maxims, and was as shrewd in
+      detail as he was wise in generalities, and these things made a natural
+      reputation for him: whilst he traded for years at the expense of his
+      capital, and went steadily and surely towards the bottomless gulf of
+      insolvency. Now he was on the very verge of it, and to-morrow he would be
+      in it. It lent a feeble sting to his sufferings to know how surprised
+      people would be, and how completely men would find him out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not very profoundly involved other people in his own ruin, but he
+      had gone a little farther than a man altogether brave, and honourable, and
+      clearsighted would have ventured, and he knew that some would suffer with
+      him. He might have made arrangements to go a little farther still if he
+      had been courageous, clear-sighted, and dishonest, and might have held his
+      head up for another matter too, perhaps. But he had lacked the nerve for
+      that, and had never consciously been a rogue. He felt even now a pride of
+      honesty. He had been unfortunate, and his creditors would have everything&mdash;everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thanked God that Phil&rsquo;s mother had tied her money on her only son, and
+      that the boy at least had enough to begin the world with. How should he
+      face Phil when he came home again? How should he send the news to him? The
+      lad was away enjoying himself, travelling all round the world with a
+      wandering Baronet, who owned a yacht and had an unappeasable taste for the
+      destruction of big game. He would have to surrender his fashionable and
+      titled acquaintance now, poor fellow, and begin the world with a disgraced
+      and broken frame to be a drag and hindrance to him. The more Mr. Bommaney
+      thought of these things, the more unrestrainedly he cried; and the more he
+      cried, the less he felt able or inclined to control his tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wept almost silently, only an occasional sniff betraying his emotion to
+      his ear. He had always held his head so high, and had been so believed in.
+      It was very bitter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whilst he was in the midst of this childish abandonment to his grief a set
+      of knuckles softly and hesitatingly tapped the door from without, and
+      directly afterwards a hand made a tentative respectful sort of attempt
+      upon the handle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Who&rsquo;s there?&rsquo; cried Mr. Bommaney, steadying his voice as best he could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;A gentleman to see you, sir,&rsquo; answered a smooth voice outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Bommaney pushed back his chair, rose to his feet, and retiring to a
+      smaller room consulted a little square looking-glass which hung upon the
+      wall above his washing-stand. His blue eyes were very tearful and a little
+      swollen, his cheeks and nose looked as if they had been scalded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Wait a moment,&rsquo; he said aloud, and his voice betrayed him by a break. He
+      blushed and trembled, thinking that Mr. Hornett, his confidential clerk,
+      would know how he was breaking down, and would speak of his want of
+      courage and self-command hereafter. The reflection nerved him somewhat,
+      and he sluiced his face with water, making a little unnecessary noise of
+      splashing to tell the listener how he was engaged. He polished his face
+      with the towel, and, consulting the mirror again, thought he looked a
+      little better.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he re-entered his business room, and turning the key in the lock
+      opened the door slightly, a mere inch or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Who is it?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;A Mr. Brown, sir,&rsquo; said the smooth voice outside. The clerk insinuated a
+      card through the space between the door and door-jamb, and Mr. Bommaney
+      took it from his fingers without revealing himself. He had some difficulty
+      in making out its inscription, for his eyes were newly tearful, and,
+      whilst he peered at it, a reflex of his late emotions brought a sniffling
+      sob again. He was freshly ashamed at this, and said hastily,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Five minutes&rsquo; time. I will ring when I am ready. Ask the gentleman to
+      wait.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. James Hornett softly closed the door, and stood on the landing with
+      long lean fingers scraping at his lantern jaws. He was a little man, short
+      of stature, and sparely built. His skin was vealy in complexion, and he
+      had wiry hair of a russet-red. Even when he was clean shaven his fingers
+      rasped upon his hollow cheeks with a faint sound. His nose and chin were
+      long and pointed, and his manner was meek and self-effacing even when he
+      was alone. There was a tinge of wonder in his face, at war with an
+      habitual smile, in which his eyes had no part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Something wrong?&rsquo; he said, under his breath. He went creeping softly down
+      the stairs. &lsquo;Something wrong? Mr. Bommaney in tears? Mr. Bommaney!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Could anything have happened to Mr. Phil? That was the only thing Mr.
+      Hornett could think of as being likely to affect his employer in that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Mr. Hornett had been in his present employ for thirty years, man and
+      boy, and he was human. Therefore, when at the expiration of a little more
+      than five minutes&rsquo; time Mr. Bommaney&rsquo;s bell rang, he himself ushered the
+      visitor upstairs, and in place of retiring to his own pew below stairs,
+      lingered in a desert little apartment rarely used, and then stole out upon
+      the landing and listened. He was the more prompted to this because the
+      visitor, who had a bucolic hearty aspect, and was very talkative, had told
+      him downstairs that Mr. Bommaney and himself were old friends and
+      schoolfellows, and had been in each other&rsquo;s confidence for years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I am afraid, sir,&rsquo; Mr. Hornett had said, when the visitor first presented
+      himself, &lsquo;that Mr. Bommaney may not be able to see you at present. He gave
+      orders not to be disturbed.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Not see me?&rsquo; said the visitor with a laugh. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll engage he will.&rsquo; And
+      then followed the statement about his old acquaintanceship with Mr.
+      Hornett&rsquo;s employer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If there were anything to be told at all, it seemed not unlikely that this
+      visitor might be the recipient of the intelligence, and Mr. Hornett
+      lingered to find if haply he might overhear. He heard nothing that
+      enlightened him as to the reasons for his employer&rsquo;s disturbance, but
+      heard most that passed between the two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney had succeeded in composing himself and in washing away the traces
+      of his tears. Then he had taken a stiffish dose of brandy and water, and
+      was something like his own man again. He received his visitor cordially,
+      and in his anxiety not to seem low-spirited was a little more boisterous
+      than common.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m busy, you see,&rsquo; he said, waving a hand at the papers scattered on the
+      desk, and keeping up the farce of prosperous merchandise to the last, &lsquo;but
+      I can spare <i>you</i> a minute or two, old man. What brings you up to
+      town?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve come here to settle,&rsquo; said the visitor. He was a florid man with
+      crisp black hair with a hint of gray in it, and he was a countryman from
+      head to heel. He seemed a little disposed to flaunt his bucolics upon the
+      town, his hat, his necktie, his boots and gaiters, were of so countrified
+      a fashion, and yet he looked somehow more of a gentleman than Bommaney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve come to settle.&rsquo; He rubbed his hands and laughed
+      here, not because there was anything humorous and amusing in his thoughts,
+      but out of sheer health and jollity of nature. Bommaney, still distrustful
+      of his own aspect, and afraid of being observed, sat opposite to him with
+      bent head and fidgeted with his papers, blindly pretending to arrange
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;To settle,&rsquo; he said absently. Then, rousing himself with an effort, &lsquo;I
+      thought you hated London?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Ah, my boy,&rsquo; said his visitor, &lsquo;when you&rsquo;re in the shafts with a whip
+      behind you, you&rsquo;ve got to go where you are driven.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; said Bommaney mechanically, &lsquo;that is so. That <i>is</i> so.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The visitor was laughing and rubbing his hands again in perfect happiness
+      and self-contentment, and had no eye for Bommaney&rsquo;s abstraction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;it&rsquo;s Patty&rsquo;s doing. I&rsquo;ve sold up every stick and stone,
+      and I&rsquo;ve taken a house in Gower Street. Do you know, Bommaney,&rsquo; he added,
+      with an air and voice suddenly serious and confidential, &lsquo;the country&rsquo;s
+      going to the devil. Land&rsquo;s sinking in value every year. I&rsquo;ve been farming
+      at a growing loss these six years, and rents don&rsquo;t come in as they used to
+      do. I got my chance and I took it. Lord Bellamy wanted to join the Mount
+      Royal and the three estates. My little bit o&rsquo; land lay between &lsquo;em, and I
+      sold it to him. Sold it, too, begad, as well as I could have done half a
+      dozen years ago.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he laughed once more with great heartiness, and unbuttoning his
+      overcoat, groped in an inner pocket. After a struggle, in the course of
+      which he grew very red in the face, he drew forth a pocket-book of unusual
+      dimensions, and slapped it on the desk so vigorously that his companion
+      started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I got a tip the other day,&rsquo; he went on; &lsquo;that old bank at Mount Royal,
+      Fellowes and Fellowes, is going to crack up, my boy. There&rsquo;s something
+      very queer in the commercial atmosphere just now, Bommaney. There are lots
+      of old-fashioned solid people breaking up.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Bommaney&rsquo;s uneasy fancy there was in his visitor&rsquo;s voice an accent
+      which sounded personal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&mdash;I hope not,&rsquo; he answered, somewhat feebly, &lsquo;so much depends&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; 
+      (he tried hard to rally himself), &lsquo;so much depends upon a spirit of
+      commercial confidence.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Exactly,&rsquo; cried the visitor, laying hands&rsquo; upon the pocket-book and
+      opening it. &lsquo;I went to the bank and saw young Fellowes myself. &ldquo;Look here,
+      Fellowes,&rdquo; I told him, &ldquo;I want my daughter&rsquo;s money.&rdquo; He stuck to it, sir;
+      like a dog holding on to a bone. He growled about it, and he whined about
+      it, said it wasn&rsquo;t fair to withdraw the money on short notice. Said I
+      couldn&rsquo;t do better with it anywhere, and at last I told him, &ldquo;Look here,
+      Fellowes, I shall begin to think by and by there&rsquo;s something wrong.&rdquo; He
+      went as red as a turkey-cock, begad, and drew a note on their London agent
+      like a lord, and here I am with the money. Eight thousand pounds.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time he had drawn a bundle of bank-notes from the pocket-book, and
+      now sat flicking the edges of the notes with the tips of his great broad
+      fingers. Bommaney heard the crisp music, and looked up with a momentary
+      glance of hunger in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That&rsquo;s Patty&rsquo;s little private handful,&rsquo; the visitor continued, opening
+      the packet of notes, and smoothing it upon his knee. &lsquo;Eighty notes of a
+      hundred. Pretty little handful, isn&rsquo;t it? They don&rsquo;t look,&rsquo; he added, with
+      his head reflectively on one side and his eyebrows raised a little, &lsquo;they
+      don&rsquo;t look as they&rsquo;d buy as much as they will.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney tried to find a commonplace word by answer, and an inaudible
+      something died drily in his throat. When his companion began to speak
+      again, the bankrupt merchant wondered that he made no comment on his
+      ghastly face&mdash;he knew his face was ghastly&mdash;or his shaking
+      hands. There was an intuition in his mind so strong and clear that he
+      trembled at its prophecy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Patty,&rsquo; said the visitor, &lsquo;will have everything in time, and a pretty
+      good handful, too. But she&rsquo;s bent on being independent, and she wants to
+      have her own money in her own hands. She pretends it&rsquo;s all because she
+      wants to pay her milliner&rsquo;s bills, and that kind of thing, herself; but I
+      know better. The fact is&rsquo;&mdash;he lowered his voice and chuckled&mdash;&lsquo;the
+      fact is, she doesn&rsquo;t want me to know how much she spends in charity. You
+      look here, Bommaney&rsquo;&mdash;the merchant&rsquo;s heart seemed to stand still, and
+      then to beat so wild an alarum that he wondered the other did not hear it
+      The intuition multiplied in strength. He heard beforehand the spoken
+      words, the very tones which marked them. &lsquo;You&rsquo;re a safe man, you&rsquo;re a
+      smart man. I suppose there isn&rsquo;t anybody in London who can lay out money
+      to more advantage than you can. I know it&rsquo;s a great favour to ask, but I
+      think you&rsquo;ll do it for Patty&rsquo;s sake and mine, if I do ask you. Take this,
+      and invest it for her. Will you, now?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood up with the bundle of notes outstretched in his hand. The
+      merchant rose and accepted it, and looked him, with a sudden curious calm
+      and steadiness, straight in the face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Bommaney was alone again, and if it had not been for the actual
+      presence of the bundle of bank-notes upon the table, he could well have
+      thought that the whole episode had been no more than a dreadful and
+      disturbing dream. It was very hard, he thought complainingly, that a man
+      should come and put so horrible a temptation in his way. He would not
+      yield to it&mdash;of course he would not yield to it. He had been an
+      honest and honourable man all his life long, and had never so much as felt
+      a monetary temptation until now. It was humiliating to feel it now&mdash;it
+      was horrible to have his fingers itching for another man&rsquo;s money, and his
+      heart coveting it, and his brain, in spite of himself, devising countless
+      means of use for it. It was quite unbearable to know that the money <i>might</i>
+      tide him over his troubles and land him in prosperity again, if he could
+      only dare to use it, and risk engulfing it with the lost wreckage of his
+      own fortunes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But no, no, no. He had never meant to use it. His only reason for
+      accepting it had been that he had not found the courage to declare his
+      true position to his old friend and school companion. Perhaps, he told
+      himself (trying to silence and cajole that inward monitor and accuser who
+      would not be silenced or cajoled), perhaps if Brown had been less
+      confident and truthful&mdash;if he had had less faith in his old
+      companion&rsquo;s powers as a man of business&mdash;it would have come easier to
+      tell the truth. And how futile a thing it was to stave off discovery for a
+      single day! How doubly ashamed he would have to feel after that poor
+      pretence of responsible solidity! If he had only been disposed to be
+      tempted at all&mdash;here surely was an added reason for yielding to
+      temptation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Obviously the first, and, indeed, the only thing to be done, was to bank
+      this money in Brown&rsquo;s name, and so have done with it; and yet any feeling
+      of haste in that respect would seem to imply a fear of temptation, which
+      he was, of course, quite resolute not to feel. He was not going any more
+      to run away from his own suspicion of himself than he would have run from
+      another man&rsquo;s. So, in and out, and up and down, contradicting himself at
+      every turning, with an underlying surety in his mind so fast rooted and so
+      dreadful that he did not dare to look at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the adieux were being said between the old friends, Mr. James Hornett
+      had slid noiselessly downstairs, his mind inflated by pride. He was not
+      proud of having played the eavesdropper, for even in Mr. Hornett&rsquo;s economy
+      of things, that was an act to be proud of; but he was very proud, indeed,
+      to be associated with a gentleman so magnificently respected as Mr.
+      Bommaney. There were not so very many people, he told himself, even in the
+      City of London, which was full of wealth and probity, into whose hands so
+      large a sum would be placed with so little a sense of the necessity of
+      precaution. He felt as if he himself had been treated in this majestic
+      manner, and the feeling warmed his heart. He bowed Mr. Brown from the
+      office door with an <i>empressement</i> which he feared a moment later
+      might almost have betrayed him, and he went about his duties for the rest
+      of the day in a mood of unusual contentment. The earlier memory of his
+      employer&rsquo;s disturbance crossed him sometimes, and always excited his
+      curiosity; but the later feeling dominated him. He was delighted by his
+      association with a concern so eminently respectable as that of Bommaney,
+      Waite, and Co.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Mr. Hornett&rsquo;s employer, with that dreadful rooted secret in his
+      mind, which he did not dare to look at, sat alone, looking with staring
+      eyes before him, and drumming in a regular tune upon the topmost note of
+      the terrible little pile. He had locked the notes away before Brown&rsquo;s
+      departure, but they had seemed to draw him to the safe with almost a
+      physical compulsion, and he had brought them out again to look at them, to
+      handle them, to count them, to resolve in his own mind that he did not
+      hanker after them, and was honourable to the core. It was so new a thing
+      to be tempted, that at times his own self-deception was made easy to him.
+      It did not occur to him to reflect that the need and the means had never
+      so presented themselves together until now, or that his life-long honour
+      had depended upon their absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had sat in silence for a while he awoke to the fact that the
+      interview had been nothing but a succession of shocks to him, and that he
+      was bodily exhausted. He rose, and, walking feebly to the inner room,
+      applied himself anew to the brandy bottle he kept there. He had gone much
+      too often to that deceptive solace lately, and he knew it; but each
+      successive visit carried its own excuses with it, and it had never in any
+      individual instance been worth while to resist a habit which it was always
+      easy to condemn in the main.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The brandy enlightened him and opened new sluices of emotion. Perhaps for
+      the moment he was a better man because of it. He seemed to wake to a more
+      determined sense of the enormity of the temptation which lay before him.
+      He thought of his own son, and a shadow took him from head to foot as, in
+      a brandified nervous vision, he beheld some shadowy supposititious
+      creature in the act of telling the tale to Phil. The vice of drink has had
+      the creation of many other vices laid to its charge, but for once in the
+      world&rsquo;s history the obfuscated vision was clearer than the natural, and
+      Philip drunk a better man, and a more righteous and honourable, than
+      Philip sober.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At bottom, Philip Bommaney knew himself too well to be at all sure that
+      this phase of feeling would endure with him; and in a half-conscious dread
+      of the return of that baser self, whose first appearance in his history
+      had so affrighted him, he hurriedly attired himself for out-of-doors,
+      crammed the bundle of notes into an inner pocket of his overcoat, and,
+      after a final appeal to the decanter, left his room with a somewhat
+      hysteric sense of courage and self-approval. He had been tempted&mdash;he
+      was ready to recognise that the temptation was over, that he had well-nigh
+      succumbed to it&mdash;but he had triumphed! He was a man again. He had
+      been weighed in the balances and not found wanting. There were some tears
+      in his eyes compounded of brandy and nerves and affections and remorses as
+      he hurried into the street. Phil should never be ashamed of his father.
+      Old Brown, who had trusted him like a brother, should never learn to shun
+      and hate him. He had to go under&mdash;the thing was inevitable,
+      unescapable, but he would at least go under like a man. His heart beat to
+      the tune of the &lsquo;Conquering Hero,&rsquo; where it might have beat to the
+      &lsquo;Rogue&rsquo;s March,&rsquo; but for that friendly nip of brandy and the all-covering
+      mercies of Heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quickly as his resolution had been taken, he had fully arranged for the
+      details of the task which lay before him. With the notes he had thrust
+      into his pocket a little handful of business papers involving a knotty and
+      delicate point of business, and he intended that the discussion of the
+      point they raised should act as the prelude to the disclosure and the
+      restitution he desired to make. He could not, even in his newfound
+      heroism, and with whatever hysteric hardihood he was prepared to meet the
+      stroke of fate, he could not as yet encounter Brown, and lay bare before
+      him the plot of the melancholy farce he had played an hour ago. But there
+      was an old friend of his, and an old friend of Brown&rsquo;s into the bargain, a
+      solicitor, keen as a needle and kindly as sunshine, one Barter, whose
+      business chambers were in Gable Inn, and who was of all men the man he
+      could confide in with least shame and best hope of help. He hailed a cab,
+      and bade the driver drive his fastest. Gable Inn lay tranquil, the
+      afternoon shadows already settling deeper on the little quadrangle than on
+      the broad and roaring thoroughfare without. There was no light in the
+      windows of the rooms in which Messrs. Fellowship, Freemantle, and Barter
+      had done business and received their clients fifty years ago, and in which
+      the sole surviving member of the firm still maintained its old-established
+      reputation for honour and astuteness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney was chilled by the silence and darkness of the rooms, and he
+      shivered to see the temptation he had conquered looming again before him.
+      He knocked loudly with a trembling hand, and the noise of iron on iron
+      went rolling and echoing up the staircase and came back in a hollow,
+      lonely, sounding murmur from the rooms within. His heart sank, and a
+      horrible fear of himself got hold of him. He had actually conquered, and
+      here was the fight to be fought over again with almost a certainty of
+      defeat at the end of it. Indeed, the defeat in that bare moment of time
+      had grown so certain, that he was conscious of a distinct state of
+      disappointment when a sudden footstep within the rooms answered his noisy
+      summons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door opened, and a young man stood before him, peering at him with
+      half-closed uncertain eyes through the dark. He was a young man of the
+      fleshly school, something too stout for his years, very pallid, and more
+      than commonly personable, with a fine broad forehead, fine frank eyes, and
+      features modelled with an engaging regularity. When he recognised his
+      visitor his pale and handsome face glittered with a sudden smile of
+      welcome, teeth and eyes gleaming quite brightly, and the whole face
+      lighting up in the pleasantest and friendliest fashion conceivable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This agreeable expression faded into one of almost mechanical dolor, and
+      the personable young man shook hands with Mr. Bommaney sadly, and sighed
+      as if he suddenly recalled an idea that sighing was a duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Come in, Mr. Bommaney,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;Come in, sir. I have sent home all the
+      clerks, and was just about to lock up for the night. To what do I owe the
+      pleasure of this visit? Let me light the gas.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney, the door being closed behind him, stumbled along the darkened
+      passage after the more assured and accustomed steps of young Mr. Barter,
+      and the inner office being gained, and the gas being lighted, allowed
+      himself to be motioned to a chair. What with having been too much agitated
+      by the contemplation of his troubles to be able to eat at all that day,
+      and what with the fight he had had with his temptations, and the too
+      frequent applications he had made to the brandy, it happened that for the
+      moment he was by no means certain of his purpose. He sat for a little
+      while wondering rather hazily what had brought him there. As often happens
+      with absent-minded people, his hands remembered what had been required of
+      them before his brain began to act again, and by and by the fact that he
+      had unbuttoned his overcoat, and had taken a bundle of papers from his
+      pocket, recalled him to his purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I wanted,&rsquo; he said, emerging from his haze, and holding the bundle of
+      papers nervously in both hands, &lsquo;I wanted to see your father upon very
+      special and urgent business.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;My father?&rsquo; the young man answered, with a look and accent of pained
+      surprise. &lsquo;Do you mean to say, sir, that you haven&rsquo;t heard the news?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;The news?&rsquo; cried Bommaney, feeling blindly as if some new misfortune
+      threatened him. &lsquo;What news?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;My father, sir,&rsquo; said young Mr. Barter, with a certain blending of
+      professional airs, something of a legal impress mingled with something of
+      the manner of a medical man conveying mournful intelligence to the
+      relatives of a patient, &lsquo;my father, sir, was struck down by an omnibus in
+      the street this morning. He is terribly injured, and not expected to
+      recover.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;God bless my soul!&rsquo; Bommaney cried out. His chin fell upon his breast,
+      and his eyes stared at the floor, seeing nothing. He felt like a man upon
+      a raft, who sees the bindings of the frail thing break apart. Shipwrecked
+      already, and now the last hope gone! He hardly knew, if he could have
+      asked himself the question clearly, why he so particularly desired to see
+      Barter. He hardly knew what Barter could have done for him, except to
+      listen to his troubles and take charge of the eight thousand pounds which
+      tempted him, and yet the disappointment seemed as heavy and as hard to
+      bear as anything he had hitherto endured. He sat staring forlornly before
+      him, with tears in his eyes, and young Mr. Barter, in much astonishment at
+      his susceptibility and tenderness, sat watching him. Something slid from
+      Bommaney&rsquo;s hands with a rustle, and dropped upon the floor. Young Mr.
+      Barter made a mere hint or beginning of a movement, as if he would have
+      picked it up for him. Bommaney made no movement at all, but stared before
+      him with his blue-gray eyes filling more and more with tears, until two or
+      three brimmed over and trickled down his cheeks. He said, &lsquo;God bless my
+      soul!&rsquo; once more, mechanically, and restored what remained of his bundle
+      of papers to his pocket. Young Mr. Barter looked with one swift and vivid
+      glance from the fallen bundle to his guest&rsquo;s face, then back again.
+      Bommaney rose from his seat, buttoned his overcoat with awkward and
+      lingering fingers, and put on his hat. He was evidently unconscious of his
+      own tears, and made no attempt to disguise them, or to wipe them away. He
+      said, &lsquo;God bless my soul!&rsquo; a third time, and then, shaking young Mr.
+      Barter by the hand, murmured that he was sorry, very sorry, and so went
+      stupidly away. Young Mr. Barter accompanied him to the door, casting a
+      strange backward glance at the papers as he left the room, and was
+      curiously voluble in his dismissal of his visitor. Anything he could do&mdash;Mr.
+      Bommaney might rest perfectly assured&mdash;the clerks would be back
+      to-morrow in any case&mdash;he would advise Mr. Bommaney of his father&rsquo;s
+      condition by that night&rsquo;s post&mdash;he himself was naturally most
+      profoundly anxious. In this wise he talked Bommaney from the chambers, and
+      when once he had closed the door behind him, went back along the dark
+      little corridor with an unnecessarily catlike tread. He could hardly have
+      been other than certain that he was alone, yet when he reached the inner
+      room he looked about him with a keen quick darting suspicion, and for half
+      a minute ignored the fallen papers on the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Dear me!&rsquo; he said, when at length he suffered his eyes to rest upon them.
+      &lsquo;What can that be? How did that come here?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stooped, picked up the papers, laid them upon his desk, and smoothed
+      them out, making a fold lengthways to counteract the creases into which
+      they had already fallen. He saw a crisp clean Bank of England note for a
+      hundred pounds, and, lifting it, found another. Then he lifted half the
+      bundle, and, finding a note of the same value, gave an inward gasp, and
+      expelled his breath slowly after it. Then he looked at the last note of
+      all, and sat down with the whole bundle in his hands. His pale and fleshy
+      features had taken an unusual colour, and his breathing was a good deal
+      disturbed. A watcher might have guessed that he was profoundly agitated
+      from the swift unintermittent rustle the paper made in his hands. He
+      seemed to sit as steady as a rock, and yet the crisp paper rustled
+      noisily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Brown&rsquo;s bank-notes had been a fruitful source of emotion that day
+      already, and, in Bommaney&rsquo;s mind at least, had raised very dreadful doubts
+      and perplexities. There were doubts and perplexities in the mind of young
+      Mr. Barter, but they were altogether of another order. Young Mr. Barter
+      was perfectly aware that he was being tempted, and felt that, in its way,
+      the temptation wets a kind of godsend. He even said as much in a low
+      murmur to himself. His perplexities related to other things than the fear
+      of any fall from honour. Bommaney had evidently been very queer. Bommaney
+      had been horribly cut up about something, even before he heard the news
+      the young solicitor had to give him. But was he so disturbed as to be
+      likely to forget where he had last secured so considerable a sum of money?
+      This mental inquiry naturally set young Mr. Barter to work to discover how
+      considerable the sum of money actually was. He laid the notes upon the
+      table, and tried to wet his thumb upon his lips. There was no moisture
+      there, and his mouth was as dry as touchwood. He drank a little water, and
+      then began to count the notes. He made them eighty-one at first; and then,
+      recounting, made them seventy-nine. Counting them a third time, he made
+      them eighty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Damn it all!&rsquo; said young Mr. Barter, &lsquo;can&rsquo;t I count? I suppose the old
+      buffer will come back for them.&rsquo; He tried a fourth time, and confirmed his
+      third counting. &lsquo;They&rsquo;ll get stopped at the Bank,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;They&rsquo;ll be no
+      use to anybody.&rsquo; He sat for a while thinking, with his eyes half-closed,
+      drumming out a tune upon the table with the tips of his fat white fingers,
+      then he folded the notes with great precision and delicacy, put them into
+      his pocket, found his hat, overcoat, and walking-stick, and made ready for
+      the streets. In the quiet of these legal chambers many chance noises from
+      without had from time to time been clearly audible. He heard now a
+      hurrying step upon the pavement of the quadrangle, and, with a palpitation
+      at the heart, he moved swiftly to put out the light, and listened. The
+      step stumbled at the entrance to the staircase, at the foot of which the
+      outer door stood closed. Young Mr. Barter&rsquo;s heart beat, if possible,
+      faster than before; and the veins in his head so throbbed, that only the
+      confining rim of his hat seemed to keep his head itself from bursting.
+      There came an eager summons at the door, an imperative rapping with the
+      head of a stout walking-stick. He set his teeth, and, drawing back his
+      lips with a horrible smile in the dark, breathed noiselessly. The rapping
+      grew more and more imperative and urgent, and then came a preternatural
+      silence, with an undercurrent of distant sound in it, and the sudden blare
+      of a cornet in the street, which sounded to his nerves like the trumpet of
+      the herald of the day of judgment He heard the hurrying feet plunge down
+      the steps again, and cross the quadrangle, and listened until their sound
+      merged into the dull noises of the London night. He stood in the dark
+      after this for what seemed a long time, learning that his features
+      twitched, and teaching himself to control them. Then he left his chambers
+      with great secrecy, and broke into a cold sweat to think, as he stood half
+      through the doorway, how narrowly he had escaped from slamming the door
+      behind him. This was an act which might have been suicidal in its
+      stupidity; for to give any sign of his presence there after that
+      thundering summons at the door would have been to betray himself beyond
+      redemption. He inserted his latch-key noiselessly, and, crouching to
+      escape imagined observers, drew the door gently after him, and turned the
+      key slowly in the lock. As he did this he heard a footstep and a cough
+      together close at hand, and, turning with a start, beheld a pale and
+      slender man of brief stature, who scraped his lantern jaws with apologetic
+      thumb and finger, and looking at him with a startled meekness, as if he
+      would fain propitiate anger for a possible intrusion, sidled to the foot
+      of the stairs, mounted the stairway with a backward glance and a second
+      cough of apology, and so disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Mr. Barter, with his nerves already shaken by this small episode,
+      walked into the main thoroughfare and merged with the crowd, bearing Mr.
+      Bommaney&rsquo;s eight thousand pounds with him. When he had walked for a while
+      he hailed a cab, and was driven home. He had, or prided himself on having,
+      an exceptional eye for horseflesh, but it was not his faculty in this
+      direction which had led him to choose a cab horsed by a brute of unusual
+      symmetry and swiftness. This was an accident, but, like other accidents in
+      this perplexed world, it served its purpose. It landed him at the paternal
+      door in Harley Street almost at the instant at which Bommaney arrived
+      there in pursuit of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, although young Mr. Barter had not calculated on meeting Bommaney so
+      soon, and although the meeting was naturally something of a shock to him,
+      he had already schooled himself for interview and inquiry. He went a
+      little paler than common as he grasped his father&rsquo;s old friend by the hand
+      for the third time that evening, and trembled ever so little as he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I half expected to find you here,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;I could see how moved you
+      were by the news of my father&rsquo;s illness.&rsquo; The door stood open, and the
+      old-fashioned man-servant within had been in the act of closing it upon
+      Bommaney&rsquo;s retreating figure when cab number two had driven up, and the
+      young master of the house had alighted from it. &lsquo;Is the news worse or
+      better?&rsquo; He laid both hands upon Bommaney&rsquo;s arms as he put this question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elderly servitor, who had never had reason given to him to believe
+      that young Mr. Barter was above the reasonable attached to his father, was
+      a little surprised to see the young man so moved. He drew the door gently
+      after him, and came out upon the steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m afraid, Mr. John,&rsquo; he murmured sympathetically, &lsquo;that it&rsquo;s
+      practically all over, sir. The poor gentleman&rsquo;s quite unconscious, and the
+      doctor don&rsquo;t expect him to last till morning.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Mr. Barter&rsquo;s mind was active, and accustomed to rapid movement. He
+      knew at once that the old servant read the signs of disturbance in his
+      face and manner, and how far he misread them. So, to insure the
+      misreading, he took out his handkerchief, and groaned at this melancholy
+      intelligence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&mdash;&mdash;,&rsquo; began Bommaney, stammering and speaking a little
+      thickly, &lsquo;I didn&rsquo;t come to ask about your father.&rsquo; Young Barter&rsquo;s heart at
+      this, though he was perfectly prepared for it, began to beat like a
+      sledgehammer. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve had a dreadful loss. I have called nowhere but at your
+      office since I left my own, and I have lost eight thousand pounds. I am
+      convinced that I must have left it there.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I can&rsquo;t think so, Mr. Bommaney,&rsquo; said Barter, with a face of innocence.&rsquo; 
+      We can go back together, if you like, and look for it.&rsquo; Bommaney&rsquo;s driver
+      lingered for him; the other cabman was already jingling leisurely down the
+      street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Johnson,&rsquo; said young Barter, addressing the domestic, &lsquo;you hear what Mr.
+      Bommaney says. This is a matter of the most urgent importance, and must be
+      looked into at once. Tell my mother that I have been home, and that I have
+      been called suddenly back on urgent business.&rsquo; Bommaney stood in a kind of
+      stupid trance, and the young man, taking him by the arm, had some ado to
+      secure his attention. &lsquo;Come! Come, sir,&rsquo; he said; &lsquo;we will look into this
+      at once. You must not remain in suspense about such a matter.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They rustled together through the straw which had been laid down upon the
+      roadway, and had been scattered by the feet of passers-by upon the
+      pavement, and, mounting the cab, drove in a ghastly silence for a score of
+      yards, and then, with a clatter which made conversation difficult,
+      Bommaney, rousing himself at intervals, shouted his certainty that the
+      notes would prove to have been left at Barter&rsquo;s chambers. Barter, growing
+      curiously inured to the circumstances of the case, shouted back that he
+      dared to say they would be; that it was very likely; that he really did
+      not see where else Mr. Bommaney could possibly have left them, furtively
+      pressing the notes against his breast meanwhile, and once, at a quiet
+      interval, when Bommaney had sunk into his former stupor, venturing to
+      steal a hand to the pocket in which the stolen money lay, caressing the
+      edges of the notes with the tips of his fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m sure,&rsquo; said Bommaney, as the cab pulled up at the gate of the
+      quadrangle, &lsquo;that we shall find them here.&rsquo; He spoke with a tremulous
+      uncertainty, and so obviously appealed for a confirmation of his hope,
+      that Barter felt constrained to answer,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Oh, we are bound to find them.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The striking of a wax vesta at the door of the chambers, the shaky hunt
+      for the key, the well-known obstinacy of the lock, the opening of the
+      door, the fevered working of Bommaney&rsquo;s fingers, and the flushed eagerness
+      of his face, were all memorable to young Barter for many and many a day.
+      They entered together the room in which their interview had taken place;
+      and Barter, nursing the remnant of the flaming vesta, lit the gas with it,
+      and then, dropping it on the floor, set his foot upon it, and looked at
+      his companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Where do you think you left the notes, sir?&rsquo; he asked. &lsquo;Have you any
+      idea? I think you took out some papers here. You wanted to consult my
+      father about them, I fancy, and, if I remember, you returned them to your
+      pocket.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney stood looking about him on the floor, trailing the point of his
+      walking-cane purposelessly hither and thither; and it was at this moment,
+      seeing how confused and broken his victim seemed, that young Mr. Barter
+      tasted the first flavour of safety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t see anything,&rsquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Did you,&rsquo; Bommaney asked him, with both trembling hands grasping the knob
+      of his walking-cane, and shaking in appeal before the unsuspected thief&mdash;&rsquo; 
+      did you lock any papers away before you left?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, young Barter had not had any papers to lock away that
+      evening after Bommaney&rsquo;s departure; but he thought the trick worth
+      playing, and, producing his keys again, opened the heavy iron safe which
+      stood against the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; he said, with an air of hopeful alacrity. &lsquo;By Jove, I did!&rsquo; He
+      stood aside, with an outstretched hand, and motioned Bommaney to examine
+      the contents of the safe. There was a parchment there, there were half a
+      dozen bundles of documents tied in pink tape and docketed; but there were
+      no bank-notes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You know,&rsquo; said Bommaney, with a fretful wail, &lsquo;I must have left them
+      here; I couldn&rsquo;t have left them anywhere else. I put it to you&mdash;could
+      I?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barter looked at him mournfully, with raised eyebrows. There was just a
+      hint of expostulation in his raised eyebrows, and in the expression of his
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You see, sir,&rsquo; he said, waving his white hands&mdash;&rsquo; you see for
+      yourself, there&rsquo;s nothing here.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney walked to a chair, and, sitting down there, lifted up his voice
+      and wept. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve been an honest man, by God! all my life long; and now I&rsquo;m
+      not merely ruined, but I shall be taken for a thief.&rsquo; He cried bitterly
+      after this outburst, with his head between his hands. His hat fell off,
+      and his walking-stick tumbled noisily to the floor. Mr. Barter picked them
+      up, and, having set them on the table, looked at the shaking shoulders,
+      and listened to the ruined man&rsquo;s sobs and wailings. It was a pity&mdash;of
+      course it was a pity&mdash;but young Mr. Barter really did not see how it
+      was in his power to help it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On a chill spring evening the sunset over London gave a brief radiance of
+      colour to the dull gray roof and smoke-stained chimneys of many
+      thoroughfares. Shadows thickened in the eastern skies as if fold after
+      fold of finest crape were drawn over the field of watery and opalescent
+      light the fallen sun had left behind it. In one great thoroughfare running
+      east and west the sky-line of the houses stood distinct, and bathed in
+      light of many colours; whilst down below there was a wall of shadow. Two
+      parallel walls of shadow rose from a shadowy level, and the dusk had a
+      thousand indistinguishable voices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shadowy lines became accented by twin rows of flickering fire, the
+      rear jets seen with a blurred halo of mist round each of them, the halo
+      crawling feebly within itself, tormented by a feeble wind. The long vista
+      of pavement became chequered like a chessboard, with patches of light from
+      shop windows. Gable Inn, staring at the growing darkness with a single
+      fiery eye, looked like a Rip Van Winkle. It had been old when Chaucer and
+      the knights and ladies of whom he sang were young; and its hoary stunted
+      angles and squat chimney cowls had the grave and impassive aspect proper
+      to great age. It has stood there now for over seven hundred years hoarding
+      a growing store of secrets. It is roughly picturesque in every detail, and
+      its every chamber is a triumph of narrowness, obscurity, and
+      inconvenience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the quadrangle the shadows climbed the sturdy walls as if they were an
+      exhalation from the paving-stones. The dim staircase sent down all manner
+      of muffled and echoing voices. Footsteps sounded, and the clang of doors,
+      and the shriek of unwilling keys in rusty locks, and the hurrying traffic
+      of the street without, softened by the moist atmosphere, was like the
+      fading echo of following feet upon the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lights sprang up in the basement windows, telling of protractive legal
+      labours. Lights twinkled in the garrets, telling of lonely study or noisy
+      conviviality in the coming hours of darkness. At length one side of the
+      quadrangle viewed by a solitary watcher from a third-floor window of the
+      opposing side, winked with a hundred windows through the wet air and
+      deepening shadow like a blear-eyed Argus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This watcher, lounging at his own window, was Mr. Philip Bommaney,
+      recently self-entitled the &lsquo;Solitary of Gable Inn.&rsquo; He was
+      eight-and-twenty years of age or thereabouts, a broad-shouldered,
+      deep-chested, manly-looking fellow, with curling brown hair, and a face
+      expressive of pugnacity, good-humour, and many capacities. He was a little
+      weary now, after a long day of satisfactory work. He watched the mounting
+      shadows, and listened to the weird gamut of the wind among the telegraph
+      lines, until the outer voices made his own dull room seem homely. One
+      ruddy tongue of flame from the expiring fire in the grate played on the
+      narrow walls and low ceiling, and woke twinkling reflections in the spare
+      and battered furniture. A man&rsquo;s dwelling-place is always an index to his
+      character when its arrangement depends upon himself; and signs of Philip
+      Bommaney&rsquo;s nature and pursuits were visible in plenty here. There were
+      symmetrical rows of books on the shelves flanking the fire-place. An
+      orderly stack of newspapers occupied one corner of the room, and a set of
+      boxing-gloves lay on top of the pile, and a pair of dumb-bells beside it.
+      A shaded reading-lamp stood upon the table in the midst of a great litter
+      of papers. The barrels of a huge elephant gun flashed dimly from the wall
+      as the firelight played upon them, and two or three lighter weapons were
+      ranged together lower down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned from the window and lit the lamp, and, wheeling round, held up
+      the light to a photograph, and studied it with a pleased face. It was the
+      portrait of a pretty girl, very sweetly grave, and looking as if it could
+      be very sweetly vivacious. When he had looked at it for a longish time he
+      nodded and smiled, as if the pictured lips had actually spoken to him.
+      There was a tumbler standing beside the photograph with a bunch of
+      hothouse flowers in it, the one bright spot of colour in the dingy
+      chamber. He took this in his disengaged hand, and nodding and smiling anew
+      at the pretty girl&rsquo;s portrait, he turned about again, and walked into a
+      bedroom beyond a narrow and inconvenient little window. The strident voice
+      of the clock over the entrance of the old Hall, answered or anticipated
+      from multitudinous spires in the City far and near, sounded as Philip
+      entered his bedroom. He stood and listened, counting six jarring strokes.
+      The bedroom was a microscopic apartment, with as many corners in it as any
+      room of its size in London, and the bed itself was a perfect triumph of
+      littleness, so tucked under the sloping roof, and so surrounded by
+      projecting corners, as to make the entry to it or the exit from it a
+      gymnastic performance of considerable merit. The room was not over-light
+      at the best of times, the fourth part of the space of one small window in
+      the sloping wall was filled by its own heavy framework, and for half its
+      height it was shielded by a parapet, which had at least its uses in hiding
+      the occupant of the room from the too-curious observation of those who
+      dwelt in the upper stories of the houses opposite. These houses opposite,
+      compared with Gable Inn, are of a mushroom modernness, and yet are old
+      enough (having begun with a debauched and sickly constitution) to have
+      fallen into an almost complete decrepitude. Their stately neighbour seems
+      to be less grimy with the London smoke than they are, has always been less
+      susceptible to outside evil influences, even of that unescapable sort, and
+      drives them to an added shabbiness of senility by contrast with its own
+      hale old age. The bedroom window was already open for the admission of
+      such fresh air as, disguised in London blacks, the exhalations of moist
+      spring pavements, and the reeking odours of the cuisine of Fleeter&rsquo;s
+      Rents, might choose to wander thither. Philip, with the lamp in one hand
+      and the tumbler of flowers in the other, put out his head and looked into
+      the squalid depths below him, and having gazed there a while absently and
+      with no object, drew back with a vague touch of pity upon him for the
+      people who dwelt in so much squalor so near to healthy effort and
+      reasonable competence. He could hardly have told as much, perhaps, but one
+      pallid countenance, shining very dimly at an open window, was very much
+      answerable for that vague touch of pity. The face in the darkness started
+      away from the window as he looked at it, as if his own robust health and
+      the light that dwelt about him startled its pinched shabbiness into
+      solitude. He set the tumbler of flowers upon the window-ledge, and closing
+      the window, made his toilet and returned to the sitting-room. Then, having
+      banked up the fire, and set the matches in such a position that he could
+      easily find them, he blew out the lamp, left his chambers, and ran down
+      the tortuous stairs. As he turned the last corner a door clanged noisily,
+      and the next thing of which he was conscious was that he was struggling in
+      the embrace of a stranger whom he had doubled up in an angle of the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I beg your pardon,&rsquo; he said gaspingly; &lsquo;I stumbled.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You did,&rsquo; responded the stranger, gasping also. &lsquo;Rather heavily. It was
+      lucky you had something soft to fall on.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip began to make apologies. The stranger, breathless still, but
+      jovially polite, begged him not to mention it. He was a tallish young man,
+      broad set, and a little too fleshy for his years. He had a cleanshaven
+      face, healthily pallid, the whitest of teeth, and a most frank, engaging,
+      and contagious smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Pray don&rsquo;t say anything more about it,&rsquo; he said in answer to Philip&rsquo;s
+      reiterated apologies. &lsquo;You are not hurt, I hope?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No, thanks; but I&rsquo;m afraid you are.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Not at all. It was sharp for a minute; but I am all right now. The stairs
+      are very inconvenient, especially to strangers.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I haven&rsquo;t even that excuse for my clumsiness, said Philip; &lsquo;for I am
+      living here.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Indeed; then we are neighbours, and should know each other. Rather an
+      informal kind of introduction, eh?&rsquo; The stranger said this with a mellow
+      laugh and a flash of his white teeth. He opened his overcoat as he spoke,
+      and produced a card-case, Philip catching the gleam of a gold-studded
+      shirt-front as he did so. &lsquo;That&rsquo;s my name, John Barter; and these are my
+      offices.&rsquo; The outer oak, cracked and blistered to the likeness of an
+      ancient tar-barrel, bore an inscription, dim with long years&mdash;&lsquo;Fellowship,
+      Freemantle, and Barter&rsquo;&mdash;and the names were repeated on the doorpost
+      at the entrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I have no card,&rsquo; said Philip, accepting the stranger&rsquo;s. &lsquo;My name is
+      Bommaney&mdash;Philip Bom-maney;&rsquo; Mr. Barter&rsquo;s smiling face was unchanged,
+      though he gave a slight but perceptible start at the name, and repeated
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Do you know it?&rsquo; asked Philip. To the ears of his companion there was
+      something of a challenge in the tone. &lsquo;It is not a common name.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No. Not a common name. I think I have heard it somewhere.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were under the archway by this time, in the brief shelter of which
+      the sanguine-faced, red-waist-coated lodge-keeper was taking his nightly
+      constitutional. They answered the touch of the hat with which he saluted
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Which is your way?&rsquo; asked Mr. Barter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Westward,&rsquo; said Phil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Mine is east,&rsquo; said Barter, &lsquo;so we part here. We are bound to meet again
+      before long. Good-night.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Good-night, and many thanks for taking my clumsiness in such good part.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barter&rsquo;s ready smile beamed out again. They shook hands before parting
+      like old acquaintances, and Philip walked on, through the incessant noise
+      of Holborn into quieter Bloomsbury Street, along the eastern side of
+      Bedford Square, where the bare trees were shivering in a bath of fog, and
+      into Gower Street. Half way down that hideous thoroughfare he came upon a
+      house, one of the few which still retain the old lamp-iron and
+      extinguisher before their doors, and knocking, was admitted by a trim
+      maid, with the smiling alacrity due to a frequent and favoured visitor,
+      and by her conducted to the drawing-room, where sat a young lady engaged
+      in a transparent pretence of being absorbed in a novel. The pretence
+      vanished as the door closed behind the handmaiden, and the young lady
+      jumped up and ran forward to meet him, with such a glad welcome in her
+      face as answered the appeal in his own. It does not need that we should
+      look at her with Philip&rsquo;s eyes to pronounce her charmingly pretty, or to
+      admire the face, at once shy and frank, with which she nestled beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I thought you were never coming,&rsquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Am I so late, then?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It seemed so, and now you are come, tell me what you have been doing.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Working, and thinking of you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You work too much, Phil.&rsquo; She did her best to ignore the second item of
+      his day&rsquo;s occupation, but the deepened flush and her avoidance of her
+      lover&rsquo;s eyes answered it more effectively than words could have done. &lsquo;You
+      are getting quite pale and thin. No wonder, sitting all alone all day long
+      in those musty old chambers.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, you see, Patty, the more I work, the sooner I shall cease to be all
+      alone.&rsquo; The flush deepened again, and the hand trembled in his like a
+      caught bird. &lsquo;And as for working too much, I don&rsquo;t believe that&rsquo;s
+      possible. Work never killed anybody yet, and idleness has killed a good
+      many. It&rsquo;s better to work than sit still and wait for briefs which never
+      corns. There&rsquo;s no sensation more delightful than that of looking at a good
+      day&rsquo;s work, and thinking that every line and word has brought me nearer to
+      you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His tenderness conquered her shyness, and she nestled closer still,
+      looking up at him with a wholehearted admiration and affection. He felt a
+      little sad and unworthy under it, as almost any honest fellow would have
+      been sure to do, and yet it was wonderfully sweet to him, and more than
+      reward enough for any effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I wish I could help you, Phil. I wish I could do something for you, when
+      you have given up so much for me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Hush!&rsquo; he said, laying his hand lightly upon her lips. &lsquo;We made up our
+      minds long ago that no more was to be said about that.&rsquo; He was tender
+      still&mdash;he could be nothing else with her&mdash;but there was a touch
+      of sternness in his manner, too&mdash;as if the theme pained him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;But I can&rsquo;t help thinking of it. It was so noble of you, Phil.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It was the only thing to be done&mdash;the only thing possible. It was&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; 
+      he paused for a second, and then went on resolutely&mdash;&lsquo;it was my
+      father&rsquo;s act by which you suffered. I should have been a scoundrel if I
+      had done otherwise.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;And are you to do all? and am I to do nothing? It is selfish to keep all
+      the generosity to yourself.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed as if he found this female paradox a pleasant fancy, but she
+      was not to be put off so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;If the subject pains you, as I know it does, dear, please understand why
+      I speak of it I don&rsquo;t want you to think I take your sacrifice as you
+      pretend to take it. It isn&rsquo;t a matter of course, as you pretend it is; and
+      you may say what you like, Phil, but it isn&rsquo;t a thing that everybody would
+      have done. Don&rsquo;t grudge me my gratitude; you did it for the love of me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I didn&rsquo;t do it for the love of you,&rsquo; said Phil, laughing tenderly; &lsquo;how
+      often am I to tell you that, you little mountain of obstinacy? I did it
+      because it was the right thing. I don&rsquo;t say, mind you, that it wasn&rsquo;t
+      easier to do it for you than it might have been for somebody I didn&rsquo;t know
+      or care for; but that&mdash;as you will see quite clearly if you&rsquo;ll bring
+      your naturally logical mind to bear upon it&mdash;makes the thing so much
+      the less creditable, provided there was any credit due to it at all.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The loving feminine scorn of this masculine process of reasoning was
+      expressed in a single glance, and was delightful to see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It only means waiting a little longer before I claim you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl would fain have asked, &lsquo;Why should you wait when I have enough
+      for both by your gift? What does it matter which of us it is who has the
+      money&mdash;you or I?&rsquo; But this question went unspoken, for obvious
+      reasons. A woman is tongue-tied by the countless conventionalities of
+      education. She must often let her thoughts lie silent in her heart, though
+      she burns to express them, and find what answer she can to questions she
+      dare not offer. Philip had repaired her loss by beggaring himself. That
+      was noble. But now he persisted in deferring their marriage, and had
+      buried himself in that lofty sarcophagus in Gable Inn, resolved only to
+      claim her, though she was all his own already, when he had reinstated his
+      fortunes by his labour. That was noble also, perhaps, but in her own heart
+      she thought it a trifle foolish&mdash;say Quixotic, not to be too severe.
+      She would rather have seen his ardour find a more commonplace expression.
+      She had a general sort of belief that whatever Philip did was bound to be
+      right, and yet this actual experience rather jarred with that assumption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They found other themes in a while, and talked of the future and the
+      happiness it would bring. That Philip was going to be rich and famous was
+      a prime article in Patty&rsquo;s creed, and he himself, though he had soberer
+      hopes, was not likely to miss any chance of success which labour might
+      bring him. He was more than modest enough in his conception of his own
+      powers, and was often doubtful as to the fulfilment of the higher
+      ambitions which are the necessary fuel of all artistic fires. Without
+      those fires the chill of modesty will fall to the frost of cowardice, and
+      in Art cowardice means indolence. In his moments of exultation&mdash;and
+      these came generally at their strongest when he was in his sweetheart&rsquo;s
+      society&mdash;success looked easy enough. The memory of her undoubted
+      belief in him came upon him often with a glow reflected from those
+      magnificently hopeful moments. But then at times of depression it grew to
+      look no more than a foolish unattainable dream. All young artists have
+      times when they are going to be great&mdash;when the glory proper to white
+      hairs makes a halo round un-wrinkled fronts and curls, brown or golden.
+      They have times when the smartest turn of verse, the most delightful
+      inventions of narrative, the most exquisite contrast of colour or mould of
+      form their genius can compass are stricken through and through with the
+      horror of commonplace. But when a man of the artistic <i>genus</i> has
+      once so far learned his own nature he has made a great advance towards the
+      fulfilment of his ambitions. He has to learn that just as the hot fit is
+      followed by the cold the cold fit is succeeded by the hot. He knows how
+      intermittent he is. He learns to mistrust his own mistrust of himself. The
+      periods of depression grow less frequent, and the depression grows less
+      lasting. And then, just as the cold fit becomes less chilling to the one,
+      the fit of exultation grows less intoxicating. The halo beams less bright&mdash;loss
+      near.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet Philip, with the girl&rsquo;s eyes worshipping him, and her sweet voice
+      cooing hope and praise, and her hands knitted on his shoulder, and her
+      warm breath fanning his cheek, gave himself up to the vision, and felt his
+      heart warm with a world&rsquo;s welcome as yet far away from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prose of life will assert itself, even to visionary eight-and-twenty
+      and sweet eighteen in love with one another. On this occasion it came as a
+      summons to supper. The summoner was a stout and jovial elderly gentleman,
+      about whose somewhat commonplace British exterior there was, to Philip&rsquo;s
+      mind, a reflection of the nimbus which glorified Patty to his mind, for he
+      was Patty&rsquo;s father. He had been called Old Brown at school when he was
+      young&mdash;he had been called Old Brown in the country, and the prefix
+      had found him out in town without the need for anybody to breathe a
+      whisper of it. He was Old Brown to his new acquaintances in London before
+      a month had gone by. The name suggests a beverage which is not unlike Old
+      Brown himself&mdash;being mild and nutty to the taste as he to the mental
+      palate&mdash;ripe and genial. He had a moist twinkle of the eye,&mdash;the
+      look which bespeaks the kindly humorist,&mdash;and his slightly protruding
+      under lip seemed covertly to taste the flavour of unspoken jokes. Old
+      Brown&rsquo;s jokes were mainly left unspoken, but he spent a good part of his
+      life in laughing without any very apparent reason for laughter, and may
+      have been internally the way he looked to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook hands with Philip, and chucked Patty under the chin with a
+      waggish aspect, which called an appealing blush into the girl&rsquo;s face.
+      Perhaps the blush stayed the intended quip, but any way the old gentleman
+      contented himself with a beaming laugh, and led the way to the supper
+      table, rubbing his hands and chuckling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meal was quietly jovial, and if, after it, Old Brown was not quite so
+      fast asleep as he pretended to be, at least his patience gave the lovers
+      the shelter they needed. He snored in mellow murmurs from behind his
+      bandanna, and they sat and talked together in low tones lest they might
+      awaken him, until the time came for parting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside the mist had given place to a dull persistent rain, and a peevish
+      wind was complaining in area and chimney cowl. Philip turned to the street
+      with a pleasantly haunting vision of Patty&rsquo;s vivacious face outlined
+      against the warmth and brightness of the hall. The touch of her good-night
+      kiss lingered on his lips like live velvet, and he carried warmth and
+      brightness enough within him to defy all the rain that ever rained, and
+      all the wind that ever blew on smoky London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rain had cleared the streets, and the occasional gleam of a
+      policeman&rsquo;s cape or a furtive figure seeking the shelter of a doorway
+      against the drifting showers was all he saw as he bored his way against
+      the rising wind to the corner of Holborn. He was so absorbed by that fancy
+      of music to which his own quick tread kept time that a shuffling step
+      behind him rapidly drawing nearer failed to reach his sense. But as he
+      came to the corner, a hand clutched his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned, with the quick defensive gesture natural to a man so accosted
+      at such a time, and faced the unexpected figure. An old man, clad in
+      filthy fluttering rags, stood staring at him, with both hands stretched
+      out. The rags shook as much with the horrible cough that tore him as with
+      the cruel wind. He was a dreadful creature, with watery eyes, and a head
+      and moustache of dirty gray. His long and unvenerable hairs strayed loose
+      beneath the dunghill relic which crowned them. The rain was in his hair
+      and beard, and had so soaked his tattered dress that it clung to him like
+      the feathers of a drenched fowl. He shook and wheezed and panted, and
+      gripped the air with tremulous fingers, and through the rents in his
+      clothing his white flesh gleamed in the gaslight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The look of surprise and pity which Philip bent upon this unclean
+      apparition was startled into one of sudden fear and horror. In the very
+      instant when these emotions struck him, they were reflected in the other&rsquo;s
+      face. The man made a motion to run, but Philip clutched his arm, and he
+      stood cowering and unresisting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You! Here in London?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Phil,&rsquo; said the spectre imploringly, &lsquo;for God&rsquo;s sake help me. I didn&rsquo;t
+      know it was you, when I followed you. I thought&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; his voice
+      trailed into silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You have come to this?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes, Phil; this is what I&rsquo;ve come to.&rsquo; The cough took him here again, and
+      tore him so that he was fain to lean against the shutters of a shop near
+      at hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Why do you come back here? Are you mad?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I am&mdash;almost. What could I do? I&rsquo;m as safe here as I am anywhere.
+      Who would know me? or, if they did, who would hurt a wretch like me? I
+      haven&rsquo;t slept in a bed for weeks, Phil. I haven&rsquo;t eaten a morsel for three
+      days. For God&rsquo;s sake! give me some money. I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll go away; I&rsquo;ll
+      never trouble you again.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll give you all I can. But you must go away from London.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip thrust his hand into his pocket and brought up all the pocket&rsquo;s
+      contents. He took his keys and an unvalued trifle or two from the handful,
+      and held the rest out towards his father. The old man shrunk from him with
+      a terrible appeal and shamefaced gratitude which cut the son&rsquo;s heart like
+      a knife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Where can I go to?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Anywhere out of London. You are not&mdash;safe here. Go away. Write to me
+      here.&rsquo; He thrust an envelope on which his name and address were written
+      into the old man&rsquo;s dirty trembling hand. &lsquo;You must never come to see me.
+      Promise me that.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I promise,&rsquo; he said; and, thrusting the money and the envelope somewhere
+      among his rags, stood silent for a while. &lsquo;I&rsquo;m afraid,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;I acted
+      very foolishly and very&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then his voice trailed away again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;God help you!&rsquo; said Philip with a choking voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll shake hands, won&rsquo;t you, Phil? &lsquo;said the old man. Phil took the
+      proffered hand. &lsquo;It&rsquo;s something,&rsquo; said Bommaney the elder, clinging to
+      him, &lsquo;to feel an honest man&rsquo;s hand again, God bless you, Phil!&mdash;God
+      bless you!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip stood silent, and the old man, with another shame-stricken glance
+      upon him, moved away. His son watched him for a second or two, as he
+      slunk, coughing and shivering, along the gleaming pavement, and then
+      turned and went his own way heavily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney senior, discerning the welcome beacon of a public-house, shuffled
+      eagerly towards it, hugging beneath his rags the money his son had given
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I beg your pardon, Mr. Bommaney; if you please, sir.&rsquo; He started at the
+      sound of a voice which had been familiar to him for years. &lsquo;I should like
+      a word with you, sir; if you please.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      James Hornett was less changed than his old employer, but it was evident
+      that he too had fallen upon evil times. For a mere second the familiar
+      tones of his voice were no more than familiar to Bommaney, whose mind was
+      confused by long misery and hunger and sleeplessness, and the shock of his
+      late encounter. But when he turned and saw Hornett&rsquo;s long thumb and finger
+      scraping at his stubbly jaws, the gesture and the attitude of apology
+      brought him back to mind at once. Hornett&rsquo;s coat sleeve was torn, and
+      showed his arm half way down to the elbow, but revealed no hint of linen,
+      The collar of his frock-coat was buttoned tightly about his neck, and
+      there was a sparkling metallic rime upon his cheeks and chin and upper
+      lip. Bommaney was ashamed before him, and afraid of him, and only some
+      faint reminder of self-respect and the pride of earlier days held him back
+      from the impulse to run away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You&rsquo;re not afraid of me, sir?&rsquo; said James Hornett. He had always smiled,
+      and was smiling even now. The smile was no more than a contortion of the
+      muscles of the face, which made a long mirthless crease on either cheek,
+      and left the eyes untouched by the least light of sympathy. It gave him a
+      propitiatory dog-like look, and there was a hint of fawning in his
+      attitude which matched it perfectly and carried out the likeness. &lsquo;You
+      remember me, sir?&rsquo; he went on, for Bommaney stared at him so wildly that
+      there seemed room for reasonable doubt on that point. &lsquo;Hornett, sir. James
+      Hornett Your faithful servant for thirty years, sir.&rsquo; Bommaney looked at
+      him with haggard watering eyes, and said nothing as yet &lsquo;It&rsquo;s a bit of a
+      surprise, sir, at first, isn&rsquo;t it?&rsquo; Hornett went on, with his unchanging
+      smile. There was a good deal of hunger and even triumph in his small soul,
+      but they found no other outward expression, and his attitude and voice
+      were as apologetic and retiring as of old. &lsquo;It was rather a surprise to
+      me, sir, when I recognised you. Isn&rsquo;t it a little dangerous for you to be
+      here, Mr. Bommaney?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They both started, and each looked about him at this mention of the
+      fugitive&rsquo;s name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Hush!&rsquo; said Bommaney. &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t call me by that name. Come away from here.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A policeman strolled along the street, with an echoing tread, and as the
+      two slunk past him he turned a casual glance upon them. The glance touched
+      them like a galvanic shock, and they would have run if they had had
+      courage for such an indiscretion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What do you want with me?&rsquo; asked Bommaney, when the policeman was out of
+      sight and hearing; Hornett walking beside him, with his lean, propitiatory
+      fingers at his chin, looked up with hesitating meekness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, you see, sir,&rsquo; he responded, &lsquo;your fall was mine, sir; I was
+      supposed&rsquo;&mdash;he coughed behind his hand here to indicate apology for
+      the introduction of a theme so necessarily disagreeable to the other&rsquo;s
+      feelings&mdash;&rsquo; I was supposed, sir, to have been in your confidence. I
+      made many applications for employment, and nobody would employ me. Young
+      Mr. Weatherall, sir, promised, personally, that if I called again, he&rsquo;d
+      kick me down the steps.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney groaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What do you want with me?&rsquo; he asked again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were standing by this time outside the doors of a public-house, and
+      the wind-driven rain was pelting down heavily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I thought, sir&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; said Hornett; &lsquo;I&rsquo;m very hard pressed, sir.&rsquo; 
+      The dog-like, propitiatory smile never varied. &lsquo;I was following Mr. Phil
+      myself, sir, in the hope that his kindness might run to a trifle.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Come in,&rsquo; said Bommaney; and Hornett eagerly accepting the invitation,
+      they entered the house together. There was an odour of frying in the room,
+      and a hissing noise proceeded from a soft of metal caldron which stood
+      over a row of gas-jets on the pewter counter. A printed legend, &lsquo;Sausage
+      and Mashed, 3d.&rsquo; was pasted on the wooden partition at the side of the box
+      they entered, and on the mirror which faced them, and displayed their own
+      squalid misery to themselves. A year ago the fare would have seemed
+      uninviting to either at his hungriest moment, but now Bommaney called for
+      it with a dreadful suppressed eagerness, and, the barman serving them with
+      a tantalising leisure, they watched every movement with the eyes of
+      famine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve got a little place, sir, of my own,&rsquo; whispered Hornett, when the
+      pangs of hunger were appeased. &lsquo;It&rsquo;s very humble, but you could put up for
+      the night there.&rsquo; Bommaney made no answer, but the two set out again
+      together through the rain, and, pausing once only for the purchase of a
+      flat pint bottle of whisky, made straight for Fleeter&rsquo;s Rents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All that nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand of the many thousands
+      who pass it every day could tell you of Fleeter&rsquo;s Rents is that it makes a
+      narrow black gash in the walls of the great thoroughfare, and that it
+      neighbours Gable Inn. It is slimy in its very atmosphere all winter
+      through, and its air in summer time is made of dust and grit and shadow.
+      The old Inn elbows it disdainfully on one side, and on the other a great
+      modern stuccoed pile overtops it with a parvenu insolence. It is the home
+      naturally of the very poor; for no hermit or hater of the world, however
+      disposed to shun his fellows, would hide in its dingy solitudes whilst he
+      had but a mere shilling a day for lodging and bodily sustenance elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hornett led the way up a set of narrow and broken stairs, and having
+      reached the uppermost story of the house, pushed open a broken door,
+      which, depending from a single hinge, scratched, noisily upon the uneven
+      flooring of the room. His guest stood shivering in the doorway until a
+      match sputtered and fizzed in Hornett&rsquo;s fingers. Then, guided by that
+      precarious light, he advanced. Hornett lit a candle which adhered by its
+      own grease to the filthy wall and had already made a great cone of smoke
+      with a tremulous outline there. There was a small grate, with a mere
+      double-handful of shavings, chips, and coal behind its rusty bars. Hornett
+      applied the match to the shavings, and, as the fire leapt up, the two men
+      knelt together, coughing and choking in the smoke, and bathing their
+      chilled hands in the flame. Bommaney drew the flat bottle from a pocket
+      hidden somewhere in his multitudinous rags, and drank. Hornett watched him
+      greedily, with hands involuntarily and unconsciously extended. Then when
+      he had drunk in turn, they each shivered over the fire again, stealing
+      furtive glances at each other, each mightily disconcerted when he met the
+      other&rsquo;s eye. Bommaney had aged dreadfully during his year of hiding, and
+      Hornett, who had drunk his employer&rsquo;s health upon his birthdays often
+      enough to know his age to a day, could yet scarce believe that the
+      dreadful spectre who knelt beside him numbered less than fourscore years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One question perplexed Hornett&rsquo;s mind. How came it, he asked himself over
+      and over again, that in the space of a mere twelvemonths a man who started
+      with at least eight thousand pounds could have fallen into such a depth of
+      poverty? Eight thousand pounds, if absolutely nothing were done with it
+      for its own increase, meant royal living for a score of years for an
+      unencumbered man. Hornett longed to satisfy his own curiosity upon this
+      point, and felt as if he dared not ask the question for his life. He
+      framed a score of ways by which he might approach it, with a road of
+      retreat behind him, and at last, as if in spite of himself, he said, with
+      apologetic impudence,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You don&rsquo;t seem to have made the money last long, sir.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;The money,&rsquo; cried Bommaney, turning furiously upon him. &lsquo;What money?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hornett edged away upon his knees, and his thumb and fingers traced the
+      creases of his smile up and down his stubbly cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Do you think,&rsquo; the old man demanded passionately, &lsquo;that I took away a
+      penny?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hornett was afraid to rise. There was such a despair and so much fury in
+      the other&rsquo;s looks that he could do nothing but crouch at his feet with his
+      mean meek face turned fearfully towards Bommaney, and his body cowering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You think I took that eight thousand pounds?&rsquo; Bommaney quavered, with a
+      voice of bitter disdain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had never in his life regretted anything so profoundly as he had
+      regretted his resistance of that temptation. To have had all the blame and
+      shame, and to endure all the miseries a convicted thief might earn for
+      himself, to have been an outcast and a pauper, only because he had been
+      resolute against temptation! It is easy enough for a man whom
+      circumstances keep honest to think himself honourable beyond the chance of
+      temptation. But misery has the virtue of Ithuriel&rsquo;s spear, with a
+      difference. As the one touched the beast and transformed him to the
+      seeming of a high intelligence, so will the other touch a seemingly
+      impregnable armour of bright honour, and turn it into tinder, leaving the
+      poor beast revealed and unprotected from his own base natural longings.
+      The poor Bommaney was maddened to think he had not done what the other&rsquo;s
+      thoughts charged him with, even though he passionately rebelled against
+      the accusation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;When did you ever know me to be a rogue, James Hornett?&rsquo; he asked, with
+      an air and voice to which his passion lent something like dignity. &lsquo;When
+      did you ever know me defraud a man of a farthing?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Never, sir, I&rsquo;m sure,&rsquo; Hornett responded, not doubting in his own mind
+      that Bommaney was guilty. &lsquo;But&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;But what?&rsquo; cried Bommaney. &lsquo;My own son, my own flesh and blood, would
+      hardly shake hands with me. My clerk&mdash;I took him out of the gutter,
+      <i>you</i> know that, Hornett! I took you out of the gutter and made a man
+      of you, and lavished kindness on you. Nobody has a minute&rsquo;s trust in me&mdash;nobody
+      thinks of misfortune or disaster. I was right to run away and hide myself,
+      for nobody would have believed me if I had stayed and told the truth.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hornett looked more frightened than before after this outburst, but
+      Bommaney read incredulity in his face, and answered it with an added
+      passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What good would it do me to tell lies to you? Suppose I made you believe
+      me, am I such a fool as to, think your pity could set me on my legs
+      again?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned away, moved by his own wrath and anguish, and Hornett, rising,
+      made himself as small as he could in the corner beside the grate.
+      Bommaney, in his pitiful broken boots, went shuffling up and down the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What became of the money, sir?&rsquo; the clerk asked with a shaky voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was ready to run for his life, and he was more than half afraid that
+      the old man was mad&mdash;his eyes blazed so, and his voice and gestures
+      were so tempestuous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It was lost,&rsquo; said Bommaney. &lsquo;I lost it, Heaven knows how. I&rsquo;ve thought a
+      thousand times,&rsquo; he said, through his clenched teeth, &lsquo;that that young
+      Barter must have had it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Young Barter, sir?&rsquo; said Hornett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Bommaney told all he knew of the story of his own loss, and at a
+      certain point in the narrative Hornett started and made a step forward. He
+      remembered the night well enough&mdash;he had reason to remember it. An
+      appointment for the theatre that evening had led him to call upon a
+      brother clerk in Gable Inn, and he had seen young Mr. Barter leaving his
+      chambers in what had struck him at the time as being an odd and stealthy
+      fashion. He had remarked it for the moment, and had forgotten it
+      afterwards, as men forget a thousand things of the sort which have no
+      interest personal to themselves. But now he saw young Mr. Barter&rsquo;s figure
+      with a singular distinctness, and the face turned round in the gaslight
+      was again as visible as it had been at the moment. He thought he read a
+      meaning in it now. But for this slight confirmation of his employer&rsquo;s
+      story he would probably have disbelieved it, but the accidental character
+      of the clue weighed with him, an apparent touch of romance in it gave it a
+      value beyond its merits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Could you tell me, sir,&rsquo; he asked, &lsquo;exactly what time it was when you
+      left Mr. Barter&rsquo;s office?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No,&rsquo; said Bommaney, suddenly weary after his outburst of
+      self-exculpation, &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t know. It was after banking hours. It was dark;
+      he had to light the gas. What if I could? What would that have to do with
+      it?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, you see, sir,&rsquo; Hornett answered, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m not likely to forget that
+      evening. Of all the evenings of my life, sir, I made a call at Gable Inn
+      myself, sir, at Number One. If young Mr. Barter had found the notes he
+      wouldn&rsquo;t care to face you again, and he mightn&rsquo;t have answered your knock
+      at the door, though he might have heard it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Any fool could tell me that,&rsquo; said Bommaney roughly. &lsquo;What do you mean?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve noticed, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett, with marked humility, as if he
+      apologised for having said anything, &lsquo;that young Mr. Barter is a gentleman
+      who goes about in rather a large way, and noisy way, sir. He&rsquo;s a biggish
+      man, as it is, and to look at him at first you&rsquo;d fancy that he was bigger
+      than he is. He talks very loud and cheery, sir, and he bangs things about
+      a good deal.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well?&rsquo; said Bommaney, irritated by these slow preliminaries, &lsquo;what about
+      it all?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could see that his late clerk was leading to a point of some sort, and
+      listened with a growing impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;He was leaving his rooms that night, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett, &lsquo;as sly as a
+      cat. I was just on the ground-floor of Number One as he was locking the
+      door behind him. Locking it, don&rsquo;t you see, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett, beginning
+      to be fired by his imagination, and speaking eagerly, &lsquo;so as not to make a
+      noise in pulling it to behind him. I suppose I made some sort of a noise
+      in going behind him, but any way, he looked up at me&mdash;I can see him
+      now!&rsquo; he cried, with a swift conviction, &lsquo;as if he was here at this very
+      minute, white and cowardly. That&rsquo;s what he was, sir. White and cowardly, I
+      can see him now.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney grasped him by the wrist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Do you remember the time?&rsquo; he asked, passing one hand confusedly through
+      the tumbled and disgraceful old locks of his hair. &lsquo;Do you remember when I
+      left the office? Do you remember when you left it?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Almost directly, sir, after you. But you drove, sir, and I walked. I
+      stopped, and had a little conversation with a friend, and just a social
+      glass that might have kept me back five minutes, sir. I was going to dine
+      with Mr. Marshall (White and Fielding&rsquo;s Mr. Marshall, sir) before the
+      theatre.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney released his wrist, and dropping on his knees before the fire
+      again, warmed his hands absently and stared into the blaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;The notes were all hundreds, James,&rsquo; he said, after a pause. &lsquo;They were
+      stopped at the Bank, I know, because I saw the advertisement. It wouldn&rsquo;t
+      be easy to get rid of them.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There are ways and means, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett. &lsquo;They&rsquo;d have to be disposed
+      of at a loss, of course&mdash;a heavy loss&mdash;and kept quiet for a
+      considerable time.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Have you heard of any of them coming into circulation?&rsquo; asked Bommaney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I haven&rsquo;t been in the way to hear of anything, sir,&rsquo; the clerk answered
+      mournfully, &lsquo;but,&rsquo; with a sidelong look at his old employer, &lsquo;if I could
+      only get to look a bit respectable, I could make inquiries in an hour. I
+      have no doubt I could find out, sir.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;My boy believes I&rsquo;m guilty, like the rest,&rsquo; said the old man, moaning and
+      shivering and coughing again. The passion of his protest and the warmth of
+      heart which Hornett&rsquo;s returning confidence had taught him had all died
+      away, and he was his bankrupt, disgraced, and broken self again, old and
+      maudlin, and strickenly conscious of his miseries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Phil might help me,&rsquo; he said shakily. &lsquo;He &lsquo;could, but he won&rsquo;t. He&rsquo;s got
+      plenty of money. If I&rsquo;d been a rogue, James Hornett,&rsquo; and there he flashed
+      up again, ever so little, &lsquo;I could have robbed my own flesh and blood with
+      safety. A rogue would have done it. I was his sole trustee, and I could
+      have had nine thousand by a stroke of the pen at any minute.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Mr. Phil, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett &lsquo;Mr. Phil hasn&rsquo;t got much money left&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Why not?&rsquo; the old man asked, staring round at him with his watery eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;He paid Mr. Brown the eight thousand in full, sir, and divided the rest,
+      as far as it would go, amongst the poorest of the creditors.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney turned back towards the fire, and drooped there. He seemed very
+      impassive under this intelligence, but he was deeply moved by it all the
+      same. The sense of his son&rsquo;s high feeling of honour gave him a keen throb
+      of pride, and then he thought bitterly that his own ill-luck pursued his
+      offspring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The loss was double. It had disgraced and ruined him, and had robbed his
+      son of his inheritance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Hornett,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;James Hornett.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes, sir.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I was brought up,&rsquo; the old man said, in a muffled voice, advancing and
+      retiring his hands before the fire, and chafing them automatically, &lsquo;I was
+      brought up by Christian parents. I never did a dishonourable act in all my
+      days. I have been a God-fearing man and a&mdash;a steady church-goer. I
+      give it all up. I renounce it. I don&rsquo;t believe in God. I don&rsquo;t believe in
+      religion. I don&rsquo;t believe in being honest. It&rsquo;s a&mdash;it&rsquo;s a vile wicked
+      world, Hornett, and it&rsquo;s my belief the devil rules it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Oh, sir,&rsquo; cried Hornett,&rsquo; you mustn&rsquo;t talk like this, sir. You must
+      excuse me speaking free, sir, but I can&rsquo;t stand by and hear you talk like
+      that. I can&rsquo;t listen to it, sir&mdash;I can&rsquo;t really. I&rsquo;ve never said a
+      disrespectful word to you, Mr. Bommaney, but I really must speak out now,
+      sir. It isn&rsquo;t respectable, sir, to talk like that.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this there was a long silence, and Bommaney, who had repouched the
+      bottle after his last application to it, consulted it again, and handed it
+      wordlessly to Hornett, without looking at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Phil might,&rsquo; he murmured in a while&mdash;&rsquo; he might be brought to
+      believe me. He&rsquo;s an honest man himself, James&mdash;a very honest
+      high-minded man indeed. I must look where he lives,&rsquo; he murmured, seeking
+      for the envelope his son had given him. &lsquo;He gave me his address.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;His address, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett. &lsquo;You could almost lay your hand on him.
+      He lives there. That&rsquo;s his window with the light in it.&rsquo; Bommaney moved to
+      the window, and followed with his glance the direction of Hornett&rsquo;s
+      outstretched finger. There was a window a few feet higher than the one at
+      which he stood, and half-hidden from observation by a stone parapet. A
+      shadow obscured the light, and moved about the ceiling, visible from
+      below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I saw him there to-night, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett &lsquo;I saw his face at the
+      window. He put a glass of flowers outside. That&rsquo;s his shadow moving about
+      there now.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Phil!&rsquo; groaned the wretched father, straining his dirty wasted hands
+      together. &lsquo;Phil!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m not the figure, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett, &lsquo;to call upon a gentleman like
+      Mr. Phil; nor yet are you, sir, if you&rsquo;ll excuse my saying so. But if
+      you&rsquo;d let me go, sir, and put the case to him, he might come and see you
+      here, sir, and you might set yourself straight with him, sir, which would
+      at least,&rsquo; the seedy man added, somewhat moved by the old man&rsquo;s tears and
+      tremblings, &lsquo;be an advantage to a father&rsquo;s heart.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney stood in silence, looking upward. The moving shadow settled
+      itself upon the ceiling in a huge silhouette, distinctly traceable. There
+      was no doubting it was Phil&rsquo;s dear head that threw the shadow, himself
+      invisible, so near, so far. The foolish outcast&rsquo;s heart ached bitterly,
+      and he stretched both hands towards the shadow, not knowing that he moved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Shall I venture, sir?&rsquo; asked Mr. Hornett, more moved than ever, and
+      coughing to clear a little huskiness in the throat. &lsquo;Shall I venture, sir,
+      to look in on Mr. Phil in the morning?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes, go, James,&rsquo; said Bommaney, sobbing outright by this time. &lsquo;Perhaps&mdash;perhaps
+      he may believe me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      V
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When young Mr. Barter took time to think about things, he began, for more
+      reasons than one, to be sorry. It is necessary for the due development of
+      this history to go back a little, and to take up Mr. Barter on the day
+      following the commission of his crime. The young man felt that he was
+      unable to afford candour, and discreetly avoided the naming of his own
+      action. Eight thousand pounds is a sum which most people would find
+      tempting. Young Mr. Barter would never have found it tempting in the
+      criminal way (though, if he had given his mind to the consideration, he
+      could at any time have seen how enviable its unencumbered possessor might
+      be) if he had not at the moment felt himself under considerable pressure.
+      Mr. Barter&rsquo;s fleshy and well-formed fingers were somewhat too familiar
+      with the feel of cards. These fingers of his were peculiarly dexterous to
+      look at, and had even an unnecessary braggadocio air of dexterity when he
+      was engaged in his favourite occupation. Experienced people watched his
+      shuffling and dealing with great care. In Mr. Barter&rsquo;s frank and engaging
+      countenance, and in that ready smile in which the faultless teeth shone so
+      conspicuously, there was no hint of danger to the most unwary. Even the
+      wariest, listening to his genial mellow laughter, and seeing the jolly
+      shoulders shake with mirth, were inclined to think him a loyal
+      honest-hearted fellow. His loud swagger, his frank rollicking gait, his
+      hail-good-fellow-well-met shake of the hand, the other hand clapped upon
+      the shoulder, the noisy greeting, and that unfailing smile, not merely
+      disarmed suspicion, but made the mere fancy of it impossibly absurd. But
+      young Mr. Barter had accustomed himself to associate with people whose
+      experiences had forced them to be observant, and to these the dexterous
+      caressing fingers with which he manipulated all instruments employed in
+      games of chance seemed to justify a fairly constant watchfulness. The
+      fingers handled the cards as if they loved them, as if they had been
+      accustomed to them from the cradle. The tips turned back a good deal, and
+      the nails hooked a little forward. There were little bulbs of tact at
+      every tip, the hands were made for a gambler, and could by no possibility
+      have belonged to anybody else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chief ground for the young man&rsquo;s sorrow may be very easily and briefly
+      stated. The packet which the unfortunate cruelly-tempted Bommaney had let
+      fall in his half-drunken abstraction on the floor of young Mr. Barter&rsquo;s
+      private room was made up exclusively, as we know already, of notes for one
+      hundred pounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Bank of England notes for one hundred pounds, though valuable, and
+      easily enough employed in all civilised countries when honestly come by,
+      are only to be got rid of when dishonestly acquired at great risk and
+      loss. A note for a mere five pounds may pass through scores of hands
+      before being stopped at the bank. Tens, so the experienced in such matters
+      will tell you, are a little difficult. Twenties are inquired into rather
+      carefully. Fifties are positively dangerous to handle in this way.
+      Hundreds are, except after great lapse of time, almost impossible; and as
+      for a thousand, a man might almost as well steal a white elephant as a
+      bank-note of that value, except that it will cost him nothing for keep,
+      unless you count the tremor of soul and nerve, which is surely worth
+      something, in which a man criminally possessed of another&rsquo;s property is
+      almost certain to live.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Barter, then, had eight thousand pounds in ready money, was liable, if
+      discovered, to penal servitude, and was unable to touch a farthing of his
+      ill-got gains. There are many men in the world, the world&rsquo;s experience
+      proves it hourly, who set so small a price upon their self-respect, that
+      they will sell it for a shilling, for a drink, for a word. But there is
+      hardly any man so lost to the natural human desire for self-approval that
+      he will actually give away his self-respect for nothing. Now this absurd
+      transaction young Mr. Barter, when he took time to think about things,
+      appeared to himself to have made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was not, and never had been, a great reader; he gave up his mind to
+      pursuits which he found more attractive than the tranquil fields and lanes
+      of literature. Yet he remembered, in a dim sort of way, either that he had
+      read somewhere in his schoolboy days, or that a fanciful old nurse had
+      told him, a story of a person somewhere, who, being possessed of a great
+      chest of money, went one day to look at it, and found that his hard cash
+      had changed to withered leaves. Precisely such a transformation had
+      overtaken that eight thousand pounds, at the moment when it had fallen
+      from the hands of a man who might have made an honest use of it. The fable
+      was, and was not, true, so far as he remembered, and his fancy dwelt
+      curiously about the history. There was no possibility of turning back the
+      withered leaves to gold, and making them jingle and glitter again as only
+      one&rsquo;s own ready money can jingle and glitter. But, useless as these crisp
+      and rustling leaves of paper were to him, they held still all their old
+      potentialities, and in the hands of honest men or courageous rascals each
+      leaf might still transmute itself into a hundred golden emblems of
+      sovereignty and power. He was neither that honest man nor that courageous
+      rascal, and the money grew to be a sort of devilish tantalising fetish to
+      him. Before he had owned it a fortnight, he had felt a hundred times he
+      could have burned it out of the exasperation of mere spite against it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He heard, of course, of Bommaney&rsquo;s flight, and of the failure of the
+      old-established business house. People talked about these things a good
+      deal for a time, and he himself listened to and took part in many
+      speculations as to Bommaney&rsquo;s whereabouts, and the means he would take to
+      get rid of the notes and make them available for his own purposes. He
+      found it at first a little trying to the nerves. There was nothing, since
+      Bommaney had accepted his own disgrace and run away, to connect young Mr.
+      Barter with the lost eight thousand pounds, yet it took much courage, and
+      a considerable amount of inward spurring, to bring himself to talk about
+      the business. When a man carries a secret of a quite harmless nature, it
+      happens often, as almost everybody knows, that casual words and quite
+      innocent glances startle him with hints of understanding and
+      participation. What is it when the detection of the secret involves open
+      shame and penal servitude? Can a man of genuine courage be a thief? Is not
+      courage after all at the very bottom of all manly honour, of all sound
+      honesty, all true self-respect? How shall a thief be other than a lurking
+      cur, whose whole soul, such as it is, is bent to a mean suspicion that he
+      is suspected, a continuous terror-stricken watchfulness, a sleeping and
+      waking dread of an awful hand-clap on the shoulder? There are
+      constitutional differences in thieves, no doubt, as there are in other
+      people, but the key-note of the dishonest man&rsquo;s whole thought is fear.
+      When, after a day or two, young Mr. Barter had accustomed himself to speak
+      of Bommaney and the lost eight thousand, and had often spoken of them, he
+      began to look out for suggestions that might be useful to himselt He even
+      led the way at times, and speaking to solicitors and barristers of
+      extensive criminal experience, he asked often, for example, how could a
+      scoundrel get rid of such a clumsy handful? Why didn&rsquo;t the fool cash the
+      notes, he would ask contemptuously, before he left town, and before he was
+      suspected? Everybody knew of course that the notes had not been presented,
+      and their numbers were advertised in all the daily papers. Now what could
+      a fellow do who had them, by Jingo? What <i>could</i> he do? There was no
+      way open, so far as young Mr. Barter could see, and he was wonderfully
+      engaging and innocent of the world&rsquo;s wickeder ways as he talked thus with
+      the ablest of his fellow professionals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fellow professionals cited cases. There was Rosenthal, a noted
+      receiver in his day, to whom a dishonest clerk had sold five thousand
+      pounds for five hundred. Rosenthal had held the notes for six years, and
+      had then put them cautiously on the Continental market. He was an old
+      hand, was Rosenthal, and very clever and leary, but they had bowled him
+      out. The clerk was wanted on another charge, and turned Queen&rsquo;s evidence
+      against the receiver. Almost all the stories had this kind of termination,
+      because the legal gentlemen whom young Mr. Barter consulted remembered
+      mainly cases in which they or their friends had been engaged, or cases
+      which had resulted in criminal proceedings. Others there certainly were,
+      but they were vague and necessarily without those guiding particulars
+      which he desired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been already hinted that the young man was a gambler, and it is
+      likely that most of the reasons which made the money seem so welcome to
+      him had their sources at the gaming table. He belonged to one of those
+      clubs which deserve to be numbered among the blessings of modern society&mdash;where
+      men do not meet for social intercourse and good-fellowship, or for dining
+      purposes, or for any of the common and amiable reasons which draw men into
+      club-life, but simply and purely to the end that they may win one
+      another&rsquo;s money. It was a joint-stock swindling company to which young Mr.
+      Barter belonged, and within its limits every man proposed to himself to
+      get the better of every other man by such means as lay in his power. A
+      pigeon got in amongst them every now and then, of course&mdash;came in
+      well-feathered and went out plucked, but for the main part the rooks
+      pecked hungrily at one another, and made but little of their time and
+      pains. The one solitary advantage of these corporations is that they
+      gather the depredatory birds together, and lead them to prey upon
+      themselves instead of wandering abroad for the defeathering of the
+      innocent and artless who abound even in these days. The well-constituted
+      mind can hardly fail to take pleasure in the contemplation of these
+      resorts, where Greek meets Greek (in the modern French sense as well as
+      the old heroic)&mdash;where scoundrel encounters scoundrel, and learns
+      that the pleasure of being cheated is by no means so great as that of
+      cheating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were people of widely ranging social position in this curious
+      contingent. One or two men of title, and one or two of the highest social
+      or commercial respectability, lent their names for some inconceivable
+      reason to grace the front page of the neatly-bound little volume of rules
+      which govern, or sometimes fail to govern, the conduct of the corporation.
+      Mr. Barter rubbed shoulders with young men&mdash;very young men they were&mdash;who
+      would one day have handles to their names, and enjoy the control of
+      considerable estates. He sat at the same table with men whose birth and
+      antecedents, like those of the immortal Jeames, were shrouded in a
+      mystery. He met men of his own position, who like himself were desperately
+      glad of being numbered in the same club society with men eminent on the
+      turf, or familiar in the gilded saloons of the great. He liked to think of
+      those gilded saloons; it might be interesting to know what he thought they
+      resembled&mdash;most probably a somewhat old-fashioned earthly paradise of
+      ormolu. He bragged indefatigably of his club and the people whom he met
+      there. He dated all his private correspondence from it, and spent hundreds
+      of daylight hours above the ivories and the pasteboard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the time of that foolish and weak-willed Bommaney&rsquo;s disaster there were
+      two or three I.O.U.&lsquo;s for sums much more considerable than he could afford
+      to part with in the hands of his fellow-members. Law is a necessity to
+      human society. Even a band of brigands can&rsquo;t hang together without it.
+      Debt, outside the club, was by no means a thing to be harshly spoken of,
+      but debt to a fellow-member was a literal millstone round a man&rsquo;s neck,
+      and would sink him out of sight in no time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elder Barter had gone over to the majority, despatched by that street
+      accident, and if the old man had known nothing of the young man&rsquo;s courses,
+      he had had it in his power to make him well-to-do. But he had paid his
+      debts once at least, and had more than once had occasion to grieve over
+      the boy&rsquo;s handling of the firm&rsquo;s money, and so had made his will entirely
+      in his wife&rsquo;s favour, leaving his son dependent upon her good graces. The
+      mother was disposed to be a little sterner than the father had been.
+      Perhaps if young Barter had dreaded her less poor Bommaney&rsquo;s fallen notes
+      might have been returned to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, to get on with the story, the young man&rsquo;s chief creditor at the club
+      was one Steinberg, a gentleman whose time appeared to be absolutely at his
+      own disposal, though he was known by some of his fellow-members to have an
+      address in Hatton Garden, and to be more or less of a diamond merchant
+      there. He often carried about with him, in a pocket-book, or in neat
+      little packages of grocer&rsquo;s gay paper, borne in the waistcoat-pocket, a
+      collection of gems of considerable value, and would show them to his
+      intimates with the <i>insouciance</i> of a man who was accustomed to
+      handling things of price. He never was without money, made little journeys
+      at times, which rarely took him away from town for more than a day or two,
+      and was, almost always, wholly unoccupied except for the cards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now young Barter had a prodigious idea of this gentleman&rsquo;s astuteness. He
+      had no particular belief in his honesty, and he believed him, not
+      altogether unreasonably as the sequel proved, to be initiated into most of
+      the mysteries of modern rascality. This was merely a general notion, based
+      upon statements made by Steinberg himself, and supported by the opinion of
+      his intimates. Nobody spoke ill of Steinberg; it was only understood that
+      there was no move upon the board with which he was not familiar. Young
+      Barter, meeting him one evening at the club, whilst Bommaney&rsquo;s
+      disappearance was still a fresh topic of town conversation, spoke to him
+      about it, with an assurance clearly begotten of practice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Now, look here, Steinberg,&rsquo; he said, in his open and engaging way.
+      &lsquo;Suppose you&rsquo;d nobbled those notes, what should you do with &lsquo;em?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps Mr. Steinberg resented the form of this inquiry. But be that as it
+      may, he responded with some tartness,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Suppose you&rsquo;d nobbled them?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this chance thrust young Barter turned curiously red and white, and had
+      some ado to recover that open smile of his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Hang it,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;you can&rsquo;t suppose I meant it that way. But,&rsquo; with a
+      half-hysteric courage, &lsquo;suppose you had&mdash;suppose I had&mdash;suppose
+      anybody had&mdash;what would he do? You, I, anybody?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Steinberg sipped at his lemon squash&mdash;he drank that inspiring
+      liquid all the year round, and nothing else until cards for the day were
+      over&mdash;and puffed at his cigar, and looking young Barter full in the
+      face, nodded and smiled with an odd mingling of meaning and humour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Put him on to me,&rsquo; he said, with perfect affability. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll put him up to
+      it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Rather dangerous, wouldn&rsquo;t it be?&rsquo; said Barter, showing his white teeth
+      in a somewhat forced and ghastly manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Everything&rsquo;s dangerous for an ass,&rsquo; said Steinberg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t have thought,&rsquo; laughed Barter, &lsquo;that that was your line.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke as jestingly as he could, but he knew that his laugh was forced,
+      and that the voice in which he spoke was unlike his voice of every day,
+      and he wished, with the whole of his quaking heart, that he had left the
+      theme alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, no,&rsquo; said Steinberg, &lsquo;I suppose you wouldn&rsquo;t.&rsquo; He sipped his liquor
+      through a straw, and blew half a dozen rings of smoke from his lips with
+      practised dexterity, and kept a glittering German-Jewish eye on Barter.
+      Perhaps he meant something by the glance, perhaps he meant nothing. He was
+      a rather Machiavelian and sinister-looking personage, was Mr. Steinberg,
+      and there was something even in the calm expression of those
+      perfectly-formed rings of smoke and in the very way in which, he sipped
+      his liquor, and most of all in the observant glitter of his eye, which
+      spoke of a penetration and shrewdness very far out of the common. More and
+      more young Barter wished that he had not broached this theme with
+      Steinberg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not help it for his soul. He could feel that his colour was
+      coming and going with a dreadful fluttering alternation. He quailed before
+      the Israelitish eye so shrewdly cocked at him, and when in a very spasm of
+      despair he tried to meet it, he was so abjectly quelled by it that he felt
+      his face a proclamation of his secret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steinberg went on sipping and smoking, and said nothing; but when the
+      young scoundrel, his companion, had somewhat recovered himself and dared
+      again to look at him, there was the same shrewd and wary glint in his
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Barter had been unhappy enough before this, but after it the money
+      became a burden hateful and horrible. He met Steinberg often, and forced
+      himself to be noisy in his company. In his dread of seeming low-spirited,
+      or ill at ease, he said things about his dead father which he would have
+      left unsaid, had he consulted the little good that was left in him; and
+      Steinberg seemed to watch him very closely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Barter put off his creditor with promises. He would have lots of
+      money by and by. That seemed credible enough in the position of affairs,
+      and Steinberg waited. In a while, however, he became exigent, and declined
+      any longer to be satisfied with promises. One night the unhappy rascal,
+      playing all the more because of his troubles, all the more wildly, and
+      certainly all the worse, fell back upon his LO.U.&lsquo;s. Steinberg followed
+      him from the club. It was late, and the streets were very quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;This won&rsquo;t do, you know, Barter,&rsquo; said Steinberg, tapping him on the
+      shoulder as they walked side by side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Begad it won&rsquo;t,&rsquo; said young Barter, doing his best to make light of it.
+      &lsquo;They&rsquo;ve been cutting into me pretty freely this past week or two.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; said Steinberg, puffing at his eternal cigar, and looking askant
+      at Barter under the light of a street-lamp which they happened to be
+      nearing at the moment, &lsquo;what you&rsquo;ve got to do, you know, is to find the
+      man who knows Mr. Bommaney.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The commotion which assailed Barter at this speech was like an inward
+      earthquake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What&mdash;what do you mean?&rsquo; he panted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That&rsquo;s what you&rsquo;ve got to do,&rsquo; said Steinberg tranquilly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Do you mean to insinuate&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; Barter began to bluster; but the
+      older, cooler, and more accomplished scoundrel stopped him contemptuously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You know where they are,&rsquo; he said &lsquo;Why don&rsquo;t you get at &lsquo;em?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      About noon on the following day Mr. Steinberg, seated in a small inner
+      chamber in Hatton Garden, leisurely answering his sole business
+      correspondent of that morning, was in no way surprised when the boy he
+      employed to open the door and receive visitors brought in a card bearing
+      the name of &lsquo;Mr. John Barter, jun.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Show him in,&rsquo; said Mr. Steinberg; and young Mr. Barter, hearing this in
+      the outer room, came in with a pale-faced and excited alacrity. The
+      diamond merchant dismissed the boy with a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; he said, turning the tip of his cigar upwards by a protrusion of
+      the under lip, &lsquo;what is it?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;About that little matter,&rsquo; said young Barter nervously, &lsquo;we were talking
+      of last night.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;The little matter we were talking of last night?&rsquo; asked Steinberg idly,
+      looking at him with half-shut eyes. &lsquo;That hundred you owe me?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, perhaps that afterwards,&rsquo; said Barter with a frightened breathless
+      laugh in his voice. &lsquo;But about the other matter first.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;The other matter?&rsquo; Steinberg asked, in a lazier manner than before. &lsquo;What
+      other matter?&rsquo; He took up his pen, dipped it in the inkstand before him,
+      and tracing a line or two of his correspondent&rsquo;s communication with it,
+      turned to his own unfinished letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Barter was already sufficiently agitated, and this curious reception
+      made him more embarrassed than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;About that affair of Bommaney&rsquo;s,&rsquo; he said, feeling as if a rapid wheel
+      had been somehow started in his brain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; said Steinberg, writing rapidly, and speaking in a voice which
+      seemed to indicate that he neither understood nor cared to understand,
+      &lsquo;that affair of Bommaney&rsquo;s, eh?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This reception was nothing less than dreadful to the young criminal. He
+      had reckoned on having his way made easy for him. Steinberg had actually
+      offered to become his accomplice in crime, and had lured him to
+      disclosure. He could have wished that the floor would open and let him
+      through. He saw that he had already exposed his hand, and began to imagine
+      all manner of consequences resulting from the exposure. Not one of the
+      consequences he foresaw promised to be of a nature agreeable to himself,
+      and for the moment the hatred with which Steinberg inspired him was of so
+      mad a nature that there was nothing he would not have done to him if he
+      had had the courage and the power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steinberg wrote on, shaking his fist in what seemed to be an unusual
+      alert, and even threatening, manner. There was a great deal of unnecessary
+      motion in Steinberg&rsquo;s hand, and Barter, looking at its swift and resolute
+      movements, got a blind sort of impression of strength out of it, and
+      nullified the feeling with which it inspired him. The letter written,
+      enveloped, addressed, and stamped, Steinberg tossed it on one side, and
+      leaning back in his arm-chair, turned an uninterested look once more upon
+      his visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That affair of Bommaney&rsquo;s,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;What was that?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Barter thought this inquiry altogether too barefaced, and responded,
+      with a hectic flush of courage,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Come, Steinberg, don&rsquo;t play the fool with a fellow. You know jolly well
+      what it was last night.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Steinberg&rsquo;s keen and impassive face underwent no change.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What did I know last night?&rsquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You know,&rsquo; Barter began angrily; and then the hectic flush of courage
+      died, and a dreadful chill of fear succeeded it. What had he known? He had
+      only guessed&mdash;till now. But now, young Mr. Barter felt, to employ the
+      expressive ideas of his set, that he had given himself away. Steinberg
+      capped the question in his mind. What did I know last night?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You haven&rsquo;t come to waste your time or mine, I suppose? You&rsquo;ve come to
+      say something. Why not say it?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His guest, sitting in a terrible confusion, and feeling himself altogether
+      betrayed and lost, Steinberg marched to the door, and addressing the boy
+      in the outer room, bade him carry the letter to the post and return no
+      more that day. Then, having locked the outer door, he returned and resumed
+      his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Now, what is it?&rsquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barter, recognising the fact that his own purpose was already exposed,
+      made a desperate dash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;About those notes old Bommaney was supposed to have run away with. I
+      think&mdash;I think, mind you, that if there was any way of using them, I
+      could lay my hands upon them.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I remember,&rsquo; said Steinberg, &lsquo;you said something of the kind last night.
+      I shouldn&rsquo;t advise you to touch &lsquo;em. It&rsquo;s a dangerous game. They&rsquo;re very
+      worthless, and the game isn&rsquo;t worth the candle.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Worthless?&rsquo; echoed Barter. &lsquo;They&rsquo;re worth eight thousand pounds.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;They&rsquo;re worth eight thousand pounds,&rsquo; responded Steinberg, &lsquo;to the man
+      they belong to. They&rsquo;re not worth eight hundred to anybody else.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Mr. Barter&rsquo;s whole soul seemed to rise in protest against this
+      abominable fallacy. When he had screwed up his courage so far as to induce
+      himself to accept this older and more experienced scoundrel&rsquo;s partnership,
+      he had conceived the possibility of the partner crying out for halves. But
+      that he should want so enormous a share of the spoil was quite
+      intolerable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Not worth eight hundred?&rsquo; He could only gasp the questioning protest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;If I had &lsquo;em to sell,&rsquo; Steinberg answered calmly, flicking the waste from
+      his cigar by a movement of his little finger, &lsquo;I should think eight
+      hundred an uncommon good price for &lsquo;em. Later on and sold at second hand
+      they might fetch a thousand. Later on and sold at third hand they might
+      fetch fifteen hundred. One can hardly tell. Of course the value will go on
+      mounting with distance from the original source of danger and with the
+      lapse of time.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He said all this very calmly and reflectively, and young Barter,
+      collecting his whirling wits as well as he could, tried a stroke of
+      diplomacy, which, as he fondly hoped, would answer a double purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;She&rsquo;ll never let them go for that, or for anything like it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;She won&rsquo;t, won&rsquo;t she?&rsquo; asked Steinberg, smiling brightly, as if the
+      statement amused him. &lsquo;Then she&rsquo;ll never let &lsquo;em go at all, my friend. How
+      did you come to find she had &lsquo;em?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I made a little bit of a discovery,&rsquo; Barter answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Ah! That was it, was it,&rsquo; said the elder rascal, falling back into his
+      utter want of interest. &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll let me have that hundred.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I will in a day or two,&rsquo; answered Barter, <i>arréanti</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, as for a day or two,&rsquo; returned Steinberg, rubbing his forehead with
+      the tips of his fingers, and looking very careless and composed, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m
+      really very much afraid I can&rsquo;t let you have it. It&rsquo;s been outstanding a
+      goodish time, and to tell you the truth, old man, I want it very badly. If
+      you&rsquo;ll let me have it to-night I shall be obliged to you. I&rsquo;ve been hit
+      rather hard this last day or two. Shall we make that a bargain? To-night?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&mdash;I&rsquo;m afraid,&rsquo; Barter stammered, &lsquo;it&rsquo;s no use talking about
+      to-night.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; said Steinberg, with a pitiless uninterested suavity, &lsquo;you know
+      the rules.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew a little book from his pocket, and tossed it over the table to his
+      guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll find it on page five. Rule fourteen. It&rsquo;s ticked in red ink, if
+      you&rsquo;ll take the trouble to look at it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barter opened the book and consulted its pages blindly for a while, and
+      then the mist which seemed to obstruct brain and eyesight clearing away,
+      he read the pages indicated. It set forth the principle that all moneys
+      lost at games of skill or chance, or upon bets made within the limits of
+      the club, were payable within four-and-twenty hours. It set forth further
+      that debts not paid within that time might be brought under the notice of
+      the Committee, who were empowered to act under Rule nine. Rule nine
+      ordained the public posting of the defaulter&rsquo;s name, his suspension in
+      default of payment, and, in case of continued obduracy or poverty, his
+      expulsion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;First and last, Steinberg,&rsquo; said the wretched criminal, who began to find
+      the way of the transgressor unreasonably hard and thorny, &lsquo;first and last,
+      you&rsquo;ve had a pretty tidy handful of money out of me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, yes,&rsquo; said Steinberg tangibly. &lsquo;Pretty fair.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His very admission of this fact made Barter&rsquo;s case seem hopeless to
+      himself. If he had brow-beaten, or blustered, if he had shown anger or
+      impatience, or had been querulous, there might have seemed to exist some
+      slenderest chance for him. But Steinberg was so unmoved that he seemed
+      immovable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You&rsquo;d better persuade her,&rsquo; he said, with a scarcely perceptible grin.
+      Looking at Barter, and observing that he sat with his eyes still bent upon
+      the book of rules, and head dejected, he allowed the grin to broaden.
+      Barter, suddenly looking up at him, saw him smiling like a gargoyle, with
+      a look of infinitely relishing cruelty and cunning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You won&rsquo;t find her hard to persuade, I&rsquo;m sure,&rsquo; said Steinberg. &lsquo;Come,
+      now, I&rsquo;ll talk business to you. I&rsquo;ll take ten of &lsquo;em for it, and cry
+      quits, and I wouldn&rsquo;t do that for anybody but a friend.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The frank admission of the value of his own friendship was plainly legible
+      in that gargoyle smile, and the unhappy Barter read it clearly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll see what I can do with her,&rsquo; he said, with a face and
+      voice of pure misery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Do, my boy,&rsquo; said Steinberg, rising, and swinging the key of his chambers
+      upon his forefinger, &lsquo;see what you can do with her. I shan&rsquo;t send any
+      notification to the Committee before nine o&rsquo;clock, old chap. You can trust
+      me for that. You go off at once, old fellow, and see what you can do for
+      her.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fraudulent possessor of the notes felt their burthen more than ever
+      insupportable. He rose, and went his way with remorse and rage and the
+      bitterness of baffled stratagem in his heart. His wounded mind soared to
+      so lofty a height of egotism in its struggles that he positively found the
+      impudence to curse Bom-maney for having dropped the notes in his office.
+      Then he cursed himself for having taken them, and cursed Steinberg for
+      robbing him, and so moved off in a condition quite pitiable to one who
+      could find the understanding and the heart to pity him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steinberg stopped behind, and smoked smilingly. He was the successful
+      scoundrel, and found the transaction as sweet as the young Barter found it
+      bitter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t think hell have much trouble with her,&rsquo; he said to himself; and
+      he enjoyed that little jest so much that he caught himself smiling at it a
+      hundred times in the course of the afternoon and evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Old Brown, who was one of the sunniest-natured of men, went gloomy when
+      the news of his old friend&rsquo;s dreadful fall came to his ears. It does him
+      no more than justice to say that he mourned Bommaney senior infinitely
+      more than the money. He liked to trust people, and had all his life long
+      been eager to find excuses for defaulters. He could find no excuse here.
+      The theft was barefaced, insolent, dastardly. He puzzled over it, and grew
+      more cynical and bitter in his thoughts of the world at large than he
+      could have imagined himself. But then, when Bommaney junior came home, and
+      insisted on the restoration of the missing eight thousand from his own
+      small fortune, old Brown brightened up again. There was such a thing as
+      honesty in the world, after all. The restoration warmed his heart anew. At
+      first he fought against it, and would have none of it&mdash;the mere
+      candid and honest offer of it was enough for him; but Philip was more
+      resolute than himself, and the stronger man won. Phil should never have
+      cause to repent his goodness, the old fellow declared to himself a
+      thousand times. He should reap the proper reward of his own honour. Brown
+      admired and loved Phil out of bounds for this little bit of natural
+      honesty and justice. He thought there had never been a finer fellow in the
+      world, and his heart warmed to him as if he had been a son of his own. As
+      for that rascal of a father&mdash;and when he got so far in his thoughts
+      he fumed so with wrath that he dared go no farther, and was compelled, for
+      the sake of his own peace, to banish the friend of his schooldays from his
+      mind a thousand times a week.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was about a year later than the disgrace of the house of Bommaney that
+      old Brown, to his daughter&rsquo;s perplexity and grief, began to show signs of
+      trouble almost as marked as those he had displayed after his old friend&rsquo;s
+      defection. The old boy&rsquo;s newspaper no longer interested him of a morning.
+      He began to be lax about that morning ride which he had once regarded as
+      being absolutely necessary to the preservation of health in London. He had
+      been impassioned with the theatre, and had become a diligent attendant at
+      first-night performances. Even these ceased to have any joy for him, and
+      he neglected, in fine, all his old sources of amusement He went about
+      sorrowful and grumpy, expressing the dolefullest opinions about
+      everything. There was going to be war, stocks were going down, trade was
+      crumbling, there was no virtue in man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Patty tried her best to coax him from these pessimistic moods, but the old
+      boy was not to be persuaded. On fine evenings, when there was nothing
+      better to be done, he had loved greatly, between the quiet old-fashioned
+      tea and the quiet old-fashioned supper, to dress for out of doors, and
+      with Patty on his arm to wander into Regent&rsquo;s Park, and there inhale the
+      best imitation of country atmosphere that London could afford. He dropped
+      this amiable and affectionate habit, and took to rambling out alone,
+      coming home late, and haggard, and not infrequently, at such times,
+      staring at his daughter with an aspect so sorrowing and wretched that she
+      knew not what to make of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl, watching him with a constantly increasing solicitude, could at
+      last endure this condition of affairs no longer. He came home one night,
+      leaving neither his stick nor hat in the outer hall, and sat down in the
+      dining-room, muffled and great-coated, the picture of dejection. Patty,
+      kneeling before him, removed his hat, smoothed his hair, and began to
+      unbutton his overcoat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Papa!&rsquo; she cried suddenly, &lsquo;what <i>is</i> the matter with you? Why are
+      you so changed?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He breathed a great sigh, and laid his hand upon her head. Then he turned
+      his face away from her&mdash;to hide his eyes, she fancied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You are in trouble,&rsquo; she went on. &lsquo;It is not kind to keep it from me. Is
+      it anything that I have done, or anything I could do.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No, no, my darling,&rsquo; he said softly, laying his hand upon her head again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Is it money, dear?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No, no. It isn&rsquo;t money. Don&rsquo;t talk about it, my dear. Don&rsquo;t talk about
+      it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Now, papa, you make me think it very grave indeed.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There,&rsquo; he said, rising, &lsquo;you shan&rsquo;t see any more of it, and we&rsquo;ll say no
+      more about it Well be gay and bright again, and well hope that things will
+      turn out for the best.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The attempt to be gay and bright again resulted in most mournful failure,
+      and the girl grew frightened. She had nursed her fears for many days, and
+      had hidden them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Papa!&rsquo; she said, trembling ever so little, &lsquo;you must let me know what it
+      is. Let us bear it together, dear. Whatever it may be it can&rsquo;t matter very
+      much if it leaves us two together&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Ah! &lsquo;said old Brown, looking at her with a pitying smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Is it anything&mdash;&mdash;?&rsquo; She stopped short, and really found no
+      courage to complete the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;My darling,&rsquo; he answered, folding her in his arms, and staring sadly over
+      her shoulder. She felt the hands that embraced her quiver, and she knew he
+      had understood her half-expressed query. This frightened her so much that
+      it gave her boldness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There is something the matter with Phil,&rsquo; she said, pushing the old man
+      away, and holding him at arm&rsquo;s length. &lsquo;Tell me what it is.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;My dear,&rsquo; he answered, &lsquo;you shouldn&rsquo;t leap at conclusions in that way.&rsquo; 
+      But the disclaimer was altogether too feeble to deceive her. Philip was
+      the mysterious cause of her father&rsquo;s trouble. Her wandering, pained eyes,
+      her parted lips, the terror and inquiry in her face, frightened the old
+      man. &lsquo;No, no,&rsquo; he cried, &lsquo;you must not think it too bad. I&rsquo;m not sure of
+      anything. I don&rsquo;t suppose it&rsquo;s at all a matter of consequence. I daresay
+      he&rsquo;s an old fool. I hope I am.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These hints and innuendoes were about the last thing in the world to
+      satisfy a girl who had been made anxious about her lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Tell me,&rsquo; she commanded. &lsquo;I have a right to know. What has happened?&rsquo; She
+      was no more inclined to be jealous than girls who are in love commonly
+      are. She had, indeed, a native fund of confidence, and her trust in Phil&rsquo;s
+      loyalty had been of the unquestioning sort, quite profound and settled.
+      Yet for a moment there rose before her mental vision the dim picture of
+      some possible rival, and at the mere hint of this she grew ashamed, and
+      flamed into indignation against herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Tell me,&rsquo; she said; &lsquo;I insist on knowing.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, my dear,&rsquo; said the old man miserably and reluctantly, I&rsquo;ve been
+      told that his father hastened his own ruin with dice and cards.&rsquo; It was
+      the first time he had mentioned Bommaney senior in his daughter&rsquo;s hearing
+      for a year. She looked at him with eyes still intent, but somehow milder
+      and less alarmed. &lsquo;Phil,&rsquo; the old boy continued, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m afraid that Phil is
+      travelling in his father&rsquo;s steps.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Phil a gambler!&rsquo; she said, with an honest scorn of conviction. &lsquo;I know
+      better. What makes you think it?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There are a lot of beastly clubs at the West End,&rsquo; said the old man,
+      beginning to struggle with his overcoat, partly because he wished to avoid
+      the girl&rsquo;s look, and partly because the motion was a relief to him.
+      &lsquo;Gambling-places. Places where men meet for no other earthly purpose than
+      to cheat one another. I&rsquo;m as fond of a rubber at whist as anybody; but no
+      honest man would put his head into one of those holes of infamy if he knew
+      its character.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Are you speaking of Phil, papa?&rsquo; she asked. Her voice was low and
+      tremulous, and there was almost a note of threatening in it. The gentlest
+      creature will fight for her own&mdash;a fact for which some of us have
+      reason to be grateful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes, my dear,&rsquo; her father answered with a kind of sullen sadness; &lsquo;I&rsquo;m
+      talking about Phil. He&rsquo;s a member of the vilest crowd of the whole lot,
+      and he&rsquo;s there night after night.&rsquo; He dashed his overcoat into an
+      arm-chair with despairing anger, and went marching up and down the room.
+      &lsquo;I saw him one night by accident as he was going in. I knew the place. You
+      might have knocked me down with a feather. I&rsquo;ve watched him there night
+      after night. Don&rsquo;t tell me I hadn&rsquo;t the right to watch him. I had the
+      right My little girl shan&rsquo;t marry a gambler. I won&rsquo;t have my fortune
+      wasted by a gambler, and my child&rsquo;s heart broken. I took a room,&rsquo; he
+      pursued wrathfully, &lsquo;opposite the place. I&rsquo;ve sat there in the dark with
+      the window open, and caught the d&mdash;&mdash; worst cold I ever had in
+      my life watching for him. I&rsquo;ve seen him go in again and again. He&rsquo;s a lost
+      man, I tell you,&rsquo; he cried in answer to his daughter&rsquo;s look and gesture;
+      &lsquo;the man who has that vice in his blood is lost!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was storming loudly, for he was one of those in whom emotion must have
+      expression in noise, but a sudden loud peal at the bell cut short his
+      harangue, and he and Patty stood in silence to know who it might be who
+      called so late. As it happened, it was no other than the lost man himself.
+      He was shown in according to wont and usage without previous announcement,
+      and entered gay and smiling, elate and tender.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he looked from one to the other the expression of his face changed. He
+      moved quickly towards Patty, and took her hands in his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There&rsquo;s something the matter,&rsquo; he said gently. &lsquo;You&rsquo;re in trouble!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old boy, glaring at him, growled, &lsquo;We are,&rsquo; and snatching up his
+      overcoat, threw it over his arm, and slipped his hat upon his head with a
+      gesture which Philip took for one of defiance. As a matter of fact it
+      expressed no more than wrathful grief, but then gesture and expression are
+      hard to read unless you have the key to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;We&rsquo;d better have it out, Phil,&rsquo; said the old man, &lsquo;here and now. You&rsquo;ve
+      turned gambler, and I&rsquo;ve found you out.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No,&rsquo; Phil answered, with an odd smile; &lsquo;I haven&rsquo;t turned gambler, I
+      assure you. You&rsquo;ve heard that I&rsquo;ve joined the Pigeon Trap? That&rsquo;s what
+      they call it in the City. I prefer to call it the Hawks&rsquo; Roost. There are
+      too few pigeons go there to be plucked to justify the other title, and I
+      give you my word of honour, Mr. Brown, that I&rsquo;m not one of them.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man&rsquo;s air was candid and amused. There was an underlying gravity
+      beneath the smile, and for people who had believed in him as devoutly as
+      his two listeners it was hard to disbelieve him now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You&rsquo;ve gone into the infernal hole,&rsquo; said old Brown, more than half
+      abandoning suspicion, and yet inclined to leave it growlingly, as a dog
+      might surrender a bone he conceived himself to have a right to. &lsquo;What do
+      you want there?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I want to do a very important stroke of business there, sir,&rsquo; Philip
+      answered. The smile quite disappeared from his eyes at this moment, and he
+      looked very grimly resolute. &lsquo;I will tell you this much,&rsquo; he added,
+      &lsquo;because you have a right to know it. I am in pursuit of a brace of
+      scoundrels there. I think I&rsquo;ve salted the tail of one of &lsquo;em already. I
+      believe with all my heart, sir, that I&rsquo;m going to clear my father&rsquo;s
+      character, and I would go into worse places than the Pigeon Trap if I saw
+      my way to doing that.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Patty of course was clinging to him without disguise by this time, anxious
+      only to atone for having given an ear to any word against him, even for a
+      moment. Phil put his arm about her waist and kissed her. He had never to
+      his knowledge performed this act in the presence of a third person until
+      now, but he got through it without embarrassment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You think you can clear your father&rsquo;s character?&rsquo; asked his sweetheart&rsquo;s
+      father. There was a tinge of scepticism in his voice, though he tried to
+      hide it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes, sir,&rsquo; said Phil, his head thrown back a little, and his eyes
+      gleaming. Nobody had ever looked so handsome to Patty&rsquo;s fancy as he did at
+      that moment &lsquo;I know already that there was no real stain upon his honour,
+      and I&rsquo;m surprised myself for thinking that there ever could have been, bad
+      as things looked. My father never took wrongful possession of your money.
+      He was robbed of it, and I think I can lay my hand upon the thief.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a prodigious excitement at this declaration, and the young man
+      was overwhelmed with questions. He could name no names, of course, and
+      give no clue, but he sketched the story. He contented himself by
+      describing young Barter as Thief Number One, and he was satisfied to
+      describe Steinberg as Probable Thief Number Two. He had learned, it
+      appeared, that Thief Number One had succeeded on his father&rsquo;s death to a
+      carefully limited partnership in a business affair in the city. The
+      guiding spirit in the concerns of Thief Number One had been his father&rsquo;s
+      managing clerk. The income of Thief Number One was strictly limited, and
+      his actual control over the affairs of the firm was non-existent.
+      Notwithstanding these facts, the young man was guilty of countless
+      extravagances, and was a reckless gambler. Within the last twelve months
+      he could hardly have paid away at the club less than a thousand pounds. He
+      had been extremely hard up before the loss of the money, and it was in his
+      offices that the roll of banknotes had been lost. As for Probable Thief
+      Number Two, he played rook to Number One&rsquo;s pigeon. He had a visible hold
+      upon him; Number One trembled before him, and did what he was bidden to
+      do. Number Two had plenty of money, and as shady a reputation as any man
+      in London who was not among the known criminal classes. Phil&rsquo;s belief was
+      that Number Two was disposing of the notes for Number One, and that this
+      simple fact accounted for his power over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;And I&rsquo;m going to follow their track,&rsquo; said Phil, tapping the clenched
+      knuckles of his right hand upon the open palm of his left with a quiet
+      vehemence, &lsquo;until I find out everything, if I follow it until I am gray.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It would appear that a spider may be among the most daring, skilful, and
+      predatory of his species, that he may be gifted with the most constant
+      watchfulness and appetite, and yet, whether by the intrusion of an
+      accidental walking-stick or broom (which would assuredly seem providential
+      to the fly), or by stress of weather, or the desperate activity of a
+      victim, may have his best laid schemes brought to nought, and his most
+      mathematically laid web rent to tatters. In the entomological world a
+      solitary interview between fly and spider is usually fatal to the one, and
+      satisfactory to the other. But we of the higher developments, who model
+      ourselves, or are modelled, upon the lines of myriads of remote ancestors,
+      and far-away relatives, have refined upon their primitive proceedings, and
+      have made their simple activities complex by development.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In an absolutely primitive condition the Steinberg spider would have
+      drained the Barter fly at a single orgie, and would have left him to
+      wither on the lines. As things were, he came back to him with a constant
+      gusto of appetite, tasting him on Monday, despatching him to buzz among
+      his fellows until Saturday, and then tasting him again, the Barter fly
+      seeming for a while&mdash;for quite a considerable time in fact&mdash;lusty
+      and active and able-bodied, and looking as though this kind of thing might
+      go on for ever without much damage to him, and the spider himself giving
+      no sign of overtaxed digestive powers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not to run this striking and original simile out of breath, the Barter fly
+      endured for a round twelve months, without showing signs of anaemia so
+      pronounced as to look dangerous to his constitution. At the end of that
+      time, however, all the surplus blood had been drawn from his body, and the
+      spider had grown so keen by the habit of constant recurrence to him that
+      any prolonged connection between them began to look desperate. In plain
+      English, the eight thousand pounds which had once so lightly passed from
+      the hands of Mr. Brown to the hands of Mr. Bommaney had now passed, with
+      just as little profit to the man who parted with them, from the hands of
+      young Barter to the hands of Steinberg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was just about the time when this lingering but inevitable transaction
+      was completed that chance led young Barter to his encounter with the son
+      of the man whose belongings he had appropriated. Everybody knows how apt
+      newly-made acquaintances sometimes are to renew themselves again and
+      again. You meet a man whom you have never seen before, see him just long
+      enough to take a passing interest in him, and to know generally who and
+      what he is, and you run against him on the morrow, and again on the
+      morrow, and so on, until in a week he has grown as familiar to your
+      thoughts as any other mere acquaintance of whose identity you may have
+      been aware for years. This happened in the case of Philip Bommaney and
+      younger Mr. Barter. They entered the Inn together, or left it together, or
+      Philip ran upstairs or downstairs as Barter was in the very act of leaving
+      or entering his chambers. Putting together a certain family resemblance
+      which he thought he noticed, the identity of a rather uncommon name, and
+      the curious frequency of these chance encounters, Barter found it hard to
+      avoid the belief that his new-made acquaintance had a rather careful eye
+      upon him. His nerve was a good deal shaken, and he was by no means the man
+      he had been. To the unobservant stranger the frank gaiety of his laugh was
+      as spontaneous as ever, but then that had never had much to do with
+      Barter&rsquo;s inward sensations. Perhaps he got the laugh in some remote
+      fashion from an ancestor who really ought to have had it, and who may have
+      been as dull and as little laughter-loving to look at as his successor was
+      within. Philip rather took to the fellow at first sight, and was slow to
+      suspect him, even when James Hornett had told his story. But the young
+      Barter was not satisfied, as he should have been, with playing the part of
+      one insect at a time. It was unwholesome enough, one might have thought,
+      for him to play fly to Steinberg&rsquo;s spider, and yet he must needs take to
+      playing moth to Philip Bommaney&rsquo;s candle, a light of danger to him, as he
+      recognised almost from the first He was always polite to Phil, and always
+      stopped him for a moment&rsquo;s conversation at their chance encounters. Phil,
+      having been inspired at least with a suspicion that this engaging young
+      man was responsible for the actual disgrace which had fallen upon Bommaney
+      senior, always bent a grave scrutiny upon him. Barter sometimes wondered
+      whether his new-found acquaintance&rsquo;s way of looking at him were habitual
+      or particular, but he could never solve that problem. To Barter&rsquo;s nerves
+      the glance of dispassionate analysis always seemed to ask&mdash;Did you
+      steal those notes? and whether his mind and nerves were at accord or no
+      made but little difference to him. His mind rejected the idea of
+      suspicion, but his nerves accepted it with trembling. He knew perfectly
+      well that he could not endure the certainty of Phil Bommaney&rsquo;s knowledge,
+      but none the less he found the uncertainty tantalising and painful. This
+      is perhaps one of the hardest things an undetected criminal has to endure,
+      that he lives in a world of suspicion of his own making, where every
+      imagination is real and as dreadful as the fact. In his own mind young
+      Barter credited himself with courage when he made overtures for Philip&rsquo;s
+      companionship. In reality he made the overtures because he was a coward,
+      and a braver scoundrel would have disdained them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip felt himself impelled to watch this young man, and was not
+      altogether displeased that he found the opportunity thrust upon him.
+      Almost facing the gateway of the old Inn there is an old-fashioned
+      restaurant, deserted from its hour of opening until noon, and from then
+      crowded inconveniently till two o&rsquo;clock, deserted again till five, and
+      once more inconveniently crowded till seven. Philip, having the power to
+      choose his own time for meals, and frequenting this old house, sometimes
+      met Barter in the act of coming away from it with the dregs of the stream
+      of the late lunchers or diners. He fell into the habit of going a little
+      earlier, and Barter would signal him to the table at which he sat, if by
+      rare chance there happened to be a vacant seat at it. The young rascal&rsquo;s
+      tendency lay towards monologue, and since it was his cue to be
+      open-hearted, and very unsuspicious of being suspected, he talked with
+      much freedom of himself, his pursuits, and his affairs. The question which
+      Barter&rsquo;s nerves were always finding in Philip&rsquo;s eyes was, as a matter of
+      fact, not often absent from his mind. &lsquo;Now, how did you steal those
+      notes?&rsquo; was the one active query of his intelligence as he listened to
+      Barter&rsquo;s candid prattle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in the course of these confidences that Philip learned of the
+      existence of that Pigeon Trap of which Mr. Barter was so proud to be an
+      inhabitant. It was at Barter&rsquo;s solicitation that he visited the place, and
+      it was Barter who proposed him as a member.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being a member it was not long before he discovered the fact of
+      Steinberg&rsquo;s influence over the young solicitor. He noticed a terrified
+      deference in Barter&rsquo;s manner towards the other, a frightened alacrity of
+      obedience to his suggestions. He noticed also that Steinberg and Barter
+      played a good deal by themselves, and that Barter always lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men of Hawks&rsquo; Boost talked pretty freely about each other in the
+      absence of such of their fellow clubmen as were under discussion. Barter
+      was spoken of as Steinberg&rsquo;s Mug, Berg&rsquo;s Juggins, Stein&rsquo;s Spoofmarker. It
+      was generally admitted that Stein made a good thing out of him, and the
+      wonder was where Barter got his money. There was a pretty general
+      apprehension that the young man, at no very far future date, would come to
+      grief. The contemplation of this probability affected the Boosters but
+      little in an emotional way, but it made them keen to see that Mr. Barter
+      paid up punctually, and though they were very shy of paper acceptances
+      from their comrades as a general thing, they were shyer of his than of
+      most men&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These things Philip Bommaney junior attentively noted. At first the
+      clubmen rather wondered at him. He was in their precincts often, and would
+      smoke his pipe and watch whatever game might be going with tranquil
+      interest, but he never played, and could not be induced to bet. <i>Que
+      diable faisant-il dans cette gaière?</i> the clubmen wanted to know. He
+      never told them, and in a while they grew accustomed to him and his ways.
+      He continued his quiet watch upon Mr. Barter, and included Steinberg in
+      his field of observation. One evening, dining at the old restaurant, he
+      marked Barter, melancholy and alone. He was sitting in an attitude of
+      apparent dejection, tapping upon the table with a fork, and deep sunk in
+      what seemed to be an uncomfortable contemplation. But when the moth saw
+      his candle he brightened, and fluttered over to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You might come over,&rsquo; said Barter, when they had sat together until the
+      latest of the dining guests had gone away. &lsquo;You might come over to my
+      chambers and smoke a cigar if you&rsquo;ve nothing else to do. I don&rsquo;t care
+      about going down to the club tonight.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Steinberg spider was supposed to be waiting there, coldly patient and
+      insatiable, and Barter dreaded him. Philip had never entered the rooms,
+      but they had an attraction for him. He accepted his companion&rsquo;s
+      invitation, and they entered the chambers together. A fire lingered in the
+      grate, and Barter replenished it, and, having produced a box of cigars and
+      a bottle of cognac, proffered refreshment to his guest. The honest man
+      began somewhat to recoil from himself and from his companion. What was he
+      there for? The answer was pretty evident. There was nothing between this
+      loud-babbling youth and himself which could have drawn them into even a
+      momentary comradeship, if it had not been for the suspicion his father&rsquo;s
+      story had inspired in him. Frankly, he was there because he suspected the
+      man, because he desired to watch him, because, if he found the chance, he
+      was willing to set him in the dock. To smoke his tobacco and drink his
+      liquor in those circumstances had undoubtedly an air of treachery. In a
+      while he hardened himself, and closed his ears to all casuist pleadings,
+      whether for or against the course he had adopted. He would clear his
+      father if he could, and if there were any mere hope of doing it, he would
+      watch this fellow as a cat watches a mouse, and would go on doing it until
+      both of them were gray.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;By the way,&rsquo; said Barter innocently, &lsquo;do you never take a hand at&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His supple fingers supplied the hiatus, dealing out an imaginary pack of
+      cards with the flourishing dexterity native to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m here for, is it?&rsquo; thought Philip in his own mind. &lsquo;We
+      shall see.&rsquo; He said aloud, &lsquo;Sometimes,&rsquo; in an indifferent tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There&rsquo;s nothing worth seeing anywhere to-night,&rsquo; said young Barter.
+      &lsquo;Suppose we try a hand. What do you say to a game at Napoleon?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip consented, and his host produced two packs of cards from the
+      business safe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They fixed upon the points and they began to play. The points were not
+      those for which Mr. Barter really cared to play; for he was one of those
+      people who find no joy in cards unless they risk more than they can afford
+      to lose. But little fish are sweet, and he thought he had secured a
+      greenhorn. As it happened, the greenhorn, though he was but
+      eight-and-twenty, had travelled the world all over, and had found himself
+      compelled to survey mankind from China to Peru. He was, moreover, one of
+      those men who like to know things, and those quietly-observant eyes of his
+      had taken note of the proceedings of a hundred scoundrels in whose hands
+      the redoubtable Steinberg himself would have had but poor chances. The
+      Greek had been Philip&rsquo;s standing joy, the dish best spiced to suit his
+      intellectual palate. He had delighted over him aboard ship, on the
+      monstrous dreary railway journey between Atlantic and Pacific, in the
+      little towns which form the centre of scores of Texan ranches, in hells at
+      the Cape and in California, in the free ports of China, and on the borders
+      of the Bosphorus. In point of fact he was by experience as little fitted
+      to be played upon by a gentleman of young Mr. Barter&rsquo;s limited
+      accomplishments as almost any man alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Phil&rsquo;s interest in the game had grown grimly observant in the first ten
+      minutes. Young Mr. Barter had a knack, when he shuffled the cards, of
+      slily inclining the painted sides upwards. He had another knack of leaving
+      an honour at the bottom. He made a false cut with fair dexterity for an
+      amateur. He could, when occasion seemed to make it profitable, discard
+      with a fair air of unconsciousness. An ace dropped out of sight a hand or
+      two earlier, was followed by a valueless card dropped openly. The ace was
+      taken to supply its place with a perfect smiling effrontery. But Mr.
+      Barter&rsquo;s favourite trick came out when he had a weak hand. Then he smiled
+      across at his opponent, breathed softly the words &lsquo;six cards,&rsquo; and dropped
+      the worthless hand on the top of the pack, calling for a new deal All this
+      Philip Bommaney watched with a complete seeming innocence and good temper.
+      He lost his sixpences handsomely, made no protest, and looked unruffled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You play false for sixpences, do you?&rsquo; he said inwardly. &lsquo;I suppose a
+      scoundrel is a scoundrel all through, and that if you&rsquo;ll sell your soul
+      for so little, you could hardly object to driving a bargain for a larger
+      sum.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was often tempted in the course of a quarter of an hour to try Mr.
+      Barter with a sudden challenge, and see what would come of it. Surveying
+      his companion with that placid inquiry which Barter felt to be so
+      excessively uncomfortable, he came to have but a poor opinion of his
+      courage. He was one of those men who, even without knowing it, take
+      profound observations of their fellow-creatures. The true observer of
+      human nature is by no means a personage who is always on the strain after
+      insight into character. He is, on the contrary, pretty generally an
+      inward-looking man, who seems to notice little, and takes in his
+      surroundings as the immortal Joey Ladle did his wine. Philip judged Barter
+      to be a nervous man, and supposed him, even when strung to his bent, to
+      have no great tenacity or continuance of courage. He had learned more and
+      more to believe his father&rsquo;s story, though he had perhaps too carefully
+      guarded himself from his own eager desire to accept it Barter&rsquo;s every
+      action with the cards offered confirmation of the belief that he had taken
+      possession of the lost notes. He was certainly a petty rascal, and there
+      was obviously nothing but opportunity needed to make him bloom into a
+      rascal on a larger scale. So the temptation to drop the cards upon the
+      table, to look his companion in the face, and to ask simply, &lsquo;How about
+      that eight thousand pounds?&rsquo; grew more and more upon him, and had to be
+      more and more strenuously resisted. It seemed worth while to resist it To
+      begin with, if young Barter should be innocent, the querist could
+      evidently expect nothing else than to be taken for a madman. To continue,
+      if his name and the likeness to his father had already set the thief upon
+      his guard, and had prepared him for accusation, the question would only
+      reveal his own suspicion, and thereby weaken the chances of discovery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip combated his inward desire, but could not quell it. There seemed a
+      kind of intuition in it, a lurking certainty lay hidden behind all the
+      doubts he saw, and pushed him forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By and by young Mr. Barter tripped on the false cut, which he had hitherto
+      executed with a fair amateur dexterity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Excuse me,&rsquo; said Phil, as he gathered the spilt cards together. &lsquo;You
+      should make the three separate motions look like one. Do the trick so.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He performed the trick slowly, looking Barter in the face, and then went
+      through it swiftly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That is how the thing ought to be done, Mr. Barter,&rsquo; he said, with a
+      placidity which his companion found singularly disquieting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, that same unhappy want of self-command which had given Steinberg
+      so clear an insight into his young friend&rsquo;s mind, fell once more upon
+      Barter. He tried to look wondering, he tried to laugh. The result of that
+      frightened contortion of the features was nothing less than ghastly.
+      Unhappily for himself he knew it, and so he grew ghastlier yet, and for
+      the life of him could not tell where to set his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;So you&rsquo;re a sharper in a small way, are you, Mr. Barter?&rsquo; Philip inquired
+      suavely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;How dare you talk to me like that?&rsquo; the detected rascal stammered. &lsquo;You
+      come into a gentleman&rsquo;s rooms, and lose an odd half-crown or two&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had got as far as this he ventured to look his companion in the
+      face, and seeing there a very marked and readable prophecy of unpleasant
+      things, he backed, and in the act of doing so, tripped, and fell into a
+      chair. The intention in Phil&rsquo;s mind became simply unconquerable. He cast
+      rapidly about him for an instant, saw all the consequences of failure
+      which might follow if he denounced the trembling wretch at once, and set
+      him on his guard. And yet he could not help doing what he did, and could
+      not restrain the words which rose to his lips. He took Barter by the
+      collar, and lifted him to his feet with an unsuspected strength, and put
+      the question to him quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;How many of those stolen notes has Steinberg changed for you?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a bold thing to do, it was perhaps a foolish thing to do, and yet
+      it was the game. Barter stared at him speechlessly. His lips moved, but he
+      said nothing. Then his jaw fell as a dead man&rsquo;s jaw falls, and being
+      released at that instant, he dropped into the chair like a sack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Now the best thing for you to do,&rsquo; said Phil, sternly regarding him,
+      &lsquo;will be to make a clean breast of it. I have been tracking you since the
+      second day of our acquaintance.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barter groaned, with a tremulous and hollow sound, but made no other
+      answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;How many of those notes are in Steinberg&rsquo;s hands?&rsquo; Phil asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rascal&rsquo;s wits had begun to work again, if only a little, and he could
+      by this time have answered if he would. But he knew that his own
+      cowardice, if nothing else, had given away the game. After such a
+      confession as his own terror had made, what was the use of bluster or
+      pretence? He could not guess how much was known. He was completely
+      cornered, and must fight or yield. His native instinct at any moment was
+      ready to teach him how much discretion was the better part of valour, and
+      now to fight seemed mere madness. In the very terror of the night which
+      thus suddenly enveloped him he saw one gleam of hope. There was one stroke
+      to be made which might save him, in part at least, from the consequences
+      of his own misdeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip gave these reflections but little time to grow distinct to Barter&rsquo;s
+      mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;How many of those notes?&rsquo; he asked slowly, emphasising almost every word
+      by a tap of his knuckles upon the table, &lsquo;have passed into Steinberg&rsquo;s
+      hands?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;All,&rsquo; gasped Barter; &lsquo;every one of them!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That will do for the present,&rsquo; said Philip, and at that instant there
+      came a loud summons at the door, whereat the miserable Barter started, and
+      clasped his hands in renewed terror. He fancied an officer of justice
+      there, his arrival accurately timed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip, throwing a glance about the room, and assuring himself that there
+      was no means of unobserved exit, answered the summons in person. He had
+      until that moment kept perfect possession of himself except for his
+      obedience to that overmastering intuition, but beholding Mr. Steinberg at
+      the doorway he felt a great leap at his heart, and a sudden dryness in his
+      throat. He examined these phenomena afterwards, and decided in his own
+      mind that they were assignable to fear. He came to the belief which he
+      cherishes until now, that he had to screw up his courage pretty tightly
+      before he could face the idea of confronting the partners in rascality
+      together. But here it may be observed in passing that this kind of
+      self-depreciation is a favourite trick with men of unusual nerve, and is
+      rarely resorted to by any but the most courageous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steinberg recognised him by the light of the gas-lamp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Good-evening,&rsquo; he said, nodding. &lsquo;Barter&rsquo;s here, I suppose.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Sir,&rsquo; said Phil, with recovered coolness, a certain light of humour
+      dawning in his mind, &lsquo;Mr. Barter is within, and I have no doubt will be
+      very happy to see you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steinberg cast a sidelong glance at him, and entered. Phil closed the
+      door, and followed close upon his heels. Barter, with his pale complexion
+      fallen to the tint of dead ashes, sat huddled in the arm-chair, staring
+      white-eyed like a frightened madman. Steinberg stared back at him in sheer
+      amazement at his looks, and Phil, closing the door, turned the key in the
+      lock and pocketed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Hillo!&rsquo; cried Steinberg, turning swiftly round at the click, &lsquo;what&rsquo;s this
+      mean?&rsquo; He measured Philip with his eye&mdash;a very evil and wicked eye it
+      was&mdash;and dropped back a step or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What&rsquo;s this mean?&rsquo; Steinberg asked again, his quick glance darting from
+      one to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It means, sir,&rsquo; said Phil, with a glad tranquillity, &lsquo;that your
+      fellow-scoundrel, the courageous gentleman in the arm-chair there, is in
+      the act of making his confession.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steinberg sent one savage glance at Barter, and then dashed at him, and
+      planting both hands within the collar of his shirt, so banged him to and
+      fro that he would inevitably have done him a mischief of a serious sort
+      but for Phil&rsquo;s intervention. The method of intervention was less tranquil
+      than Philip&rsquo;s motion up to this time had been. He tore Steinberg from his
+      grip of the betrayer with a force he had no time to measure, and hurled
+      him across the room. He staggered at the door, and his head coming noisily
+      in contact with it, he slipped down into a sitting posture with an
+      expression suddenly changed from ferocity to a complete vacuity and
+      indifference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Mr. Barter, scared as he had been, and shaken to his centre, had begun
+      to think again, and when he saw that Steinberg&rsquo;s chance in the enemy&rsquo;s
+      hands was less than nothing, that fact formed as it were the last
+      necessary plank for the raft of safety he desired to construct. He got up
+      from his place, animated by this great idea, and staggering to the
+      helpless Steinberg, fell down beside him and gripped his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Tie him, Mr. Bommaney, tie him!&rsquo; gurgled Barter. &lsquo;He&rsquo;s been the ruin of
+      me, curse him. I should have been an honest man if it hadn&rsquo;t been for him.
+      It&rsquo;s him that led me into it, and he&rsquo;s had every sixpence of the money.
+      I&rsquo;ve been his tool, his miserable tool. Tie him, Mr. Bommaney, before he
+      comes round again. I&rsquo;ll hold him for you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One may get good advice from the most unexpected quarter, and whencesoever
+      good advice may come it is worth while to follow it. Phil took a dandy
+      scarf from Steinberg&rsquo;s own neck, and tied him tightly, wrist to wrist Then
+      he helped him to his feet, and set him in a chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;He came here to-night,&rsquo; Barter gurgled on, with tears of sincerest
+      penitence, &lsquo;to bleed me again. He&rsquo;s got my I.O.U. for £82 he cheated me of
+      last week. He&rsquo;s had every penny of the money. I haven&rsquo;t had so much as a
+      single farthing of it myself. I&rsquo;ll swear I haven&rsquo;t.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That&rsquo;s your lay, is it?&rsquo; said Steinberg, whose scattered wits were coming
+      back to him. &lsquo;You shall answer for this violence in the proper quarter,
+      Bommaney.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I will answer for it in the proper quarter,&rsquo; Phil replied. &lsquo;I will
+      trouble you, Mr. Steinberg, to come to the proper quarter now.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You won&rsquo;t forget,&rsquo; said Barter, &lsquo;that I helped to capture him. You&rsquo;ll
+      speak a word for me, Mr. Bommaney?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve been that villain&rsquo;s victim all along. I should never have gone wrong
+      if it hadn&rsquo;t been for him, and I&rsquo;ve wanted to send the money back over and
+      over again, but he got it into his own hands and wouldn&rsquo;t listen to it,
+      and after all I never took the money, Mr. Bommaney&mdash;I only found it.
+      It was Steinberg kept it. He said I should be a fool to let it go.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What sentiments of contempt and rage inspired Mr. Steinberg&rsquo;s bosom at
+      this juncture must be imagined. He looked them all, but verbally expressed
+      none of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Get up,&rsquo; said Phil, addressing him. Steinberg obeyed. &lsquo;Take a seat in
+      that corner.&rsquo; Steinberg obeyed again. &lsquo;Now you&mdash;&rsquo; to Barter, &lsquo;take a
+      place in that corner, behind the desk.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;With pleasure, Mr. Bommaney,&rsquo; said Barter, &lsquo;with the very greatest
+      willingness. I desire to make no resistance to the law. I helped to
+      capture the criminal Please remember that, Mr. Bommaney. Pray remember
+      that.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took hold of a heavy ruler which happened to be lying on the desk, and
+      deeming that he and the other rascal were about to be left alone together,
+      he showed it shakily to Steinberg, as a hint that he was not without means
+      of protection against a man unarmed and bound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Phil unlocked the door, inserted the key on the other side, disappeared,
+      and turned the lock anew. The two criminals heard his footstep sounding
+      elate, triumphant, and threatening to their ears as he went along the
+      boarded floor. They listened as the footstep crossed the square boulders
+      of the courtyard, and listened still until their sound melted into the
+      blended noises of the outer street. A minute later the step was heard
+      returning, accompanied by another, solid and terrible. They knew it, and
+      their hearts, low as they were already, sank at it. The door opened and
+      Phil reappeared, followed by a policeman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I give these two in charge,&rsquo; the young man said, &lsquo;the one as the thief,
+      the other as the receiver of a bundle of bank-notes of the value of eight
+      thousand pounds, the property of my father, Mr. Philip Bommaney of
+      Coalporter&rsquo;s Alley.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m quite willing to go without resistance,&rsquo; said Mr. Barter from behind
+      the table. &lsquo;I assisted in the capture, and I am ready to say anything.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That&rsquo;s the first true word you&rsquo;ve spoken,&rsquo; Steinberg snarled. &lsquo;You can
+      take this thing off,&rsquo; holding out his hands. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll go quietly. I can get
+      bail in an hour.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t have it taken off, Mr. Bommaney, not if we&rsquo;re to travel in the same
+      vehicle. He threatened me while you were away. He said if they gave him
+      fifty years he&rsquo;d kill me when he came out again. He&rsquo;ll do it, because I
+      made a clean breast of it, didn&rsquo;t I, Mr. Bommaney? I made a clean breast
+      of it, officer. I&rsquo;m ready to&mdash;tell everything. He&rsquo;s ruined me, and
+      now he says he&rsquo;ll kill me because I&rsquo;m ready to make a clean breast of it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I choose to be taken separately, if you please. I myself will pay the
+      fare. I won&rsquo;t travel with that cackling idiot.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I will go with Mr. Bommaney with pleasure,&rsquo; said the penitent. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll go
+      with you with pleasure anywhere. I&rsquo;d rather go with you a great deal.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was hardly to be expected that Philip should feel very warmly towards
+      either of his two companions, but of the two he misliked Steinberg the
+      less. And, since it seemed humane and reasonable to choose, he chose
+      Steinberg as his travelling companion. The officer set Steinberg&rsquo;s hat
+      upon his head, and the quartet set out. The sight of a man with his hands
+      tightly bound with a scarlet muffler gathered a momentary little crowd at
+      the Inn gate; but, a pair of hansoms being summoned, captives and captors
+      were speedily relieved from vulgar observation. The station reached, it
+      turned out that the communicative Mr. Barter, in the exuberance of his
+      heart, had exposed to the officer <i>en route</i> the whereabouts of the
+      lost notes. He declared that to his knowledge they rested in a safe, the
+      position of which he indicated, in Steinberg&rsquo;s Hatton Garden office. The
+      Inspector before whom the charge was made deemed this intelligence worthy
+      of being acted on at once. The two prisoners were searched, and Mr. Barter
+      was so good as to point out, among Steinberg&rsquo;s keys, those which were
+      necessary for the purposes of investigation. He even went so far as to
+      offer his assistance as guide; but this was declined with a chilliness
+      singularly at variance with the solicitous warmth of the proposal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I think, sir,&rsquo; said the Inspector, with an arctic disrespect which was so
+      frozen as to be almost respectful, &lsquo;that we can manage this without your
+      assistance.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Divisional Superintendent, being communicated with by telephone,
+      arrived upon the scene. The matter in hand having been laid before him
+      with curt official brevity, he asked for the keys, called to himself a
+      constable, and was preparing to set out, when Philip begged permission to
+      accompany him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;The notes, sir,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;were left in my father&rsquo;s trust by a dear old
+      friend of his. My father himself was supposed to have made use of them&mdash;a
+      thing of which he was incapable. If I can take to him the news that they
+      are found, I can lift a load of undeserved disgrace from the mind of an
+      honourable man.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I shall be pleased to have your company, Mr. Bommaney,&rsquo; the
+      Superintendent answered, touched a little by the young man&rsquo;s earnestness.
+      So the three got into a four-wheeler, and bowled away to Hatton Garden,
+      and there made entry into the chambers lately occupied by Mr. Steinberg.
+      There was no gas here, but the constable&rsquo;s dark lantern showed the way. It
+      revealed the safe in the position the communicative criminal had assigned
+      to it. It revealed the notes, snugly spread out in one crisp little heap,
+      and arranged with business-like precision in the order of their numbers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This golden spectacle once seen, Phil dashed into the street, hailed a
+      hansom, and drove pell-mell, exciting the cabman who conducted him by the
+      promise of a double fare, to the residence of old Brown and old Brown&rsquo;s
+      daughter. There he told the glorious news, a little broken and halting in
+      his speech. Patty threw her arms about him, and cried without concealment
+      or restraint. Old Brown blew his nose with a suspicious frequency, and
+      shook his adopted son-in-law by the hand at frequent intervals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Phil,&rsquo; he cried at last, &lsquo;where&rsquo;s your father? By God, sir, he never had
+      any need to run away from me, because he happened to lose a handful of
+      paltry money. What had he got to do but come and say, &ldquo;Brown, it&rsquo;s gone!&rdquo;
+       He hadn&rsquo;t trust enough in me to think I&rsquo;d believe him. Let&rsquo;s get at him.
+      Where is he?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old boy tugged furiously at the bell-pull.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Send Brenner round to the stable,&rsquo; he said to the servant. &lsquo;Tell him to
+      get the horses to, and bring the carriage round at once. Where&rsquo;s your
+      father, Phil?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;He&rsquo;s down Poplar way,&rsquo; said Phil. &lsquo;Hornett, his old clerk, is living in
+      the same house with him.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;We&rsquo;ll go down, and rouse him up,&rsquo; the old boy said, with a moist eye and
+      trembling hand. &lsquo;Phil, my lad,&rsquo; he went on, grasping the young fellow&rsquo;s
+      hand in his own, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m getting to be an old &lsquo;un. You wouldn&rsquo;t think it to
+      look at me, because, thank God, I&rsquo;ve always known how to take my trouble
+      lightly, but I&rsquo;ve seen a lot of it in my time, and you can take my word
+      for this&mdash;there isn&rsquo;t any trouble in the world that&rsquo;s hardly so
+      bitter as for an honest man to have to take another for a rogue.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it came to pass that Bommaney senior, who after all, perhaps, hardly
+      deserved to be made a hero of, was plenteously bedewed with the tears of
+      three most honourable and high-minded people, and was, set up in their
+      minds as a sort of live statue of undeserved martyrdom. They who learned
+      the tale afterwards mourned his weakness, and supposed him to be the
+      victim of a too sensitive organisation. He lives now with a genuine halo
+      of sanctity about him, and seems in the minds of some to have suffered for
+      the sake of a great principle, quite noble, but not quite definitely
+      defined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Odd things happen every day in the world, and pass by unregarded. The
+      worship of Bommaney senior&rsquo;s sensibilities seems a trifle dull when all
+      things are considered, though one has to be glad that an honest son can
+      think of him with pity mixed with admiration. But perhaps the oddest thing
+      of all in connection with this story may be looked for in the shorthand
+      reporter&rsquo;s notes of the Recorder&rsquo;s speech at the Old Bailey, when the
+      accusation against Messrs. Barter and Steinberg came to be heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You, Barter,&rsquo; said the learned Recorder, &lsquo;appear to have been drawn into
+      this by the influence of an intelligence stronger and abler than your own.
+      You appear, in a moment of weakness, to have been led away by that
+      stronger intelligence from the paths of rectitude. But you have displayed
+      so clear a sense of the enormity of your conduct, and have, by your
+      complete disclosures of the crime committed by you and your companion,
+      and, by your evidence in Court to-day, shown so complete a repentance for
+      it, that I do not think that it would be politic or just to lay a severe
+      term of imprisonment upon you. Nevertheless, the law of the land must be
+      justified, and I feel a pleasure in believing that in justifying the law I
+      am affording you an opportunity for reflection, for the formation of good
+      resolutions for the future, and for a confirmation of those better desires
+      which I believe&mdash;in spite of your association with this criminal
+      enterprise&mdash;to animate your mind.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, to my fancy, this has a distinct element of comedy in it; but the
+      learned Recorder resembled some of his unlearned brethren, in respect to
+      the fact that he could not be expected to know everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Barter thrives again, but he is even now awaiting, with the uneasiest
+      sensations, the liberation of the man who betrayed him into crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's Young Mr. Barter's Repentance, by David Christie Murray
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Young Mr. Barter's Repentance
+       From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray
+
+Author: David Christie Murray
+
+Release Date: August 8, 2007 [EBook #22272]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUNG MR. BARTER'S REPENTANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+YOUNG MR. BARTER'S REPENTANCE
+
+By David Christie Murray
+
+Author Of 'Aunt Rachel,' 'The Weaker Vessel,' Etc.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+Mr Bommaney was a British merchant of the highest rectitude and the most
+spotless reputation. He traded still under the name of Bommaney, Waite,
+and Co., though Waite had been long since dead, and the Company had
+gone out of existence in his father's time. The old offices, cramped and
+inconvenient, in which the firm had begun life eighty years before,
+were still good enough for Mr. Bommaney, and they had an air of solid
+respectability which newer and flashier places lacked. The building
+of which they formed a part stood in Coalporter's Alley, opposite
+the Church of St. Mildred, and the hum of the City's traffic scarcely
+sounded in that retired and quiet locality.
+
+Mr. Bommaney himself was a man of sixty, hale and hearty, with a rosy
+face and white whiskers. He was a broad-shouldered man, inclining to be
+portly, and he was currently accepted as a man of an indomitable
+will. There was no particular reason for the popular belief in his
+determination apart from the fact that it was a favourite boast of his
+that nothing ever got him down. On all occasions and in all companies he
+was wont to declare that no conceivable misfortune could really break
+a man of spirit. He confessed to a pitying sympathy for mealy-willed
+people (and everybody knew that Bommaney, in spite of his own strength
+of mind, was one of the kindliest creatures in the world); but, whenever
+he met a man in trouble, he would clip him by the shoulder, and would
+say, in his own hearty fashion, 'You must look the thing in the face, my
+boy. Look it in the face. I'd never let anything break _me_ down.'
+
+Since his reputation for fortitude was as solid and as old-fashioned
+amongst the people who knew him as his business character itself, it
+would have come as something of a shock upon any of his friends if he
+could but have been seen by them, or any credible man amongst them, on a
+certain afternoon in the April of 1880. He had locked himself in his own
+room, and, sitting there in a big chair before a businesslike desk, with
+a great number of docketed papers in pigeon-holes, and a disordered mass
+of papers strewn before him, the determined Mr. Bommaney, the decided
+Mr. Bommaney, the Mr. Bommaney whom no misfortune could subdue, was
+crying, very feebly and quietly, and was mopping his rosy cheeks, and
+blowing his nose in an utter and unrestraining abandonment to trouble.
+
+There was another fact which would have come upon his friends with an
+equal shock of surprise if they could but have had it brought home to
+them. The man who sat unaffectedly crying in the big chair in helpless
+contemplation of the scattered papers was a hopeless bankrupt, and had
+seen himself sliding towards bankruptcy for years. When men who knew him
+wanted business advice, they went to him by preference, and nobody came
+away empty. He knew the City and its intricacies like a book. He knew
+who was safe and who was shaky, as if by a kind of instinct, and he knew
+where and when to invest, and where and when not to invest, as few men
+did. 'You can't get at me,' he would say; for, old-fashioned as he was,
+he used a little of the new-fashioned slang to give spice and vigour to
+his conversation. 'There isn't a move on the board that I don't know.'
+He advised his friends excellently, and there were perhaps half a score
+of fairly well-to-do speculative people who had to thank him, and him
+alone, for the comfort they lived in and the consideration they enjoyed.
+He had been wise for others all his life, and in his own interests he
+had always acted like a greenhorn. He talked loudly, he spent freely,
+he paid his way, he expressed the soundest business maxims, and was as
+shrewd in detail as he was wise in generalities, and these things made a
+natural reputation for him: whilst he traded for years at the expense of
+his capital, and went steadily and surely towards the bottomless gulf of
+insolvency. Now he was on the very verge of it, and to-morrow he would
+be in it. It lent a feeble sting to his sufferings to know how surprised
+people would be, and how completely men would find him out.
+
+He had not very profoundly involved other people in his own ruin, but he
+had gone a little farther than a man altogether brave, and honourable,
+and clearsighted would have ventured, and he knew that some would suffer
+with him. He might have made arrangements to go a little farther still
+if he had been courageous, clear-sighted, and dishonest, and might have
+held his head up for another matter too, perhaps. But he had lacked the
+nerve for that, and had never consciously been a rogue. He felt even
+now a pride of honesty. He had been unfortunate, and his creditors would
+have everything--everything.
+
+He thanked God that Phil's mother had tied her money on her only son,
+and that the boy at least had enough to begin the world with. How should
+he face Phil when he came home again? How should he send the news to
+him? The lad was away enjoying himself, travelling all round the world
+with a wandering Baronet, who owned a yacht and had an unappeasable
+taste for the destruction of big game. He would have to surrender his
+fashionable and titled acquaintance now, poor fellow, and begin the
+world with a disgraced and broken frame to be a drag and hindrance
+to him. The more Mr. Bommaney thought of these things, the more
+unrestrainedly he cried; and the more he cried, the less he felt able or
+inclined to control his tears.
+
+He wept almost silently, only an occasional sniff betraying his emotion
+to his ear. He had always held his head so high, and had been so
+believed in. It was very bitter.
+
+Whilst he was in the midst of this childish abandonment to his grief a
+set of knuckles softly and hesitatingly tapped the door from without,
+and directly afterwards a hand made a tentative respectful sort of
+attempt upon the handle.
+
+'Who's there?' cried Mr. Bommaney, steadying his voice as best he could.
+
+'A gentleman to see you, sir,' answered a smooth voice outside.
+
+Mr. Bommaney pushed back his chair, rose to his feet, and retiring to a
+smaller room consulted a little square looking-glass which hung upon
+the wall above his washing-stand. His blue eyes were very tearful and a
+little swollen, his cheeks and nose looked as if they had been scalded.
+
+'Wait a moment,' he said aloud, and his voice betrayed him by a break.
+He blushed and trembled, thinking that Mr. Hornett, his confidential
+clerk, would know how he was breaking down, and would speak of his
+want of courage and self-command hereafter. The reflection nerved
+him somewhat, and he sluiced his face with water, making a little
+unnecessary noise of splashing to tell the listener how he was engaged.
+He polished his face with the towel, and, consulting the mirror again,
+thought he looked a little better.
+
+Then he re-entered his business room, and turning the key in the lock
+opened the door slightly, a mere inch or two.
+
+'Who is it?'
+
+'A Mr. Brown, sir,' said the smooth voice outside. The clerk insinuated
+a card through the space between the door and door-jamb, and Mr.
+Bommaney took it from his fingers without revealing himself. He had
+some difficulty in making out its inscription, for his eyes were newly
+tearful, and, whilst he peered at it, a reflex of his late emotions
+brought a sniffling sob again. He was freshly ashamed at this, and said
+hastily,
+
+'Five minutes' time. I will ring when I am ready. Ask the gentleman to
+wait.'
+
+Mr. James Hornett softly closed the door, and stood on the landing with
+long lean fingers scraping at his lantern jaws. He was a little man,
+short of stature, and sparely built. His skin was vealy in complexion,
+and he had wiry hair of a russet-red. Even when he was clean shaven his
+fingers rasped upon his hollow cheeks with a faint sound. His nose and
+chin were long and pointed, and his manner was meek and self-effacing
+even when he was alone. There was a tinge of wonder in his face, at war
+with an habitual smile, in which his eyes had no part.
+
+'Something wrong?' he said, under his breath. He went creeping softly
+down the stairs. 'Something wrong? Mr. Bommaney in tears? Mr. Bommaney!'
+
+Could anything have happened to Mr. Phil? That was the only thing Mr.
+Hornett could think of as being likely to affect his employer in that
+way.
+
+Now Mr. Hornett had been in his present employ for thirty years, man
+and boy, and he was human. Therefore, when at the expiration of a
+little more than five minutes' time Mr. Bommaney's bell rang, he himself
+ushered the visitor upstairs, and in place of retiring to his own pew
+below stairs, lingered in a desert little apartment rarely used, and
+then stole out upon the landing and listened. He was the more prompted
+to this because the visitor, who had a bucolic hearty aspect, and was
+very talkative, had told him downstairs that Mr. Bommaney and himself
+were old friends and schoolfellows, and had been in each other's
+confidence for years.
+
+'I am afraid, sir,' Mr. Hornett had said, when the visitor first
+presented himself, 'that Mr. Bommaney may not be able to see you at
+present. He gave orders not to be disturbed.'
+
+'Not see me?' said the visitor with a laugh. 'I'll engage he will.'
+And then followed the statement about his old acquaintanceship with Mr.
+Hornett's employer.
+
+If there were anything to be told at all, it seemed not unlikely that
+this visitor might be the recipient of the intelligence, and Mr. Hornett
+lingered to find if haply he might overhear. He heard nothing that
+enlightened him as to the reasons for his employer's disturbance, but
+heard most that passed between the two.
+
+Bommaney had succeeded in composing himself and in washing away the
+traces of his tears. Then he had taken a stiffish dose of brandy and
+water, and was something like his own man again. He received his
+visitor cordially, and in his anxiety not to seem low-spirited was a
+little more boisterous than common.
+
+'I'm busy, you see,' he said, waving a hand at the papers scattered
+on the desk, and keeping up the farce of prosperous merchandise to the
+last, 'but I can spare _you_ a minute or two, old man. What brings you
+up to town?'
+
+'I've come here to settle,' said the visitor. He was a florid man with
+crisp black hair with a hint of gray in it, and he was a countryman from
+head to heel. He seemed a little disposed to flaunt his bucolics upon
+the town, his hat, his necktie, his boots and gaiters, were of so
+countrified a fashion, and yet he looked somehow more of a gentleman
+than Bommaney.
+
+'Yes,' he said, 'I've come to settle.' He rubbed his hands and laughed
+here, not because there was anything humorous and amusing in his
+thoughts, but out of sheer health and jollity of nature. Bommaney,
+still distrustful of his own aspect, and afraid of being observed, sat
+opposite to him with bent head and fidgeted with his papers, blindly
+pretending to arrange them.
+
+'To settle,' he said absently. Then, rousing himself with an effort, 'I
+thought you hated London?'
+
+'Ah, my boy,' said his visitor, 'when you're in the shafts with a whip
+behind you, you've got to go where you are driven.'
+
+'Yes,' said Bommaney mechanically, 'that is so. That _is_ so.'
+
+The visitor was laughing and rubbing his hands again in perfect
+happiness and self-contentment, and had no eye for Bommaney's
+abstraction.
+
+'Yes,' he said, 'it's Patty's doing. I've sold up every stick and stone,
+and I've taken a house in Gower Street. Do you know, Bommaney,' he
+added, with an air and voice suddenly serious and confidential, 'the
+country's going to the devil. Land's sinking in value every year. I've
+been farming at a growing loss these six years, and rents don't come in
+as they used to do. I got my chance and I took it. Lord Bellamy wanted
+to join the Mount Royal and the three estates. My little bit o' land
+lay between 'em, and I sold it to him. Sold it, too, begad, as well as I
+could have done half a dozen years ago.'
+
+Then he laughed once more with great heartiness, and unbuttoning his
+overcoat, groped in an inner pocket. After a struggle, in the course
+of which he grew very red in the face, he drew forth a pocket-book of
+unusual dimensions, and slapped it on the desk so vigorously that his
+companion started.
+
+'I got a tip the other day,' he went on; 'that old bank at Mount Royal,
+Fellowes and Fellowes, is going to crack up, my boy. There's something
+very queer in the commercial atmosphere just now, Bommaney. There are
+lots of old-fashioned solid people breaking up.'
+
+To Bommaney's uneasy fancy there was in his visitor's voice an accent
+which sounded personal.
+
+'I--I hope not,' he answered, somewhat feebly, 'so much depends----'
+(he tried hard to rally himself), 'so much depends upon a spirit of
+commercial confidence.'
+
+'Exactly,' cried the visitor, laying hands' upon the pocket-book and
+opening it. 'I went to the bank and saw young Fellowes myself. "Look
+here, Fellowes," I told him, "I want my daughter's money." He stuck to
+it, sir; like a dog holding on to a bone. He growled about it, and he
+whined about it, said it wasn't fair to withdraw the money on short
+notice. Said I couldn't do better with it anywhere, and at last I told
+him, "Look here, Fellowes, I shall begin to think by and by there's
+something wrong." He went as red as a turkey-cock, begad, and drew a
+note on their London agent like a lord, and here I am with the money.
+Eight thousand pounds.'
+
+By this time he had drawn a bundle of bank-notes from the pocket-book,
+and now sat flicking the edges of the notes with the tips of his great
+broad fingers. Bommaney heard the crisp music, and looked up with a
+momentary glance of hunger in his eyes.
+
+'That's Patty's little private handful,' the visitor continued, opening
+the packet of notes, and smoothing it upon his knee. 'Eighty notes of
+a hundred. Pretty little handful, isn't it? They don't look,' he added,
+with his head reflectively on one side and his eyebrows raised a little,
+'they don't look as they'd buy as much as they will.'
+
+Bommaney tried to find a commonplace word by answer, and an inaudible
+something died drily in his throat. When his companion began to speak
+again, the bankrupt merchant wondered that he made no comment on his
+ghastly face--he knew his face was ghastly--or his shaking hands. There
+was an intuition in his mind so strong and clear that he trembled at its
+prophecy.
+
+'Patty,' said the visitor, 'will have everything in time, and a pretty
+good handful, too. But she's bent on being independent, and she wants to
+have her own money in her own hands. She pretends it's all because she
+wants to pay her milliner's bills, and that kind of thing, herself; but
+I know better. The fact is'--he lowered his voice and chuckled--'the
+fact is, she doesn't want me to know how much she spends in charity. You
+look here, Bommaney'--the merchant's heart seemed to stand still, and
+then to beat so wild an alarum that he wondered the other did not hear
+it The intuition multiplied in strength. He heard beforehand the spoken
+words, the very tones which marked them. 'You're a safe man, you're a
+smart man. I suppose there isn't anybody in London who can lay out money
+to more advantage than you can. I know it's a great favour to ask, but
+I think you'll do it for Patty's sake and mine, if I do ask you. Take
+this, and invest it for her. Will you, now?'
+
+He stood up with the bundle of notes outstretched in his hand. The
+merchant rose and accepted it, and looked him, with a sudden curious
+calm and steadiness, straight in the face.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Mr. Bommaney was alone again, and if it had not been for the actual
+presence of the bundle of bank-notes upon the table, he could well have
+thought that the whole episode had been no more than a dreadful and
+disturbing dream. It was very hard, he thought complainingly, that a man
+should come and put so horrible a temptation in his way. He would not
+yield to it--of course he would not yield to it. He had been an honest
+and honourable man all his life long, and had never so much as felt a
+monetary temptation until now. It was humiliating to feel it now--it
+was horrible to have his fingers itching for another man's money, and
+his heart coveting it, and his brain, in spite of himself, devising
+countless means of use for it. It was quite unbearable to know that
+the money _might_ tide him over his troubles and land him in prosperity
+again, if he could only dare to use it, and risk engulfing it with the
+lost wreckage of his own fortunes.
+
+But no, no, no. He had never meant to use it. His only reason for
+accepting it had been that he had not found the courage to declare his
+true position to his old friend and school companion. Perhaps, he told
+himself (trying to silence and cajole that inward monitor and accuser
+who would not be silenced or cajoled), perhaps if Brown had been less
+confident and truthful--if he had had less faith in his old companion's
+powers as a man of business--it would have come easier to tell the
+truth. And how futile a thing it was to stave off discovery for a single
+day! How doubly ashamed he would have to feel after that poor pretence
+of responsible solidity! If he had only been disposed to be tempted at
+all--here surely was an added reason for yielding to temptation.
+
+Obviously the first, and, indeed, the only thing to be done, was to
+bank this money in Brown's name, and so have done with it; and yet
+any feeling of haste in that respect would seem to imply a fear of
+temptation, which he was, of course, quite resolute not to feel. He was
+not going any more to run away from his own suspicion of himself than
+he would have run from another man's. So, in and out, and up and down,
+contradicting himself at every turning, with an underlying surety in his
+mind so fast rooted and so dreadful that he did not dare to look at it.
+
+When the adieux were being said between the old friends, Mr. James
+Hornett had slid noiselessly downstairs, his mind inflated by pride.
+He was not proud of having played the eavesdropper, for even in Mr.
+Hornett's economy of things, that was an act to be proud of; but he was
+very proud, indeed, to be associated with a gentleman so magnificently
+respected as Mr. Bommaney. There were not so very many people, he
+told himself, even in the City of London, which was full of wealth and
+probity, into whose hands so large a sum would be placed with so little
+a sense of the necessity of precaution. He felt as if he himself had
+been treated in this majestic manner, and the feeling warmed his heart.
+He bowed Mr. Brown from the office door with an _empressement_ which he
+feared a moment later might almost have betrayed him, and he went about
+his duties for the rest of the day in a mood of unusual contentment. The
+earlier memory of his employer's disturbance crossed him sometimes, and
+always excited his curiosity; but the later feeling dominated him. He
+was delighted by his association with a concern so eminently respectable
+as that of Bommaney, Waite, and Co.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Hornett's employer, with that dreadful rooted secret in
+his mind, which he did not dare to look at, sat alone, looking with
+staring eyes before him, and drumming in a regular tune upon the topmost
+note of the terrible little pile. He had locked the notes away before
+Brown's departure, but they had seemed to draw him to the safe with
+almost a physical compulsion, and he had brought them out again to look
+at them, to handle them, to count them, to resolve in his own mind that
+he did not hanker after them, and was honourable to the core. It was so
+new a thing to be tempted, that at times his own self-deception was made
+easy to him. It did not occur to him to reflect that the need and the
+means had never so presented themselves together until now, or that his
+life-long honour had depended upon their absence.
+
+When he had sat in silence for a while he awoke to the fact that the
+interview had been nothing but a succession of shocks to him, and that
+he was bodily exhausted. He rose, and, walking feebly to the inner room,
+applied himself anew to the brandy bottle he kept there. He had gone
+much too often to that deceptive solace lately, and he knew it; but each
+successive visit carried its own excuses with it, and it had never in
+any individual instance been worth while to resist a habit which it was
+always easy to condemn in the main.
+
+The brandy enlightened him and opened new sluices of emotion. Perhaps
+for the moment he was a better man because of it. He seemed to wake to a
+more determined sense of the enormity of the temptation which lay before
+him. He thought of his own son, and a shadow took him from head to
+foot as, in a brandified nervous vision, he beheld some shadowy
+supposititious creature in the act of telling the tale to Phil. The vice
+of drink has had the creation of many other vices laid to its charge,
+but for once in the world's history the obfuscated vision was clearer
+than the natural, and Philip drunk a better man, and a more righteous
+and honourable, than Philip sober.
+
+At bottom, Philip Bommaney knew himself too well to be at all sure that
+this phase of feeling would endure with him; and in a half-conscious
+dread of the return of that baser self, whose first appearance in
+his history had so affrighted him, he hurriedly attired himself for
+out-of-doors, crammed the bundle of notes into an inner pocket of his
+overcoat, and, after a final appeal to the decanter, left his room with
+a somewhat hysteric sense of courage and self-approval. He had been
+tempted--he was ready to recognise that the temptation was over, that he
+had well-nigh succumbed to it--but he had triumphed! He was a man again.
+He had been weighed in the balances and not found wanting. There were
+some tears in his eyes compounded of brandy and nerves and affections
+and remorses as he hurried into the street. Phil should never be ashamed
+of his father. Old Brown, who had trusted him like a brother, should
+never learn to shun and hate him. He had to go under--the thing was
+inevitable, unescapable, but he would at least go under like a man. His
+heart beat to the tune of the 'Conquering Hero,' where it might have
+beat to the 'Rogue's March,' but for that friendly nip of brandy and the
+all-covering mercies of Heaven.
+
+Quickly as his resolution had been taken, he had fully arranged for the
+details of the task which lay before him. With the notes he had thrust
+into his pocket a little handful of business papers involving a knotty
+and delicate point of business, and he intended that the discussion of
+the point they raised should act as the prelude to the disclosure and
+the restitution he desired to make. He could not, even in his newfound
+heroism, and with whatever hysteric hardihood he was prepared to meet
+the stroke of fate, he could not as yet encounter Brown, and lay bare
+before him the plot of the melancholy farce he had played an hour ago.
+But there was an old friend of his, and an old friend of Brown's into
+the bargain, a solicitor, keen as a needle and kindly as sunshine, one
+Barter, whose business chambers were in Gable Inn, and who was of all
+men the man he could confide in with least shame and best hope of help.
+He hailed a cab, and bade the driver drive his fastest. Gable Inn lay
+tranquil, the afternoon shadows already settling deeper on the little
+quadrangle than on the broad and roaring thoroughfare without. There
+was no light in the windows of the rooms in which Messrs. Fellowship,
+Freemantle, and Barter had done business and received their clients
+fifty years ago, and in which the sole surviving member of the
+firm still maintained its old-established reputation for honour and
+astuteness.
+
+Bommaney was chilled by the silence and darkness of the rooms, and he
+shivered to see the temptation he had conquered looming again before
+him. He knocked loudly with a trembling hand, and the noise of iron
+on iron went rolling and echoing up the staircase and came back in a
+hollow, lonely, sounding murmur from the rooms within. His heart
+sank, and a horrible fear of himself got hold of him. He had actually
+conquered, and here was the fight to be fought over again with almost
+a certainty of defeat at the end of it. Indeed, the defeat in that bare
+moment of time had grown so certain, that he was conscious of a distinct
+state of disappointment when a sudden footstep within the rooms answered
+his noisy summons.
+
+The door opened, and a young man stood before him, peering at him with
+half-closed uncertain eyes through the dark. He was a young man of the
+fleshly school, something too stout for his years, very pallid, and more
+than commonly personable, with a fine broad forehead, fine frank eyes,
+and features modelled with an engaging regularity. When he recognised
+his visitor his pale and handsome face glittered with a sudden smile
+of welcome, teeth and eyes gleaming quite brightly, and the whole face
+lighting up in the pleasantest and friendliest fashion conceivable.
+
+This agreeable expression faded into one of almost mechanical dolor, and
+the personable young man shook hands with Mr. Bommaney sadly, and sighed
+as if he suddenly recalled an idea that sighing was a duty.
+
+'Come in, Mr. Bommaney,' he said. 'Come in, sir. I have sent home all
+the clerks, and was just about to lock up for the night. To what do I
+owe the pleasure of this visit? Let me light the gas.'
+
+Bommaney, the door being closed behind him, stumbled along the darkened
+passage after the more assured and accustomed steps of young Mr. Barter,
+and the inner office being gained, and the gas being lighted, allowed
+himself to be motioned to a chair. What with having been too much
+agitated by the contemplation of his troubles to be able to eat at all
+that day, and what with the fight he had had with his temptations, and
+the too frequent applications he had made to the brandy, it happened
+that for the moment he was by no means certain of his purpose. He sat
+for a little while wondering rather hazily what had brought him there.
+As often happens with absent-minded people, his hands remembered what
+had been required of them before his brain began to act again, and by
+and by the fact that he had unbuttoned his overcoat, and had taken a
+bundle of papers from his pocket, recalled him to his purpose.
+
+'I wanted,' he said, emerging from his haze, and holding the bundle of
+papers nervously in both hands, 'I wanted to see your father upon very
+special and urgent business.'
+
+'My father?' the young man answered, with a look and accent of pained
+surprise. 'Do you mean to say, sir, that you haven't heard the news?'
+
+'The news?' cried Bommaney, feeling blindly as if some new misfortune
+threatened him. 'What news?'
+
+'My father, sir,' said young Mr. Barter, with a certain blending of
+professional airs, something of a legal impress mingled with something
+of the manner of a medical man conveying mournful intelligence to the
+relatives of a patient, 'my father, sir, was struck down by an omnibus
+in the street this morning. He is terribly injured, and not expected to
+recover.'
+
+'God bless my soul!' Bommaney cried out. His chin fell upon his breast,
+and his eyes stared at the floor, seeing nothing. He felt like a man
+upon a raft, who sees the bindings of the frail thing break apart.
+Shipwrecked already, and now the last hope gone! He hardly knew, if he
+could have asked himself the question clearly, why he so particularly
+desired to see Barter. He hardly knew what Barter could have done for
+him, except to listen to his troubles and take charge of the eight
+thousand pounds which tempted him, and yet the disappointment seemed as
+heavy and as hard to bear as anything he had hitherto endured. He sat
+staring forlornly before him, with tears in his eyes, and young Mr.
+Barter, in much astonishment at his susceptibility and tenderness, sat
+watching him. Something slid from Bommaney's hands with a rustle, and
+dropped upon the floor. Young Mr. Barter made a mere hint or beginning
+of a movement, as if he would have picked it up for him. Bommaney
+made no movement at all, but stared before him with his blue-gray eyes
+filling more and more with tears, until two or three brimmed over and
+trickled down his cheeks. He said, 'God bless my soul!' once more,
+mechanically, and restored what remained of his bundle of papers to his
+pocket. Young Mr. Barter looked with one swift and vivid glance from the
+fallen bundle to his guest's face, then back again. Bommaney rose from
+his seat, buttoned his overcoat with awkward and lingering fingers, and
+put on his hat. He was evidently unconscious of his own tears, and made
+no attempt to disguise them, or to wipe them away. He said, 'God bless
+my soul!' a third time, and then, shaking young Mr. Barter by the hand,
+murmured that he was sorry, very sorry, and so went stupidly away.
+Young Mr. Barter accompanied him to the door, casting a strange backward
+glance at the papers as he left the room, and was curiously voluble in
+his dismissal of his visitor. Anything he could do--Mr. Bommaney might
+rest perfectly assured--the clerks would be back to-morrow in any
+case--he would advise Mr. Bommaney of his father's condition by that
+night's post--he himself was naturally most profoundly anxious. In this
+wise he talked Bommaney from the chambers, and when once he had closed
+the door behind him, went back along the dark little corridor with
+an unnecessarily catlike tread. He could hardly have been other than
+certain that he was alone, yet when he reached the inner room he looked
+about him with a keen quick darting suspicion, and for half a minute
+ignored the fallen papers on the floor.
+
+'Dear me!' he said, when at length he suffered his eyes to rest upon
+them. 'What can that be? How did that come here?'
+
+He stooped, picked up the papers, laid them upon his desk, and smoothed
+them out, making a fold lengthways to counteract the creases into which
+they had already fallen. He saw a crisp clean Bank of England note for a
+hundred pounds, and, lifting it, found another. Then he lifted half the
+bundle, and, finding a note of the same value, gave an inward gasp, and
+expelled his breath slowly after it. Then he looked at the last note
+of all, and sat down with the whole bundle in his hands. His pale and
+fleshy features had taken an unusual colour, and his breathing was a
+good deal disturbed. A watcher might have guessed that he was profoundly
+agitated from the swift unintermittent rustle the paper made in his
+hands. He seemed to sit as steady as a rock, and yet the crisp paper
+rustled noisily.
+
+Mr. Brown's bank-notes had been a fruitful source of emotion that day
+already, and, in Bommaney's mind at least, had raised very dreadful
+doubts and perplexities. There were doubts and perplexities in the mind
+of young Mr. Barter, but they were altogether of another order. Young
+Mr. Barter was perfectly aware that he was being tempted, and felt that,
+in its way, the temptation wets a kind of godsend. He even said as much
+in a low murmur to himself. His perplexities related to other things
+than the fear of any fall from honour. Bommaney had evidently been very
+queer. Bommaney had been horribly cut up about something, even before
+he heard the news the young solicitor had to give him. But was he
+so disturbed as to be likely to forget where he had last secured so
+considerable a sum of money? This mental inquiry naturally set young Mr.
+Barter to work to discover how considerable the sum of money actually
+was. He laid the notes upon the table, and tried to wet his thumb upon
+his lips. There was no moisture there, and his mouth was as dry as
+touchwood. He drank a little water, and then began to count the notes.
+He made them eighty-one at first; and then, recounting, made them
+seventy-nine. Counting them a third time, he made them eighty.
+
+'Damn it all!' said young Mr. Barter, 'can't I count? I suppose the old
+buffer will come back for them.' He tried a fourth time, and confirmed
+his third counting. 'They'll get stopped at the Bank,' he said. 'They'll
+be no use to anybody.' He sat for a while thinking, with his eyes
+half-closed, drumming out a tune upon the table with the tips of his
+fat white fingers, then he folded the notes with great precision
+and delicacy, put them into his pocket, found his hat, overcoat, and
+walking-stick, and made ready for the streets. In the quiet of these
+legal chambers many chance noises from without had from time to time
+been clearly audible. He heard now a hurrying step upon the pavement of
+the quadrangle, and, with a palpitation at the heart, he moved swiftly
+to put out the light, and listened. The step stumbled at the entrance to
+the staircase, at the foot of which the outer door stood closed. Young
+Mr. Barter's heart beat, if possible, faster than before; and the veins
+in his head so throbbed, that only the confining rim of his hat seemed
+to keep his head itself from bursting. There came an eager summons at
+the door, an imperative rapping with the head of a stout walking-stick.
+He set his teeth, and, drawing back his lips with a horrible smile
+in the dark, breathed noiselessly. The rapping grew more and more
+imperative and urgent, and then came a preternatural silence, with an
+undercurrent of distant sound in it, and the sudden blare of a cornet in
+the street, which sounded to his nerves like the trumpet of the herald
+of the day of judgment He heard the hurrying feet plunge down the steps
+again, and cross the quadrangle, and listened until their sound merged
+into the dull noises of the London night. He stood in the dark after
+this for what seemed a long time, learning that his features twitched,
+and teaching himself to control them. Then he left his chambers with
+great secrecy, and broke into a cold sweat to think, as he stood half
+through the doorway, how narrowly he had escaped from slamming the
+door behind him. This was an act which might have been suicidal in
+its stupidity; for to give any sign of his presence there after that
+thundering summons at the door would have been to betray himself beyond
+redemption. He inserted his latch-key noiselessly, and, crouching to
+escape imagined observers, drew the door gently after him, and turned
+the key slowly in the lock. As he did this he heard a footstep and a
+cough together close at hand, and, turning with a start, beheld a pale
+and slender man of brief stature, who scraped his lantern jaws with
+apologetic thumb and finger, and looking at him with a startled
+meekness, as if he would fain propitiate anger for a possible intrusion,
+sidled to the foot of the stairs, mounted the stairway with a backward
+glance and a second cough of apology, and so disappeared.
+
+Young Mr. Barter, with his nerves already shaken by this small episode,
+walked into the main thoroughfare and merged with the crowd, bearing
+Mr. Bommaney's eight thousand pounds with him. When he had walked for a
+while he hailed a cab, and was driven home. He had, or prided himself on
+having, an exceptional eye for horseflesh, but it was not his faculty
+in this direction which had led him to choose a cab horsed by a brute
+of unusual symmetry and swiftness. This was an accident, but, like other
+accidents in this perplexed world, it served its purpose. It landed him
+at the paternal door in Harley Street almost at the instant at which
+Bommaney arrived there in pursuit of him.
+
+Now, although young Mr. Barter had not calculated on meeting Bommaney
+so soon, and although the meeting was naturally something of a shock to
+him, he had already schooled himself for interview and inquiry. He went
+a little paler than common as he grasped his father's old friend by the
+hand for the third time that evening, and trembled ever so little as he
+spoke.
+
+'I half expected to find you here,' he said. 'I could see how moved you
+were by the news of my father's illness.' The door stood open, and the
+old-fashioned man-servant within had been in the act of closing it upon
+Bommaney's retreating figure when cab number two had driven up, and the
+young master of the house had alighted from it. 'Is the news worse
+or better?' He laid both hands upon Bommaney's arms as he put this
+question.
+
+The elderly servitor, who had never had reason given to him to believe
+that young Mr. Barter was above the reasonable attached to his father,
+was a little surprised to see the young man so moved. He drew the door
+gently after him, and came out upon the steps.
+
+'I'm afraid, Mr. John,' he murmured sympathetically, 'that it's
+practically all over, sir. The poor gentleman's quite unconscious, and
+the doctor don't expect him to last till morning.'
+
+Young Mr. Barter's mind was active, and accustomed to rapid movement. He
+knew at once that the old servant read the signs of disturbance in
+his face and manner, and how far he misread them. So, to insure the
+misreading, he took out his handkerchief, and groaned at this melancholy
+intelligence.
+
+'I----,' began Bommaney, stammering and speaking a little thickly, 'I
+didn't come to ask about your father.' Young Barter's heart at
+this, though he was perfectly prepared for it, began to beat like a
+sledgehammer. 'I've had a dreadful loss. I have called nowhere but at
+your office since I left my own, and I have lost eight thousand pounds.
+I am convinced that I must have left it there.'
+
+'I can't think so, Mr. Bommaney,' said Barter, with a face of
+innocence.' We can go back together, if you like, and look for it.'
+Bommaney's driver lingered for him; the other cabman was already
+jingling leisurely down the street.
+
+'Johnson,' said young Barter, addressing the domestic, 'you hear what
+Mr. Bommaney says. This is a matter of the most urgent importance, and
+must be looked into at once. Tell my mother that I have been home, and
+that I have been called suddenly back on urgent business.' Bommaney
+stood in a kind of stupid trance, and the young man, taking him by the
+arm, had some ado to secure his attention. 'Come! Come, sir,' he said;
+'we will look into this at once. You must not remain in suspense about
+such a matter.'
+
+They rustled together through the straw which had been laid down upon
+the roadway, and had been scattered by the feet of passers-by upon the
+pavement, and, mounting the cab, drove in a ghastly silence for a score
+of yards, and then, with a clatter which made conversation difficult,
+Bommaney, rousing himself at intervals, shouted his certainty that
+the notes would prove to have been left at Barter's chambers. Barter,
+growing curiously inured to the circumstances of the case, shouted back
+that he dared to say they would be; that it was very likely; that he
+really did not see where else Mr. Bommaney could possibly have left
+them, furtively pressing the notes against his breast meanwhile, and
+once, at a quiet interval, when Bommaney had sunk into his former
+stupor, venturing to steal a hand to the pocket in which the stolen
+money lay, caressing the edges of the notes with the tips of his
+fingers.
+
+'I'm sure,' said Bommaney, as the cab pulled up at the gate of the
+quadrangle, 'that we shall find them here.' He spoke with a tremulous
+uncertainty, and so obviously appealed for a confirmation of his hope,
+that Barter felt constrained to answer,
+
+'Oh, we are bound to find them.'
+
+The striking of a wax vesta at the door of the chambers, the shaky hunt
+for the key, the well-known obstinacy of the lock, the opening of
+the door, the fevered working of Bommaney's fingers, and the flushed
+eagerness of his face, were all memorable to young Barter for many and
+many a day. They entered together the room in which their interview had
+taken place; and Barter, nursing the remnant of the flaming vesta, lit
+the gas with it, and then, dropping it on the floor, set his foot upon
+it, and looked at his companion.
+
+'Where do you think you left the notes, sir?' he asked. 'Have you any
+idea? I think you took out some papers here. You wanted to consult my
+father about them, I fancy, and, if I remember, you returned them to
+your pocket.'
+
+Bommaney stood looking about him on the floor, trailing the point of
+his walking-cane purposelessly hither and thither; and it was at this
+moment, seeing how confused and broken his victim seemed, that young Mr.
+Barter tasted the first flavour of safety.
+
+'I don't see anything,' he said.
+
+'Did you,' Bommaney asked him, with both trembling hands grasping the
+knob of his walking-cane, and shaking in appeal before the unsuspected
+thief--' did you lock any papers away before you left?'
+
+As a matter of fact, young Barter had not had any papers to lock away
+that evening after Bommaney's departure; but he thought the trick worth
+playing, and, producing his keys again, opened the heavy iron safe which
+stood against the wall.
+
+'Yes,' he said, with an air of hopeful alacrity. 'By Jove, I did!' He
+stood aside, with an outstretched hand, and motioned Bommaney to examine
+the contents of the safe. There was a parchment there, there were half
+a dozen bundles of documents tied in pink tape and docketed; but there
+were no bank-notes.
+
+'You know,' said Bommaney, with a fretful wail, 'I must have left them
+here; I couldn't have left them anywhere else. I put it to you--could
+I?'
+
+Barter looked at him mournfully, with raised eyebrows. There was just a
+hint of expostulation in his raised eyebrows, and in the expression of
+his voice.
+
+'You see, sir,' he said, waving his white hands--' you see for yourself,
+there's nothing here.'
+
+Bommaney walked to a chair, and, sitting down there, lifted up his voice
+and wept. 'I've been an honest man, by God! all my life long; and now
+I'm not merely ruined, but I shall be taken for a thief.' He cried
+bitterly after this outburst, with his head between his hands. His hat
+fell off, and his walking-stick tumbled noisily to the floor. Mr. Barter
+picked them up, and, having set them on the table, looked at the shaking
+shoulders, and listened to the ruined man's sobs and wailings. It was a
+pity--of course it was a pity--but young Mr. Barter really did not see
+how it was in his power to help it.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+On a chill spring evening the sunset over London gave a brief radiance
+of colour to the dull gray roof and smoke-stained chimneys of many
+thoroughfares. Shadows thickened in the eastern skies as if fold after
+fold of finest crape were drawn over the field of watery and opalescent
+light the fallen sun had left behind it. In one great thoroughfare
+running east and west the sky-line of the houses stood distinct, and
+bathed in light of many colours; whilst down below there was a wall of
+shadow. Two parallel walls of shadow rose from a shadowy level, and the
+dusk had a thousand indistinguishable voices.
+
+The shadowy lines became accented by twin rows of flickering fire, the
+rear jets seen with a blurred halo of mist round each of them, the halo
+crawling feebly within itself, tormented by a feeble wind. The long
+vista of pavement became chequered like a chessboard, with patches of
+light from shop windows. Gable Inn, staring at the growing darkness with
+a single fiery eye, looked like a Rip Van Winkle. It had been old when
+Chaucer and the knights and ladies of whom he sang were young; and
+its hoary stunted angles and squat chimney cowls had the grave and
+impassive aspect proper to great age. It has stood there now for over
+seven hundred years hoarding a growing store of secrets. It is roughly
+picturesque in every detail, and its every chamber is a triumph of
+narrowness, obscurity, and inconvenience.
+
+In the quadrangle the shadows climbed the sturdy walls as if they were
+an exhalation from the paving-stones. The dim staircase sent down all
+manner of muffled and echoing voices. Footsteps sounded, and the clang
+of doors, and the shriek of unwilling keys in rusty locks, and
+the hurrying traffic of the street without, softened by the moist
+atmosphere, was like the fading echo of following feet upon the stairs.
+
+Lights sprang up in the basement windows, telling of protractive legal
+labours. Lights twinkled in the garrets, telling of lonely study or
+noisy conviviality in the coming hours of darkness. At length one side
+of the quadrangle viewed by a solitary watcher from a third-floor window
+of the opposing side, winked with a hundred windows through the wet air
+and deepening shadow like a blear-eyed Argus.
+
+This watcher, lounging at his own window, was Mr. Philip Bommaney,
+recently self-entitled the 'Solitary of Gable Inn.' He was
+eight-and-twenty years of age or thereabouts, a broad-shouldered,
+deep-chested, manly-looking fellow, with curling brown hair, and a face
+expressive of pugnacity, good-humour, and many capacities. He was a
+little weary now, after a long day of satisfactory work. He watched the
+mounting shadows, and listened to the weird gamut of the wind among
+the telegraph lines, until the outer voices made his own dull room seem
+homely. One ruddy tongue of flame from the expiring fire in the
+grate played on the narrow walls and low ceiling, and woke twinkling
+reflections in the spare and battered furniture. A man's dwelling-place
+is always an index to his character when its arrangement depends upon
+himself; and signs of Philip Bommaney's nature and pursuits were visible
+in plenty here. There were symmetrical rows of books on the shelves
+flanking the fire-place. An orderly stack of newspapers occupied one
+corner of the room, and a set of boxing-gloves lay on top of the pile,
+and a pair of dumb-bells beside it. A shaded reading-lamp stood upon the
+table in the midst of a great litter of papers. The barrels of a huge
+elephant gun flashed dimly from the wall as the firelight played upon
+them, and two or three lighter weapons were ranged together lower down.
+
+He turned from the window and lit the lamp, and, wheeling round, held
+up the light to a photograph, and studied it with a pleased face. It was
+the portrait of a pretty girl, very sweetly grave, and looking as if it
+could be very sweetly vivacious. When he had looked at it for a longish
+time he nodded and smiled, as if the pictured lips had actually spoken
+to him. There was a tumbler standing beside the photograph with a bunch
+of hothouse flowers in it, the one bright spot of colour in the dingy
+chamber. He took this in his disengaged hand, and nodding and smiling
+anew at the pretty girl's portrait, he turned about again, and walked
+into a bedroom beyond a narrow and inconvenient little window. The
+strident voice of the clock over the entrance of the old Hall, answered
+or anticipated from multitudinous spires in the City far and near,
+sounded as Philip entered his bedroom. He stood and listened, counting
+six jarring strokes. The bedroom was a microscopic apartment, with as
+many corners in it as any room of its size in London, and the bed itself
+was a perfect triumph of littleness, so tucked under the sloping roof,
+and so surrounded by projecting corners, as to make the entry to it or
+the exit from it a gymnastic performance of considerable merit. The room
+was not over-light at the best of times, the fourth part of the space
+of one small window in the sloping wall was filled by its own heavy
+framework, and for half its height it was shielded by a parapet, which
+had at least its uses in hiding the occupant of the room from the
+too-curious observation of those who dwelt in the upper stories of the
+houses opposite. These houses opposite, compared with Gable Inn, are
+of a mushroom modernness, and yet are old enough (having begun with
+a debauched and sickly constitution) to have fallen into an almost
+complete decrepitude. Their stately neighbour seems to be less grimy
+with the London smoke than they are, has always been less susceptible to
+outside evil influences, even of that unescapable sort, and drives them
+to an added shabbiness of senility by contrast with its own hale old
+age. The bedroom window was already open for the admission of such fresh
+air as, disguised in London blacks, the exhalations of moist spring
+pavements, and the reeking odours of the cuisine of Fleeter's Rents,
+might choose to wander thither. Philip, with the lamp in one hand and
+the tumbler of flowers in the other, put out his head and looked into
+the squalid depths below him, and having gazed there a while absently
+and with no object, drew back with a vague touch of pity upon him for
+the people who dwelt in so much squalor so near to healthy effort and
+reasonable competence. He could hardly have told as much, perhaps, but
+one pallid countenance, shining very dimly at an open window, was very
+much answerable for that vague touch of pity. The face in the darkness
+started away from the window as he looked at it, as if his own
+robust health and the light that dwelt about him startled its pinched
+shabbiness into solitude. He set the tumbler of flowers upon the
+window-ledge, and closing the window, made his toilet and returned to
+the sitting-room. Then, having banked up the fire, and set the matches
+in such a position that he could easily find them, he blew out the lamp,
+left his chambers, and ran down the tortuous stairs. As he turned the
+last corner a door clanged noisily, and the next thing of which he was
+conscious was that he was struggling in the embrace of a stranger whom
+he had doubled up in an angle of the wall.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' he said gaspingly; 'I stumbled.'
+
+'You did,' responded the stranger, gasping also. 'Rather heavily. It was
+lucky you had something soft to fall on.'
+
+Philip began to make apologies. The stranger, breathless still, but
+jovially polite, begged him not to mention it. He was a tallish
+young man, broad set, and a little too fleshy for his years. He had a
+cleanshaven face, healthily pallid, the whitest of teeth, and a most
+frank, engaging, and contagious smile.
+
+'Pray don't say anything more about it,' he said in answer to Philip's
+reiterated apologies. 'You are not hurt, I hope?'
+
+'No, thanks; but I'm afraid you are.'
+
+'Not at all. It was sharp for a minute; but I am all right now. The
+stairs are very inconvenient, especially to strangers.'
+
+'I haven't even that excuse for my clumsiness, said Philip; 'for I am
+living here.'
+
+'Indeed; then we are neighbours, and should know each other. Rather an
+informal kind of introduction, eh?' The stranger said this with a mellow
+laugh and a flash of his white teeth. He opened his overcoat as
+he spoke, and produced a card-case, Philip catching the gleam of a
+gold-studded shirt-front as he did so. 'That's my name, John Barter;
+and these are my offices.' The outer oak, cracked and blistered to the
+likeness of an ancient tar-barrel, bore an inscription, dim with long
+years--'Fellowship, Freemantle, and Barter'--and the names were repeated
+on the doorpost at the entrance.
+
+'I have no card,' said Philip, accepting the stranger's. 'My name is
+Bommaney--Philip Bom-maney;' Mr. Barter's smiling face was unchanged,
+though he gave a slight but perceptible start at the name, and repeated
+it.
+
+'Do you know it?' asked Philip. To the ears of his companion there was
+something of a challenge in the tone. 'It is not a common name.'
+
+'No. Not a common name. I think I have heard it somewhere.'
+
+They were under the archway by this time, in the brief shelter of which
+the sanguine-faced, red-waist-coated lodge-keeper was taking his nightly
+constitutional. They answered the touch of the hat with which he saluted
+them.
+
+'Which is your way?' asked Mr. Barter.
+
+'Westward,' said Phil.
+
+'Mine is east,' said Barter, 'so we part here. We are bound to meet
+again before long. Good-night.'
+
+'Good-night, and many thanks for taking my clumsiness in such good
+part.'
+
+Barter's ready smile beamed out again. They shook hands before parting
+like old acquaintances, and Philip walked on, through the incessant
+noise of Holborn into quieter Bloomsbury Street, along the eastern side
+of Bedford Square, where the bare trees were shivering in a bath of fog,
+and into Gower Street. Half way down that hideous thoroughfare he came
+upon a house, one of the few which still retain the old lamp-iron and
+extinguisher before their doors, and knocking, was admitted by a trim
+maid, with the smiling alacrity due to a frequent and favoured visitor,
+and by her conducted to the drawing-room, where sat a young lady engaged
+in a transparent pretence of being absorbed in a novel. The pretence
+vanished as the door closed behind the handmaiden, and the young lady
+jumped up and ran forward to meet him, with such a glad welcome in her
+face as answered the appeal in his own. It does not need that we should
+look at her with Philip's eyes to pronounce her charmingly pretty, or
+to admire the face, at once shy and frank, with which she nestled beside
+him.
+
+'I thought you were never coming,' she said.
+
+'Am I so late, then?'
+
+'It seemed so, and now you are come, tell me what you have been doing.'
+
+'Working, and thinking of you.'
+
+'You work too much, Phil.' She did her best to ignore the second item
+of his day's occupation, but the deepened flush and her avoidance of her
+lover's eyes answered it more effectively than words could have done.
+'You are getting quite pale and thin. No wonder, sitting all alone all
+day long in those musty old chambers.'
+
+'Well, you see, Patty, the more I work, the sooner I shall cease to be
+all alone.' The flush deepened again, and the hand trembled in his like
+a caught bird. 'And as for working too much, I don't believe that's
+possible. Work never killed anybody yet, and idleness has killed a good
+many. It's better to work than sit still and wait for briefs which never
+corns. There's no sensation more delightful than that of looking at a
+good day's work, and thinking that every line and word has brought me
+nearer to you.'
+
+His tenderness conquered her shyness, and she nestled closer still,
+looking up at him with a wholehearted admiration and affection. He felt
+a little sad and unworthy under it, as almost any honest fellow would
+have been sure to do, and yet it was wonderfully sweet to him, and more
+than reward enough for any effort.
+
+'I wish I could help you, Phil. I wish I could do something for you,
+when you have given up so much for me.'
+
+'Hush!' he said, laying his hand lightly upon her lips. 'We made up our
+minds long ago that no more was to be said about that.' He was tender
+still--he could be nothing else with her--but there was a touch of
+sternness in his manner, too--as if the theme pained him.
+
+'But I can't help thinking of it. It was so noble of you, Phil.'
+
+'It was the only thing to be done--the only thing possible. It was----'
+he paused for a second, and then went on resolutely--'it was my father's
+act by which you suffered. I should have been a scoundrel if I had done
+otherwise.'
+
+'And are you to do all? and am I to do nothing? It is selfish to keep
+all the generosity to yourself.'
+
+He laughed as if he found this female paradox a pleasant fancy, but she
+was not to be put off so.
+
+'If the subject pains you, as I know it does, dear, please understand
+why I speak of it I don't want you to think I take your sacrifice as you
+pretend to take it. It isn't a matter of course, as you pretend it is;
+and you may say what you like, Phil, but it isn't a thing that everybody
+would have done. Don't grudge me my gratitude; you did it for the love
+of me.'
+
+'I didn't do it for the love of you,' said Phil, laughing tenderly; 'how
+often am I to tell you that, you little mountain of obstinacy? I did it
+because it was the right thing. I don't say, mind you, that it wasn't
+easier to do it for you than it might have been for somebody I didn't
+know or care for; but that--as you will see quite clearly if you'll
+bring your naturally logical mind to bear upon it--makes the thing so
+much the less creditable, provided there was any credit due to it at
+all.'
+
+The loving feminine scorn of this masculine process of reasoning was
+expressed in a single glance, and was delightful to see.
+
+'It only means waiting a little longer before I claim you.'
+
+The girl would fain have asked, 'Why should you wait when I have enough
+for both by your gift? What does it matter which of us it is who has the
+money--you or I?' But this question went unspoken, for obvious reasons.
+A woman is tongue-tied by the countless conventionalities of education.
+She must often let her thoughts lie silent in her heart, though she
+burns to express them, and find what answer she can to questions she
+dare not offer. Philip had repaired her loss by beggaring himself. That
+was noble. But now he persisted in deferring their marriage, and had
+buried himself in that lofty sarcophagus in Gable Inn, resolved only to
+claim her, though she was all his own already, when he had reinstated
+his fortunes by his labour. That was noble also, perhaps, but in her
+own heart she thought it a trifle foolish--say Quixotic, not to be too
+severe. She would rather have seen his ardour find a more commonplace
+expression. She had a general sort of belief that whatever Philip did
+was bound to be right, and yet this actual experience rather jarred with
+that assumption.
+
+They found other themes in a while, and talked of the future and the
+happiness it would bring. That Philip was going to be rich and famous
+was a prime article in Patty's creed, and he himself, though he had
+soberer hopes, was not likely to miss any chance of success which labour
+might bring him. He was more than modest enough in his conception of his
+own powers, and was often doubtful as to the fulfilment of the higher
+ambitions which are the necessary fuel of all artistic fires. Without
+those fires the chill of modesty will fall to the frost of cowardice,
+and in Art cowardice means indolence. In his moments of exultation--and
+these came generally at their strongest when he was in his sweetheart's
+society--success looked easy enough. The memory of her undoubted
+belief in him came upon him often with a glow reflected from those
+magnificently hopeful moments. But then at times of depression it grew
+to look no more than a foolish unattainable dream. All young artists
+have times when they are going to be great--when the glory proper to
+white hairs makes a halo round un-wrinkled fronts and curls, brown
+or golden. They have times when the smartest turn of verse, the most
+delightful inventions of narrative, the most exquisite contrast of
+colour or mould of form their genius can compass are stricken through
+and through with the horror of commonplace. But when a man of the
+artistic _genus_ has once so far learned his own nature he has made a
+great advance towards the fulfilment of his ambitions. He has to
+learn that just as the hot fit is followed by the cold the cold fit
+is succeeded by the hot. He knows how intermittent he is. He learns to
+mistrust his own mistrust of himself. The periods of depression grow
+less frequent, and the depression grows less lasting. And then, just
+as the cold fit becomes less chilling to the one, the fit of exultation
+grows less intoxicating. The halo beams less bright--loss near.
+
+Yet Philip, with the girl's eyes worshipping him, and her sweet voice
+cooing hope and praise, and her hands knitted on his shoulder, and her
+warm breath fanning his cheek, gave himself up to the vision, and felt
+his heart warm with a world's welcome as yet far away from him.
+
+The prose of life will assert itself, even to visionary eight-and-twenty
+and sweet eighteen in love with one another. On this occasion it came
+as a summons to supper. The summoner was a stout and jovial elderly
+gentleman, about whose somewhat commonplace British exterior there was,
+to Philip's mind, a reflection of the nimbus which glorified Patty to
+his mind, for he was Patty's father. He had been called Old Brown at
+school when he was young--he had been called Old Brown in the country,
+and the prefix had found him out in town without the need for anybody
+to breathe a whisper of it. He was Old Brown to his new acquaintances in
+London before a month had gone by. The name suggests a beverage which is
+not unlike Old Brown himself--being mild and nutty to the taste as he
+to the mental palate--ripe and genial. He had a moist twinkle of the
+eye,--the look which bespeaks the kindly humorist,--and his slightly
+protruding under lip seemed covertly to taste the flavour of unspoken
+jokes. Old Brown's jokes were mainly left unspoken, but he spent a
+good part of his life in laughing without any very apparent reason for
+laughter, and may have been internally the way he looked to be.
+
+He shook hands with Philip, and chucked Patty under the chin with a
+waggish aspect, which called an appealing blush into the girl's
+face. Perhaps the blush stayed the intended quip, but any way the old
+gentleman contented himself with a beaming laugh, and led the way to the
+supper table, rubbing his hands and chuckling.
+
+The meal was quietly jovial, and if, after it, Old Brown was not quite
+so fast asleep as he pretended to be, at least his patience gave the
+lovers the shelter they needed. He snored in mellow murmurs from behind
+his bandanna, and they sat and talked together in low tones lest they
+might awaken him, until the time came for parting.
+
+Outside the mist had given place to a dull persistent rain, and a
+peevish wind was complaining in area and chimney cowl. Philip turned to
+the street with a pleasantly haunting vision of Patty's vivacious face
+outlined against the warmth and brightness of the hall. The touch of her
+good-night kiss lingered on his lips like live velvet, and he carried
+warmth and brightness enough within him to defy all the rain that ever
+rained, and all the wind that ever blew on smoky London.
+
+The rain had cleared the streets, and the occasional gleam of a
+policeman's cape or a furtive figure seeking the shelter of a doorway
+against the drifting showers was all he saw as he bored his way against
+the rising wind to the corner of Holborn. He was so absorbed by that
+fancy of music to which his own quick tread kept time that a shuffling
+step behind him rapidly drawing nearer failed to reach his sense. But as
+he came to the corner, a hand clutched his arm.
+
+He turned, with the quick defensive gesture natural to a man so accosted
+at such a time, and faced the unexpected figure. An old man, clad in
+filthy fluttering rags, stood staring at him, with both hands stretched
+out. The rags shook as much with the horrible cough that tore him as
+with the cruel wind. He was a dreadful creature, with watery eyes, and a
+head and moustache of dirty gray. His long and unvenerable hairs strayed
+loose beneath the dunghill relic which crowned them. The rain was in his
+hair and beard, and had so soaked his tattered dress that it clung
+to him like the feathers of a drenched fowl. He shook and wheezed and
+panted, and gripped the air with tremulous fingers, and through the
+rents in his clothing his white flesh gleamed in the gaslight.
+
+The look of surprise and pity which Philip bent upon this unclean
+apparition was startled into one of sudden fear and horror. In the
+very instant when these emotions struck him, they were reflected in the
+other's face. The man made a motion to run, but Philip clutched his arm,
+and he stood cowering and unresisting.
+
+'You! Here in London?'
+
+'Phil,' said the spectre imploringly, 'for God's sake help me. I didn't
+know it was you, when I followed you. I thought----' his voice trailed
+into silence.
+
+'You have come to this?'
+
+'Yes, Phil; this is what I've come to.' The cough took him here again,
+and tore him so that he was fain to lean against the shutters of a shop
+near at hand.
+
+'Why do you come back here? Are you mad?'
+
+'I am--almost. What could I do? I'm as safe here as I am anywhere.
+Who would know me? or, if they did, who would hurt a wretch like me?
+I haven't slept in a bed for weeks, Phil. I haven't eaten a morsel for
+three days. For God's sake! give me some money. I'll--I'll go away; I'll
+never trouble you again.'
+
+'I'll give you all I can. But you must go away from London.'
+
+Philip thrust his hand into his pocket and brought up all the pocket's
+contents. He took his keys and an unvalued trifle or two from the
+handful, and held the rest out towards his father. The old man shrunk
+from him with a terrible appeal and shamefaced gratitude which cut the
+son's heart like a knife.
+
+'Where can I go to?'
+
+'Anywhere out of London. You are not--safe here. Go away. Write to me
+here.' He thrust an envelope on which his name and address were written
+into the old man's dirty trembling hand. 'You must never come to see me.
+Promise me that.'
+
+'I promise,' he said; and, thrusting the money and the envelope
+somewhere among his rags, stood silent for a while. 'I'm afraid,' he
+said, 'I acted very foolishly and very----'
+
+Then his voice trailed away again.
+
+'God help you!' said Philip with a choking voice.
+
+'You'll shake hands, won't you, Phil? 'said the old man. Phil took the
+proffered hand. 'It's something,' said Bommaney the elder, clinging
+to him, 'to feel an honest man's hand again, God bless you, Phil!--God
+bless you!'
+
+Philip stood silent, and the old man, with another shame-stricken glance
+upon him, moved away. His son watched him for a second or two, as he
+slunk, coughing and shivering, along the gleaming pavement, and then
+turned and went his own way heavily.
+
+Bommaney senior, discerning the welcome beacon of a public-house,
+shuffled eagerly towards it, hugging beneath his rags the money his son
+had given him.
+
+'I beg your pardon, Mr. Bommaney; if you please, sir.' He started at
+the sound of a voice which had been familiar to him for years. 'I should
+like a word with you, sir; if you please.'
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+James Hornett was less changed than his old employer, but it was evident
+that he too had fallen upon evil times. For a mere second the familiar
+tones of his voice were no more than familiar to Bommaney, whose mind
+was confused by long misery and hunger and sleeplessness, and the shock
+of his late encounter. But when he turned and saw Hornett's long thumb
+and finger scraping at his stubbly jaws, the gesture and the attitude
+of apology brought him back to mind at once. Hornett's coat sleeve was
+torn, and showed his arm half way down to the elbow, but revealed no
+hint of linen, The collar of his frock-coat was buttoned tightly about
+his neck, and there was a sparkling metallic rime upon his cheeks and
+chin and upper lip. Bommaney was ashamed before him, and afraid of him,
+and only some faint reminder of self-respect and the pride of earlier
+days held him back from the impulse to run away.
+
+'You're not afraid of me, sir?' said James Hornett. He had always
+smiled, and was smiling even now. The smile was no more than a
+contortion of the muscles of the face, which made a long mirthless
+crease on either cheek, and left the eyes untouched by the least light
+of sympathy. It gave him a propitiatory dog-like look, and there was a
+hint of fawning in his attitude which matched it perfectly and carried
+out the likeness. 'You remember me, sir?' he went on, for Bommaney
+stared at him so wildly that there seemed room for reasonable doubt
+on that point. 'Hornett, sir. James Hornett Your faithful servant for
+thirty years, sir.' Bommaney looked at him with haggard watering eyes,
+and said nothing as yet 'It's a bit of a surprise, sir, at first, isn't
+it?' Hornett went on, with his unchanging smile. There was a good deal
+of hunger and even triumph in his small soul, but they found no other
+outward expression, and his attitude and voice were as apologetic
+and retiring as of old. 'It was rather a surprise to me, sir, when I
+recognised you. Isn't it a little dangerous for you to be here, Mr.
+Bommaney?'
+
+They both started, and each looked about him at this mention of the
+fugitive's name.
+
+'Hush!' said Bommaney. 'Don't call me by that name. Come away from
+here.'
+
+A policeman strolled along the street, with an echoing tread, and as
+the two slunk past him he turned a casual glance upon them. The glance
+touched them like a galvanic shock, and they would have run if they had
+had courage for such an indiscretion.
+
+'What do you want with me?' asked Bommaney, when the policeman was
+out of sight and hearing; Hornett walking beside him, with his lean,
+propitiatory fingers at his chin, looked up with hesitating meekness.
+
+'Well, you see, sir,' he responded, 'your fall was mine, sir; I was
+supposed'--he coughed behind his hand here to indicate apology for
+the introduction of a theme so necessarily disagreeable to the other's
+feelings--' I was supposed, sir, to have been in your confidence. I made
+many applications for employment, and nobody would employ me. Young Mr.
+Weatherall, sir, promised, personally, that if I called again, he'd kick
+me down the steps.'
+
+Bommaney groaned.
+
+'What do you want with me?' he asked again.
+
+They were standing by this time outside the doors of a public-house, and
+the wind-driven rain was pelting down heavily.
+
+'I thought, sir----' said Hornett; 'I'm very hard pressed, sir.' The
+dog-like, propitiatory smile never varied. 'I was following Mr. Phil
+myself, sir, in the hope that his kindness might run to a trifle.'
+
+'Come in,' said Bommaney; and Hornett eagerly accepting the invitation,
+they entered the house together. There was an odour of frying in the
+room, and a hissing noise proceeded from a soft of metal caldron which
+stood over a row of gas-jets on the pewter counter. A printed legend,
+'Sausage and Mashed, 3d.' was pasted on the wooden partition at the
+side of the box they entered, and on the mirror which faced them, and
+displayed their own squalid misery to themselves. A year ago the fare
+would have seemed uninviting to either at his hungriest moment, but now
+Bommaney called for it with a dreadful suppressed eagerness, and, the
+barman serving them with a tantalising leisure, they watched every
+movement with the eyes of famine.
+
+'I've got a little place, sir, of my own,' whispered Hornett, when the
+pangs of hunger were appeased. 'It's very humble, but you could put up
+for the night there.' Bommaney made no answer, but the two set out again
+together through the rain, and, pausing once only for the purchase of a
+flat pint bottle of whisky, made straight for Fleeter's Rents.
+
+All that nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand of the many
+thousands who pass it every day could tell you of Fleeter's Rents
+is that it makes a narrow black gash in the walls of the great
+thoroughfare, and that it neighbours Gable Inn. It is slimy in its very
+atmosphere all winter through, and its air in summer time is made of
+dust and grit and shadow. The old Inn elbows it disdainfully on one
+side, and on the other a great modern stuccoed pile overtops it with
+a parvenu insolence. It is the home naturally of the very poor; for
+no hermit or hater of the world, however disposed to shun his fellows,
+would hide in its dingy solitudes whilst he had but a mere shilling a
+day for lodging and bodily sustenance elsewhere.
+
+Hornett led the way up a set of narrow and broken stairs, and having
+reached the uppermost story of the house, pushed open a broken door,
+which, depending from a single hinge, scratched, noisily upon the uneven
+flooring of the room. His guest stood shivering in the doorway until a
+match sputtered and fizzed in Hornett's fingers. Then, guided by that
+precarious light, he advanced. Hornett lit a candle which adhered by its
+own grease to the filthy wall and had already made a great cone of smoke
+with a tremulous outline there. There was a small grate, with a mere
+double-handful of shavings, chips, and coal behind its rusty bars.
+Hornett applied the match to the shavings, and, as the fire leapt up,
+the two men knelt together, coughing and choking in the smoke, and
+bathing their chilled hands in the flame. Bommaney drew the flat bottle
+from a pocket hidden somewhere in his multitudinous rags, and drank.
+Hornett watched him greedily, with hands involuntarily and unconsciously
+extended. Then when he had drunk in turn, they each shivered over
+the fire again, stealing furtive glances at each other, each mightily
+disconcerted when he met the other's eye. Bommaney had aged dreadfully
+during his year of hiding, and Hornett, who had drunk his employer's
+health upon his birthdays often enough to know his age to a day, could
+yet scarce believe that the dreadful spectre who knelt beside him
+numbered less than fourscore years.
+
+One question perplexed Hornett's mind. How came it, he asked himself
+over and over again, that in the space of a mere twelvemonths a man who
+started with at least eight thousand pounds could have fallen into such
+a depth of poverty? Eight thousand pounds, if absolutely nothing were
+done with it for its own increase, meant royal living for a score
+of years for an unencumbered man. Hornett longed to satisfy his own
+curiosity upon this point, and felt as if he dared not ask the question
+for his life. He framed a score of ways by which he might approach
+it, with a road of retreat behind him, and at last, as if in spite of
+himself, he said, with apologetic impudence,
+
+'You don't seem to have made the money last long, sir.'
+
+'The money,' cried Bommaney, turning furiously upon him. 'What money?'
+
+Hornett edged away upon his knees, and his thumb and fingers traced the
+creases of his smile up and down his stubbly cheeks.
+
+'Do you think,' the old man demanded passionately, 'that I took away a
+penny?'
+
+Hornett was afraid to rise. There was such a despair and so much fury in
+the other's looks that he could do nothing but crouch at his feet with
+his mean meek face turned fearfully towards Bommaney, and his body
+cowering.
+
+'You think I took that eight thousand pounds?' Bommaney quavered, with a
+voice of bitter disdain.
+
+He had never in his life regretted anything so profoundly as he had
+regretted his resistance of that temptation. To have had all the blame
+and shame, and to endure all the miseries a convicted thief might earn
+for himself, to have been an outcast and a pauper, only because he
+had been resolute against temptation! It is easy enough for a man whom
+circumstances keep honest to think himself honourable beyond the chance
+of temptation. But misery has the virtue of Ithuriel's spear, with a
+difference. As the one touched the beast and transformed him to the
+seeming of a high intelligence, so will the other touch a seemingly
+impregnable armour of bright honour, and turn it into tinder, leaving
+the poor beast revealed and unprotected from his own base natural
+longings. The poor Bommaney was maddened to think he had not done what
+the other's thoughts charged him with, even though he passionately
+rebelled against the accusation.
+
+'When did you ever know me to be a rogue, James Hornett?' he asked, with
+an air and voice to which his passion lent something like dignity. 'When
+did you ever know me defraud a man of a farthing?'
+
+'Never, sir, I'm sure,' Hornett responded, not doubting in his own mind
+that Bommaney was guilty. 'But----'
+
+'But what?' cried Bommaney. 'My own son, my own flesh and blood, would
+hardly shake hands with me. My clerk--I took him out of the gutter,
+_you_ know that, Hornett! I took you out of the gutter and made a man
+of you, and lavished kindness on you. Nobody has a minute's trust in
+me--nobody thinks of misfortune or disaster. I was right to run away and
+hide myself, for nobody would have believed me if I had stayed and told
+the truth.'
+
+Hornett looked more frightened than before after this outburst, but
+Bommaney read incredulity in his face, and answered it with an added
+passion.
+
+'What good would it do me to tell lies to you? Suppose I made you
+believe me, am I such a fool as to, think your pity could set me on my
+legs again?'
+
+He turned away, moved by his own wrath and anguish, and Hornett, rising,
+made himself as small as he could in the corner beside the grate.
+Bommaney, in his pitiful broken boots, went shuffling up and down the
+room.
+
+'What became of the money, sir?' the clerk asked with a shaky voice.
+
+He was ready to run for his life, and he was more than half afraid that
+the old man was mad--his eyes blazed so, and his voice and gestures were
+so tempestuous.
+
+'It was lost,' said Bommaney. 'I lost it, Heaven knows how. I've thought
+a thousand times,' he said, through his clenched teeth, 'that that young
+Barter must have had it.'
+
+'Young Barter, sir?' said Hornett.
+
+Then Bommaney told all he knew of the story of his own loss, and at a
+certain point in the narrative Hornett started and made a step forward.
+He remembered the night well enough--he had reason to remember it. An
+appointment for the theatre that evening had led him to call upon a
+brother clerk in Gable Inn, and he had seen young Mr. Barter leaving his
+chambers in what had struck him at the time as being an odd and stealthy
+fashion. He had remarked it for the moment, and had forgotten it
+afterwards, as men forget a thousand things of the sort which have
+no interest personal to themselves. But now he saw young Mr. Barter's
+figure with a singular distinctness, and the face turned round in the
+gaslight was again as visible as it had been at the moment. He thought
+he read a meaning in it now. But for this slight confirmation of
+his employer's story he would probably have disbelieved it, but the
+accidental character of the clue weighed with him, an apparent touch of
+romance in it gave it a value beyond its merits.
+
+'Could you tell me, sir,' he asked, 'exactly what time it was when you
+left Mr. Barter's office?'
+
+'No,' said Bommaney, suddenly weary after his outburst of
+self-exculpation, 'I don't know. It was after banking hours. It was
+dark; he had to light the gas. What if I could? What would that have to
+do with it?'
+
+'Well, you see, sir,' Hornett answered, 'I'm not likely to forget that
+evening. Of all the evenings of my life, sir, I made a call at Gable Inn
+myself, sir, at Number One. If young Mr. Barter had found the notes
+he wouldn't care to face you again, and he mightn't have answered your
+knock at the door, though he might have heard it.'
+
+'Any fool could tell me that,' said Bommaney roughly. 'What do you
+mean?'
+
+'I've noticed, sir,' said Hornett, with marked humility, as if he
+apologised for having said anything, 'that young Mr. Barter is a
+gentleman who goes about in rather a large way, and noisy way, sir. He's
+a biggish man, as it is, and to look at him at first you'd fancy that he
+was bigger than he is. He talks very loud and cheery, sir, and he bangs
+things about a good deal.'
+
+'Well?' said Bommaney, irritated by these slow preliminaries, 'what
+about it all?'
+
+He could see that his late clerk was leading to a point of some sort,
+and listened with a growing impatience.
+
+'He was leaving his rooms that night, sir,' said Hornett, 'as sly as a
+cat. I was just on the ground-floor of Number One as he was locking
+the door behind him. Locking it, don't you see, sir,' said Hornett,
+beginning to be fired by his imagination, and speaking eagerly, 'so as
+not to make a noise in pulling it to behind him. I suppose I made some
+sort of a noise in going behind him, but any way, he looked up at me--I
+can see him now!' he cried, with a swift conviction, 'as if he was here
+at this very minute, white and cowardly. That's what he was, sir. White
+and cowardly, I can see him now.'
+
+Bommaney grasped him by the wrist.
+
+'Do you remember the time?' he asked, passing one hand confusedly
+through the tumbled and disgraceful old locks of his hair. 'Do you
+remember when I left the office? Do you remember when you left it?'
+
+'Almost directly, sir, after you. But you drove, sir, and I walked. I
+stopped, and had a little conversation with a friend, and just a social
+glass that might have kept me back five minutes, sir. I was going to
+dine with Mr. Marshall (White and Fielding's Mr. Marshall, sir) before
+the theatre.'
+
+Bommaney released his wrist, and dropping on his knees before the fire
+again, warmed his hands absently and stared into the blaze.
+
+'The notes were all hundreds, James,' he said, after a pause. 'They
+were stopped at the Bank, I know, because I saw the advertisement. It
+wouldn't be easy to get rid of them.'
+
+'There are ways and means, sir,' said Hornett. 'They'd have to be
+disposed of at a loss, of course--a heavy loss--and kept quiet for a
+considerable time.'
+
+'Have you heard of any of them coming into circulation?' asked Bommaney.
+
+'I haven't been in the way to hear of anything, sir,' the clerk answered
+mournfully, 'but,' with a sidelong look at his old employer, 'if I could
+only get to look a bit respectable, I could make inquiries in an hour. I
+have no doubt I could find out, sir.'
+
+'My boy believes I'm guilty, like the rest,' said the old man, moaning
+and shivering and coughing again. The passion of his protest and the
+warmth of heart which Hornett's returning confidence had taught him
+had all died away, and he was his bankrupt, disgraced, and broken self
+again, old and maudlin, and strickenly conscious of his miseries.
+
+'Phil might help me,' he said shakily. 'He 'could, but he won't. He's
+got plenty of money. If I'd been a rogue, James Hornett,' and there he
+flashed up again, ever so little, 'I could have robbed my own flesh and
+blood with safety. A rogue would have done it. I was his sole trustee,
+and I could have had nine thousand by a stroke of the pen at any
+minute.'
+
+'Mr. Phil, sir,' said Hornett 'Mr. Phil hasn't got much money left'
+
+'Why not?' the old man asked, staring round at him with his watery eyes.
+
+'He paid Mr. Brown the eight thousand in full, sir, and divided the
+rest, as far as it would go, amongst the poorest of the creditors.'
+
+Bommaney turned back towards the fire, and drooped there. He seemed very
+impassive under this intelligence, but he was deeply moved by it all
+the same. The sense of his son's high feeling of honour gave him a
+keen throb of pride, and then he thought bitterly that his own ill-luck
+pursued his offspring.
+
+The loss was double. It had disgraced and ruined him, and had robbed his
+son of his inheritance.
+
+'Hornett,' he said, 'James Hornett.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'I was brought up,' the old man said, in a muffled voice, advancing and
+retiring his hands before the fire, and chafing them automatically, 'I
+was brought up by Christian parents. I never did a dishonourable act in
+all my days. I have been a God-fearing man and a--a steady church-goer.
+I give it all up. I renounce it. I don't believe in God. I don't believe
+in religion. I don't believe in being honest. It's a--it's a vile wicked
+world, Hornett, and it's my belief the devil rules it.'
+
+'Oh, sir,' cried Hornett,' you mustn't talk like this, sir. You must
+excuse me speaking free, sir, but I can't stand by and hear you talk
+like that. I can't listen to it, sir--I can't really. I've never said
+a disrespectful word to you, Mr. Bommaney, but I really must speak out
+now, sir. It isn't respectable, sir, to talk like that.'
+
+After this there was a long silence, and Bommaney, who had repouched the
+bottle after his last application to it, consulted it again, and handed
+it wordlessly to Hornett, without looking at him.
+
+'Phil might,' he murmured in a while--' he might be brought to believe
+me. He's an honest man himself, James--a very honest high-minded man
+indeed. I must look where he lives,' he murmured, seeking for the
+envelope his son had given him. 'He gave me his address.'
+
+'His address, sir,' said Hornett. 'You could almost lay your hand on
+him. He lives there. That's his window with the light in it.' Bommaney
+moved to the window, and followed with his glance the direction of
+Hornett's outstretched finger. There was a window a few feet higher than
+the one at which he stood, and half-hidden from observation by a stone
+parapet. A shadow obscured the light, and moved about the ceiling,
+visible from below.
+
+'I saw him there to-night, sir,' said Hornett 'I saw his face at the
+window. He put a glass of flowers outside. That's his shadow moving
+about there now.'
+
+'Phil!' groaned the wretched father, straining his dirty wasted hands
+together. 'Phil!'
+
+'I'm not the figure, sir,' said Hornett, 'to call upon a gentleman like
+Mr. Phil; nor yet are you, sir, if you'll excuse my saying so. But if
+you'd let me go, sir, and put the case to him, he might come and see
+you here, sir, and you might set yourself straight with him, sir, which
+would at least,' the seedy man added, somewhat moved by the old man's
+tears and tremblings, 'be an advantage to a father's heart.'
+
+Bommaney stood in silence, looking upward. The moving shadow settled
+itself upon the ceiling in a huge silhouette, distinctly traceable.
+There was no doubting it was Phil's dear head that threw the shadow,
+himself invisible, so near, so far. The foolish outcast's heart ached
+bitterly, and he stretched both hands towards the shadow, not knowing
+that he moved.
+
+'Shall I venture, sir?' asked Mr. Hornett, more moved than ever, and
+coughing to clear a little huskiness in the throat. 'Shall I venture,
+sir, to look in on Mr. Phil in the morning?'
+
+'Yes, go, James,' said Bommaney, sobbing outright by this time.
+'Perhaps--perhaps he may believe me.'
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+When young Mr. Barter took time to think about things, he began,
+for more reasons than one, to be sorry. It is necessary for the due
+development of this history to go back a little, and to take up Mr.
+Barter on the day following the commission of his crime. The young man
+felt that he was unable to afford candour, and discreetly avoided the
+naming of his own action. Eight thousand pounds is a sum which most
+people would find tempting. Young Mr. Barter would never have found it
+tempting in the criminal way (though, if he had given his mind to
+the consideration, he could at any time have seen how enviable its
+unencumbered possessor might be) if he had not at the moment felt
+himself under considerable pressure. Mr. Barter's fleshy and well-formed
+fingers were somewhat too familiar with the feel of cards. These fingers
+of his were peculiarly dexterous to look at, and had even an unnecessary
+braggadocio air of dexterity when he was engaged in his favourite
+occupation. Experienced people watched his shuffling and dealing with
+great care. In Mr. Barter's frank and engaging countenance, and in that
+ready smile in which the faultless teeth shone so conspicuously, there
+was no hint of danger to the most unwary. Even the wariest, listening
+to his genial mellow laughter, and seeing the jolly shoulders shake with
+mirth, were inclined to think him a loyal honest-hearted fellow. His
+loud swagger, his frank rollicking gait, his hail-good-fellow-well-met
+shake of the hand, the other hand clapped upon the shoulder, the noisy
+greeting, and that unfailing smile, not merely disarmed suspicion, but
+made the mere fancy of it impossibly absurd. But young Mr. Barter had
+accustomed himself to associate with people whose experiences had forced
+them to be observant, and to these the dexterous caressing fingers with
+which he manipulated all instruments employed in games of chance seemed
+to justify a fairly constant watchfulness. The fingers handled the cards
+as if they loved them, as if they had been accustomed to them from the
+cradle. The tips turned back a good deal, and the nails hooked a little
+forward. There were little bulbs of tact at every tip, the hands were
+made for a gambler, and could by no possibility have belonged to anybody
+else.
+
+The chief ground for the young man's sorrow may be very easily and
+briefly stated. The packet which the unfortunate cruelly-tempted
+Bommaney had let fall in his half-drunken abstraction on the floor of
+young Mr. Barter's private room was made up exclusively, as we know
+already, of notes for one hundred pounds.
+
+Now Bank of England notes for one hundred pounds, though valuable, and
+easily enough employed in all civilised countries when honestly come by,
+are only to be got rid of when dishonestly acquired at great risk and
+loss. A note for a mere five pounds may pass through scores of hands
+before being stopped at the bank. Tens, so the experienced in such
+matters will tell you, are a little difficult. Twenties are inquired
+into rather carefully. Fifties are positively dangerous to handle
+in this way. Hundreds are, except after great lapse of time, almost
+impossible; and as for a thousand, a man might almost as well steal a
+white elephant as a bank-note of that value, except that it will cost
+him nothing for keep, unless you count the tremor of soul and nerve,
+which is surely worth something, in which a man criminally possessed of
+another's property is almost certain to live.
+
+Mr. Barter, then, had eight thousand pounds in ready money, was liable,
+if discovered, to penal servitude, and was unable to touch a farthing
+of his ill-got gains. There are many men in the world, the world's
+experience proves it hourly, who set so small a price upon their
+self-respect, that they will sell it for a shilling, for a drink, for
+a word. But there is hardly any man so lost to the natural human desire
+for self-approval that he will actually give away his self-respect for
+nothing. Now this absurd transaction young Mr. Barter, when he took time
+to think about things, appeared to himself to have made.
+
+He was not, and never had been, a great reader; he gave up his mind to
+pursuits which he found more attractive than the tranquil fields and
+lanes of literature. Yet he remembered, in a dim sort of way, either
+that he had read somewhere in his schoolboy days, or that a fanciful old
+nurse had told him, a story of a person somewhere, who, being possessed
+of a great chest of money, went one day to look at it, and found
+that his hard cash had changed to withered leaves. Precisely such a
+transformation had overtaken that eight thousand pounds, at the moment
+when it had fallen from the hands of a man who might have made an honest
+use of it. The fable was, and was not, true, so far as he remembered,
+and his fancy dwelt curiously about the history. There was no
+possibility of turning back the withered leaves to gold, and making them
+jingle and glitter again as only one's own ready money can jingle and
+glitter. But, useless as these crisp and rustling leaves of paper were
+to him, they held still all their old potentialities, and in the hands
+of honest men or courageous rascals each leaf might still transmute
+itself into a hundred golden emblems of sovereignty and power. He was
+neither that honest man nor that courageous rascal, and the money grew
+to be a sort of devilish tantalising fetish to him. Before he had owned
+it a fortnight, he had felt a hundred times he could have burned it out
+of the exasperation of mere spite against it.
+
+He heard, of course, of Bommaney's flight, and of the failure of the
+old-established business house. People talked about these things a
+good deal for a time, and he himself listened to and took part in many
+speculations as to Bommaney's whereabouts, and the means he would take
+to get rid of the notes and make them available for his own purposes.
+He found it at first a little trying to the nerves. There was nothing,
+since Bommaney had accepted his own disgrace and run away, to connect
+young Mr. Barter with the lost eight thousand pounds, yet it took much
+courage, and a considerable amount of inward spurring, to bring himself
+to talk about the business. When a man carries a secret of a quite
+harmless nature, it happens often, as almost everybody knows, that
+casual words and quite innocent glances startle him with hints of
+understanding and participation. What is it when the detection of the
+secret involves open shame and penal servitude? Can a man of genuine
+courage be a thief? Is not courage after all at the very bottom of all
+manly honour, of all sound honesty, all true self-respect? How shall a
+thief be other than a lurking cur, whose whole soul, such as it is,
+is bent to a mean suspicion that he is suspected, a continuous
+terror-stricken watchfulness, a sleeping and waking dread of an awful
+hand-clap on the shoulder? There are constitutional differences in
+thieves, no doubt, as there are in other people, but the key-note of the
+dishonest man's whole thought is fear. When, after a day or two, young
+Mr. Barter had accustomed himself to speak of Bommaney and the lost
+eight thousand, and had often spoken of them, he began to look out
+for suggestions that might be useful to himselt He even led the way at
+times, and speaking to solicitors and barristers of extensive criminal
+experience, he asked often, for example, how could a scoundrel get rid
+of such a clumsy handful? Why didn't the fool cash the notes, he would
+ask contemptuously, before he left town, and before he was suspected?
+Everybody knew of course that the notes had not been presented, and
+their numbers were advertised in all the daily papers. Now what could a
+fellow do who had them, by Jingo? What _could_ he do? There was no
+way open, so far as young Mr. Barter could see, and he was wonderfully
+engaging and innocent of the world's wickeder ways as he talked thus
+with the ablest of his fellow professionals.
+
+The fellow professionals cited cases. There was Rosenthal, a noted
+receiver in his day, to whom a dishonest clerk had sold five thousand
+pounds for five hundred. Rosenthal had held the notes for six years, and
+had then put them cautiously on the Continental market. He was an old
+hand, was Rosenthal, and very clever and leary, but they had bowled him
+out. The clerk was wanted on another charge, and turned Queen's
+evidence against the receiver. Almost all the stories had this kind of
+termination, because the legal gentlemen whom young Mr. Barter consulted
+remembered mainly cases in which they or their friends had been engaged,
+or cases which had resulted in criminal proceedings. Others there
+certainly were, but they were vague and necessarily without those
+guiding particulars which he desired.
+
+It has been already hinted that the young man was a gambler, and it is
+likely that most of the reasons which made the money seem so welcome to
+him had their sources at the gaming table. He belonged to one of those
+clubs which deserve to be numbered among the blessings of
+modern society--where men do not meet for social intercourse and
+good-fellowship, or for dining purposes, or for any of the common and
+amiable reasons which draw men into club-life, but simply and purely
+to the end that they may win one another's money. It was a joint-stock
+swindling company to which young Mr. Barter belonged, and within its
+limits every man proposed to himself to get the better of every other
+man by such means as lay in his power. A pigeon got in amongst them
+every now and then, of course--came in well-feathered and went out
+plucked, but for the main part the rooks pecked hungrily at one another,
+and made but little of their time and pains. The one solitary advantage
+of these corporations is that they gather the depredatory birds
+together, and lead them to prey upon themselves instead of wandering
+abroad for the defeathering of the innocent and artless who abound
+even in these days. The well-constituted mind can hardly fail to take
+pleasure in the contemplation of these resorts, where Greek meets Greek
+(in the modern French sense as well as the old heroic)--where scoundrel
+encounters scoundrel, and learns that the pleasure of being cheated is
+by no means so great as that of cheating.
+
+There were people of widely ranging social position in this curious
+contingent. One or two men of title, and one or two of the highest
+social or commercial respectability, lent their names for some
+inconceivable reason to grace the front page of the neatly-bound little
+volume of rules which govern, or sometimes fail to govern, the conduct
+of the corporation. Mr. Barter rubbed shoulders with young men--very
+young men they were--who would one day have handles to their names, and
+enjoy the control of considerable estates. He sat at the same table with
+men whose birth and antecedents, like those of the immortal Jeames, were
+shrouded in a mystery. He met men of his own position, who like himself
+were desperately glad of being numbered in the same club society with
+men eminent on the turf, or familiar in the gilded saloons of the great.
+He liked to think of those gilded saloons; it might be interesting
+to know what he thought they resembled--most probably a somewhat
+old-fashioned earthly paradise of ormolu. He bragged indefatigably
+of his club and the people whom he met there. He dated all his private
+correspondence from it, and spent hundreds of daylight hours above the
+ivories and the pasteboard.
+
+At the time of that foolish and weak-willed Bommaney's disaster there
+were two or three I.O.U.'s for sums much more considerable than he
+could afford to part with in the hands of his fellow-members. Law is a
+necessity to human society. Even a band of brigands can't hang together
+without it. Debt, outside the club, was by no means a thing to be
+harshly spoken of, but debt to a fellow-member was a literal millstone
+round a man's neck, and would sink him out of sight in no time.
+
+The elder Barter had gone over to the majority, despatched by that
+street accident, and if the old man had known nothing of the young man's
+courses, he had had it in his power to make him well-to-do. But he had
+paid his debts once at least, and had more than once had occasion to
+grieve over the boy's handling of the firm's money, and so had made his
+will entirely in his wife's favour, leaving his son dependent upon her
+good graces. The mother was disposed to be a little sterner than the
+father had been. Perhaps if young Barter had dreaded her less poor
+Bommaney's fallen notes might have been returned to him.
+
+But, to get on with the story, the young man's chief creditor at the
+club was one Steinberg, a gentleman whose time appeared to be absolutely
+at his own disposal, though he was known by some of his fellow-members
+to have an address in Hatton Garden, and to be more or less of a diamond
+merchant there. He often carried about with him, in a pocket-book, or
+in neat little packages of grocer's gay paper, borne in the
+waistcoat-pocket, a collection of gems of considerable value, and would
+show them to his intimates with the _insouciance_ of a man who was
+accustomed to handling things of price. He never was without money, made
+little journeys at times, which rarely took him away from town for more
+than a day or two, and was, almost always, wholly unoccupied except for
+the cards.
+
+Now young Barter had a prodigious idea of this gentleman's astuteness.
+He had no particular belief in his honesty, and he believed him, not
+altogether unreasonably as the sequel proved, to be initiated into most
+of the mysteries of modern rascality. This was merely a general notion,
+based upon statements made by Steinberg himself, and supported by the
+opinion of his intimates. Nobody spoke ill of Steinberg; it was only
+understood that there was no move upon the board with which he was not
+familiar. Young Barter, meeting him one evening at the club, whilst
+Bommaney's disappearance was still a fresh topic of town conversation,
+spoke to him about it, with an assurance clearly begotten of practice.
+
+'Now, look here, Steinberg,' he said, in his open and engaging way.
+'Suppose you'd nobbled those notes, what should you do with 'em?'
+
+Perhaps Mr. Steinberg resented the form of this inquiry. But be that as
+it may, he responded with some tartness,
+
+'Suppose you'd nobbled them?'
+
+At this chance thrust young Barter turned curiously red and white, and
+had some ado to recover that open smile of his.
+
+'Hang it,' he said, 'you can't suppose I meant it that way. But,' with a
+half-hysteric courage, 'suppose you had--suppose I had--suppose anybody
+had--what would he do? You, I, anybody?'
+
+Mr. Steinberg sipped at his lemon squash--he drank that inspiring
+liquid all the year round, and nothing else until cards for the day
+were over--and puffed at his cigar, and looking young Barter full in the
+face, nodded and smiled with an odd mingling of meaning and humour.
+
+'Put him on to me,' he said, with perfect affability. 'I'll put him up
+to it.'
+
+'Rather dangerous, wouldn't it be?' said Barter, showing his white teeth
+in a somewhat forced and ghastly manner.
+
+'Everything's dangerous for an ass,' said Steinberg.
+
+'I shouldn't have thought,' laughed Barter, 'that that was your line.'
+
+He spoke as jestingly as he could, but he knew that his laugh was
+forced, and that the voice in which he spoke was unlike his voice of
+every day, and he wished, with the whole of his quaking heart, that he
+had left the theme alone.
+
+'Well, no,' said Steinberg, 'I suppose you wouldn't.' He sipped his
+liquor through a straw, and blew half a dozen rings of smoke from his
+lips with practised dexterity, and kept a glittering German-Jewish eye
+on Barter. Perhaps he meant something by the glance, perhaps he meant
+nothing. He was a rather Machiavelian and sinister-looking personage,
+was Mr. Steinberg, and there was something even in the calm expression
+of those perfectly-formed rings of smoke and in the very way in which,
+he sipped his liquor, and most of all in the observant glitter of his
+eye, which spoke of a penetration and shrewdness very far out of the
+common. More and more young Barter wished that he had not broached this
+theme with Steinberg.
+
+He could not help it for his soul. He could feel that his colour was
+coming and going with a dreadful fluttering alternation. He quailed
+before the Israelitish eye so shrewdly cocked at him, and when in a very
+spasm of despair he tried to meet it, he was so abjectly quelled by it
+that he felt his face a proclamation of his secret.
+
+Steinberg went on sipping and smoking, and said nothing; but when the
+young scoundrel, his companion, had somewhat recovered himself and dared
+again to look at him, there was the same shrewd and wary glint in his
+eyes.
+
+Young Barter had been unhappy enough before this, but after it the money
+became a burden hateful and horrible. He met Steinberg often, and
+forced himself to be noisy in his company. In his dread of seeming
+low-spirited, or ill at ease, he said things about his dead father which
+he would have left unsaid, had he consulted the little good that was
+left in him; and Steinberg seemed to watch him very closely.
+
+Young Barter put off his creditor with promises. He would have lots of
+money by and by. That seemed credible enough in the position of affairs,
+and Steinberg waited. In a while, however, he became exigent, and
+declined any longer to be satisfied with promises. One night the unhappy
+rascal, playing all the more because of his troubles, all the more
+wildly, and certainly all the worse, fell back upon his LO.U.'s.
+Steinberg followed him from the club. It was late, and the streets were
+very quiet.
+
+'This won't do, you know, Barter,' said Steinberg, tapping him on the
+shoulder as they walked side by side.
+
+'Begad it won't,' said young Barter, doing his best to make light of it.
+'They've been cutting into me pretty freely this past week or two.'
+
+'Well,' said Steinberg, puffing at his eternal cigar, and looking askant
+at Barter under the light of a street-lamp which they happened to be
+nearing at the moment, 'what you've got to do, you know, is to find the
+man who knows Mr. Bommaney.'
+
+The commotion which assailed Barter at this speech was like an inward
+earthquake.
+
+'What--what do you mean?' he panted.
+
+'That's what you've got to do,' said Steinberg tranquilly.
+
+'Do you mean to insinuate----' Barter began to bluster; but the older,
+cooler, and more accomplished scoundrel stopped him contemptuously.
+
+'You know where they are,' he said 'Why don't you get at 'em?'
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+About noon on the following day Mr. Steinberg, seated in a small
+inner chamber in Hatton Garden, leisurely answering his sole business
+correspondent of that morning, was in no way surprised when the boy he
+employed to open the door and receive visitors brought in a card bearing
+the name of 'Mr. John Barter, jun.'
+
+'Show him in,' said Mr. Steinberg; and young Mr. Barter, hearing this
+in the outer room, came in with a pale-faced and excited alacrity. The
+diamond merchant dismissed the boy with a word.
+
+'Well,' he said, turning the tip of his cigar upwards by a protrusion of
+the under lip, 'what is it?'
+
+'About that little matter,' said young Barter nervously, 'we were
+talking of last night.'
+
+'The little matter we were talking of last night?' asked Steinberg idly,
+looking at him with half-shut eyes. 'That hundred you owe me?'
+
+'Well, perhaps that afterwards,' said Barter with a frightened
+breathless laugh in his voice. 'But about the other matter first.'
+
+'The other matter?' Steinberg asked, in a lazier manner than before.
+'What other matter?' He took up his pen, dipped it in the inkstand
+before him, and tracing a line or two of his correspondent's
+communication with it, turned to his own unfinished letter.
+
+Young Barter was already sufficiently agitated, and this curious
+reception made him more embarrassed than ever.
+
+'About that affair of Bommaney's,' he said, feeling as if a rapid wheel
+had been somehow started in his brain.
+
+'Ah!' said Steinberg, writing rapidly, and speaking in a voice which
+seemed to indicate that he neither understood nor cared to understand,
+'that affair of Bommaney's, eh?'
+
+This reception was nothing less than dreadful to the young criminal. He
+had reckoned on having his way made easy for him. Steinberg had actually
+offered to become his accomplice in crime, and had lured him to
+disclosure. He could have wished that the floor would open and let
+him through. He saw that he had already exposed his hand, and began to
+imagine all manner of consequences resulting from the exposure. Not one
+of the consequences he foresaw promised to be of a nature agreeable to
+himself, and for the moment the hatred with which Steinberg inspired him
+was of so mad a nature that there was nothing he would not have done to
+him if he had had the courage and the power.
+
+Steinberg wrote on, shaking his fist in what seemed to be an unusual
+alert, and even threatening, manner. There was a great deal of
+unnecessary motion in Steinberg's hand, and Barter, looking at its swift
+and resolute movements, got a blind sort of impression of strength out
+of it, and nullified the feeling with which it inspired him. The letter
+written, enveloped, addressed, and stamped, Steinberg tossed it on one
+side, and leaning back in his arm-chair, turned an uninterested look
+once more upon his visitor.
+
+'That affair of Bommaney's,' he said. 'What was that?'
+
+Mr. Barter thought this inquiry altogether too barefaced, and responded,
+with a hectic flush of courage,
+
+'Come, Steinberg, don't play the fool with a fellow. You know jolly well
+what it was last night.'
+
+Mr. Steinberg's keen and impassive face underwent no change.
+
+'What did I know last night?' he asked.
+
+'You know,' Barter began angrily; and then the hectic flush of courage
+died, and a dreadful chill of fear succeeded it. What had he known? He
+had only guessed--till now. But now, young Mr. Barter felt, to employ
+the expressive ideas of his set, that he had given himself away.
+Steinberg capped the question in his mind. What did I know last night?
+
+'You haven't come to waste your time or mine, I suppose? You've come to
+say something. Why not say it?'
+
+His guest, sitting in a terrible confusion, and feeling himself
+altogether betrayed and lost, Steinberg marched to the door, and
+addressing the boy in the outer room, bade him carry the letter to the
+post and return no more that day. Then, having locked the outer door, he
+returned and resumed his seat.
+
+'Now, what is it?' he asked.
+
+Barter, recognising the fact that his own purpose was already exposed,
+made a desperate dash.
+
+'About those notes old Bommaney was supposed to have run away with. I
+think--I think, mind you, that if there was any way of using them, I
+could lay my hands upon them.'
+
+'I remember,' said Steinberg, 'you said something of the kind last
+night. I shouldn't advise you to touch 'em. It's a dangerous game.
+They're very worthless, and the game isn't worth the candle.'
+
+'Worthless?' echoed Barter. 'They're worth eight thousand pounds.'
+
+'They're worth eight thousand pounds,' responded Steinberg, 'to the man
+they belong to. They're not worth eight hundred to anybody else.'
+
+Young Mr. Barter's whole soul seemed to rise in protest against this
+abominable fallacy. When he had screwed up his courage so far as to
+induce himself to accept this older and more experienced scoundrel's
+partnership, he had conceived the possibility of the partner crying out
+for halves. But that he should want so enormous a share of the spoil was
+quite intolerable.
+
+'Not worth eight hundred?' He could only gasp the questioning protest.
+
+'If I had 'em to sell,' Steinberg answered calmly, flicking the waste
+from his cigar by a movement of his little finger, 'I should think eight
+hundred an uncommon good price for 'em. Later on and sold at second hand
+they might fetch a thousand. Later on and sold at third hand they might
+fetch fifteen hundred. One can hardly tell. Of course the value will go
+on mounting with distance from the original source of danger and with
+the lapse of time.'
+
+He said all this very calmly and reflectively, and young Barter,
+collecting his whirling wits as well as he could, tried a stroke of
+diplomacy, which, as he fondly hoped, would answer a double purpose.
+
+'She'll never let them go for that, or for anything like it.'
+
+'She won't, won't she?' asked Steinberg, smiling brightly, as if the
+statement amused him. 'Then she'll never let 'em go at all, my friend.
+How did you come to find she had 'em?'
+
+'I made a little bit of a discovery,' Barter answered.
+
+'Ah! That was it, was it,' said the elder rascal, falling back into his
+utter want of interest. 'You'll let me have that hundred.'
+
+'I will in a day or two,' answered Barter, _arreanti_.
+
+'Well, as for a day or two,' returned Steinberg, rubbing his forehead
+with the tips of his fingers, and looking very careless and composed,
+'I'm really very much afraid I can't let you have it. It's been
+outstanding a goodish time, and to tell you the truth, old man, I want
+it very badly. If you'll let me have it to-night I shall be obliged to
+you. I've been hit rather hard this last day or two. Shall we make that
+a bargain? To-night?'
+
+'I--I'm afraid,' Barter stammered, 'it's no use talking about to-night.'
+
+'Well,' said Steinberg, with a pitiless uninterested suavity, 'you know
+the rules.'
+
+He drew a little book from his pocket, and tossed it over the table to
+his guest.
+
+'You'll find it on page five. Rule fourteen. It's ticked in red ink, if
+you'll take the trouble to look at it.'
+
+Barter opened the book and consulted its pages blindly for a while, and
+then the mist which seemed to obstruct brain and eyesight clearing away,
+he read the pages indicated. It set forth the principle that all moneys
+lost at games of skill or chance, or upon bets made within the limits
+of the club, were payable within four-and-twenty hours. It set forth
+further that debts not paid within that time might be brought under the
+notice of the Committee, who were empowered to act under Rule nine. Rule
+nine ordained the public posting of the defaulter's name, his suspension
+in default of payment, and, in case of continued obduracy or poverty,
+his expulsion.
+
+'First and last, Steinberg,' said the wretched criminal, who began to
+find the way of the transgressor unreasonably hard and thorny, 'first
+and last, you've had a pretty tidy handful of money out of me.'
+
+'Well, yes,' said Steinberg tangibly. 'Pretty fair.'
+
+His very admission of this fact made Barter's case seem hopeless to
+himself. If he had brow-beaten, or blustered, if he had shown anger or
+impatience, or had been querulous, there might have seemed to exist some
+slenderest chance for him. But Steinberg was so unmoved that he seemed
+immovable.
+
+'You'd better persuade her,' he said, with a scarcely perceptible grin.
+Looking at Barter, and observing that he sat with his eyes still bent
+upon the book of rules, and head dejected, he allowed the grin to
+broaden. Barter, suddenly looking up at him, saw him smiling like a
+gargoyle, with a look of infinitely relishing cruelty and cunning.
+
+'You won't find her hard to persuade, I'm sure,' said Steinberg. 'Come,
+now, I'll talk business to you. I'll take ten of 'em for it, and cry
+quits, and I wouldn't do that for anybody but a friend.'
+
+The frank admission of the value of his own friendship was plainly
+legible in that gargoyle smile, and the unhappy Barter read it clearly.
+
+'I'll--I'll see what I can do with her,' he said, with a face and voice
+of pure misery.
+
+'Do, my boy,' said Steinberg, rising, and swinging the key of his
+chambers upon his forefinger, 'see what you can do with her. I shan't
+send any notification to the Committee before nine o'clock, old chap.
+You can trust me for that. You go off at once, old fellow, and see what
+you can do for her.'
+
+The fraudulent possessor of the notes felt their burthen more than ever
+insupportable. He rose, and went his way with remorse and rage and the
+bitterness of baffled stratagem in his heart. His wounded mind soared to
+so lofty a height of egotism in its struggles that he positively found
+the impudence to curse Bom-maney for having dropped the notes in
+his office. Then he cursed himself for having taken them, and cursed
+Steinberg for robbing him, and so moved off in a condition quite
+pitiable to one who could find the understanding and the heart to pity
+him.
+
+Steinberg stopped behind, and smoked smilingly. He was the successful
+scoundrel, and found the transaction as sweet as the young Barter found
+it bitter.
+
+'I don't think hell have much trouble with her,' he said to himself; and
+he enjoyed that little jest so much that he caught himself smiling at it
+a hundred times in the course of the afternoon and evening.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+Old Brown, who was one of the sunniest-natured of men, went gloomy when
+the news of his old friend's dreadful fall came to his ears. It does him
+no more than justice to say that he mourned Bommaney senior infinitely
+more than the money. He liked to trust people, and had all his life long
+been eager to find excuses for defaulters. He could find no excuse here.
+The theft was barefaced, insolent, dastardly. He puzzled over it, and
+grew more cynical and bitter in his thoughts of the world at large than
+he could have imagined himself. But then, when Bommaney junior came
+home, and insisted on the restoration of the missing eight thousand from
+his own small fortune, old Brown brightened up again. There was such
+a thing as honesty in the world, after all. The restoration warmed
+his heart anew. At first he fought against it, and would have none
+of it--the mere candid and honest offer of it was enough for him; but
+Philip was more resolute than himself, and the stronger man won. Phil
+should never have cause to repent his goodness, the old fellow declared
+to himself a thousand times. He should reap the proper reward of his own
+honour. Brown admired and loved Phil out of bounds for this little bit
+of natural honesty and justice. He thought there had never been a finer
+fellow in the world, and his heart warmed to him as if he had been a son
+of his own. As for that rascal of a father--and when he got so far in
+his thoughts he fumed so with wrath that he dared go no farther, and was
+compelled, for the sake of his own peace, to banish the friend of his
+schooldays from his mind a thousand times a week.
+
+It was about a year later than the disgrace of the house of Bommaney
+that old Brown, to his daughter's perplexity and grief, began to show
+signs of trouble almost as marked as those he had displayed after his
+old friend's defection. The old boy's newspaper no longer interested him
+of a morning. He began to be lax about that morning ride which he had
+once regarded as being absolutely necessary to the preservation of
+health in London. He had been impassioned with the theatre, and had
+become a diligent attendant at first-night performances. Even these
+ceased to have any joy for him, and he neglected, in fine, all his old
+sources of amusement He went about sorrowful and grumpy, expressing the
+dolefullest opinions about everything. There was going to be war, stocks
+were going down, trade was crumbling, there was no virtue in man.
+
+Patty tried her best to coax him from these pessimistic moods, but
+the old boy was not to be persuaded. On fine evenings, when there was
+nothing better to be done, he had loved greatly, between the quiet
+old-fashioned tea and the quiet old-fashioned supper, to dress for out
+of doors, and with Patty on his arm to wander into Regent's Park, and
+there inhale the best imitation of country atmosphere that London could
+afford. He dropped this amiable and affectionate habit, and took to
+rambling out alone, coming home late, and haggard, and not infrequently,
+at such times, staring at his daughter with an aspect so sorrowing and
+wretched that she knew not what to make of him.
+
+The girl, watching him with a constantly increasing solicitude, could at
+last endure this condition of affairs no longer. He came home one night,
+leaving neither his stick nor hat in the outer hall, and sat down in the
+dining-room, muffled and great-coated, the picture of dejection. Patty,
+kneeling before him, removed his hat, smoothed his hair, and began to
+unbutton his overcoat.
+
+'Papa!' she cried suddenly, 'what _is_ the matter with you? Why are you
+so changed?'
+
+He breathed a great sigh, and laid his hand upon her head. Then he
+turned his face away from her--to hide his eyes, she fancied.
+
+'You are in trouble,' she went on. 'It is not kind to keep it from me.
+Is it anything that I have done, or anything I could do.'
+
+'No, no, my darling,' he said softly, laying his hand upon her head
+again.
+
+'Is it money, dear?'
+
+'No, no. It isn't money. Don't talk about it, my dear. Don't talk about
+it.'
+
+'Now, papa, you make me think it very grave indeed.'
+
+'There,' he said, rising, 'you shan't see any more of it, and we'll say
+no more about it Well be gay and bright again, and well hope that things
+will turn out for the best.'
+
+The attempt to be gay and bright again resulted in most mournful
+failure, and the girl grew frightened. She had nursed her fears for many
+days, and had hidden them.
+
+'Papa!' she said, trembling ever so little, 'you must let me know what
+it is. Let us bear it together, dear. Whatever it may be it can't matter
+very much if it leaves us two together--and----'
+
+'Ah! 'said old Brown, looking at her with a pitying smile.
+
+'Is it anything----?' She stopped short, and really found no courage to
+complete the question.
+
+'My darling,' he answered, folding her in his arms, and staring sadly
+over her shoulder. She felt the hands that embraced her quiver, and she
+knew he had understood her half-expressed query. This frightened her so
+much that it gave her boldness.
+
+'There is something the matter with Phil,' she said, pushing the old man
+away, and holding him at arm's length. 'Tell me what it is.'
+
+'My dear,' he answered, 'you shouldn't leap at conclusions in that way.'
+But the disclaimer was altogether too feeble to deceive her. Philip
+was the mysterious cause of her father's trouble. Her wandering, pained
+eyes, her parted lips, the terror and inquiry in her face, frightened
+the old man. 'No, no,' he cried, 'you must not think it too bad. I'm not
+sure of anything. I don't suppose it's at all a matter of consequence. I
+daresay he's an old fool. I hope I am.'
+
+These hints and innuendoes were about the last thing in the world to
+satisfy a girl who had been made anxious about her lover.
+
+'Tell me,' she commanded. 'I have a right to know. What has happened?'
+She was no more inclined to be jealous than girls who are in love
+commonly are. She had, indeed, a native fund of confidence, and her
+trust in Phil's loyalty had been of the unquestioning sort, quite
+profound and settled. Yet for a moment there rose before her mental
+vision the dim picture of some possible rival, and at the mere hint of
+this she grew ashamed, and flamed into indignation against herself.
+
+'Tell me,' she said; 'I insist on knowing.'
+
+'Well, my dear,' said the old man miserably and reluctantly, I've been
+told that his father hastened his own ruin with dice and cards.' It
+was the first time he had mentioned Bommaney senior in his daughter's
+hearing for a year. She looked at him with eyes still intent, but
+somehow milder and less alarmed. 'Phil,' the old boy continued, 'I'm
+afraid that Phil is travelling in his father's steps.'
+
+'Phil a gambler!' she said, with an honest scorn of conviction. 'I know
+better. What makes you think it?'
+
+'There are a lot of beastly clubs at the West End,' said the old man,
+beginning to struggle with his overcoat, partly because he wished to
+avoid the girl's look, and partly because the motion was a relief
+to him. 'Gambling-places. Places where men meet for no other earthly
+purpose than to cheat one another. I'm as fond of a rubber at whist as
+anybody; but no honest man would put his head into one of those holes of
+infamy if he knew its character.'
+
+'Are you speaking of Phil, papa?' she asked. Her voice was low and
+tremulous, and there was almost a note of threatening in it. The
+gentlest creature will fight for her own--a fact for which some of us
+have reason to be grateful.
+
+'Yes, my dear,' her father answered with a kind of sullen sadness; 'I'm
+talking about Phil. He's a member of the vilest crowd of the whole
+lot, and he's there night after night.' He dashed his overcoat into an
+arm-chair with despairing anger, and went marching up and down the room.
+'I saw him one night by accident as he was going in. I knew the place.
+You might have knocked me down with a feather. I've watched him there
+night after night. Don't tell me I hadn't the right to watch him. I had
+the right My little girl shan't marry a gambler. I won't have my fortune
+wasted by a gambler, and my child's heart broken. I took a room,' he
+pursued wrathfully, 'opposite the place. I've sat there in the dark with
+the window open, and caught the d---- worst cold I ever had in my life
+watching for him. I've seen him go in again and again. He's a lost man,
+I tell you,' he cried in answer to his daughter's look and gesture; 'the
+man who has that vice in his blood is lost!'
+
+He was storming loudly, for he was one of those in whom emotion must
+have expression in noise, but a sudden loud peal at the bell cut short
+his harangue, and he and Patty stood in silence to know who it might be
+who called so late. As it happened, it was no other than the lost man
+himself. He was shown in according to wont and usage without previous
+announcement, and entered gay and smiling, elate and tender.
+
+As he looked from one to the other the expression of his face changed.
+He moved quickly towards Patty, and took her hands in his.
+
+'There's something the matter,' he said gently. 'You're in trouble!'
+
+The old boy, glaring at him, growled, 'We are,' and snatching up his
+overcoat, threw it over his arm, and slipped his hat upon his head with
+a gesture which Philip took for one of defiance. As a matter of fact it
+expressed no more than wrathful grief, but then gesture and expression
+are hard to read unless you have the key to them.
+
+'We'd better have it out, Phil,' said the old man, 'here and now. You've
+turned gambler, and I've found you out.'
+
+'No,' Phil answered, with an odd smile; 'I haven't turned gambler, I
+assure you. You've heard that I've joined the Pigeon Trap? That's what
+they call it in the City. I prefer to call it the Hawks' Roost. There
+are too few pigeons go there to be plucked to justify the other title,
+and I give you my word of honour, Mr. Brown, that I'm not one of them.'
+
+The young man's air was candid and amused. There was an underlying
+gravity beneath the smile, and for people who had believed in him as
+devoutly as his two listeners it was hard to disbelieve him now.
+
+'You've gone into the infernal hole,' said old Brown, more than half
+abandoning suspicion, and yet inclined to leave it growlingly, as a dog
+might surrender a bone he conceived himself to have a right to. 'What do
+you want there?'
+
+'I want to do a very important stroke of business there, sir,' Philip
+answered. The smile quite disappeared from his eyes at this moment, and
+he looked very grimly resolute. 'I will tell you this much,' he added,
+'because you have a right to know it. I am in pursuit of a brace of
+scoundrels there. I think I've salted the tail of one of 'em already.
+I believe with all my heart, sir, that I'm going to clear my father's
+character, and I would go into worse places than the Pigeon Trap if I
+saw my way to doing that.'
+
+Patty of course was clinging to him without disguise by this time,
+anxious only to atone for having given an ear to any word against him,
+even for a moment. Phil put his arm about her waist and kissed her. He
+had never to his knowledge performed this act in the presence of a third
+person until now, but he got through it without embarrassment.
+
+'You think you can clear your father's character?' asked his
+sweetheart's father. There was a tinge of scepticism in his voice,
+though he tried to hide it.
+
+'Yes, sir,' said Phil, his head thrown back a little, and his eyes
+gleaming. Nobody had ever looked so handsome to Patty's fancy as he did
+at that moment 'I know already that there was no real stain upon his
+honour, and I'm surprised myself for thinking that there ever could have
+been, bad as things looked. My father never took wrongful possession of
+your money. He was robbed of it, and I think I can lay my hand upon the
+thief.'
+
+There was a prodigious excitement at this declaration, and the young man
+was overwhelmed with questions. He could name no names, of course,
+and give no clue, but he sketched the story. He contented himself by
+describing young Barter as Thief Number One, and he was satisfied to
+describe Steinberg as Probable Thief Number Two. He had learned, it
+appeared, that Thief Number One had succeeded on his father's death to
+a carefully limited partnership in a business affair in the city. The
+guiding spirit in the concerns of Thief Number One had been his father's
+managing clerk. The income of Thief Number One was strictly limited,
+and his actual control over the affairs of the firm was non-existent.
+Notwithstanding these facts, the young man was guilty of countless
+extravagances, and was a reckless gambler. Within the last twelve months
+he could hardly have paid away at the club less than a thousand pounds.
+He had been extremely hard up before the loss of the money, and it was
+in his offices that the roll of banknotes had been lost. As for Probable
+Thief Number Two, he played rook to Number One's pigeon. He had a
+visible hold upon him; Number One trembled before him, and did what
+he was bidden to do. Number Two had plenty of money, and as shady a
+reputation as any man in London who was not among the known criminal
+classes. Phil's belief was that Number Two was disposing of the notes
+for Number One, and that this simple fact accounted for his power over
+him.
+
+'And I'm going to follow their track,' said Phil, tapping the clenched
+knuckles of his right hand upon the open palm of his left with a quiet
+vehemence, 'until I find out everything, if I follow it until I am
+gray.'
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+It would appear that a spider may be among the most daring, skilful, and
+predatory of his species, that he may be gifted with the most constant
+watchfulness and appetite, and yet, whether by the intrusion of
+an accidental walking-stick or broom (which would assuredly seem
+providential to the fly), or by stress of weather, or the desperate
+activity of a victim, may have his best laid schemes brought to
+nought, and his most mathematically laid web rent to tatters. In the
+entomological world a solitary interview between fly and spider is
+usually fatal to the one, and satisfactory to the other. But we of the
+higher developments, who model ourselves, or are modelled, upon the
+lines of myriads of remote ancestors, and far-away relatives, have
+refined upon their primitive proceedings, and have made their simple
+activities complex by development.
+
+In an absolutely primitive condition the Steinberg spider would have
+drained the Barter fly at a single orgie, and would have left him to
+wither on the lines. As things were, he came back to him with a constant
+gusto of appetite, tasting him on Monday, despatching him to buzz among
+his fellows until Saturday, and then tasting him again, the Barter fly
+seeming for a while--for quite a considerable time in fact--lusty and
+active and able-bodied, and looking as though this kind of thing might
+go on for ever without much damage to him, and the spider himself giving
+no sign of overtaxed digestive powers.
+
+Not to run this striking and original simile out of breath, the Barter
+fly endured for a round twelve months, without showing signs of anaemia
+so pronounced as to look dangerous to his constitution. At the end of
+that time, however, all the surplus blood had been drawn from his body,
+and the spider had grown so keen by the habit of constant recurrence to
+him that any prolonged connection between them began to look desperate.
+In plain English, the eight thousand pounds which had once so lightly
+passed from the hands of Mr. Brown to the hands of Mr. Bommaney had now
+passed, with just as little profit to the man who parted with them, from
+the hands of young Barter to the hands of Steinberg.
+
+It was just about the time when this lingering but inevitable
+transaction was completed that chance led young Barter to his encounter
+with the son of the man whose belongings he had appropriated. Everybody
+knows how apt newly-made acquaintances sometimes are to renew themselves
+again and again. You meet a man whom you have never seen before, see
+him just long enough to take a passing interest in him, and to know
+generally who and what he is, and you run against him on the morrow, and
+again on the morrow, and so on, until in a week he has grown as familiar
+to your thoughts as any other mere acquaintance of whose identity you
+may have been aware for years. This happened in the case of Philip
+Bommaney and younger Mr. Barter. They entered the Inn together, or left
+it together, or Philip ran upstairs or downstairs as Barter was in the
+very act of leaving or entering his chambers. Putting together a certain
+family resemblance which he thought he noticed, the identity of a rather
+uncommon name, and the curious frequency of these chance encounters,
+Barter found it hard to avoid the belief that his new-made acquaintance
+had a rather careful eye upon him. His nerve was a good deal shaken, and
+he was by no means the man he had been. To the unobservant stranger the
+frank gaiety of his laugh was as spontaneous as ever, but then that had
+never had much to do with Barter's inward sensations. Perhaps he got the
+laugh in some remote fashion from an ancestor who really ought to have
+had it, and who may have been as dull and as little laughter-loving to
+look at as his successor was within. Philip rather took to the fellow
+at first sight, and was slow to suspect him, even when James Hornett
+had told his story. But the young Barter was not satisfied, as he
+should have been, with playing the part of one insect at a time. It
+was unwholesome enough, one might have thought, for him to play fly to
+Steinberg's spider, and yet he must needs take to playing moth to Philip
+Bommaney's candle, a light of danger to him, as he recognised almost
+from the first He was always polite to Phil, and always stopped him for
+a moment's conversation at their chance encounters. Phil, having been
+inspired at least with a suspicion that this engaging young man was
+responsible for the actual disgrace which had fallen upon Bommaney
+senior, always bent a grave scrutiny upon him. Barter sometimes wondered
+whether his new-found acquaintance's way of looking at him were habitual
+or particular, but he could never solve that problem. To Barter's nerves
+the glance of dispassionate analysis always seemed to ask--Did you steal
+those notes? and whether his mind and nerves were at accord or no made
+but little difference to him. His mind rejected the idea of suspicion,
+but his nerves accepted it with trembling. He knew perfectly well that
+he could not endure the certainty of Phil Bommaney's knowledge, but
+none the less he found the uncertainty tantalising and painful. This is
+perhaps one of the hardest things an undetected criminal has to endure,
+that he lives in a world of suspicion of his own making, where every
+imagination is real and as dreadful as the fact. In his own mind young
+Barter credited himself with courage when he made overtures for Philip's
+companionship. In reality he made the overtures because he was a coward,
+and a braver scoundrel would have disdained them.
+
+Philip felt himself impelled to watch this young man, and was not
+altogether displeased that he found the opportunity thrust upon him.
+Almost facing the gateway of the old Inn there is an old-fashioned
+restaurant, deserted from its hour of opening until noon, and from then
+crowded inconveniently till two o'clock, deserted again till five, and
+once more inconveniently crowded till seven. Philip, having the power to
+choose his own time for meals, and frequenting this old house, sometimes
+met Barter in the act of coming away from it with the dregs of the
+stream of the late lunchers or diners. He fell into the habit of going
+a little earlier, and Barter would signal him to the table at which he
+sat, if by rare chance there happened to be a vacant seat at it. The
+young rascal's tendency lay towards monologue, and since it was his cue
+to be open-hearted, and very unsuspicious of being suspected, he
+talked with much freedom of himself, his pursuits, and his affairs. The
+question which Barter's nerves were always finding in Philip's eyes was,
+as a matter of fact, not often absent from his mind. 'Now, how did you
+steal those notes?' was the one active query of his intelligence as he
+listened to Barter's candid prattle.
+
+It was in the course of these confidences that Philip learned of the
+existence of that Pigeon Trap of which Mr. Barter was so proud to be an
+inhabitant. It was at Barter's solicitation that he visited the place,
+and it was Barter who proposed him as a member.
+
+Being a member it was not long before he discovered the fact of
+Steinberg's influence over the young solicitor. He noticed a terrified
+deference in Barter's manner towards the other, a frightened alacrity of
+obedience to his suggestions. He noticed also that Steinberg and Barter
+played a good deal by themselves, and that Barter always lost.
+
+The men of Hawks' Boost talked pretty freely about each other in the
+absence of such of their fellow clubmen as were under discussion. Barter
+was spoken of as Steinberg's Mug, Berg's Juggins, Stein's Spoofmarker.
+It was generally admitted that Stein made a good thing out of him, and
+the wonder was where Barter got his money. There was a pretty general
+apprehension that the young man, at no very far future date, would come
+to grief. The contemplation of this probability affected the Boosters
+but little in an emotional way, but it made them keen to see that
+Mr. Barter paid up punctually, and though they were very shy of paper
+acceptances from their comrades as a general thing, they were shyer of
+his than of most men's.
+
+These things Philip Bommaney junior attentively noted. At first the
+clubmen rather wondered at him. He was in their precincts often,
+and would smoke his pipe and watch whatever game might be going with
+tranquil interest, but he never played, and could not be induced to bet.
+_Que diable faisant-il dans cette gaiere?_ the clubmen wanted to know.
+He never told them, and in a while they grew accustomed to him and
+his ways. He continued his quiet watch upon Mr. Barter, and included
+Steinberg in his field of observation. One evening, dining at the old
+restaurant, he marked Barter, melancholy and alone. He was sitting in an
+attitude of apparent dejection, tapping upon the table with a fork, and
+deep sunk in what seemed to be an uncomfortable contemplation. But when
+the moth saw his candle he brightened, and fluttered over to it.
+
+'You might come over,' said Barter, when they had sat together until the
+latest of the dining guests had gone away. 'You might come over to my
+chambers and smoke a cigar if you've nothing else to do. I don't care
+about going down to the club tonight.'
+
+The Steinberg spider was supposed to be waiting there, coldly patient
+and insatiable, and Barter dreaded him. Philip had never entered the
+rooms, but they had an attraction for him. He accepted his companion's
+invitation, and they entered the chambers together. A fire lingered
+in the grate, and Barter replenished it, and, having produced a box of
+cigars and a bottle of cognac, proffered refreshment to his guest. The
+honest man began somewhat to recoil from himself and from his companion.
+What was he there for? The answer was pretty evident. There was nothing
+between this loud-babbling youth and himself which could have drawn them
+into even a momentary comradeship, if it had not been for the suspicion
+his father's story had inspired in him. Frankly, he was there because he
+suspected the man, because he desired to watch him, because, if he found
+the chance, he was willing to set him in the dock. To smoke his tobacco
+and drink his liquor in those circumstances had undoubtedly an air of
+treachery. In a while he hardened himself, and closed his ears to all
+casuist pleadings, whether for or against the course he had adopted. He
+would clear his father if he could, and if there were any mere hope of
+doing it, he would watch this fellow as a cat watches a mouse, and would
+go on doing it until both of them were gray.
+
+'By the way,' said Barter innocently, 'do you never take a hand at----'
+
+His supple fingers supplied the hiatus, dealing out an imaginary pack of
+cards with the flourishing dexterity native to them.
+
+'That's what I'm here for, is it?' thought Philip in his own mind. 'We
+shall see.' He said aloud, 'Sometimes,' in an indifferent tone.
+
+'There's nothing worth seeing anywhere to-night,' said young Barter.
+'Suppose we try a hand. What do you say to a game at Napoleon?'
+
+Philip consented, and his host produced two packs of cards from the
+business safe.
+
+They fixed upon the points and they began to play. The points were not
+those for which Mr. Barter really cared to play; for he was one of those
+people who find no joy in cards unless they risk more than they can
+afford to lose. But little fish are sweet, and he thought he had
+secured a greenhorn. As it happened, the greenhorn, though he was
+but eight-and-twenty, had travelled the world all over, and had
+found himself compelled to survey mankind from China to Peru. He
+was, moreover, one of those men who like to know things, and those
+quietly-observant eyes of his had taken note of the proceedings of a
+hundred scoundrels in whose hands the redoubtable Steinberg himself
+would have had but poor chances. The Greek had been Philip's standing
+joy, the dish best spiced to suit his intellectual palate. He had
+delighted over him aboard ship, on the monstrous dreary railway journey
+between Atlantic and Pacific, in the little towns which form the centre
+of scores of Texan ranches, in hells at the Cape and in California, in
+the free ports of China, and on the borders of the Bosphorus. In point
+of fact he was by experience as little fitted to be played upon by a
+gentleman of young Mr. Barter's limited accomplishments as almost any
+man alive.
+
+Phil's interest in the game had grown grimly observant in the first ten
+minutes. Young Mr. Barter had a knack, when he shuffled the cards,
+of slily inclining the painted sides upwards. He had another knack of
+leaving an honour at the bottom. He made a false cut with fair dexterity
+for an amateur. He could, when occasion seemed to make it profitable,
+discard with a fair air of unconsciousness. An ace dropped out of sight
+a hand or two earlier, was followed by a valueless card dropped openly.
+The ace was taken to supply its place with a perfect smiling effrontery.
+But Mr. Barter's favourite trick came out when he had a weak hand. Then
+he smiled across at his opponent, breathed softly the words 'six cards,'
+and dropped the worthless hand on the top of the pack, calling for a new
+deal All this Philip Bommaney watched with a complete seeming innocence
+and good temper. He lost his sixpences handsomely, made no protest, and
+looked unruffled.
+
+'You play false for sixpences, do you?' he said inwardly. 'I suppose a
+scoundrel is a scoundrel all through, and that if you'll sell your soul
+for so little, you could hardly object to driving a bargain for a larger
+sum.'
+
+He was often tempted in the course of a quarter of an hour to try Mr.
+Barter with a sudden challenge, and see what would come of it. Surveying
+his companion with that placid inquiry which Barter felt to be so
+excessively uncomfortable, he came to have but a poor opinion of his
+courage. He was one of those men who, even without knowing it, take
+profound observations of their fellow-creatures. The true observer of
+human nature is by no means a personage who is always on the strain
+after insight into character. He is, on the contrary, pretty generally
+an inward-looking man, who seems to notice little, and takes in his
+surroundings as the immortal Joey Ladle did his wine. Philip judged
+Barter to be a nervous man, and supposed him, even when strung to
+his bent, to have no great tenacity or continuance of courage. He had
+learned more and more to believe his father's story, though he had
+perhaps too carefully guarded himself from his own eager desire to
+accept it Barter's every action with the cards offered confirmation
+of the belief that he had taken possession of the lost notes. He
+was certainly a petty rascal, and there was obviously nothing but
+opportunity needed to make him bloom into a rascal on a larger scale. So
+the temptation to drop the cards upon the table, to look his companion
+in the face, and to ask simply, 'How about that eight thousand pounds?'
+grew more and more upon him, and had to be more and more strenuously
+resisted. It seemed worth while to resist it To begin with, if young
+Barter should be innocent, the querist could evidently expect nothing
+else than to be taken for a madman. To continue, if his name and the
+likeness to his father had already set the thief upon his guard, and
+had prepared him for accusation, the question would only reveal his own
+suspicion, and thereby weaken the chances of discovery.
+
+Philip combated his inward desire, but could not quell it. There seemed
+a kind of intuition in it, a lurking certainty lay hidden behind all the
+doubts he saw, and pushed him forward.
+
+By and by young Mr. Barter tripped on the false cut, which he had
+hitherto executed with a fair amateur dexterity.
+
+'Excuse me,' said Phil, as he gathered the spilt cards together. 'You
+should make the three separate motions look like one. Do the trick so.'
+
+He performed the trick slowly, looking Barter in the face, and then went
+through it swiftly.
+
+'That is how the thing ought to be done, Mr. Barter,' he said, with a
+placidity which his companion found singularly disquieting.
+
+And now, that same unhappy want of self-command which had given
+Steinberg so clear an insight into his young friend's mind, fell once
+more upon Barter. He tried to look wondering, he tried to laugh. The
+result of that frightened contortion of the features was nothing less
+than ghastly. Unhappily for himself he knew it, and so he grew ghastlier
+yet, and for the life of him could not tell where to set his eyes.
+
+'So you're a sharper in a small way, are you, Mr. Barter?' Philip
+inquired suavely.
+
+'How dare you talk to me like that?' the detected rascal stammered. 'You
+come into a gentleman's rooms, and lose an odd half-crown or two----'
+
+When he had got as far as this he ventured to look his companion in the
+face, and seeing there a very marked and readable prophecy of unpleasant
+things, he backed, and in the act of doing so, tripped, and fell into a
+chair. The intention in Phil's mind became simply unconquerable. He cast
+rapidly about him for an instant, saw all the consequences of failure
+which might follow if he denounced the trembling wretch at once, and set
+him on his guard. And yet he could not help doing what he did, and could
+not restrain the words which rose to his lips. He took Barter by the
+collar, and lifted him to his feet with an unsuspected strength, and put
+the question to him quietly.
+
+'How many of those stolen notes has Steinberg changed for you?'
+
+It was a bold thing to do, it was perhaps a foolish thing to do, and yet
+it was the game. Barter stared at him speechlessly. His lips moved, but
+he said nothing. Then his jaw fell as a dead man's jaw falls, and being
+released at that instant, he dropped into the chair like a sack.
+
+'Now the best thing for you to do,' said Phil, sternly regarding him,
+'will be to make a clean breast of it. I have been tracking you since
+the second day of our acquaintance.'
+
+Barter groaned, with a tremulous and hollow sound, but made no other
+answer.
+
+'How many of those notes are in Steinberg's hands?' Phil asked.
+
+The rascal's wits had begun to work again, if only a little, and he
+could by this time have answered if he would. But he knew that his
+own cowardice, if nothing else, had given away the game. After such a
+confession as his own terror had made, what was the use of bluster
+or pretence? He could not guess how much was known. He was completely
+cornered, and must fight or yield. His native instinct at any moment was
+ready to teach him how much discretion was the better part of valour,
+and now to fight seemed mere madness. In the very terror of the night
+which thus suddenly enveloped him he saw one gleam of hope. There was
+one stroke to be made which might save him, in part at least, from the
+consequences of his own misdeed.
+
+Philip gave these reflections but little time to grow distinct to
+Barter's mind.
+
+'How many of those notes?' he asked slowly, emphasising almost every
+word by a tap of his knuckles upon the table, 'have passed into
+Steinberg's hands?'
+
+'All,' gasped Barter; 'every one of them!'
+
+'That will do for the present,' said Philip, and at that instant there
+came a loud summons at the door, whereat the miserable Barter started,
+and clasped his hands in renewed terror. He fancied an officer of
+justice there, his arrival accurately timed.
+
+Philip, throwing a glance about the room, and assuring himself that
+there was no means of unobserved exit, answered the summons in person.
+He had until that moment kept perfect possession of himself except
+for his obedience to that overmastering intuition, but beholding Mr.
+Steinberg at the doorway he felt a great leap at his heart, and a sudden
+dryness in his throat. He examined these phenomena afterwards, and
+decided in his own mind that they were assignable to fear. He came to
+the belief which he cherishes until now, that he had to screw up his
+courage pretty tightly before he could face the idea of confronting the
+partners in rascality together. But here it may be observed in passing
+that this kind of self-depreciation is a favourite trick with men of
+unusual nerve, and is rarely resorted to by any but the most courageous.
+
+Steinberg recognised him by the light of the gas-lamp.
+
+'Good-evening,' he said, nodding. 'Barter's here, I suppose.'
+
+'Sir,' said Phil, with recovered coolness, a certain light of humour
+dawning in his mind, 'Mr. Barter is within, and I have no doubt will be
+very happy to see you.'
+
+Steinberg cast a sidelong glance at him, and entered. Phil closed
+the door, and followed close upon his heels. Barter, with his pale
+complexion fallen to the tint of dead ashes, sat huddled in the
+arm-chair, staring white-eyed like a frightened madman. Steinberg stared
+back at him in sheer amazement at his looks, and Phil, closing the door,
+turned the key in the lock and pocketed it.
+
+'Hillo!' cried Steinberg, turning swiftly round at the click, 'what's
+this mean?' He measured Philip with his eye--a very evil and wicked eye
+it was--and dropped back a step or two.
+
+'What's this mean?' Steinberg asked again, his quick glance darting from
+one to the other.
+
+'It means, sir,' said Phil, with a glad tranquillity, 'that your
+fellow-scoundrel, the courageous gentleman in the arm-chair there, is in
+the act of making his confession.'
+
+Steinberg sent one savage glance at Barter, and then dashed at him, and
+planting both hands within the collar of his shirt, so banged him to and
+fro that he would inevitably have done him a mischief of a serious
+sort but for Phil's intervention. The method of intervention was
+less tranquil than Philip's motion up to this time had been. He tore
+Steinberg from his grip of the betrayer with a force he had no time to
+measure, and hurled him across the room. He staggered at the door,
+and his head coming noisily in contact with it, he slipped down into a
+sitting posture with an expression suddenly changed from ferocity to a
+complete vacuity and indifference.
+
+Now Mr. Barter, scared as he had been, and shaken to his centre, had
+begun to think again, and when he saw that Steinberg's chance in the
+enemy's hands was less than nothing, that fact formed as it were the
+last necessary plank for the raft of safety he desired to construct. He
+got up from his place, animated by this great idea, and staggering to
+the helpless Steinberg, fell down beside him and gripped his hands.
+
+'Tie him, Mr. Bommaney, tie him!' gurgled Barter. 'He's been the ruin
+of me, curse him. I should have been an honest man if it hadn't been for
+him. It's him that led me into it, and he's had every sixpence of the
+money. I've been his tool, his miserable tool. Tie him, Mr. Bommaney,
+before he comes round again. I'll hold him for you.'
+
+One may get good advice from the most unexpected quarter, and
+whencesoever good advice may come it is worth while to follow it. Phil
+took a dandy scarf from Steinberg's own neck, and tied him tightly,
+wrist to wrist Then he helped him to his feet, and set him in a chair.
+
+'He came here to-night,' Barter gurgled on, with tears of sincerest
+penitence, 'to bleed me again. He's got my I.O.U. for L82 he cheated me
+of last week. He's had every penny of the money. I haven't had so much
+as a single farthing of it myself. I'll swear I haven't.'
+
+'That's your lay, is it?' said Steinberg, whose scattered wits were
+coming back to him. 'You shall answer for this violence in the proper
+quarter, Bommaney.'
+
+'I will answer for it in the proper quarter,' Phil replied. 'I will
+trouble you, Mr. Steinberg, to come to the proper quarter now.'
+
+'You won't forget,' said Barter, 'that I helped to capture him. You'll
+speak a word for me, Mr. Bommaney?
+
+'I've been that villain's victim all along. I should never have gone
+wrong if it hadn't been for him, and I've wanted to send the money back
+over and over again, but he got it into his own hands and wouldn't
+listen to it, and after all I never took the money, Mr. Bommaney--I only
+found it. It was Steinberg kept it. He said I should be a fool to let it
+go.'
+
+What sentiments of contempt and rage inspired Mr. Steinberg's bosom
+at this juncture must be imagined. He looked them all, but verbally
+expressed none of them.
+
+'Get up,' said Phil, addressing him. Steinberg obeyed. 'Take a seat in
+that corner.' Steinberg obeyed again. 'Now you--' to Barter, 'take a
+place in that corner, behind the desk.'
+
+'With pleasure, Mr. Bommaney,' said Barter, 'with the very greatest
+willingness. I desire to make no resistance to the law. I helped to
+capture the criminal Please remember that, Mr. Bommaney. Pray remember
+that.'
+
+He took hold of a heavy ruler which happened to be lying on the desk,
+and deeming that he and the other rascal were about to be left alone
+together, he showed it shakily to Steinberg, as a hint that he was not
+without means of protection against a man unarmed and bound.
+
+Phil unlocked the door, inserted the key on the other side, disappeared,
+and turned the lock anew. The two criminals heard his footstep sounding
+elate, triumphant, and threatening to their ears as he went along the
+boarded floor. They listened as the footstep crossed the square boulders
+of the courtyard, and listened still until their sound melted into the
+blended noises of the outer street. A minute later the step was heard
+returning, accompanied by another, solid and terrible. They knew it, and
+their hearts, low as they were already, sank at it. The door opened and
+Phil reappeared, followed by a policeman.
+
+'I give these two in charge,' the young man said, 'the one as the thief,
+the other as the receiver of a bundle of bank-notes of the value of
+eight thousand pounds, the property of my father, Mr. Philip Bommaney of
+Coalporter's Alley.'
+
+'I'm quite willing to go without resistance,' said Mr. Barter from
+behind the table. 'I assisted in the capture, and I am ready to say
+anything.'
+
+'That's the first true word you've spoken,' Steinberg snarled. 'You can
+take this thing off,' holding out his hands. 'I'll go quietly. I can get
+bail in an hour.'
+
+'Don't have it taken off, Mr. Bommaney, not if we're to travel in the
+same vehicle. He threatened me while you were away. He said if they
+gave him fifty years he'd kill me when he came out again. He'll do it,
+because I made a clean breast of it, didn't I, Mr. Bommaney? I made a
+clean breast of it, officer. I'm ready to--tell everything. He's ruined
+me, and now he says he'll kill me because I'm ready to make a clean
+breast of it.'
+
+'I choose to be taken separately, if you please. I myself will pay the
+fare. I won't travel with that cackling idiot.'
+
+'I will go with Mr. Bommaney with pleasure,' said the penitent. 'I'll go
+with you with pleasure anywhere. I'd rather go with you a great deal.'
+
+It was hardly to be expected that Philip should feel very warmly towards
+either of his two companions, but of the two he misliked Steinberg the
+less. And, since it seemed humane and reasonable to choose, he chose
+Steinberg as his travelling companion. The officer set Steinberg's hat
+upon his head, and the quartet set out. The sight of a man with his
+hands tightly bound with a scarlet muffler gathered a momentary little
+crowd at the Inn gate; but, a pair of hansoms being summoned, captives
+and captors were speedily relieved from vulgar observation. The station
+reached, it turned out that the communicative Mr. Barter, in the
+exuberance of his heart, had exposed to the officer _en route_ the
+whereabouts of the lost notes. He declared that to his knowledge they
+rested in a safe, the position of which he indicated, in Steinberg's
+Hatton Garden office. The Inspector before whom the charge was made
+deemed this intelligence worthy of being acted on at once. The two
+prisoners were searched, and Mr. Barter was so good as to point out,
+among Steinberg's keys, those which were necessary for the purposes of
+investigation. He even went so far as to offer his assistance as guide;
+but this was declined with a chilliness singularly at variance with the
+solicitous warmth of the proposal.
+
+'I think, sir,' said the Inspector, with an arctic disrespect which was
+so frozen as to be almost respectful, 'that we can manage this without
+your assistance.'
+
+The Divisional Superintendent, being communicated with by telephone,
+arrived upon the scene. The matter in hand having been laid before him
+with curt official brevity, he asked for the keys, called to himself a
+constable, and was preparing to set out, when Philip begged permission
+to accompany him.
+
+'The notes, sir,' he said, 'were left in my father's trust by a dear
+old friend of his. My father himself was supposed to have made use of
+them--a thing of which he was incapable. If I can take to him the news
+that they are found, I can lift a load of undeserved disgrace from the
+mind of an honourable man.'
+
+'I shall be pleased to have your company, Mr. Bommaney,' the
+Superintendent answered, touched a little by the young man's
+earnestness. So the three got into a four-wheeler, and bowled away to
+Hatton Garden, and there made entry into the chambers lately occupied by
+Mr. Steinberg. There was no gas here, but the constable's dark lantern
+showed the way. It revealed the safe in the position the communicative
+criminal had assigned to it. It revealed the notes, snugly spread out in
+one crisp little heap, and arranged with business-like precision in the
+order of their numbers.
+
+This golden spectacle once seen, Phil dashed into the street, hailed a
+hansom, and drove pell-mell, exciting the cabman who conducted him by
+the promise of a double fare, to the residence of old Brown and old
+Brown's daughter. There he told the glorious news, a little broken and
+halting in his speech. Patty threw her arms about him, and cried without
+concealment or restraint. Old Brown blew his nose with a suspicious
+frequency, and shook his adopted son-in-law by the hand at frequent
+intervals.
+
+'Phil,' he cried at last, 'where's your father? By God, sir, he never
+had any need to run away from me, because he happened to lose a handful
+of paltry money. What had he got to do but come and say, "Brown, it's
+gone!" He hadn't trust enough in me to think I'd believe him. Let's get
+at him. Where is he?'
+
+The old boy tugged furiously at the bell-pull.
+
+'Send Brenner round to the stable,' he said to the servant. 'Tell him
+to get the horses to, and bring the carriage round at once. Where's your
+father, Phil?'
+
+'He's down Poplar way,' said Phil. 'Hornett, his old clerk, is living in
+the same house with him.'
+
+'We'll go down, and rouse him up,' the old boy said, with a moist eye
+and trembling hand. 'Phil, my lad,' he went on, grasping the young
+fellow's hand in his own, 'I'm getting to be an old 'un. You wouldn't
+think it to look at me, because, thank God, I've always known how to
+take my trouble lightly, but I've seen a lot of it in my time, and you
+can take my word for this--there isn't any trouble in the world that's
+hardly so bitter as for an honest man to have to take another for a
+rogue.'
+
+So it came to pass that Bommaney senior, who after all, perhaps, hardly
+deserved to be made a hero of, was plenteously bedewed with the tears of
+three most honourable and high-minded people, and was, set up in their
+minds as a sort of live statue of undeserved martyrdom. They who learned
+the tale afterwards mourned his weakness, and supposed him to be the
+victim of a too sensitive organisation. He lives now with a genuine halo
+of sanctity about him, and seems in the minds of some to have suffered
+for the sake of a great principle, quite noble, but not quite definitely
+defined.
+
+Odd things happen every day in the world, and pass by unregarded. The
+worship of Bommaney senior's sensibilities seems a trifle dull when all
+things are considered, though one has to be glad that an honest son can
+think of him with pity mixed with admiration. But perhaps the oddest
+thing of all in connection with this story may be looked for in the
+shorthand reporter's notes of the Recorder's speech at the Old Bailey,
+when the accusation against Messrs. Barter and Steinberg came to be
+heard.
+
+'You, Barter,' said the learned Recorder, 'appear to have been drawn
+into this by the influence of an intelligence stronger and abler than
+your own. You appear, in a moment of weakness, to have been led away
+by that stronger intelligence from the paths of rectitude. But you have
+displayed so clear a sense of the enormity of your conduct, and have,
+by your complete disclosures of the crime committed by you and your
+companion, and, by your evidence in Court to-day, shown so complete a
+repentance for it, that I do not think that it would be politic or just
+to lay a severe term of imprisonment upon you. Nevertheless, the law of
+the land must be justified, and I feel a pleasure in believing that in
+justifying the law I am affording you an opportunity for reflection, for
+the formation of good resolutions for the future, and for a confirmation
+of those better desires which I believe--in spite of your association
+with this criminal enterprise--to animate your mind.'
+
+Now, to my fancy, this has a distinct element of comedy in it; but the
+learned Recorder resembled some of his unlearned brethren, in respect to
+the fact that he could not be expected to know everything.
+
+Mr. Barter thrives again, but he is even now awaiting, with the
+uneasiest sensations, the liberation of the man who betrayed him into
+crime.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Young Mr. Barter's Repentance, by
+David Christie Murray
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diff --git a/22272.zip b/22272.zip
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #22272 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22272)
diff --git a/old/22272-h.htm.2021-01-25 b/old/22272-h.htm.2021-01-25
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Young Mr. Barter's Repentance, by David Christie Murray
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
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+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
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+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+Project Gutenberg's Young Mr. Barter's Repentance, by David Christie Murray
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Young Mr. Barter's Repentance
+       From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray
+
+Author: David Christie Murray
+
+Release Date: August 8, 2007 [EBook #22272]
+Last Updated: September 16, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUNG MR. BARTER'S REPENTANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      YOUNG MR. BARTER&rsquo;S REPENTANCE
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By David Christie Murray
+    </h2>
+    <h4>
+      Author Of &lsquo;Aunt Rachel,&rsquo; &lsquo;The Weaker Vessel,&rsquo; Etc.
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Contents
+    </h2>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> IV </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> V </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> VI </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VII </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VIII </a>
+          </p>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr Bommaney was a British merchant of the highest rectitude and the most
+      spotless reputation. He traded still under the name of Bommaney, Waite,
+      and Co., though Waite had been long since dead, and the Company had gone
+      out of existence in his father&rsquo;s time. The old offices, cramped and
+      inconvenient, in which the firm had begun life eighty years before, were
+      still good enough for Mr. Bommaney, and they had an air of solid
+      respectability which newer and flashier places lacked. The building of
+      which they formed a part stood in Coalporter&rsquo;s Alley, opposite the Church
+      of St. Mildred, and the hum of the City&rsquo;s traffic scarcely sounded in that
+      retired and quiet locality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Bommaney himself was a man of sixty, hale and hearty, with a rosy face
+      and white whiskers. He was a broad-shouldered man, inclining to be portly,
+      and he was currently accepted as a man of an indomitable will. There was
+      no particular reason for the popular belief in his determination apart
+      from the fact that it was a favourite boast of his that nothing ever got
+      him down. On all occasions and in all companies he was wont to declare
+      that no conceivable misfortune could really break a man of spirit. He
+      confessed to a pitying sympathy for mealy-willed people (and everybody
+      knew that Bommaney, in spite of his own strength of mind, was one of the
+      kindliest creatures in the world); but, whenever he met a man in trouble,
+      he would clip him by the shoulder, and would say, in his own hearty
+      fashion, &lsquo;You must look the thing in the face, my boy. Look it in the
+      face. I&rsquo;d never let anything break <i>me</i> down.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since his reputation for fortitude was as solid and as old-fashioned
+      amongst the people who knew him as his business character itself, it would
+      have come as something of a shock upon any of his friends if he could but
+      have been seen by them, or any credible man amongst them, on a certain
+      afternoon in the April of 1880. He had locked himself in his own room,
+      and, sitting there in a big chair before a businesslike desk, with a great
+      number of docketed papers in pigeon-holes, and a disordered mass of papers
+      strewn before him, the determined Mr. Bommaney, the decided Mr. Bommaney,
+      the Mr. Bommaney whom no misfortune could subdue, was crying, very feebly
+      and quietly, and was mopping his rosy cheeks, and blowing his nose in an
+      utter and unrestraining abandonment to trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another fact which would have come upon his friends with an
+      equal shock of surprise if they could but have had it brought home to
+      them. The man who sat unaffectedly crying in the big chair in helpless
+      contemplation of the scattered papers was a hopeless bankrupt, and had
+      seen himself sliding towards bankruptcy for years. When men who knew him
+      wanted business advice, they went to him by preference, and nobody came
+      away empty. He knew the City and its intricacies like a book. He knew who
+      was safe and who was shaky, as if by a kind of instinct, and he knew where
+      and when to invest, and where and when not to invest, as few men did. &lsquo;You
+      can&rsquo;t get at me,&rsquo; he would say; for, old-fashioned as he was, he used a
+      little of the new-fashioned slang to give spice and vigour to his
+      conversation. &lsquo;There isn&rsquo;t a move on the board that I don&rsquo;t know.&rsquo; He
+      advised his friends excellently, and there were perhaps half a score of
+      fairly well-to-do speculative people who had to thank him, and him alone,
+      for the comfort they lived in and the consideration they enjoyed. He had
+      been wise for others all his life, and in his own interests he had always
+      acted like a greenhorn. He talked loudly, he spent freely, he paid his
+      way, he expressed the soundest business maxims, and was as shrewd in
+      detail as he was wise in generalities, and these things made a natural
+      reputation for him: whilst he traded for years at the expense of his
+      capital, and went steadily and surely towards the bottomless gulf of
+      insolvency. Now he was on the very verge of it, and to-morrow he would be
+      in it. It lent a feeble sting to his sufferings to know how surprised
+      people would be, and how completely men would find him out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not very profoundly involved other people in his own ruin, but he
+      had gone a little farther than a man altogether brave, and honourable, and
+      clearsighted would have ventured, and he knew that some would suffer with
+      him. He might have made arrangements to go a little farther still if he
+      had been courageous, clear-sighted, and dishonest, and might have held his
+      head up for another matter too, perhaps. But he had lacked the nerve for
+      that, and had never consciously been a rogue. He felt even now a pride of
+      honesty. He had been unfortunate, and his creditors would have everything&mdash;everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thanked God that Phil&rsquo;s mother had tied her money on her only son, and
+      that the boy at least had enough to begin the world with. How should he
+      face Phil when he came home again? How should he send the news to him? The
+      lad was away enjoying himself, travelling all round the world with a
+      wandering Baronet, who owned a yacht and had an unappeasable taste for the
+      destruction of big game. He would have to surrender his fashionable and
+      titled acquaintance now, poor fellow, and begin the world with a disgraced
+      and broken frame to be a drag and hindrance to him. The more Mr. Bommaney
+      thought of these things, the more unrestrainedly he cried; and the more he
+      cried, the less he felt able or inclined to control his tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wept almost silently, only an occasional sniff betraying his emotion to
+      his ear. He had always held his head so high, and had been so believed in.
+      It was very bitter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whilst he was in the midst of this childish abandonment to his grief a set
+      of knuckles softly and hesitatingly tapped the door from without, and
+      directly afterwards a hand made a tentative respectful sort of attempt
+      upon the handle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Who&rsquo;s there?&rsquo; cried Mr. Bommaney, steadying his voice as best he could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;A gentleman to see you, sir,&rsquo; answered a smooth voice outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Bommaney pushed back his chair, rose to his feet, and retiring to a
+      smaller room consulted a little square looking-glass which hung upon the
+      wall above his washing-stand. His blue eyes were very tearful and a little
+      swollen, his cheeks and nose looked as if they had been scalded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Wait a moment,&rsquo; he said aloud, and his voice betrayed him by a break. He
+      blushed and trembled, thinking that Mr. Hornett, his confidential clerk,
+      would know how he was breaking down, and would speak of his want of
+      courage and self-command hereafter. The reflection nerved him somewhat,
+      and he sluiced his face with water, making a little unnecessary noise of
+      splashing to tell the listener how he was engaged. He polished his face
+      with the towel, and, consulting the mirror again, thought he looked a
+      little better.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he re-entered his business room, and turning the key in the lock
+      opened the door slightly, a mere inch or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Who is it?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;A Mr. Brown, sir,&rsquo; said the smooth voice outside. The clerk insinuated a
+      card through the space between the door and door-jamb, and Mr. Bommaney
+      took it from his fingers without revealing himself. He had some difficulty
+      in making out its inscription, for his eyes were newly tearful, and,
+      whilst he peered at it, a reflex of his late emotions brought a sniffling
+      sob again. He was freshly ashamed at this, and said hastily,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Five minutes&rsquo; time. I will ring when I am ready. Ask the gentleman to
+      wait.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. James Hornett softly closed the door, and stood on the landing with
+      long lean fingers scraping at his lantern jaws. He was a little man, short
+      of stature, and sparely built. His skin was vealy in complexion, and he
+      had wiry hair of a russet-red. Even when he was clean shaven his fingers
+      rasped upon his hollow cheeks with a faint sound. His nose and chin were
+      long and pointed, and his manner was meek and self-effacing even when he
+      was alone. There was a tinge of wonder in his face, at war with an
+      habitual smile, in which his eyes had no part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Something wrong?&rsquo; he said, under his breath. He went creeping softly down
+      the stairs. &lsquo;Something wrong? Mr. Bommaney in tears? Mr. Bommaney!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Could anything have happened to Mr. Phil? That was the only thing Mr.
+      Hornett could think of as being likely to affect his employer in that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Mr. Hornett had been in his present employ for thirty years, man and
+      boy, and he was human. Therefore, when at the expiration of a little more
+      than five minutes&rsquo; time Mr. Bommaney&rsquo;s bell rang, he himself ushered the
+      visitor upstairs, and in place of retiring to his own pew below stairs,
+      lingered in a desert little apartment rarely used, and then stole out upon
+      the landing and listened. He was the more prompted to this because the
+      visitor, who had a bucolic hearty aspect, and was very talkative, had told
+      him downstairs that Mr. Bommaney and himself were old friends and
+      schoolfellows, and had been in each other&rsquo;s confidence for years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I am afraid, sir,&rsquo; Mr. Hornett had said, when the visitor first presented
+      himself, &lsquo;that Mr. Bommaney may not be able to see you at present. He gave
+      orders not to be disturbed.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Not see me?&rsquo; said the visitor with a laugh. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll engage he will.&rsquo; And
+      then followed the statement about his old acquaintanceship with Mr.
+      Hornett&rsquo;s employer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If there were anything to be told at all, it seemed not unlikely that this
+      visitor might be the recipient of the intelligence, and Mr. Hornett
+      lingered to find if haply he might overhear. He heard nothing that
+      enlightened him as to the reasons for his employer&rsquo;s disturbance, but
+      heard most that passed between the two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney had succeeded in composing himself and in washing away the traces
+      of his tears. Then he had taken a stiffish dose of brandy and water, and
+      was something like his own man again. He received his visitor cordially,
+      and in his anxiety not to seem low-spirited was a little more boisterous
+      than common.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m busy, you see,&rsquo; he said, waving a hand at the papers scattered on the
+      desk, and keeping up the farce of prosperous merchandise to the last, &lsquo;but
+      I can spare <i>you</i> a minute or two, old man. What brings you up to
+      town?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve come here to settle,&rsquo; said the visitor. He was a florid man with
+      crisp black hair with a hint of gray in it, and he was a countryman from
+      head to heel. He seemed a little disposed to flaunt his bucolics upon the
+      town, his hat, his necktie, his boots and gaiters, were of so countrified
+      a fashion, and yet he looked somehow more of a gentleman than Bommaney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve come to settle.&rsquo; He rubbed his hands and laughed
+      here, not because there was anything humorous and amusing in his thoughts,
+      but out of sheer health and jollity of nature. Bommaney, still distrustful
+      of his own aspect, and afraid of being observed, sat opposite to him with
+      bent head and fidgeted with his papers, blindly pretending to arrange
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;To settle,&rsquo; he said absently. Then, rousing himself with an effort, &lsquo;I
+      thought you hated London?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Ah, my boy,&rsquo; said his visitor, &lsquo;when you&rsquo;re in the shafts with a whip
+      behind you, you&rsquo;ve got to go where you are driven.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; said Bommaney mechanically, &lsquo;that is so. That <i>is</i> so.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The visitor was laughing and rubbing his hands again in perfect happiness
+      and self-contentment, and had no eye for Bommaney&rsquo;s abstraction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;it&rsquo;s Patty&rsquo;s doing. I&rsquo;ve sold up every stick and stone,
+      and I&rsquo;ve taken a house in Gower Street. Do you know, Bommaney,&rsquo; he added,
+      with an air and voice suddenly serious and confidential, &lsquo;the country&rsquo;s
+      going to the devil. Land&rsquo;s sinking in value every year. I&rsquo;ve been farming
+      at a growing loss these six years, and rents don&rsquo;t come in as they used to
+      do. I got my chance and I took it. Lord Bellamy wanted to join the Mount
+      Royal and the three estates. My little bit o&rsquo; land lay between &lsquo;em, and I
+      sold it to him. Sold it, too, begad, as well as I could have done half a
+      dozen years ago.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he laughed once more with great heartiness, and unbuttoning his
+      overcoat, groped in an inner pocket. After a struggle, in the course of
+      which he grew very red in the face, he drew forth a pocket-book of unusual
+      dimensions, and slapped it on the desk so vigorously that his companion
+      started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I got a tip the other day,&rsquo; he went on; &lsquo;that old bank at Mount Royal,
+      Fellowes and Fellowes, is going to crack up, my boy. There&rsquo;s something
+      very queer in the commercial atmosphere just now, Bommaney. There are lots
+      of old-fashioned solid people breaking up.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Bommaney&rsquo;s uneasy fancy there was in his visitor&rsquo;s voice an accent
+      which sounded personal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&mdash;I hope not,&rsquo; he answered, somewhat feebly, &lsquo;so much depends&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; 
+      (he tried hard to rally himself), &lsquo;so much depends upon a spirit of
+      commercial confidence.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Exactly,&rsquo; cried the visitor, laying hands&rsquo; upon the pocket-book and
+      opening it. &lsquo;I went to the bank and saw young Fellowes myself. &ldquo;Look here,
+      Fellowes,&rdquo; I told him, &ldquo;I want my daughter&rsquo;s money.&rdquo; He stuck to it, sir;
+      like a dog holding on to a bone. He growled about it, and he whined about
+      it, said it wasn&rsquo;t fair to withdraw the money on short notice. Said I
+      couldn&rsquo;t do better with it anywhere, and at last I told him, &ldquo;Look here,
+      Fellowes, I shall begin to think by and by there&rsquo;s something wrong.&rdquo; He
+      went as red as a turkey-cock, begad, and drew a note on their London agent
+      like a lord, and here I am with the money. Eight thousand pounds.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time he had drawn a bundle of bank-notes from the pocket-book, and
+      now sat flicking the edges of the notes with the tips of his great broad
+      fingers. Bommaney heard the crisp music, and looked up with a momentary
+      glance of hunger in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That&rsquo;s Patty&rsquo;s little private handful,&rsquo; the visitor continued, opening
+      the packet of notes, and smoothing it upon his knee. &lsquo;Eighty notes of a
+      hundred. Pretty little handful, isn&rsquo;t it? They don&rsquo;t look,&rsquo; he added, with
+      his head reflectively on one side and his eyebrows raised a little, &lsquo;they
+      don&rsquo;t look as they&rsquo;d buy as much as they will.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney tried to find a commonplace word by answer, and an inaudible
+      something died drily in his throat. When his companion began to speak
+      again, the bankrupt merchant wondered that he made no comment on his
+      ghastly face&mdash;he knew his face was ghastly&mdash;or his shaking
+      hands. There was an intuition in his mind so strong and clear that he
+      trembled at its prophecy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Patty,&rsquo; said the visitor, &lsquo;will have everything in time, and a pretty
+      good handful, too. But she&rsquo;s bent on being independent, and she wants to
+      have her own money in her own hands. She pretends it&rsquo;s all because she
+      wants to pay her milliner&rsquo;s bills, and that kind of thing, herself; but I
+      know better. The fact is&rsquo;&mdash;he lowered his voice and chuckled&mdash;&lsquo;the
+      fact is, she doesn&rsquo;t want me to know how much she spends in charity. You
+      look here, Bommaney&rsquo;&mdash;the merchant&rsquo;s heart seemed to stand still, and
+      then to beat so wild an alarum that he wondered the other did not hear it
+      The intuition multiplied in strength. He heard beforehand the spoken
+      words, the very tones which marked them. &lsquo;You&rsquo;re a safe man, you&rsquo;re a
+      smart man. I suppose there isn&rsquo;t anybody in London who can lay out money
+      to more advantage than you can. I know it&rsquo;s a great favour to ask, but I
+      think you&rsquo;ll do it for Patty&rsquo;s sake and mine, if I do ask you. Take this,
+      and invest it for her. Will you, now?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood up with the bundle of notes outstretched in his hand. The
+      merchant rose and accepted it, and looked him, with a sudden curious calm
+      and steadiness, straight in the face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Bommaney was alone again, and if it had not been for the actual
+      presence of the bundle of bank-notes upon the table, he could well have
+      thought that the whole episode had been no more than a dreadful and
+      disturbing dream. It was very hard, he thought complainingly, that a man
+      should come and put so horrible a temptation in his way. He would not
+      yield to it&mdash;of course he would not yield to it. He had been an
+      honest and honourable man all his life long, and had never so much as felt
+      a monetary temptation until now. It was humiliating to feel it now&mdash;it
+      was horrible to have his fingers itching for another man&rsquo;s money, and his
+      heart coveting it, and his brain, in spite of himself, devising countless
+      means of use for it. It was quite unbearable to know that the money <i>might</i>
+      tide him over his troubles and land him in prosperity again, if he could
+      only dare to use it, and risk engulfing it with the lost wreckage of his
+      own fortunes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But no, no, no. He had never meant to use it. His only reason for
+      accepting it had been that he had not found the courage to declare his
+      true position to his old friend and school companion. Perhaps, he told
+      himself (trying to silence and cajole that inward monitor and accuser who
+      would not be silenced or cajoled), perhaps if Brown had been less
+      confident and truthful&mdash;if he had had less faith in his old
+      companion&rsquo;s powers as a man of business&mdash;it would have come easier to
+      tell the truth. And how futile a thing it was to stave off discovery for a
+      single day! How doubly ashamed he would have to feel after that poor
+      pretence of responsible solidity! If he had only been disposed to be
+      tempted at all&mdash;here surely was an added reason for yielding to
+      temptation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Obviously the first, and, indeed, the only thing to be done, was to bank
+      this money in Brown&rsquo;s name, and so have done with it; and yet any feeling
+      of haste in that respect would seem to imply a fear of temptation, which
+      he was, of course, quite resolute not to feel. He was not going any more
+      to run away from his own suspicion of himself than he would have run from
+      another man&rsquo;s. So, in and out, and up and down, contradicting himself at
+      every turning, with an underlying surety in his mind so fast rooted and so
+      dreadful that he did not dare to look at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the adieux were being said between the old friends, Mr. James Hornett
+      had slid noiselessly downstairs, his mind inflated by pride. He was not
+      proud of having played the eavesdropper, for even in Mr. Hornett&rsquo;s economy
+      of things, that was an act to be proud of; but he was very proud, indeed,
+      to be associated with a gentleman so magnificently respected as Mr.
+      Bommaney. There were not so very many people, he told himself, even in the
+      City of London, which was full of wealth and probity, into whose hands so
+      large a sum would be placed with so little a sense of the necessity of
+      precaution. He felt as if he himself had been treated in this majestic
+      manner, and the feeling warmed his heart. He bowed Mr. Brown from the
+      office door with an <i>empressement</i> which he feared a moment later
+      might almost have betrayed him, and he went about his duties for the rest
+      of the day in a mood of unusual contentment. The earlier memory of his
+      employer&rsquo;s disturbance crossed him sometimes, and always excited his
+      curiosity; but the later feeling dominated him. He was delighted by his
+      association with a concern so eminently respectable as that of Bommaney,
+      Waite, and Co.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Mr. Hornett&rsquo;s employer, with that dreadful rooted secret in his
+      mind, which he did not dare to look at, sat alone, looking with staring
+      eyes before him, and drumming in a regular tune upon the topmost note of
+      the terrible little pile. He had locked the notes away before Brown&rsquo;s
+      departure, but they had seemed to draw him to the safe with almost a
+      physical compulsion, and he had brought them out again to look at them, to
+      handle them, to count them, to resolve in his own mind that he did not
+      hanker after them, and was honourable to the core. It was so new a thing
+      to be tempted, that at times his own self-deception was made easy to him.
+      It did not occur to him to reflect that the need and the means had never
+      so presented themselves together until now, or that his life-long honour
+      had depended upon their absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had sat in silence for a while he awoke to the fact that the
+      interview had been nothing but a succession of shocks to him, and that he
+      was bodily exhausted. He rose, and, walking feebly to the inner room,
+      applied himself anew to the brandy bottle he kept there. He had gone much
+      too often to that deceptive solace lately, and he knew it; but each
+      successive visit carried its own excuses with it, and it had never in any
+      individual instance been worth while to resist a habit which it was always
+      easy to condemn in the main.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The brandy enlightened him and opened new sluices of emotion. Perhaps for
+      the moment he was a better man because of it. He seemed to wake to a more
+      determined sense of the enormity of the temptation which lay before him.
+      He thought of his own son, and a shadow took him from head to foot as, in
+      a brandified nervous vision, he beheld some shadowy supposititious
+      creature in the act of telling the tale to Phil. The vice of drink has had
+      the creation of many other vices laid to its charge, but for once in the
+      world&rsquo;s history the obfuscated vision was clearer than the natural, and
+      Philip drunk a better man, and a more righteous and honourable, than
+      Philip sober.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At bottom, Philip Bommaney knew himself too well to be at all sure that
+      this phase of feeling would endure with him; and in a half-conscious dread
+      of the return of that baser self, whose first appearance in his history
+      had so affrighted him, he hurriedly attired himself for out-of-doors,
+      crammed the bundle of notes into an inner pocket of his overcoat, and,
+      after a final appeal to the decanter, left his room with a somewhat
+      hysteric sense of courage and self-approval. He had been tempted&mdash;he
+      was ready to recognise that the temptation was over, that he had well-nigh
+      succumbed to it&mdash;but he had triumphed! He was a man again. He had
+      been weighed in the balances and not found wanting. There were some tears
+      in his eyes compounded of brandy and nerves and affections and remorses as
+      he hurried into the street. Phil should never be ashamed of his father.
+      Old Brown, who had trusted him like a brother, should never learn to shun
+      and hate him. He had to go under&mdash;the thing was inevitable,
+      unescapable, but he would at least go under like a man. His heart beat to
+      the tune of the &lsquo;Conquering Hero,&rsquo; where it might have beat to the
+      &lsquo;Rogue&rsquo;s March,&rsquo; but for that friendly nip of brandy and the all-covering
+      mercies of Heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quickly as his resolution had been taken, he had fully arranged for the
+      details of the task which lay before him. With the notes he had thrust
+      into his pocket a little handful of business papers involving a knotty and
+      delicate point of business, and he intended that the discussion of the
+      point they raised should act as the prelude to the disclosure and the
+      restitution he desired to make. He could not, even in his newfound
+      heroism, and with whatever hysteric hardihood he was prepared to meet the
+      stroke of fate, he could not as yet encounter Brown, and lay bare before
+      him the plot of the melancholy farce he had played an hour ago. But there
+      was an old friend of his, and an old friend of Brown&rsquo;s into the bargain, a
+      solicitor, keen as a needle and kindly as sunshine, one Barter, whose
+      business chambers were in Gable Inn, and who was of all men the man he
+      could confide in with least shame and best hope of help. He hailed a cab,
+      and bade the driver drive his fastest. Gable Inn lay tranquil, the
+      afternoon shadows already settling deeper on the little quadrangle than on
+      the broad and roaring thoroughfare without. There was no light in the
+      windows of the rooms in which Messrs. Fellowship, Freemantle, and Barter
+      had done business and received their clients fifty years ago, and in which
+      the sole surviving member of the firm still maintained its old-established
+      reputation for honour and astuteness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney was chilled by the silence and darkness of the rooms, and he
+      shivered to see the temptation he had conquered looming again before him.
+      He knocked loudly with a trembling hand, and the noise of iron on iron
+      went rolling and echoing up the staircase and came back in a hollow,
+      lonely, sounding murmur from the rooms within. His heart sank, and a
+      horrible fear of himself got hold of him. He had actually conquered, and
+      here was the fight to be fought over again with almost a certainty of
+      defeat at the end of it. Indeed, the defeat in that bare moment of time
+      had grown so certain, that he was conscious of a distinct state of
+      disappointment when a sudden footstep within the rooms answered his noisy
+      summons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door opened, and a young man stood before him, peering at him with
+      half-closed uncertain eyes through the dark. He was a young man of the
+      fleshly school, something too stout for his years, very pallid, and more
+      than commonly personable, with a fine broad forehead, fine frank eyes, and
+      features modelled with an engaging regularity. When he recognised his
+      visitor his pale and handsome face glittered with a sudden smile of
+      welcome, teeth and eyes gleaming quite brightly, and the whole face
+      lighting up in the pleasantest and friendliest fashion conceivable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This agreeable expression faded into one of almost mechanical dolor, and
+      the personable young man shook hands with Mr. Bommaney sadly, and sighed
+      as if he suddenly recalled an idea that sighing was a duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Come in, Mr. Bommaney,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;Come in, sir. I have sent home all the
+      clerks, and was just about to lock up for the night. To what do I owe the
+      pleasure of this visit? Let me light the gas.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney, the door being closed behind him, stumbled along the darkened
+      passage after the more assured and accustomed steps of young Mr. Barter,
+      and the inner office being gained, and the gas being lighted, allowed
+      himself to be motioned to a chair. What with having been too much agitated
+      by the contemplation of his troubles to be able to eat at all that day,
+      and what with the fight he had had with his temptations, and the too
+      frequent applications he had made to the brandy, it happened that for the
+      moment he was by no means certain of his purpose. He sat for a little
+      while wondering rather hazily what had brought him there. As often happens
+      with absent-minded people, his hands remembered what had been required of
+      them before his brain began to act again, and by and by the fact that he
+      had unbuttoned his overcoat, and had taken a bundle of papers from his
+      pocket, recalled him to his purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I wanted,&rsquo; he said, emerging from his haze, and holding the bundle of
+      papers nervously in both hands, &lsquo;I wanted to see your father upon very
+      special and urgent business.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;My father?&rsquo; the young man answered, with a look and accent of pained
+      surprise. &lsquo;Do you mean to say, sir, that you haven&rsquo;t heard the news?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;The news?&rsquo; cried Bommaney, feeling blindly as if some new misfortune
+      threatened him. &lsquo;What news?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;My father, sir,&rsquo; said young Mr. Barter, with a certain blending of
+      professional airs, something of a legal impress mingled with something of
+      the manner of a medical man conveying mournful intelligence to the
+      relatives of a patient, &lsquo;my father, sir, was struck down by an omnibus in
+      the street this morning. He is terribly injured, and not expected to
+      recover.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;God bless my soul!&rsquo; Bommaney cried out. His chin fell upon his breast,
+      and his eyes stared at the floor, seeing nothing. He felt like a man upon
+      a raft, who sees the bindings of the frail thing break apart. Shipwrecked
+      already, and now the last hope gone! He hardly knew, if he could have
+      asked himself the question clearly, why he so particularly desired to see
+      Barter. He hardly knew what Barter could have done for him, except to
+      listen to his troubles and take charge of the eight thousand pounds which
+      tempted him, and yet the disappointment seemed as heavy and as hard to
+      bear as anything he had hitherto endured. He sat staring forlornly before
+      him, with tears in his eyes, and young Mr. Barter, in much astonishment at
+      his susceptibility and tenderness, sat watching him. Something slid from
+      Bommaney&rsquo;s hands with a rustle, and dropped upon the floor. Young Mr.
+      Barter made a mere hint or beginning of a movement, as if he would have
+      picked it up for him. Bommaney made no movement at all, but stared before
+      him with his blue-gray eyes filling more and more with tears, until two or
+      three brimmed over and trickled down his cheeks. He said, &lsquo;God bless my
+      soul!&rsquo; once more, mechanically, and restored what remained of his bundle
+      of papers to his pocket. Young Mr. Barter looked with one swift and vivid
+      glance from the fallen bundle to his guest&rsquo;s face, then back again.
+      Bommaney rose from his seat, buttoned his overcoat with awkward and
+      lingering fingers, and put on his hat. He was evidently unconscious of his
+      own tears, and made no attempt to disguise them, or to wipe them away. He
+      said, &lsquo;God bless my soul!&rsquo; a third time, and then, shaking young Mr.
+      Barter by the hand, murmured that he was sorry, very sorry, and so went
+      stupidly away. Young Mr. Barter accompanied him to the door, casting a
+      strange backward glance at the papers as he left the room, and was
+      curiously voluble in his dismissal of his visitor. Anything he could do&mdash;Mr.
+      Bommaney might rest perfectly assured&mdash;the clerks would be back
+      to-morrow in any case&mdash;he would advise Mr. Bommaney of his father&rsquo;s
+      condition by that night&rsquo;s post&mdash;he himself was naturally most
+      profoundly anxious. In this wise he talked Bommaney from the chambers, and
+      when once he had closed the door behind him, went back along the dark
+      little corridor with an unnecessarily catlike tread. He could hardly have
+      been other than certain that he was alone, yet when he reached the inner
+      room he looked about him with a keen quick darting suspicion, and for half
+      a minute ignored the fallen papers on the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Dear me!&rsquo; he said, when at length he suffered his eyes to rest upon them.
+      &lsquo;What can that be? How did that come here?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stooped, picked up the papers, laid them upon his desk, and smoothed
+      them out, making a fold lengthways to counteract the creases into which
+      they had already fallen. He saw a crisp clean Bank of England note for a
+      hundred pounds, and, lifting it, found another. Then he lifted half the
+      bundle, and, finding a note of the same value, gave an inward gasp, and
+      expelled his breath slowly after it. Then he looked at the last note of
+      all, and sat down with the whole bundle in his hands. His pale and fleshy
+      features had taken an unusual colour, and his breathing was a good deal
+      disturbed. A watcher might have guessed that he was profoundly agitated
+      from the swift unintermittent rustle the paper made in his hands. He
+      seemed to sit as steady as a rock, and yet the crisp paper rustled
+      noisily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Brown&rsquo;s bank-notes had been a fruitful source of emotion that day
+      already, and, in Bommaney&rsquo;s mind at least, had raised very dreadful doubts
+      and perplexities. There were doubts and perplexities in the mind of young
+      Mr. Barter, but they were altogether of another order. Young Mr. Barter
+      was perfectly aware that he was being tempted, and felt that, in its way,
+      the temptation wets a kind of godsend. He even said as much in a low
+      murmur to himself. His perplexities related to other things than the fear
+      of any fall from honour. Bommaney had evidently been very queer. Bommaney
+      had been horribly cut up about something, even before he heard the news
+      the young solicitor had to give him. But was he so disturbed as to be
+      likely to forget where he had last secured so considerable a sum of money?
+      This mental inquiry naturally set young Mr. Barter to work to discover how
+      considerable the sum of money actually was. He laid the notes upon the
+      table, and tried to wet his thumb upon his lips. There was no moisture
+      there, and his mouth was as dry as touchwood. He drank a little water, and
+      then began to count the notes. He made them eighty-one at first; and then,
+      recounting, made them seventy-nine. Counting them a third time, he made
+      them eighty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Damn it all!&rsquo; said young Mr. Barter, &lsquo;can&rsquo;t I count? I suppose the old
+      buffer will come back for them.&rsquo; He tried a fourth time, and confirmed his
+      third counting. &lsquo;They&rsquo;ll get stopped at the Bank,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;They&rsquo;ll be no
+      use to anybody.&rsquo; He sat for a while thinking, with his eyes half-closed,
+      drumming out a tune upon the table with the tips of his fat white fingers,
+      then he folded the notes with great precision and delicacy, put them into
+      his pocket, found his hat, overcoat, and walking-stick, and made ready for
+      the streets. In the quiet of these legal chambers many chance noises from
+      without had from time to time been clearly audible. He heard now a
+      hurrying step upon the pavement of the quadrangle, and, with a palpitation
+      at the heart, he moved swiftly to put out the light, and listened. The
+      step stumbled at the entrance to the staircase, at the foot of which the
+      outer door stood closed. Young Mr. Barter&rsquo;s heart beat, if possible,
+      faster than before; and the veins in his head so throbbed, that only the
+      confining rim of his hat seemed to keep his head itself from bursting.
+      There came an eager summons at the door, an imperative rapping with the
+      head of a stout walking-stick. He set his teeth, and, drawing back his
+      lips with a horrible smile in the dark, breathed noiselessly. The rapping
+      grew more and more imperative and urgent, and then came a preternatural
+      silence, with an undercurrent of distant sound in it, and the sudden blare
+      of a cornet in the street, which sounded to his nerves like the trumpet of
+      the herald of the day of judgment He heard the hurrying feet plunge down
+      the steps again, and cross the quadrangle, and listened until their sound
+      merged into the dull noises of the London night. He stood in the dark
+      after this for what seemed a long time, learning that his features
+      twitched, and teaching himself to control them. Then he left his chambers
+      with great secrecy, and broke into a cold sweat to think, as he stood half
+      through the doorway, how narrowly he had escaped from slamming the door
+      behind him. This was an act which might have been suicidal in its
+      stupidity; for to give any sign of his presence there after that
+      thundering summons at the door would have been to betray himself beyond
+      redemption. He inserted his latch-key noiselessly, and, crouching to
+      escape imagined observers, drew the door gently after him, and turned the
+      key slowly in the lock. As he did this he heard a footstep and a cough
+      together close at hand, and, turning with a start, beheld a pale and
+      slender man of brief stature, who scraped his lantern jaws with apologetic
+      thumb and finger, and looking at him with a startled meekness, as if he
+      would fain propitiate anger for a possible intrusion, sidled to the foot
+      of the stairs, mounted the stairway with a backward glance and a second
+      cough of apology, and so disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Mr. Barter, with his nerves already shaken by this small episode,
+      walked into the main thoroughfare and merged with the crowd, bearing Mr.
+      Bommaney&rsquo;s eight thousand pounds with him. When he had walked for a while
+      he hailed a cab, and was driven home. He had, or prided himself on having,
+      an exceptional eye for horseflesh, but it was not his faculty in this
+      direction which had led him to choose a cab horsed by a brute of unusual
+      symmetry and swiftness. This was an accident, but, like other accidents in
+      this perplexed world, it served its purpose. It landed him at the paternal
+      door in Harley Street almost at the instant at which Bommaney arrived
+      there in pursuit of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, although young Mr. Barter had not calculated on meeting Bommaney so
+      soon, and although the meeting was naturally something of a shock to him,
+      he had already schooled himself for interview and inquiry. He went a
+      little paler than common as he grasped his father&rsquo;s old friend by the hand
+      for the third time that evening, and trembled ever so little as he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I half expected to find you here,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;I could see how moved you
+      were by the news of my father&rsquo;s illness.&rsquo; The door stood open, and the
+      old-fashioned man-servant within had been in the act of closing it upon
+      Bommaney&rsquo;s retreating figure when cab number two had driven up, and the
+      young master of the house had alighted from it. &lsquo;Is the news worse or
+      better?&rsquo; He laid both hands upon Bommaney&rsquo;s arms as he put this question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elderly servitor, who had never had reason given to him to believe
+      that young Mr. Barter was above the reasonable attached to his father, was
+      a little surprised to see the young man so moved. He drew the door gently
+      after him, and came out upon the steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m afraid, Mr. John,&rsquo; he murmured sympathetically, &lsquo;that it&rsquo;s
+      practically all over, sir. The poor gentleman&rsquo;s quite unconscious, and the
+      doctor don&rsquo;t expect him to last till morning.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Mr. Barter&rsquo;s mind was active, and accustomed to rapid movement. He
+      knew at once that the old servant read the signs of disturbance in his
+      face and manner, and how far he misread them. So, to insure the
+      misreading, he took out his handkerchief, and groaned at this melancholy
+      intelligence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&mdash;&mdash;,&rsquo; began Bommaney, stammering and speaking a little
+      thickly, &lsquo;I didn&rsquo;t come to ask about your father.&rsquo; Young Barter&rsquo;s heart at
+      this, though he was perfectly prepared for it, began to beat like a
+      sledgehammer. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve had a dreadful loss. I have called nowhere but at your
+      office since I left my own, and I have lost eight thousand pounds. I am
+      convinced that I must have left it there.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I can&rsquo;t think so, Mr. Bommaney,&rsquo; said Barter, with a face of innocence.&rsquo; 
+      We can go back together, if you like, and look for it.&rsquo; Bommaney&rsquo;s driver
+      lingered for him; the other cabman was already jingling leisurely down the
+      street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Johnson,&rsquo; said young Barter, addressing the domestic, &lsquo;you hear what Mr.
+      Bommaney says. This is a matter of the most urgent importance, and must be
+      looked into at once. Tell my mother that I have been home, and that I have
+      been called suddenly back on urgent business.&rsquo; Bommaney stood in a kind of
+      stupid trance, and the young man, taking him by the arm, had some ado to
+      secure his attention. &lsquo;Come! Come, sir,&rsquo; he said; &lsquo;we will look into this
+      at once. You must not remain in suspense about such a matter.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They rustled together through the straw which had been laid down upon the
+      roadway, and had been scattered by the feet of passers-by upon the
+      pavement, and, mounting the cab, drove in a ghastly silence for a score of
+      yards, and then, with a clatter which made conversation difficult,
+      Bommaney, rousing himself at intervals, shouted his certainty that the
+      notes would prove to have been left at Barter&rsquo;s chambers. Barter, growing
+      curiously inured to the circumstances of the case, shouted back that he
+      dared to say they would be; that it was very likely; that he really did
+      not see where else Mr. Bommaney could possibly have left them, furtively
+      pressing the notes against his breast meanwhile, and once, at a quiet
+      interval, when Bommaney had sunk into his former stupor, venturing to
+      steal a hand to the pocket in which the stolen money lay, caressing the
+      edges of the notes with the tips of his fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m sure,&rsquo; said Bommaney, as the cab pulled up at the gate of the
+      quadrangle, &lsquo;that we shall find them here.&rsquo; He spoke with a tremulous
+      uncertainty, and so obviously appealed for a confirmation of his hope,
+      that Barter felt constrained to answer,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Oh, we are bound to find them.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The striking of a wax vesta at the door of the chambers, the shaky hunt
+      for the key, the well-known obstinacy of the lock, the opening of the
+      door, the fevered working of Bommaney&rsquo;s fingers, and the flushed eagerness
+      of his face, were all memorable to young Barter for many and many a day.
+      They entered together the room in which their interview had taken place;
+      and Barter, nursing the remnant of the flaming vesta, lit the gas with it,
+      and then, dropping it on the floor, set his foot upon it, and looked at
+      his companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Where do you think you left the notes, sir?&rsquo; he asked. &lsquo;Have you any
+      idea? I think you took out some papers here. You wanted to consult my
+      father about them, I fancy, and, if I remember, you returned them to your
+      pocket.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney stood looking about him on the floor, trailing the point of his
+      walking-cane purposelessly hither and thither; and it was at this moment,
+      seeing how confused and broken his victim seemed, that young Mr. Barter
+      tasted the first flavour of safety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t see anything,&rsquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Did you,&rsquo; Bommaney asked him, with both trembling hands grasping the knob
+      of his walking-cane, and shaking in appeal before the unsuspected thief&mdash;&rsquo; 
+      did you lock any papers away before you left?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, young Barter had not had any papers to lock away that
+      evening after Bommaney&rsquo;s departure; but he thought the trick worth
+      playing, and, producing his keys again, opened the heavy iron safe which
+      stood against the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; he said, with an air of hopeful alacrity. &lsquo;By Jove, I did!&rsquo; He
+      stood aside, with an outstretched hand, and motioned Bommaney to examine
+      the contents of the safe. There was a parchment there, there were half a
+      dozen bundles of documents tied in pink tape and docketed; but there were
+      no bank-notes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You know,&rsquo; said Bommaney, with a fretful wail, &lsquo;I must have left them
+      here; I couldn&rsquo;t have left them anywhere else. I put it to you&mdash;could
+      I?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barter looked at him mournfully, with raised eyebrows. There was just a
+      hint of expostulation in his raised eyebrows, and in the expression of his
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You see, sir,&rsquo; he said, waving his white hands&mdash;&rsquo; you see for
+      yourself, there&rsquo;s nothing here.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney walked to a chair, and, sitting down there, lifted up his voice
+      and wept. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve been an honest man, by God! all my life long; and now I&rsquo;m
+      not merely ruined, but I shall be taken for a thief.&rsquo; He cried bitterly
+      after this outburst, with his head between his hands. His hat fell off,
+      and his walking-stick tumbled noisily to the floor. Mr. Barter picked them
+      up, and, having set them on the table, looked at the shaking shoulders,
+      and listened to the ruined man&rsquo;s sobs and wailings. It was a pity&mdash;of
+      course it was a pity&mdash;but young Mr. Barter really did not see how it
+      was in his power to help it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On a chill spring evening the sunset over London gave a brief radiance of
+      colour to the dull gray roof and smoke-stained chimneys of many
+      thoroughfares. Shadows thickened in the eastern skies as if fold after
+      fold of finest crape were drawn over the field of watery and opalescent
+      light the fallen sun had left behind it. In one great thoroughfare running
+      east and west the sky-line of the houses stood distinct, and bathed in
+      light of many colours; whilst down below there was a wall of shadow. Two
+      parallel walls of shadow rose from a shadowy level, and the dusk had a
+      thousand indistinguishable voices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shadowy lines became accented by twin rows of flickering fire, the
+      rear jets seen with a blurred halo of mist round each of them, the halo
+      crawling feebly within itself, tormented by a feeble wind. The long vista
+      of pavement became chequered like a chessboard, with patches of light from
+      shop windows. Gable Inn, staring at the growing darkness with a single
+      fiery eye, looked like a Rip Van Winkle. It had been old when Chaucer and
+      the knights and ladies of whom he sang were young; and its hoary stunted
+      angles and squat chimney cowls had the grave and impassive aspect proper
+      to great age. It has stood there now for over seven hundred years hoarding
+      a growing store of secrets. It is roughly picturesque in every detail, and
+      its every chamber is a triumph of narrowness, obscurity, and
+      inconvenience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the quadrangle the shadows climbed the sturdy walls as if they were an
+      exhalation from the paving-stones. The dim staircase sent down all manner
+      of muffled and echoing voices. Footsteps sounded, and the clang of doors,
+      and the shriek of unwilling keys in rusty locks, and the hurrying traffic
+      of the street without, softened by the moist atmosphere, was like the
+      fading echo of following feet upon the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lights sprang up in the basement windows, telling of protractive legal
+      labours. Lights twinkled in the garrets, telling of lonely study or noisy
+      conviviality in the coming hours of darkness. At length one side of the
+      quadrangle viewed by a solitary watcher from a third-floor window of the
+      opposing side, winked with a hundred windows through the wet air and
+      deepening shadow like a blear-eyed Argus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This watcher, lounging at his own window, was Mr. Philip Bommaney,
+      recently self-entitled the &lsquo;Solitary of Gable Inn.&rsquo; He was
+      eight-and-twenty years of age or thereabouts, a broad-shouldered,
+      deep-chested, manly-looking fellow, with curling brown hair, and a face
+      expressive of pugnacity, good-humour, and many capacities. He was a little
+      weary now, after a long day of satisfactory work. He watched the mounting
+      shadows, and listened to the weird gamut of the wind among the telegraph
+      lines, until the outer voices made his own dull room seem homely. One
+      ruddy tongue of flame from the expiring fire in the grate played on the
+      narrow walls and low ceiling, and woke twinkling reflections in the spare
+      and battered furniture. A man&rsquo;s dwelling-place is always an index to his
+      character when its arrangement depends upon himself; and signs of Philip
+      Bommaney&rsquo;s nature and pursuits were visible in plenty here. There were
+      symmetrical rows of books on the shelves flanking the fire-place. An
+      orderly stack of newspapers occupied one corner of the room, and a set of
+      boxing-gloves lay on top of the pile, and a pair of dumb-bells beside it.
+      A shaded reading-lamp stood upon the table in the midst of a great litter
+      of papers. The barrels of a huge elephant gun flashed dimly from the wall
+      as the firelight played upon them, and two or three lighter weapons were
+      ranged together lower down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned from the window and lit the lamp, and, wheeling round, held up
+      the light to a photograph, and studied it with a pleased face. It was the
+      portrait of a pretty girl, very sweetly grave, and looking as if it could
+      be very sweetly vivacious. When he had looked at it for a longish time he
+      nodded and smiled, as if the pictured lips had actually spoken to him.
+      There was a tumbler standing beside the photograph with a bunch of
+      hothouse flowers in it, the one bright spot of colour in the dingy
+      chamber. He took this in his disengaged hand, and nodding and smiling anew
+      at the pretty girl&rsquo;s portrait, he turned about again, and walked into a
+      bedroom beyond a narrow and inconvenient little window. The strident voice
+      of the clock over the entrance of the old Hall, answered or anticipated
+      from multitudinous spires in the City far and near, sounded as Philip
+      entered his bedroom. He stood and listened, counting six jarring strokes.
+      The bedroom was a microscopic apartment, with as many corners in it as any
+      room of its size in London, and the bed itself was a perfect triumph of
+      littleness, so tucked under the sloping roof, and so surrounded by
+      projecting corners, as to make the entry to it or the exit from it a
+      gymnastic performance of considerable merit. The room was not over-light
+      at the best of times, the fourth part of the space of one small window in
+      the sloping wall was filled by its own heavy framework, and for half its
+      height it was shielded by a parapet, which had at least its uses in hiding
+      the occupant of the room from the too-curious observation of those who
+      dwelt in the upper stories of the houses opposite. These houses opposite,
+      compared with Gable Inn, are of a mushroom modernness, and yet are old
+      enough (having begun with a debauched and sickly constitution) to have
+      fallen into an almost complete decrepitude. Their stately neighbour seems
+      to be less grimy with the London smoke than they are, has always been less
+      susceptible to outside evil influences, even of that unescapable sort, and
+      drives them to an added shabbiness of senility by contrast with its own
+      hale old age. The bedroom window was already open for the admission of
+      such fresh air as, disguised in London blacks, the exhalations of moist
+      spring pavements, and the reeking odours of the cuisine of Fleeter&rsquo;s
+      Rents, might choose to wander thither. Philip, with the lamp in one hand
+      and the tumbler of flowers in the other, put out his head and looked into
+      the squalid depths below him, and having gazed there a while absently and
+      with no object, drew back with a vague touch of pity upon him for the
+      people who dwelt in so much squalor so near to healthy effort and
+      reasonable competence. He could hardly have told as much, perhaps, but one
+      pallid countenance, shining very dimly at an open window, was very much
+      answerable for that vague touch of pity. The face in the darkness started
+      away from the window as he looked at it, as if his own robust health and
+      the light that dwelt about him startled its pinched shabbiness into
+      solitude. He set the tumbler of flowers upon the window-ledge, and closing
+      the window, made his toilet and returned to the sitting-room. Then, having
+      banked up the fire, and set the matches in such a position that he could
+      easily find them, he blew out the lamp, left his chambers, and ran down
+      the tortuous stairs. As he turned the last corner a door clanged noisily,
+      and the next thing of which he was conscious was that he was struggling in
+      the embrace of a stranger whom he had doubled up in an angle of the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I beg your pardon,&rsquo; he said gaspingly; &lsquo;I stumbled.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You did,&rsquo; responded the stranger, gasping also. &lsquo;Rather heavily. It was
+      lucky you had something soft to fall on.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip began to make apologies. The stranger, breathless still, but
+      jovially polite, begged him not to mention it. He was a tallish young man,
+      broad set, and a little too fleshy for his years. He had a cleanshaven
+      face, healthily pallid, the whitest of teeth, and a most frank, engaging,
+      and contagious smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Pray don&rsquo;t say anything more about it,&rsquo; he said in answer to Philip&rsquo;s
+      reiterated apologies. &lsquo;You are not hurt, I hope?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No, thanks; but I&rsquo;m afraid you are.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Not at all. It was sharp for a minute; but I am all right now. The stairs
+      are very inconvenient, especially to strangers.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I haven&rsquo;t even that excuse for my clumsiness, said Philip; &lsquo;for I am
+      living here.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Indeed; then we are neighbours, and should know each other. Rather an
+      informal kind of introduction, eh?&rsquo; The stranger said this with a mellow
+      laugh and a flash of his white teeth. He opened his overcoat as he spoke,
+      and produced a card-case, Philip catching the gleam of a gold-studded
+      shirt-front as he did so. &lsquo;That&rsquo;s my name, John Barter; and these are my
+      offices.&rsquo; The outer oak, cracked and blistered to the likeness of an
+      ancient tar-barrel, bore an inscription, dim with long years&mdash;&lsquo;Fellowship,
+      Freemantle, and Barter&rsquo;&mdash;and the names were repeated on the doorpost
+      at the entrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I have no card,&rsquo; said Philip, accepting the stranger&rsquo;s. &lsquo;My name is
+      Bommaney&mdash;Philip Bom-maney;&rsquo; Mr. Barter&rsquo;s smiling face was unchanged,
+      though he gave a slight but perceptible start at the name, and repeated
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Do you know it?&rsquo; asked Philip. To the ears of his companion there was
+      something of a challenge in the tone. &lsquo;It is not a common name.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No. Not a common name. I think I have heard it somewhere.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were under the archway by this time, in the brief shelter of which
+      the sanguine-faced, red-waist-coated lodge-keeper was taking his nightly
+      constitutional. They answered the touch of the hat with which he saluted
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Which is your way?&rsquo; asked Mr. Barter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Westward,&rsquo; said Phil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Mine is east,&rsquo; said Barter, &lsquo;so we part here. We are bound to meet again
+      before long. Good-night.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Good-night, and many thanks for taking my clumsiness in such good part.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barter&rsquo;s ready smile beamed out again. They shook hands before parting
+      like old acquaintances, and Philip walked on, through the incessant noise
+      of Holborn into quieter Bloomsbury Street, along the eastern side of
+      Bedford Square, where the bare trees were shivering in a bath of fog, and
+      into Gower Street. Half way down that hideous thoroughfare he came upon a
+      house, one of the few which still retain the old lamp-iron and
+      extinguisher before their doors, and knocking, was admitted by a trim
+      maid, with the smiling alacrity due to a frequent and favoured visitor,
+      and by her conducted to the drawing-room, where sat a young lady engaged
+      in a transparent pretence of being absorbed in a novel. The pretence
+      vanished as the door closed behind the handmaiden, and the young lady
+      jumped up and ran forward to meet him, with such a glad welcome in her
+      face as answered the appeal in his own. It does not need that we should
+      look at her with Philip&rsquo;s eyes to pronounce her charmingly pretty, or to
+      admire the face, at once shy and frank, with which she nestled beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I thought you were never coming,&rsquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Am I so late, then?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It seemed so, and now you are come, tell me what you have been doing.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Working, and thinking of you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You work too much, Phil.&rsquo; She did her best to ignore the second item of
+      his day&rsquo;s occupation, but the deepened flush and her avoidance of her
+      lover&rsquo;s eyes answered it more effectively than words could have done. &lsquo;You
+      are getting quite pale and thin. No wonder, sitting all alone all day long
+      in those musty old chambers.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, you see, Patty, the more I work, the sooner I shall cease to be all
+      alone.&rsquo; The flush deepened again, and the hand trembled in his like a
+      caught bird. &lsquo;And as for working too much, I don&rsquo;t believe that&rsquo;s
+      possible. Work never killed anybody yet, and idleness has killed a good
+      many. It&rsquo;s better to work than sit still and wait for briefs which never
+      corns. There&rsquo;s no sensation more delightful than that of looking at a good
+      day&rsquo;s work, and thinking that every line and word has brought me nearer to
+      you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His tenderness conquered her shyness, and she nestled closer still,
+      looking up at him with a wholehearted admiration and affection. He felt a
+      little sad and unworthy under it, as almost any honest fellow would have
+      been sure to do, and yet it was wonderfully sweet to him, and more than
+      reward enough for any effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I wish I could help you, Phil. I wish I could do something for you, when
+      you have given up so much for me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Hush!&rsquo; he said, laying his hand lightly upon her lips. &lsquo;We made up our
+      minds long ago that no more was to be said about that.&rsquo; He was tender
+      still&mdash;he could be nothing else with her&mdash;but there was a touch
+      of sternness in his manner, too&mdash;as if the theme pained him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;But I can&rsquo;t help thinking of it. It was so noble of you, Phil.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It was the only thing to be done&mdash;the only thing possible. It was&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; 
+      he paused for a second, and then went on resolutely&mdash;&lsquo;it was my
+      father&rsquo;s act by which you suffered. I should have been a scoundrel if I
+      had done otherwise.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;And are you to do all? and am I to do nothing? It is selfish to keep all
+      the generosity to yourself.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed as if he found this female paradox a pleasant fancy, but she
+      was not to be put off so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;If the subject pains you, as I know it does, dear, please understand why
+      I speak of it I don&rsquo;t want you to think I take your sacrifice as you
+      pretend to take it. It isn&rsquo;t a matter of course, as you pretend it is; and
+      you may say what you like, Phil, but it isn&rsquo;t a thing that everybody would
+      have done. Don&rsquo;t grudge me my gratitude; you did it for the love of me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I didn&rsquo;t do it for the love of you,&rsquo; said Phil, laughing tenderly; &lsquo;how
+      often am I to tell you that, you little mountain of obstinacy? I did it
+      because it was the right thing. I don&rsquo;t say, mind you, that it wasn&rsquo;t
+      easier to do it for you than it might have been for somebody I didn&rsquo;t know
+      or care for; but that&mdash;as you will see quite clearly if you&rsquo;ll bring
+      your naturally logical mind to bear upon it&mdash;makes the thing so much
+      the less creditable, provided there was any credit due to it at all.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The loving feminine scorn of this masculine process of reasoning was
+      expressed in a single glance, and was delightful to see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It only means waiting a little longer before I claim you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl would fain have asked, &lsquo;Why should you wait when I have enough
+      for both by your gift? What does it matter which of us it is who has the
+      money&mdash;you or I?&rsquo; But this question went unspoken, for obvious
+      reasons. A woman is tongue-tied by the countless conventionalities of
+      education. She must often let her thoughts lie silent in her heart, though
+      she burns to express them, and find what answer she can to questions she
+      dare not offer. Philip had repaired her loss by beggaring himself. That
+      was noble. But now he persisted in deferring their marriage, and had
+      buried himself in that lofty sarcophagus in Gable Inn, resolved only to
+      claim her, though she was all his own already, when he had reinstated his
+      fortunes by his labour. That was noble also, perhaps, but in her own heart
+      she thought it a trifle foolish&mdash;say Quixotic, not to be too severe.
+      She would rather have seen his ardour find a more commonplace expression.
+      She had a general sort of belief that whatever Philip did was bound to be
+      right, and yet this actual experience rather jarred with that assumption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They found other themes in a while, and talked of the future and the
+      happiness it would bring. That Philip was going to be rich and famous was
+      a prime article in Patty&rsquo;s creed, and he himself, though he had soberer
+      hopes, was not likely to miss any chance of success which labour might
+      bring him. He was more than modest enough in his conception of his own
+      powers, and was often doubtful as to the fulfilment of the higher
+      ambitions which are the necessary fuel of all artistic fires. Without
+      those fires the chill of modesty will fall to the frost of cowardice, and
+      in Art cowardice means indolence. In his moments of exultation&mdash;and
+      these came generally at their strongest when he was in his sweetheart&rsquo;s
+      society&mdash;success looked easy enough. The memory of her undoubted
+      belief in him came upon him often with a glow reflected from those
+      magnificently hopeful moments. But then at times of depression it grew to
+      look no more than a foolish unattainable dream. All young artists have
+      times when they are going to be great&mdash;when the glory proper to white
+      hairs makes a halo round un-wrinkled fronts and curls, brown or golden.
+      They have times when the smartest turn of verse, the most delightful
+      inventions of narrative, the most exquisite contrast of colour or mould of
+      form their genius can compass are stricken through and through with the
+      horror of commonplace. But when a man of the artistic <i>genus</i> has
+      once so far learned his own nature he has made a great advance towards the
+      fulfilment of his ambitions. He has to learn that just as the hot fit is
+      followed by the cold the cold fit is succeeded by the hot. He knows how
+      intermittent he is. He learns to mistrust his own mistrust of himself. The
+      periods of depression grow less frequent, and the depression grows less
+      lasting. And then, just as the cold fit becomes less chilling to the one,
+      the fit of exultation grows less intoxicating. The halo beams less bright&mdash;loss
+      near.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet Philip, with the girl&rsquo;s eyes worshipping him, and her sweet voice
+      cooing hope and praise, and her hands knitted on his shoulder, and her
+      warm breath fanning his cheek, gave himself up to the vision, and felt his
+      heart warm with a world&rsquo;s welcome as yet far away from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prose of life will assert itself, even to visionary eight-and-twenty
+      and sweet eighteen in love with one another. On this occasion it came as a
+      summons to supper. The summoner was a stout and jovial elderly gentleman,
+      about whose somewhat commonplace British exterior there was, to Philip&rsquo;s
+      mind, a reflection of the nimbus which glorified Patty to his mind, for he
+      was Patty&rsquo;s father. He had been called Old Brown at school when he was
+      young&mdash;he had been called Old Brown in the country, and the prefix
+      had found him out in town without the need for anybody to breathe a
+      whisper of it. He was Old Brown to his new acquaintances in London before
+      a month had gone by. The name suggests a beverage which is not unlike Old
+      Brown himself&mdash;being mild and nutty to the taste as he to the mental
+      palate&mdash;ripe and genial. He had a moist twinkle of the eye,&mdash;the
+      look which bespeaks the kindly humorist,&mdash;and his slightly protruding
+      under lip seemed covertly to taste the flavour of unspoken jokes. Old
+      Brown&rsquo;s jokes were mainly left unspoken, but he spent a good part of his
+      life in laughing without any very apparent reason for laughter, and may
+      have been internally the way he looked to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook hands with Philip, and chucked Patty under the chin with a
+      waggish aspect, which called an appealing blush into the girl&rsquo;s face.
+      Perhaps the blush stayed the intended quip, but any way the old gentleman
+      contented himself with a beaming laugh, and led the way to the supper
+      table, rubbing his hands and chuckling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meal was quietly jovial, and if, after it, Old Brown was not quite so
+      fast asleep as he pretended to be, at least his patience gave the lovers
+      the shelter they needed. He snored in mellow murmurs from behind his
+      bandanna, and they sat and talked together in low tones lest they might
+      awaken him, until the time came for parting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside the mist had given place to a dull persistent rain, and a peevish
+      wind was complaining in area and chimney cowl. Philip turned to the street
+      with a pleasantly haunting vision of Patty&rsquo;s vivacious face outlined
+      against the warmth and brightness of the hall. The touch of her good-night
+      kiss lingered on his lips like live velvet, and he carried warmth and
+      brightness enough within him to defy all the rain that ever rained, and
+      all the wind that ever blew on smoky London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rain had cleared the streets, and the occasional gleam of a
+      policeman&rsquo;s cape or a furtive figure seeking the shelter of a doorway
+      against the drifting showers was all he saw as he bored his way against
+      the rising wind to the corner of Holborn. He was so absorbed by that fancy
+      of music to which his own quick tread kept time that a shuffling step
+      behind him rapidly drawing nearer failed to reach his sense. But as he
+      came to the corner, a hand clutched his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned, with the quick defensive gesture natural to a man so accosted
+      at such a time, and faced the unexpected figure. An old man, clad in
+      filthy fluttering rags, stood staring at him, with both hands stretched
+      out. The rags shook as much with the horrible cough that tore him as with
+      the cruel wind. He was a dreadful creature, with watery eyes, and a head
+      and moustache of dirty gray. His long and unvenerable hairs strayed loose
+      beneath the dunghill relic which crowned them. The rain was in his hair
+      and beard, and had so soaked his tattered dress that it clung to him like
+      the feathers of a drenched fowl. He shook and wheezed and panted, and
+      gripped the air with tremulous fingers, and through the rents in his
+      clothing his white flesh gleamed in the gaslight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The look of surprise and pity which Philip bent upon this unclean
+      apparition was startled into one of sudden fear and horror. In the very
+      instant when these emotions struck him, they were reflected in the other&rsquo;s
+      face. The man made a motion to run, but Philip clutched his arm, and he
+      stood cowering and unresisting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You! Here in London?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Phil,&rsquo; said the spectre imploringly, &lsquo;for God&rsquo;s sake help me. I didn&rsquo;t
+      know it was you, when I followed you. I thought&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; his voice
+      trailed into silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You have come to this?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes, Phil; this is what I&rsquo;ve come to.&rsquo; The cough took him here again, and
+      tore him so that he was fain to lean against the shutters of a shop near
+      at hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Why do you come back here? Are you mad?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I am&mdash;almost. What could I do? I&rsquo;m as safe here as I am anywhere.
+      Who would know me? or, if they did, who would hurt a wretch like me? I
+      haven&rsquo;t slept in a bed for weeks, Phil. I haven&rsquo;t eaten a morsel for three
+      days. For God&rsquo;s sake! give me some money. I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll go away; I&rsquo;ll
+      never trouble you again.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll give you all I can. But you must go away from London.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip thrust his hand into his pocket and brought up all the pocket&rsquo;s
+      contents. He took his keys and an unvalued trifle or two from the handful,
+      and held the rest out towards his father. The old man shrunk from him with
+      a terrible appeal and shamefaced gratitude which cut the son&rsquo;s heart like
+      a knife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Where can I go to?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Anywhere out of London. You are not&mdash;safe here. Go away. Write to me
+      here.&rsquo; He thrust an envelope on which his name and address were written
+      into the old man&rsquo;s dirty trembling hand. &lsquo;You must never come to see me.
+      Promise me that.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I promise,&rsquo; he said; and, thrusting the money and the envelope somewhere
+      among his rags, stood silent for a while. &lsquo;I&rsquo;m afraid,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;I acted
+      very foolishly and very&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then his voice trailed away again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;God help you!&rsquo; said Philip with a choking voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll shake hands, won&rsquo;t you, Phil? &lsquo;said the old man. Phil took the
+      proffered hand. &lsquo;It&rsquo;s something,&rsquo; said Bommaney the elder, clinging to
+      him, &lsquo;to feel an honest man&rsquo;s hand again, God bless you, Phil!&mdash;God
+      bless you!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip stood silent, and the old man, with another shame-stricken glance
+      upon him, moved away. His son watched him for a second or two, as he
+      slunk, coughing and shivering, along the gleaming pavement, and then
+      turned and went his own way heavily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney senior, discerning the welcome beacon of a public-house, shuffled
+      eagerly towards it, hugging beneath his rags the money his son had given
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I beg your pardon, Mr. Bommaney; if you please, sir.&rsquo; He started at the
+      sound of a voice which had been familiar to him for years. &lsquo;I should like
+      a word with you, sir; if you please.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      James Hornett was less changed than his old employer, but it was evident
+      that he too had fallen upon evil times. For a mere second the familiar
+      tones of his voice were no more than familiar to Bommaney, whose mind was
+      confused by long misery and hunger and sleeplessness, and the shock of his
+      late encounter. But when he turned and saw Hornett&rsquo;s long thumb and finger
+      scraping at his stubbly jaws, the gesture and the attitude of apology
+      brought him back to mind at once. Hornett&rsquo;s coat sleeve was torn, and
+      showed his arm half way down to the elbow, but revealed no hint of linen,
+      The collar of his frock-coat was buttoned tightly about his neck, and
+      there was a sparkling metallic rime upon his cheeks and chin and upper
+      lip. Bommaney was ashamed before him, and afraid of him, and only some
+      faint reminder of self-respect and the pride of earlier days held him back
+      from the impulse to run away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You&rsquo;re not afraid of me, sir?&rsquo; said James Hornett. He had always smiled,
+      and was smiling even now. The smile was no more than a contortion of the
+      muscles of the face, which made a long mirthless crease on either cheek,
+      and left the eyes untouched by the least light of sympathy. It gave him a
+      propitiatory dog-like look, and there was a hint of fawning in his
+      attitude which matched it perfectly and carried out the likeness. &lsquo;You
+      remember me, sir?&rsquo; he went on, for Bommaney stared at him so wildly that
+      there seemed room for reasonable doubt on that point. &lsquo;Hornett, sir. James
+      Hornett Your faithful servant for thirty years, sir.&rsquo; Bommaney looked at
+      him with haggard watering eyes, and said nothing as yet &lsquo;It&rsquo;s a bit of a
+      surprise, sir, at first, isn&rsquo;t it?&rsquo; Hornett went on, with his unchanging
+      smile. There was a good deal of hunger and even triumph in his small soul,
+      but they found no other outward expression, and his attitude and voice
+      were as apologetic and retiring as of old. &lsquo;It was rather a surprise to
+      me, sir, when I recognised you. Isn&rsquo;t it a little dangerous for you to be
+      here, Mr. Bommaney?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They both started, and each looked about him at this mention of the
+      fugitive&rsquo;s name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Hush!&rsquo; said Bommaney. &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t call me by that name. Come away from here.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A policeman strolled along the street, with an echoing tread, and as the
+      two slunk past him he turned a casual glance upon them. The glance touched
+      them like a galvanic shock, and they would have run if they had had
+      courage for such an indiscretion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What do you want with me?&rsquo; asked Bommaney, when the policeman was out of
+      sight and hearing; Hornett walking beside him, with his lean, propitiatory
+      fingers at his chin, looked up with hesitating meekness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, you see, sir,&rsquo; he responded, &lsquo;your fall was mine, sir; I was
+      supposed&rsquo;&mdash;he coughed behind his hand here to indicate apology for
+      the introduction of a theme so necessarily disagreeable to the other&rsquo;s
+      feelings&mdash;&rsquo; I was supposed, sir, to have been in your confidence. I
+      made many applications for employment, and nobody would employ me. Young
+      Mr. Weatherall, sir, promised, personally, that if I called again, he&rsquo;d
+      kick me down the steps.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney groaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What do you want with me?&rsquo; he asked again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were standing by this time outside the doors of a public-house, and
+      the wind-driven rain was pelting down heavily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I thought, sir&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; said Hornett; &lsquo;I&rsquo;m very hard pressed, sir.&rsquo; 
+      The dog-like, propitiatory smile never varied. &lsquo;I was following Mr. Phil
+      myself, sir, in the hope that his kindness might run to a trifle.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Come in,&rsquo; said Bommaney; and Hornett eagerly accepting the invitation,
+      they entered the house together. There was an odour of frying in the room,
+      and a hissing noise proceeded from a soft of metal caldron which stood
+      over a row of gas-jets on the pewter counter. A printed legend, &lsquo;Sausage
+      and Mashed, 3d.&rsquo; was pasted on the wooden partition at the side of the box
+      they entered, and on the mirror which faced them, and displayed their own
+      squalid misery to themselves. A year ago the fare would have seemed
+      uninviting to either at his hungriest moment, but now Bommaney called for
+      it with a dreadful suppressed eagerness, and, the barman serving them with
+      a tantalising leisure, they watched every movement with the eyes of
+      famine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve got a little place, sir, of my own,&rsquo; whispered Hornett, when the
+      pangs of hunger were appeased. &lsquo;It&rsquo;s very humble, but you could put up for
+      the night there.&rsquo; Bommaney made no answer, but the two set out again
+      together through the rain, and, pausing once only for the purchase of a
+      flat pint bottle of whisky, made straight for Fleeter&rsquo;s Rents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All that nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand of the many thousands
+      who pass it every day could tell you of Fleeter&rsquo;s Rents is that it makes a
+      narrow black gash in the walls of the great thoroughfare, and that it
+      neighbours Gable Inn. It is slimy in its very atmosphere all winter
+      through, and its air in summer time is made of dust and grit and shadow.
+      The old Inn elbows it disdainfully on one side, and on the other a great
+      modern stuccoed pile overtops it with a parvenu insolence. It is the home
+      naturally of the very poor; for no hermit or hater of the world, however
+      disposed to shun his fellows, would hide in its dingy solitudes whilst he
+      had but a mere shilling a day for lodging and bodily sustenance elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hornett led the way up a set of narrow and broken stairs, and having
+      reached the uppermost story of the house, pushed open a broken door,
+      which, depending from a single hinge, scratched, noisily upon the uneven
+      flooring of the room. His guest stood shivering in the doorway until a
+      match sputtered and fizzed in Hornett&rsquo;s fingers. Then, guided by that
+      precarious light, he advanced. Hornett lit a candle which adhered by its
+      own grease to the filthy wall and had already made a great cone of smoke
+      with a tremulous outline there. There was a small grate, with a mere
+      double-handful of shavings, chips, and coal behind its rusty bars. Hornett
+      applied the match to the shavings, and, as the fire leapt up, the two men
+      knelt together, coughing and choking in the smoke, and bathing their
+      chilled hands in the flame. Bommaney drew the flat bottle from a pocket
+      hidden somewhere in his multitudinous rags, and drank. Hornett watched him
+      greedily, with hands involuntarily and unconsciously extended. Then when
+      he had drunk in turn, they each shivered over the fire again, stealing
+      furtive glances at each other, each mightily disconcerted when he met the
+      other&rsquo;s eye. Bommaney had aged dreadfully during his year of hiding, and
+      Hornett, who had drunk his employer&rsquo;s health upon his birthdays often
+      enough to know his age to a day, could yet scarce believe that the
+      dreadful spectre who knelt beside him numbered less than fourscore years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One question perplexed Hornett&rsquo;s mind. How came it, he asked himself over
+      and over again, that in the space of a mere twelvemonths a man who started
+      with at least eight thousand pounds could have fallen into such a depth of
+      poverty? Eight thousand pounds, if absolutely nothing were done with it
+      for its own increase, meant royal living for a score of years for an
+      unencumbered man. Hornett longed to satisfy his own curiosity upon this
+      point, and felt as if he dared not ask the question for his life. He
+      framed a score of ways by which he might approach it, with a road of
+      retreat behind him, and at last, as if in spite of himself, he said, with
+      apologetic impudence,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You don&rsquo;t seem to have made the money last long, sir.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;The money,&rsquo; cried Bommaney, turning furiously upon him. &lsquo;What money?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hornett edged away upon his knees, and his thumb and fingers traced the
+      creases of his smile up and down his stubbly cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Do you think,&rsquo; the old man demanded passionately, &lsquo;that I took away a
+      penny?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hornett was afraid to rise. There was such a despair and so much fury in
+      the other&rsquo;s looks that he could do nothing but crouch at his feet with his
+      mean meek face turned fearfully towards Bommaney, and his body cowering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You think I took that eight thousand pounds?&rsquo; Bommaney quavered, with a
+      voice of bitter disdain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had never in his life regretted anything so profoundly as he had
+      regretted his resistance of that temptation. To have had all the blame and
+      shame, and to endure all the miseries a convicted thief might earn for
+      himself, to have been an outcast and a pauper, only because he had been
+      resolute against temptation! It is easy enough for a man whom
+      circumstances keep honest to think himself honourable beyond the chance of
+      temptation. But misery has the virtue of Ithuriel&rsquo;s spear, with a
+      difference. As the one touched the beast and transformed him to the
+      seeming of a high intelligence, so will the other touch a seemingly
+      impregnable armour of bright honour, and turn it into tinder, leaving the
+      poor beast revealed and unprotected from his own base natural longings.
+      The poor Bommaney was maddened to think he had not done what the other&rsquo;s
+      thoughts charged him with, even though he passionately rebelled against
+      the accusation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;When did you ever know me to be a rogue, James Hornett?&rsquo; he asked, with
+      an air and voice to which his passion lent something like dignity. &lsquo;When
+      did you ever know me defraud a man of a farthing?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Never, sir, I&rsquo;m sure,&rsquo; Hornett responded, not doubting in his own mind
+      that Bommaney was guilty. &lsquo;But&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;But what?&rsquo; cried Bommaney. &lsquo;My own son, my own flesh and blood, would
+      hardly shake hands with me. My clerk&mdash;I took him out of the gutter,
+      <i>you</i> know that, Hornett! I took you out of the gutter and made a man
+      of you, and lavished kindness on you. Nobody has a minute&rsquo;s trust in me&mdash;nobody
+      thinks of misfortune or disaster. I was right to run away and hide myself,
+      for nobody would have believed me if I had stayed and told the truth.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hornett looked more frightened than before after this outburst, but
+      Bommaney read incredulity in his face, and answered it with an added
+      passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What good would it do me to tell lies to you? Suppose I made you believe
+      me, am I such a fool as to, think your pity could set me on my legs
+      again?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned away, moved by his own wrath and anguish, and Hornett, rising,
+      made himself as small as he could in the corner beside the grate.
+      Bommaney, in his pitiful broken boots, went shuffling up and down the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What became of the money, sir?&rsquo; the clerk asked with a shaky voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was ready to run for his life, and he was more than half afraid that
+      the old man was mad&mdash;his eyes blazed so, and his voice and gestures
+      were so tempestuous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It was lost,&rsquo; said Bommaney. &lsquo;I lost it, Heaven knows how. I&rsquo;ve thought a
+      thousand times,&rsquo; he said, through his clenched teeth, &lsquo;that that young
+      Barter must have had it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Young Barter, sir?&rsquo; said Hornett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Bommaney told all he knew of the story of his own loss, and at a
+      certain point in the narrative Hornett started and made a step forward. He
+      remembered the night well enough&mdash;he had reason to remember it. An
+      appointment for the theatre that evening had led him to call upon a
+      brother clerk in Gable Inn, and he had seen young Mr. Barter leaving his
+      chambers in what had struck him at the time as being an odd and stealthy
+      fashion. He had remarked it for the moment, and had forgotten it
+      afterwards, as men forget a thousand things of the sort which have no
+      interest personal to themselves. But now he saw young Mr. Barter&rsquo;s figure
+      with a singular distinctness, and the face turned round in the gaslight
+      was again as visible as it had been at the moment. He thought he read a
+      meaning in it now. But for this slight confirmation of his employer&rsquo;s
+      story he would probably have disbelieved it, but the accidental character
+      of the clue weighed with him, an apparent touch of romance in it gave it a
+      value beyond its merits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Could you tell me, sir,&rsquo; he asked, &lsquo;exactly what time it was when you
+      left Mr. Barter&rsquo;s office?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No,&rsquo; said Bommaney, suddenly weary after his outburst of
+      self-exculpation, &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t know. It was after banking hours. It was dark;
+      he had to light the gas. What if I could? What would that have to do with
+      it?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, you see, sir,&rsquo; Hornett answered, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m not likely to forget that
+      evening. Of all the evenings of my life, sir, I made a call at Gable Inn
+      myself, sir, at Number One. If young Mr. Barter had found the notes he
+      wouldn&rsquo;t care to face you again, and he mightn&rsquo;t have answered your knock
+      at the door, though he might have heard it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Any fool could tell me that,&rsquo; said Bommaney roughly. &lsquo;What do you mean?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve noticed, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett, with marked humility, as if he
+      apologised for having said anything, &lsquo;that young Mr. Barter is a gentleman
+      who goes about in rather a large way, and noisy way, sir. He&rsquo;s a biggish
+      man, as it is, and to look at him at first you&rsquo;d fancy that he was bigger
+      than he is. He talks very loud and cheery, sir, and he bangs things about
+      a good deal.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well?&rsquo; said Bommaney, irritated by these slow preliminaries, &lsquo;what about
+      it all?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could see that his late clerk was leading to a point of some sort, and
+      listened with a growing impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;He was leaving his rooms that night, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett, &lsquo;as sly as a
+      cat. I was just on the ground-floor of Number One as he was locking the
+      door behind him. Locking it, don&rsquo;t you see, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett, beginning
+      to be fired by his imagination, and speaking eagerly, &lsquo;so as not to make a
+      noise in pulling it to behind him. I suppose I made some sort of a noise
+      in going behind him, but any way, he looked up at me&mdash;I can see him
+      now!&rsquo; he cried, with a swift conviction, &lsquo;as if he was here at this very
+      minute, white and cowardly. That&rsquo;s what he was, sir. White and cowardly, I
+      can see him now.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney grasped him by the wrist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Do you remember the time?&rsquo; he asked, passing one hand confusedly through
+      the tumbled and disgraceful old locks of his hair. &lsquo;Do you remember when I
+      left the office? Do you remember when you left it?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Almost directly, sir, after you. But you drove, sir, and I walked. I
+      stopped, and had a little conversation with a friend, and just a social
+      glass that might have kept me back five minutes, sir. I was going to dine
+      with Mr. Marshall (White and Fielding&rsquo;s Mr. Marshall, sir) before the
+      theatre.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney released his wrist, and dropping on his knees before the fire
+      again, warmed his hands absently and stared into the blaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;The notes were all hundreds, James,&rsquo; he said, after a pause. &lsquo;They were
+      stopped at the Bank, I know, because I saw the advertisement. It wouldn&rsquo;t
+      be easy to get rid of them.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There are ways and means, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett. &lsquo;They&rsquo;d have to be disposed
+      of at a loss, of course&mdash;a heavy loss&mdash;and kept quiet for a
+      considerable time.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Have you heard of any of them coming into circulation?&rsquo; asked Bommaney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I haven&rsquo;t been in the way to hear of anything, sir,&rsquo; the clerk answered
+      mournfully, &lsquo;but,&rsquo; with a sidelong look at his old employer, &lsquo;if I could
+      only get to look a bit respectable, I could make inquiries in an hour. I
+      have no doubt I could find out, sir.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;My boy believes I&rsquo;m guilty, like the rest,&rsquo; said the old man, moaning and
+      shivering and coughing again. The passion of his protest and the warmth of
+      heart which Hornett&rsquo;s returning confidence had taught him had all died
+      away, and he was his bankrupt, disgraced, and broken self again, old and
+      maudlin, and strickenly conscious of his miseries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Phil might help me,&rsquo; he said shakily. &lsquo;He &lsquo;could, but he won&rsquo;t. He&rsquo;s got
+      plenty of money. If I&rsquo;d been a rogue, James Hornett,&rsquo; and there he flashed
+      up again, ever so little, &lsquo;I could have robbed my own flesh and blood with
+      safety. A rogue would have done it. I was his sole trustee, and I could
+      have had nine thousand by a stroke of the pen at any minute.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Mr. Phil, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett &lsquo;Mr. Phil hasn&rsquo;t got much money left&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Why not?&rsquo; the old man asked, staring round at him with his watery eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;He paid Mr. Brown the eight thousand in full, sir, and divided the rest,
+      as far as it would go, amongst the poorest of the creditors.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney turned back towards the fire, and drooped there. He seemed very
+      impassive under this intelligence, but he was deeply moved by it all the
+      same. The sense of his son&rsquo;s high feeling of honour gave him a keen throb
+      of pride, and then he thought bitterly that his own ill-luck pursued his
+      offspring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The loss was double. It had disgraced and ruined him, and had robbed his
+      son of his inheritance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Hornett,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;James Hornett.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes, sir.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I was brought up,&rsquo; the old man said, in a muffled voice, advancing and
+      retiring his hands before the fire, and chafing them automatically, &lsquo;I was
+      brought up by Christian parents. I never did a dishonourable act in all my
+      days. I have been a God-fearing man and a&mdash;a steady church-goer. I
+      give it all up. I renounce it. I don&rsquo;t believe in God. I don&rsquo;t believe in
+      religion. I don&rsquo;t believe in being honest. It&rsquo;s a&mdash;it&rsquo;s a vile wicked
+      world, Hornett, and it&rsquo;s my belief the devil rules it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Oh, sir,&rsquo; cried Hornett,&rsquo; you mustn&rsquo;t talk like this, sir. You must
+      excuse me speaking free, sir, but I can&rsquo;t stand by and hear you talk like
+      that. I can&rsquo;t listen to it, sir&mdash;I can&rsquo;t really. I&rsquo;ve never said a
+      disrespectful word to you, Mr. Bommaney, but I really must speak out now,
+      sir. It isn&rsquo;t respectable, sir, to talk like that.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this there was a long silence, and Bommaney, who had repouched the
+      bottle after his last application to it, consulted it again, and handed it
+      wordlessly to Hornett, without looking at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Phil might,&rsquo; he murmured in a while&mdash;&rsquo; he might be brought to
+      believe me. He&rsquo;s an honest man himself, James&mdash;a very honest
+      high-minded man indeed. I must look where he lives,&rsquo; he murmured, seeking
+      for the envelope his son had given him. &lsquo;He gave me his address.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;His address, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett. &lsquo;You could almost lay your hand on him.
+      He lives there. That&rsquo;s his window with the light in it.&rsquo; Bommaney moved to
+      the window, and followed with his glance the direction of Hornett&rsquo;s
+      outstretched finger. There was a window a few feet higher than the one at
+      which he stood, and half-hidden from observation by a stone parapet. A
+      shadow obscured the light, and moved about the ceiling, visible from
+      below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I saw him there to-night, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett &lsquo;I saw his face at the
+      window. He put a glass of flowers outside. That&rsquo;s his shadow moving about
+      there now.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Phil!&rsquo; groaned the wretched father, straining his dirty wasted hands
+      together. &lsquo;Phil!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m not the figure, sir,&rsquo; said Hornett, &lsquo;to call upon a gentleman like
+      Mr. Phil; nor yet are you, sir, if you&rsquo;ll excuse my saying so. But if
+      you&rsquo;d let me go, sir, and put the case to him, he might come and see you
+      here, sir, and you might set yourself straight with him, sir, which would
+      at least,&rsquo; the seedy man added, somewhat moved by the old man&rsquo;s tears and
+      tremblings, &lsquo;be an advantage to a father&rsquo;s heart.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bommaney stood in silence, looking upward. The moving shadow settled
+      itself upon the ceiling in a huge silhouette, distinctly traceable. There
+      was no doubting it was Phil&rsquo;s dear head that threw the shadow, himself
+      invisible, so near, so far. The foolish outcast&rsquo;s heart ached bitterly,
+      and he stretched both hands towards the shadow, not knowing that he moved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Shall I venture, sir?&rsquo; asked Mr. Hornett, more moved than ever, and
+      coughing to clear a little huskiness in the throat. &lsquo;Shall I venture, sir,
+      to look in on Mr. Phil in the morning?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes, go, James,&rsquo; said Bommaney, sobbing outright by this time. &lsquo;Perhaps&mdash;perhaps
+      he may believe me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      V
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When young Mr. Barter took time to think about things, he began, for more
+      reasons than one, to be sorry. It is necessary for the due development of
+      this history to go back a little, and to take up Mr. Barter on the day
+      following the commission of his crime. The young man felt that he was
+      unable to afford candour, and discreetly avoided the naming of his own
+      action. Eight thousand pounds is a sum which most people would find
+      tempting. Young Mr. Barter would never have found it tempting in the
+      criminal way (though, if he had given his mind to the consideration, he
+      could at any time have seen how enviable its unencumbered possessor might
+      be) if he had not at the moment felt himself under considerable pressure.
+      Mr. Barter&rsquo;s fleshy and well-formed fingers were somewhat too familiar
+      with the feel of cards. These fingers of his were peculiarly dexterous to
+      look at, and had even an unnecessary braggadocio air of dexterity when he
+      was engaged in his favourite occupation. Experienced people watched his
+      shuffling and dealing with great care. In Mr. Barter&rsquo;s frank and engaging
+      countenance, and in that ready smile in which the faultless teeth shone so
+      conspicuously, there was no hint of danger to the most unwary. Even the
+      wariest, listening to his genial mellow laughter, and seeing the jolly
+      shoulders shake with mirth, were inclined to think him a loyal
+      honest-hearted fellow. His loud swagger, his frank rollicking gait, his
+      hail-good-fellow-well-met shake of the hand, the other hand clapped upon
+      the shoulder, the noisy greeting, and that unfailing smile, not merely
+      disarmed suspicion, but made the mere fancy of it impossibly absurd. But
+      young Mr. Barter had accustomed himself to associate with people whose
+      experiences had forced them to be observant, and to these the dexterous
+      caressing fingers with which he manipulated all instruments employed in
+      games of chance seemed to justify a fairly constant watchfulness. The
+      fingers handled the cards as if they loved them, as if they had been
+      accustomed to them from the cradle. The tips turned back a good deal, and
+      the nails hooked a little forward. There were little bulbs of tact at
+      every tip, the hands were made for a gambler, and could by no possibility
+      have belonged to anybody else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chief ground for the young man&rsquo;s sorrow may be very easily and briefly
+      stated. The packet which the unfortunate cruelly-tempted Bommaney had let
+      fall in his half-drunken abstraction on the floor of young Mr. Barter&rsquo;s
+      private room was made up exclusively, as we know already, of notes for one
+      hundred pounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Bank of England notes for one hundred pounds, though valuable, and
+      easily enough employed in all civilised countries when honestly come by,
+      are only to be got rid of when dishonestly acquired at great risk and
+      loss. A note for a mere five pounds may pass through scores of hands
+      before being stopped at the bank. Tens, so the experienced in such matters
+      will tell you, are a little difficult. Twenties are inquired into rather
+      carefully. Fifties are positively dangerous to handle in this way.
+      Hundreds are, except after great lapse of time, almost impossible; and as
+      for a thousand, a man might almost as well steal a white elephant as a
+      bank-note of that value, except that it will cost him nothing for keep,
+      unless you count the tremor of soul and nerve, which is surely worth
+      something, in which a man criminally possessed of another&rsquo;s property is
+      almost certain to live.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Barter, then, had eight thousand pounds in ready money, was liable, if
+      discovered, to penal servitude, and was unable to touch a farthing of his
+      ill-got gains. There are many men in the world, the world&rsquo;s experience
+      proves it hourly, who set so small a price upon their self-respect, that
+      they will sell it for a shilling, for a drink, for a word. But there is
+      hardly any man so lost to the natural human desire for self-approval that
+      he will actually give away his self-respect for nothing. Now this absurd
+      transaction young Mr. Barter, when he took time to think about things,
+      appeared to himself to have made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was not, and never had been, a great reader; he gave up his mind to
+      pursuits which he found more attractive than the tranquil fields and lanes
+      of literature. Yet he remembered, in a dim sort of way, either that he had
+      read somewhere in his schoolboy days, or that a fanciful old nurse had
+      told him, a story of a person somewhere, who, being possessed of a great
+      chest of money, went one day to look at it, and found that his hard cash
+      had changed to withered leaves. Precisely such a transformation had
+      overtaken that eight thousand pounds, at the moment when it had fallen
+      from the hands of a man who might have made an honest use of it. The fable
+      was, and was not, true, so far as he remembered, and his fancy dwelt
+      curiously about the history. There was no possibility of turning back the
+      withered leaves to gold, and making them jingle and glitter again as only
+      one&rsquo;s own ready money can jingle and glitter. But, useless as these crisp
+      and rustling leaves of paper were to him, they held still all their old
+      potentialities, and in the hands of honest men or courageous rascals each
+      leaf might still transmute itself into a hundred golden emblems of
+      sovereignty and power. He was neither that honest man nor that courageous
+      rascal, and the money grew to be a sort of devilish tantalising fetish to
+      him. Before he had owned it a fortnight, he had felt a hundred times he
+      could have burned it out of the exasperation of mere spite against it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He heard, of course, of Bommaney&rsquo;s flight, and of the failure of the
+      old-established business house. People talked about these things a good
+      deal for a time, and he himself listened to and took part in many
+      speculations as to Bommaney&rsquo;s whereabouts, and the means he would take to
+      get rid of the notes and make them available for his own purposes. He
+      found it at first a little trying to the nerves. There was nothing, since
+      Bommaney had accepted his own disgrace and run away, to connect young Mr.
+      Barter with the lost eight thousand pounds, yet it took much courage, and
+      a considerable amount of inward spurring, to bring himself to talk about
+      the business. When a man carries a secret of a quite harmless nature, it
+      happens often, as almost everybody knows, that casual words and quite
+      innocent glances startle him with hints of understanding and
+      participation. What is it when the detection of the secret involves open
+      shame and penal servitude? Can a man of genuine courage be a thief? Is not
+      courage after all at the very bottom of all manly honour, of all sound
+      honesty, all true self-respect? How shall a thief be other than a lurking
+      cur, whose whole soul, such as it is, is bent to a mean suspicion that he
+      is suspected, a continuous terror-stricken watchfulness, a sleeping and
+      waking dread of an awful hand-clap on the shoulder? There are
+      constitutional differences in thieves, no doubt, as there are in other
+      people, but the key-note of the dishonest man&rsquo;s whole thought is fear.
+      When, after a day or two, young Mr. Barter had accustomed himself to speak
+      of Bommaney and the lost eight thousand, and had often spoken of them, he
+      began to look out for suggestions that might be useful to himselt He even
+      led the way at times, and speaking to solicitors and barristers of
+      extensive criminal experience, he asked often, for example, how could a
+      scoundrel get rid of such a clumsy handful? Why didn&rsquo;t the fool cash the
+      notes, he would ask contemptuously, before he left town, and before he was
+      suspected? Everybody knew of course that the notes had not been presented,
+      and their numbers were advertised in all the daily papers. Now what could
+      a fellow do who had them, by Jingo? What <i>could</i> he do? There was no
+      way open, so far as young Mr. Barter could see, and he was wonderfully
+      engaging and innocent of the world&rsquo;s wickeder ways as he talked thus with
+      the ablest of his fellow professionals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fellow professionals cited cases. There was Rosenthal, a noted
+      receiver in his day, to whom a dishonest clerk had sold five thousand
+      pounds for five hundred. Rosenthal had held the notes for six years, and
+      had then put them cautiously on the Continental market. He was an old
+      hand, was Rosenthal, and very clever and leary, but they had bowled him
+      out. The clerk was wanted on another charge, and turned Queen&rsquo;s evidence
+      against the receiver. Almost all the stories had this kind of termination,
+      because the legal gentlemen whom young Mr. Barter consulted remembered
+      mainly cases in which they or their friends had been engaged, or cases
+      which had resulted in criminal proceedings. Others there certainly were,
+      but they were vague and necessarily without those guiding particulars
+      which he desired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been already hinted that the young man was a gambler, and it is
+      likely that most of the reasons which made the money seem so welcome to
+      him had their sources at the gaming table. He belonged to one of those
+      clubs which deserve to be numbered among the blessings of modern society&mdash;where
+      men do not meet for social intercourse and good-fellowship, or for dining
+      purposes, or for any of the common and amiable reasons which draw men into
+      club-life, but simply and purely to the end that they may win one
+      another&rsquo;s money. It was a joint-stock swindling company to which young Mr.
+      Barter belonged, and within its limits every man proposed to himself to
+      get the better of every other man by such means as lay in his power. A
+      pigeon got in amongst them every now and then, of course&mdash;came in
+      well-feathered and went out plucked, but for the main part the rooks
+      pecked hungrily at one another, and made but little of their time and
+      pains. The one solitary advantage of these corporations is that they
+      gather the depredatory birds together, and lead them to prey upon
+      themselves instead of wandering abroad for the defeathering of the
+      innocent and artless who abound even in these days. The well-constituted
+      mind can hardly fail to take pleasure in the contemplation of these
+      resorts, where Greek meets Greek (in the modern French sense as well as
+      the old heroic)&mdash;where scoundrel encounters scoundrel, and learns
+      that the pleasure of being cheated is by no means so great as that of
+      cheating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were people of widely ranging social position in this curious
+      contingent. One or two men of title, and one or two of the highest social
+      or commercial respectability, lent their names for some inconceivable
+      reason to grace the front page of the neatly-bound little volume of rules
+      which govern, or sometimes fail to govern, the conduct of the corporation.
+      Mr. Barter rubbed shoulders with young men&mdash;very young men they were&mdash;who
+      would one day have handles to their names, and enjoy the control of
+      considerable estates. He sat at the same table with men whose birth and
+      antecedents, like those of the immortal Jeames, were shrouded in a
+      mystery. He met men of his own position, who like himself were desperately
+      glad of being numbered in the same club society with men eminent on the
+      turf, or familiar in the gilded saloons of the great. He liked to think of
+      those gilded saloons; it might be interesting to know what he thought they
+      resembled&mdash;most probably a somewhat old-fashioned earthly paradise of
+      ormolu. He bragged indefatigably of his club and the people whom he met
+      there. He dated all his private correspondence from it, and spent hundreds
+      of daylight hours above the ivories and the pasteboard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the time of that foolish and weak-willed Bommaney&rsquo;s disaster there were
+      two or three I.O.U.&lsquo;s for sums much more considerable than he could afford
+      to part with in the hands of his fellow-members. Law is a necessity to
+      human society. Even a band of brigands can&rsquo;t hang together without it.
+      Debt, outside the club, was by no means a thing to be harshly spoken of,
+      but debt to a fellow-member was a literal millstone round a man&rsquo;s neck,
+      and would sink him out of sight in no time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elder Barter had gone over to the majority, despatched by that street
+      accident, and if the old man had known nothing of the young man&rsquo;s courses,
+      he had had it in his power to make him well-to-do. But he had paid his
+      debts once at least, and had more than once had occasion to grieve over
+      the boy&rsquo;s handling of the firm&rsquo;s money, and so had made his will entirely
+      in his wife&rsquo;s favour, leaving his son dependent upon her good graces. The
+      mother was disposed to be a little sterner than the father had been.
+      Perhaps if young Barter had dreaded her less poor Bommaney&rsquo;s fallen notes
+      might have been returned to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, to get on with the story, the young man&rsquo;s chief creditor at the club
+      was one Steinberg, a gentleman whose time appeared to be absolutely at his
+      own disposal, though he was known by some of his fellow-members to have an
+      address in Hatton Garden, and to be more or less of a diamond merchant
+      there. He often carried about with him, in a pocket-book, or in neat
+      little packages of grocer&rsquo;s gay paper, borne in the waistcoat-pocket, a
+      collection of gems of considerable value, and would show them to his
+      intimates with the <i>insouciance</i> of a man who was accustomed to
+      handling things of price. He never was without money, made little journeys
+      at times, which rarely took him away from town for more than a day or two,
+      and was, almost always, wholly unoccupied except for the cards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now young Barter had a prodigious idea of this gentleman&rsquo;s astuteness. He
+      had no particular belief in his honesty, and he believed him, not
+      altogether unreasonably as the sequel proved, to be initiated into most of
+      the mysteries of modern rascality. This was merely a general notion, based
+      upon statements made by Steinberg himself, and supported by the opinion of
+      his intimates. Nobody spoke ill of Steinberg; it was only understood that
+      there was no move upon the board with which he was not familiar. Young
+      Barter, meeting him one evening at the club, whilst Bommaney&rsquo;s
+      disappearance was still a fresh topic of town conversation, spoke to him
+      about it, with an assurance clearly begotten of practice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Now, look here, Steinberg,&rsquo; he said, in his open and engaging way.
+      &lsquo;Suppose you&rsquo;d nobbled those notes, what should you do with &lsquo;em?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps Mr. Steinberg resented the form of this inquiry. But be that as it
+      may, he responded with some tartness,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Suppose you&rsquo;d nobbled them?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this chance thrust young Barter turned curiously red and white, and had
+      some ado to recover that open smile of his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Hang it,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;you can&rsquo;t suppose I meant it that way. But,&rsquo; with a
+      half-hysteric courage, &lsquo;suppose you had&mdash;suppose I had&mdash;suppose
+      anybody had&mdash;what would he do? You, I, anybody?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Steinberg sipped at his lemon squash&mdash;he drank that inspiring
+      liquid all the year round, and nothing else until cards for the day were
+      over&mdash;and puffed at his cigar, and looking young Barter full in the
+      face, nodded and smiled with an odd mingling of meaning and humour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Put him on to me,&rsquo; he said, with perfect affability. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll put him up to
+      it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Rather dangerous, wouldn&rsquo;t it be?&rsquo; said Barter, showing his white teeth
+      in a somewhat forced and ghastly manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Everything&rsquo;s dangerous for an ass,&rsquo; said Steinberg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t have thought,&rsquo; laughed Barter, &lsquo;that that was your line.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke as jestingly as he could, but he knew that his laugh was forced,
+      and that the voice in which he spoke was unlike his voice of every day,
+      and he wished, with the whole of his quaking heart, that he had left the
+      theme alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, no,&rsquo; said Steinberg, &lsquo;I suppose you wouldn&rsquo;t.&rsquo; He sipped his liquor
+      through a straw, and blew half a dozen rings of smoke from his lips with
+      practised dexterity, and kept a glittering German-Jewish eye on Barter.
+      Perhaps he meant something by the glance, perhaps he meant nothing. He was
+      a rather Machiavelian and sinister-looking personage, was Mr. Steinberg,
+      and there was something even in the calm expression of those
+      perfectly-formed rings of smoke and in the very way in which, he sipped
+      his liquor, and most of all in the observant glitter of his eye, which
+      spoke of a penetration and shrewdness very far out of the common. More and
+      more young Barter wished that he had not broached this theme with
+      Steinberg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not help it for his soul. He could feel that his colour was
+      coming and going with a dreadful fluttering alternation. He quailed before
+      the Israelitish eye so shrewdly cocked at him, and when in a very spasm of
+      despair he tried to meet it, he was so abjectly quelled by it that he felt
+      his face a proclamation of his secret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steinberg went on sipping and smoking, and said nothing; but when the
+      young scoundrel, his companion, had somewhat recovered himself and dared
+      again to look at him, there was the same shrewd and wary glint in his
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Barter had been unhappy enough before this, but after it the money
+      became a burden hateful and horrible. He met Steinberg often, and forced
+      himself to be noisy in his company. In his dread of seeming low-spirited,
+      or ill at ease, he said things about his dead father which he would have
+      left unsaid, had he consulted the little good that was left in him; and
+      Steinberg seemed to watch him very closely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Barter put off his creditor with promises. He would have lots of
+      money by and by. That seemed credible enough in the position of affairs,
+      and Steinberg waited. In a while, however, he became exigent, and declined
+      any longer to be satisfied with promises. One night the unhappy rascal,
+      playing all the more because of his troubles, all the more wildly, and
+      certainly all the worse, fell back upon his LO.U.&lsquo;s. Steinberg followed
+      him from the club. It was late, and the streets were very quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;This won&rsquo;t do, you know, Barter,&rsquo; said Steinberg, tapping him on the
+      shoulder as they walked side by side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Begad it won&rsquo;t,&rsquo; said young Barter, doing his best to make light of it.
+      &lsquo;They&rsquo;ve been cutting into me pretty freely this past week or two.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; said Steinberg, puffing at his eternal cigar, and looking askant
+      at Barter under the light of a street-lamp which they happened to be
+      nearing at the moment, &lsquo;what you&rsquo;ve got to do, you know, is to find the
+      man who knows Mr. Bommaney.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The commotion which assailed Barter at this speech was like an inward
+      earthquake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What&mdash;what do you mean?&rsquo; he panted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That&rsquo;s what you&rsquo;ve got to do,&rsquo; said Steinberg tranquilly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Do you mean to insinuate&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; Barter began to bluster; but the
+      older, cooler, and more accomplished scoundrel stopped him contemptuously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You know where they are,&rsquo; he said &lsquo;Why don&rsquo;t you get at &lsquo;em?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      About noon on the following day Mr. Steinberg, seated in a small inner
+      chamber in Hatton Garden, leisurely answering his sole business
+      correspondent of that morning, was in no way surprised when the boy he
+      employed to open the door and receive visitors brought in a card bearing
+      the name of &lsquo;Mr. John Barter, jun.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Show him in,&rsquo; said Mr. Steinberg; and young Mr. Barter, hearing this in
+      the outer room, came in with a pale-faced and excited alacrity. The
+      diamond merchant dismissed the boy with a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; he said, turning the tip of his cigar upwards by a protrusion of
+      the under lip, &lsquo;what is it?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;About that little matter,&rsquo; said young Barter nervously, &lsquo;we were talking
+      of last night.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;The little matter we were talking of last night?&rsquo; asked Steinberg idly,
+      looking at him with half-shut eyes. &lsquo;That hundred you owe me?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, perhaps that afterwards,&rsquo; said Barter with a frightened breathless
+      laugh in his voice. &lsquo;But about the other matter first.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;The other matter?&rsquo; Steinberg asked, in a lazier manner than before. &lsquo;What
+      other matter?&rsquo; He took up his pen, dipped it in the inkstand before him,
+      and tracing a line or two of his correspondent&rsquo;s communication with it,
+      turned to his own unfinished letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Barter was already sufficiently agitated, and this curious reception
+      made him more embarrassed than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;About that affair of Bommaney&rsquo;s,&rsquo; he said, feeling as if a rapid wheel
+      had been somehow started in his brain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; said Steinberg, writing rapidly, and speaking in a voice which
+      seemed to indicate that he neither understood nor cared to understand,
+      &lsquo;that affair of Bommaney&rsquo;s, eh?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This reception was nothing less than dreadful to the young criminal. He
+      had reckoned on having his way made easy for him. Steinberg had actually
+      offered to become his accomplice in crime, and had lured him to
+      disclosure. He could have wished that the floor would open and let him
+      through. He saw that he had already exposed his hand, and began to imagine
+      all manner of consequences resulting from the exposure. Not one of the
+      consequences he foresaw promised to be of a nature agreeable to himself,
+      and for the moment the hatred with which Steinberg inspired him was of so
+      mad a nature that there was nothing he would not have done to him if he
+      had had the courage and the power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steinberg wrote on, shaking his fist in what seemed to be an unusual
+      alert, and even threatening, manner. There was a great deal of unnecessary
+      motion in Steinberg&rsquo;s hand, and Barter, looking at its swift and resolute
+      movements, got a blind sort of impression of strength out of it, and
+      nullified the feeling with which it inspired him. The letter written,
+      enveloped, addressed, and stamped, Steinberg tossed it on one side, and
+      leaning back in his arm-chair, turned an uninterested look once more upon
+      his visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That affair of Bommaney&rsquo;s,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;What was that?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Barter thought this inquiry altogether too barefaced, and responded,
+      with a hectic flush of courage,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Come, Steinberg, don&rsquo;t play the fool with a fellow. You know jolly well
+      what it was last night.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Steinberg&rsquo;s keen and impassive face underwent no change.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What did I know last night?&rsquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You know,&rsquo; Barter began angrily; and then the hectic flush of courage
+      died, and a dreadful chill of fear succeeded it. What had he known? He had
+      only guessed&mdash;till now. But now, young Mr. Barter felt, to employ the
+      expressive ideas of his set, that he had given himself away. Steinberg
+      capped the question in his mind. What did I know last night?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You haven&rsquo;t come to waste your time or mine, I suppose? You&rsquo;ve come to
+      say something. Why not say it?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His guest, sitting in a terrible confusion, and feeling himself altogether
+      betrayed and lost, Steinberg marched to the door, and addressing the boy
+      in the outer room, bade him carry the letter to the post and return no
+      more that day. Then, having locked the outer door, he returned and resumed
+      his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Now, what is it?&rsquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barter, recognising the fact that his own purpose was already exposed,
+      made a desperate dash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;About those notes old Bommaney was supposed to have run away with. I
+      think&mdash;I think, mind you, that if there was any way of using them, I
+      could lay my hands upon them.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I remember,&rsquo; said Steinberg, &lsquo;you said something of the kind last night.
+      I shouldn&rsquo;t advise you to touch &lsquo;em. It&rsquo;s a dangerous game. They&rsquo;re very
+      worthless, and the game isn&rsquo;t worth the candle.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Worthless?&rsquo; echoed Barter. &lsquo;They&rsquo;re worth eight thousand pounds.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;They&rsquo;re worth eight thousand pounds,&rsquo; responded Steinberg, &lsquo;to the man
+      they belong to. They&rsquo;re not worth eight hundred to anybody else.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Mr. Barter&rsquo;s whole soul seemed to rise in protest against this
+      abominable fallacy. When he had screwed up his courage so far as to induce
+      himself to accept this older and more experienced scoundrel&rsquo;s partnership,
+      he had conceived the possibility of the partner crying out for halves. But
+      that he should want so enormous a share of the spoil was quite
+      intolerable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Not worth eight hundred?&rsquo; He could only gasp the questioning protest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;If I had &lsquo;em to sell,&rsquo; Steinberg answered calmly, flicking the waste from
+      his cigar by a movement of his little finger, &lsquo;I should think eight
+      hundred an uncommon good price for &lsquo;em. Later on and sold at second hand
+      they might fetch a thousand. Later on and sold at third hand they might
+      fetch fifteen hundred. One can hardly tell. Of course the value will go on
+      mounting with distance from the original source of danger and with the
+      lapse of time.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He said all this very calmly and reflectively, and young Barter,
+      collecting his whirling wits as well as he could, tried a stroke of
+      diplomacy, which, as he fondly hoped, would answer a double purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;She&rsquo;ll never let them go for that, or for anything like it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;She won&rsquo;t, won&rsquo;t she?&rsquo; asked Steinberg, smiling brightly, as if the
+      statement amused him. &lsquo;Then she&rsquo;ll never let &lsquo;em go at all, my friend. How
+      did you come to find she had &lsquo;em?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I made a little bit of a discovery,&rsquo; Barter answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Ah! That was it, was it,&rsquo; said the elder rascal, falling back into his
+      utter want of interest. &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll let me have that hundred.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I will in a day or two,&rsquo; answered Barter, <i>arréanti</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, as for a day or two,&rsquo; returned Steinberg, rubbing his forehead with
+      the tips of his fingers, and looking very careless and composed, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m
+      really very much afraid I can&rsquo;t let you have it. It&rsquo;s been outstanding a
+      goodish time, and to tell you the truth, old man, I want it very badly. If
+      you&rsquo;ll let me have it to-night I shall be obliged to you. I&rsquo;ve been hit
+      rather hard this last day or two. Shall we make that a bargain? To-night?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&mdash;I&rsquo;m afraid,&rsquo; Barter stammered, &lsquo;it&rsquo;s no use talking about
+      to-night.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; said Steinberg, with a pitiless uninterested suavity, &lsquo;you know
+      the rules.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew a little book from his pocket, and tossed it over the table to his
+      guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll find it on page five. Rule fourteen. It&rsquo;s ticked in red ink, if
+      you&rsquo;ll take the trouble to look at it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barter opened the book and consulted its pages blindly for a while, and
+      then the mist which seemed to obstruct brain and eyesight clearing away,
+      he read the pages indicated. It set forth the principle that all moneys
+      lost at games of skill or chance, or upon bets made within the limits of
+      the club, were payable within four-and-twenty hours. It set forth further
+      that debts not paid within that time might be brought under the notice of
+      the Committee, who were empowered to act under Rule nine. Rule nine
+      ordained the public posting of the defaulter&rsquo;s name, his suspension in
+      default of payment, and, in case of continued obduracy or poverty, his
+      expulsion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;First and last, Steinberg,&rsquo; said the wretched criminal, who began to find
+      the way of the transgressor unreasonably hard and thorny, &lsquo;first and last,
+      you&rsquo;ve had a pretty tidy handful of money out of me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, yes,&rsquo; said Steinberg tangibly. &lsquo;Pretty fair.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His very admission of this fact made Barter&rsquo;s case seem hopeless to
+      himself. If he had brow-beaten, or blustered, if he had shown anger or
+      impatience, or had been querulous, there might have seemed to exist some
+      slenderest chance for him. But Steinberg was so unmoved that he seemed
+      immovable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You&rsquo;d better persuade her,&rsquo; he said, with a scarcely perceptible grin.
+      Looking at Barter, and observing that he sat with his eyes still bent upon
+      the book of rules, and head dejected, he allowed the grin to broaden.
+      Barter, suddenly looking up at him, saw him smiling like a gargoyle, with
+      a look of infinitely relishing cruelty and cunning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You won&rsquo;t find her hard to persuade, I&rsquo;m sure,&rsquo; said Steinberg. &lsquo;Come,
+      now, I&rsquo;ll talk business to you. I&rsquo;ll take ten of &lsquo;em for it, and cry
+      quits, and I wouldn&rsquo;t do that for anybody but a friend.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The frank admission of the value of his own friendship was plainly legible
+      in that gargoyle smile, and the unhappy Barter read it clearly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll see what I can do with her,&rsquo; he said, with a face and
+      voice of pure misery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Do, my boy,&rsquo; said Steinberg, rising, and swinging the key of his chambers
+      upon his forefinger, &lsquo;see what you can do with her. I shan&rsquo;t send any
+      notification to the Committee before nine o&rsquo;clock, old chap. You can trust
+      me for that. You go off at once, old fellow, and see what you can do for
+      her.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fraudulent possessor of the notes felt their burthen more than ever
+      insupportable. He rose, and went his way with remorse and rage and the
+      bitterness of baffled stratagem in his heart. His wounded mind soared to
+      so lofty a height of egotism in its struggles that he positively found the
+      impudence to curse Bom-maney for having dropped the notes in his office.
+      Then he cursed himself for having taken them, and cursed Steinberg for
+      robbing him, and so moved off in a condition quite pitiable to one who
+      could find the understanding and the heart to pity him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steinberg stopped behind, and smoked smilingly. He was the successful
+      scoundrel, and found the transaction as sweet as the young Barter found it
+      bitter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t think hell have much trouble with her,&rsquo; he said to himself; and
+      he enjoyed that little jest so much that he caught himself smiling at it a
+      hundred times in the course of the afternoon and evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Old Brown, who was one of the sunniest-natured of men, went gloomy when
+      the news of his old friend&rsquo;s dreadful fall came to his ears. It does him
+      no more than justice to say that he mourned Bommaney senior infinitely
+      more than the money. He liked to trust people, and had all his life long
+      been eager to find excuses for defaulters. He could find no excuse here.
+      The theft was barefaced, insolent, dastardly. He puzzled over it, and grew
+      more cynical and bitter in his thoughts of the world at large than he
+      could have imagined himself. But then, when Bommaney junior came home, and
+      insisted on the restoration of the missing eight thousand from his own
+      small fortune, old Brown brightened up again. There was such a thing as
+      honesty in the world, after all. The restoration warmed his heart anew. At
+      first he fought against it, and would have none of it&mdash;the mere
+      candid and honest offer of it was enough for him; but Philip was more
+      resolute than himself, and the stronger man won. Phil should never have
+      cause to repent his goodness, the old fellow declared to himself a
+      thousand times. He should reap the proper reward of his own honour. Brown
+      admired and loved Phil out of bounds for this little bit of natural
+      honesty and justice. He thought there had never been a finer fellow in the
+      world, and his heart warmed to him as if he had been a son of his own. As
+      for that rascal of a father&mdash;and when he got so far in his thoughts
+      he fumed so with wrath that he dared go no farther, and was compelled, for
+      the sake of his own peace, to banish the friend of his schooldays from his
+      mind a thousand times a week.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was about a year later than the disgrace of the house of Bommaney that
+      old Brown, to his daughter&rsquo;s perplexity and grief, began to show signs of
+      trouble almost as marked as those he had displayed after his old friend&rsquo;s
+      defection. The old boy&rsquo;s newspaper no longer interested him of a morning.
+      He began to be lax about that morning ride which he had once regarded as
+      being absolutely necessary to the preservation of health in London. He had
+      been impassioned with the theatre, and had become a diligent attendant at
+      first-night performances. Even these ceased to have any joy for him, and
+      he neglected, in fine, all his old sources of amusement He went about
+      sorrowful and grumpy, expressing the dolefullest opinions about
+      everything. There was going to be war, stocks were going down, trade was
+      crumbling, there was no virtue in man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Patty tried her best to coax him from these pessimistic moods, but the old
+      boy was not to be persuaded. On fine evenings, when there was nothing
+      better to be done, he had loved greatly, between the quiet old-fashioned
+      tea and the quiet old-fashioned supper, to dress for out of doors, and
+      with Patty on his arm to wander into Regent&rsquo;s Park, and there inhale the
+      best imitation of country atmosphere that London could afford. He dropped
+      this amiable and affectionate habit, and took to rambling out alone,
+      coming home late, and haggard, and not infrequently, at such times,
+      staring at his daughter with an aspect so sorrowing and wretched that she
+      knew not what to make of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl, watching him with a constantly increasing solicitude, could at
+      last endure this condition of affairs no longer. He came home one night,
+      leaving neither his stick nor hat in the outer hall, and sat down in the
+      dining-room, muffled and great-coated, the picture of dejection. Patty,
+      kneeling before him, removed his hat, smoothed his hair, and began to
+      unbutton his overcoat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Papa!&rsquo; she cried suddenly, &lsquo;what <i>is</i> the matter with you? Why are
+      you so changed?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He breathed a great sigh, and laid his hand upon her head. Then he turned
+      his face away from her&mdash;to hide his eyes, she fancied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You are in trouble,&rsquo; she went on. &lsquo;It is not kind to keep it from me. Is
+      it anything that I have done, or anything I could do.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No, no, my darling,&rsquo; he said softly, laying his hand upon her head again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Is it money, dear?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No, no. It isn&rsquo;t money. Don&rsquo;t talk about it, my dear. Don&rsquo;t talk about
+      it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Now, papa, you make me think it very grave indeed.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There,&rsquo; he said, rising, &lsquo;you shan&rsquo;t see any more of it, and we&rsquo;ll say no
+      more about it Well be gay and bright again, and well hope that things will
+      turn out for the best.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The attempt to be gay and bright again resulted in most mournful failure,
+      and the girl grew frightened. She had nursed her fears for many days, and
+      had hidden them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Papa!&rsquo; she said, trembling ever so little, &lsquo;you must let me know what it
+      is. Let us bear it together, dear. Whatever it may be it can&rsquo;t matter very
+      much if it leaves us two together&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Ah! &lsquo;said old Brown, looking at her with a pitying smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Is it anything&mdash;&mdash;?&rsquo; She stopped short, and really found no
+      courage to complete the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;My darling,&rsquo; he answered, folding her in his arms, and staring sadly over
+      her shoulder. She felt the hands that embraced her quiver, and she knew he
+      had understood her half-expressed query. This frightened her so much that
+      it gave her boldness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There is something the matter with Phil,&rsquo; she said, pushing the old man
+      away, and holding him at arm&rsquo;s length. &lsquo;Tell me what it is.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;My dear,&rsquo; he answered, &lsquo;you shouldn&rsquo;t leap at conclusions in that way.&rsquo; 
+      But the disclaimer was altogether too feeble to deceive her. Philip was
+      the mysterious cause of her father&rsquo;s trouble. Her wandering, pained eyes,
+      her parted lips, the terror and inquiry in her face, frightened the old
+      man. &lsquo;No, no,&rsquo; he cried, &lsquo;you must not think it too bad. I&rsquo;m not sure of
+      anything. I don&rsquo;t suppose it&rsquo;s at all a matter of consequence. I daresay
+      he&rsquo;s an old fool. I hope I am.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These hints and innuendoes were about the last thing in the world to
+      satisfy a girl who had been made anxious about her lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Tell me,&rsquo; she commanded. &lsquo;I have a right to know. What has happened?&rsquo; She
+      was no more inclined to be jealous than girls who are in love commonly
+      are. She had, indeed, a native fund of confidence, and her trust in Phil&rsquo;s
+      loyalty had been of the unquestioning sort, quite profound and settled.
+      Yet for a moment there rose before her mental vision the dim picture of
+      some possible rival, and at the mere hint of this she grew ashamed, and
+      flamed into indignation against herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Tell me,&rsquo; she said; &lsquo;I insist on knowing.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, my dear,&rsquo; said the old man miserably and reluctantly, I&rsquo;ve been
+      told that his father hastened his own ruin with dice and cards.&rsquo; It was
+      the first time he had mentioned Bommaney senior in his daughter&rsquo;s hearing
+      for a year. She looked at him with eyes still intent, but somehow milder
+      and less alarmed. &lsquo;Phil,&rsquo; the old boy continued, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m afraid that Phil is
+      travelling in his father&rsquo;s steps.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Phil a gambler!&rsquo; she said, with an honest scorn of conviction. &lsquo;I know
+      better. What makes you think it?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There are a lot of beastly clubs at the West End,&rsquo; said the old man,
+      beginning to struggle with his overcoat, partly because he wished to avoid
+      the girl&rsquo;s look, and partly because the motion was a relief to him.
+      &lsquo;Gambling-places. Places where men meet for no other earthly purpose than
+      to cheat one another. I&rsquo;m as fond of a rubber at whist as anybody; but no
+      honest man would put his head into one of those holes of infamy if he knew
+      its character.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Are you speaking of Phil, papa?&rsquo; she asked. Her voice was low and
+      tremulous, and there was almost a note of threatening in it. The gentlest
+      creature will fight for her own&mdash;a fact for which some of us have
+      reason to be grateful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes, my dear,&rsquo; her father answered with a kind of sullen sadness; &lsquo;I&rsquo;m
+      talking about Phil. He&rsquo;s a member of the vilest crowd of the whole lot,
+      and he&rsquo;s there night after night.&rsquo; He dashed his overcoat into an
+      arm-chair with despairing anger, and went marching up and down the room.
+      &lsquo;I saw him one night by accident as he was going in. I knew the place. You
+      might have knocked me down with a feather. I&rsquo;ve watched him there night
+      after night. Don&rsquo;t tell me I hadn&rsquo;t the right to watch him. I had the
+      right My little girl shan&rsquo;t marry a gambler. I won&rsquo;t have my fortune
+      wasted by a gambler, and my child&rsquo;s heart broken. I took a room,&rsquo; he
+      pursued wrathfully, &lsquo;opposite the place. I&rsquo;ve sat there in the dark with
+      the window open, and caught the d&mdash;&mdash; worst cold I ever had in
+      my life watching for him. I&rsquo;ve seen him go in again and again. He&rsquo;s a lost
+      man, I tell you,&rsquo; he cried in answer to his daughter&rsquo;s look and gesture;
+      &lsquo;the man who has that vice in his blood is lost!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was storming loudly, for he was one of those in whom emotion must have
+      expression in noise, but a sudden loud peal at the bell cut short his
+      harangue, and he and Patty stood in silence to know who it might be who
+      called so late. As it happened, it was no other than the lost man himself.
+      He was shown in according to wont and usage without previous announcement,
+      and entered gay and smiling, elate and tender.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he looked from one to the other the expression of his face changed. He
+      moved quickly towards Patty, and took her hands in his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There&rsquo;s something the matter,&rsquo; he said gently. &lsquo;You&rsquo;re in trouble!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old boy, glaring at him, growled, &lsquo;We are,&rsquo; and snatching up his
+      overcoat, threw it over his arm, and slipped his hat upon his head with a
+      gesture which Philip took for one of defiance. As a matter of fact it
+      expressed no more than wrathful grief, but then gesture and expression are
+      hard to read unless you have the key to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;We&rsquo;d better have it out, Phil,&rsquo; said the old man, &lsquo;here and now. You&rsquo;ve
+      turned gambler, and I&rsquo;ve found you out.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No,&rsquo; Phil answered, with an odd smile; &lsquo;I haven&rsquo;t turned gambler, I
+      assure you. You&rsquo;ve heard that I&rsquo;ve joined the Pigeon Trap? That&rsquo;s what
+      they call it in the City. I prefer to call it the Hawks&rsquo; Roost. There are
+      too few pigeons go there to be plucked to justify the other title, and I
+      give you my word of honour, Mr. Brown, that I&rsquo;m not one of them.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man&rsquo;s air was candid and amused. There was an underlying gravity
+      beneath the smile, and for people who had believed in him as devoutly as
+      his two listeners it was hard to disbelieve him now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You&rsquo;ve gone into the infernal hole,&rsquo; said old Brown, more than half
+      abandoning suspicion, and yet inclined to leave it growlingly, as a dog
+      might surrender a bone he conceived himself to have a right to. &lsquo;What do
+      you want there?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I want to do a very important stroke of business there, sir,&rsquo; Philip
+      answered. The smile quite disappeared from his eyes at this moment, and he
+      looked very grimly resolute. &lsquo;I will tell you this much,&rsquo; he added,
+      &lsquo;because you have a right to know it. I am in pursuit of a brace of
+      scoundrels there. I think I&rsquo;ve salted the tail of one of &lsquo;em already. I
+      believe with all my heart, sir, that I&rsquo;m going to clear my father&rsquo;s
+      character, and I would go into worse places than the Pigeon Trap if I saw
+      my way to doing that.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Patty of course was clinging to him without disguise by this time, anxious
+      only to atone for having given an ear to any word against him, even for a
+      moment. Phil put his arm about her waist and kissed her. He had never to
+      his knowledge performed this act in the presence of a third person until
+      now, but he got through it without embarrassment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You think you can clear your father&rsquo;s character?&rsquo; asked his sweetheart&rsquo;s
+      father. There was a tinge of scepticism in his voice, though he tried to
+      hide it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes, sir,&rsquo; said Phil, his head thrown back a little, and his eyes
+      gleaming. Nobody had ever looked so handsome to Patty&rsquo;s fancy as he did at
+      that moment &lsquo;I know already that there was no real stain upon his honour,
+      and I&rsquo;m surprised myself for thinking that there ever could have been, bad
+      as things looked. My father never took wrongful possession of your money.
+      He was robbed of it, and I think I can lay my hand upon the thief.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a prodigious excitement at this declaration, and the young man
+      was overwhelmed with questions. He could name no names, of course, and
+      give no clue, but he sketched the story. He contented himself by
+      describing young Barter as Thief Number One, and he was satisfied to
+      describe Steinberg as Probable Thief Number Two. He had learned, it
+      appeared, that Thief Number One had succeeded on his father&rsquo;s death to a
+      carefully limited partnership in a business affair in the city. The
+      guiding spirit in the concerns of Thief Number One had been his father&rsquo;s
+      managing clerk. The income of Thief Number One was strictly limited, and
+      his actual control over the affairs of the firm was non-existent.
+      Notwithstanding these facts, the young man was guilty of countless
+      extravagances, and was a reckless gambler. Within the last twelve months
+      he could hardly have paid away at the club less than a thousand pounds. He
+      had been extremely hard up before the loss of the money, and it was in his
+      offices that the roll of banknotes had been lost. As for Probable Thief
+      Number Two, he played rook to Number One&rsquo;s pigeon. He had a visible hold
+      upon him; Number One trembled before him, and did what he was bidden to
+      do. Number Two had plenty of money, and as shady a reputation as any man
+      in London who was not among the known criminal classes. Phil&rsquo;s belief was
+      that Number Two was disposing of the notes for Number One, and that this
+      simple fact accounted for his power over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;And I&rsquo;m going to follow their track,&rsquo; said Phil, tapping the clenched
+      knuckles of his right hand upon the open palm of his left with a quiet
+      vehemence, &lsquo;until I find out everything, if I follow it until I am gray.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It would appear that a spider may be among the most daring, skilful, and
+      predatory of his species, that he may be gifted with the most constant
+      watchfulness and appetite, and yet, whether by the intrusion of an
+      accidental walking-stick or broom (which would assuredly seem providential
+      to the fly), or by stress of weather, or the desperate activity of a
+      victim, may have his best laid schemes brought to nought, and his most
+      mathematically laid web rent to tatters. In the entomological world a
+      solitary interview between fly and spider is usually fatal to the one, and
+      satisfactory to the other. But we of the higher developments, who model
+      ourselves, or are modelled, upon the lines of myriads of remote ancestors,
+      and far-away relatives, have refined upon their primitive proceedings, and
+      have made their simple activities complex by development.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In an absolutely primitive condition the Steinberg spider would have
+      drained the Barter fly at a single orgie, and would have left him to
+      wither on the lines. As things were, he came back to him with a constant
+      gusto of appetite, tasting him on Monday, despatching him to buzz among
+      his fellows until Saturday, and then tasting him again, the Barter fly
+      seeming for a while&mdash;for quite a considerable time in fact&mdash;lusty
+      and active and able-bodied, and looking as though this kind of thing might
+      go on for ever without much damage to him, and the spider himself giving
+      no sign of overtaxed digestive powers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not to run this striking and original simile out of breath, the Barter fly
+      endured for a round twelve months, without showing signs of anaemia so
+      pronounced as to look dangerous to his constitution. At the end of that
+      time, however, all the surplus blood had been drawn from his body, and the
+      spider had grown so keen by the habit of constant recurrence to him that
+      any prolonged connection between them began to look desperate. In plain
+      English, the eight thousand pounds which had once so lightly passed from
+      the hands of Mr. Brown to the hands of Mr. Bommaney had now passed, with
+      just as little profit to the man who parted with them, from the hands of
+      young Barter to the hands of Steinberg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was just about the time when this lingering but inevitable transaction
+      was completed that chance led young Barter to his encounter with the son
+      of the man whose belongings he had appropriated. Everybody knows how apt
+      newly-made acquaintances sometimes are to renew themselves again and
+      again. You meet a man whom you have never seen before, see him just long
+      enough to take a passing interest in him, and to know generally who and
+      what he is, and you run against him on the morrow, and again on the
+      morrow, and so on, until in a week he has grown as familiar to your
+      thoughts as any other mere acquaintance of whose identity you may have
+      been aware for years. This happened in the case of Philip Bommaney and
+      younger Mr. Barter. They entered the Inn together, or left it together, or
+      Philip ran upstairs or downstairs as Barter was in the very act of leaving
+      or entering his chambers. Putting together a certain family resemblance
+      which he thought he noticed, the identity of a rather uncommon name, and
+      the curious frequency of these chance encounters, Barter found it hard to
+      avoid the belief that his new-made acquaintance had a rather careful eye
+      upon him. His nerve was a good deal shaken, and he was by no means the man
+      he had been. To the unobservant stranger the frank gaiety of his laugh was
+      as spontaneous as ever, but then that had never had much to do with
+      Barter&rsquo;s inward sensations. Perhaps he got the laugh in some remote
+      fashion from an ancestor who really ought to have had it, and who may have
+      been as dull and as little laughter-loving to look at as his successor was
+      within. Philip rather took to the fellow at first sight, and was slow to
+      suspect him, even when James Hornett had told his story. But the young
+      Barter was not satisfied, as he should have been, with playing the part of
+      one insect at a time. It was unwholesome enough, one might have thought,
+      for him to play fly to Steinberg&rsquo;s spider, and yet he must needs take to
+      playing moth to Philip Bommaney&rsquo;s candle, a light of danger to him, as he
+      recognised almost from the first He was always polite to Phil, and always
+      stopped him for a moment&rsquo;s conversation at their chance encounters. Phil,
+      having been inspired at least with a suspicion that this engaging young
+      man was responsible for the actual disgrace which had fallen upon Bommaney
+      senior, always bent a grave scrutiny upon him. Barter sometimes wondered
+      whether his new-found acquaintance&rsquo;s way of looking at him were habitual
+      or particular, but he could never solve that problem. To Barter&rsquo;s nerves
+      the glance of dispassionate analysis always seemed to ask&mdash;Did you
+      steal those notes? and whether his mind and nerves were at accord or no
+      made but little difference to him. His mind rejected the idea of
+      suspicion, but his nerves accepted it with trembling. He knew perfectly
+      well that he could not endure the certainty of Phil Bommaney&rsquo;s knowledge,
+      but none the less he found the uncertainty tantalising and painful. This
+      is perhaps one of the hardest things an undetected criminal has to endure,
+      that he lives in a world of suspicion of his own making, where every
+      imagination is real and as dreadful as the fact. In his own mind young
+      Barter credited himself with courage when he made overtures for Philip&rsquo;s
+      companionship. In reality he made the overtures because he was a coward,
+      and a braver scoundrel would have disdained them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip felt himself impelled to watch this young man, and was not
+      altogether displeased that he found the opportunity thrust upon him.
+      Almost facing the gateway of the old Inn there is an old-fashioned
+      restaurant, deserted from its hour of opening until noon, and from then
+      crowded inconveniently till two o&rsquo;clock, deserted again till five, and
+      once more inconveniently crowded till seven. Philip, having the power to
+      choose his own time for meals, and frequenting this old house, sometimes
+      met Barter in the act of coming away from it with the dregs of the stream
+      of the late lunchers or diners. He fell into the habit of going a little
+      earlier, and Barter would signal him to the table at which he sat, if by
+      rare chance there happened to be a vacant seat at it. The young rascal&rsquo;s
+      tendency lay towards monologue, and since it was his cue to be
+      open-hearted, and very unsuspicious of being suspected, he talked with
+      much freedom of himself, his pursuits, and his affairs. The question which
+      Barter&rsquo;s nerves were always finding in Philip&rsquo;s eyes was, as a matter of
+      fact, not often absent from his mind. &lsquo;Now, how did you steal those
+      notes?&rsquo; was the one active query of his intelligence as he listened to
+      Barter&rsquo;s candid prattle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in the course of these confidences that Philip learned of the
+      existence of that Pigeon Trap of which Mr. Barter was so proud to be an
+      inhabitant. It was at Barter&rsquo;s solicitation that he visited the place, and
+      it was Barter who proposed him as a member.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being a member it was not long before he discovered the fact of
+      Steinberg&rsquo;s influence over the young solicitor. He noticed a terrified
+      deference in Barter&rsquo;s manner towards the other, a frightened alacrity of
+      obedience to his suggestions. He noticed also that Steinberg and Barter
+      played a good deal by themselves, and that Barter always lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men of Hawks&rsquo; Boost talked pretty freely about each other in the
+      absence of such of their fellow clubmen as were under discussion. Barter
+      was spoken of as Steinberg&rsquo;s Mug, Berg&rsquo;s Juggins, Stein&rsquo;s Spoofmarker. It
+      was generally admitted that Stein made a good thing out of him, and the
+      wonder was where Barter got his money. There was a pretty general
+      apprehension that the young man, at no very far future date, would come to
+      grief. The contemplation of this probability affected the Boosters but
+      little in an emotional way, but it made them keen to see that Mr. Barter
+      paid up punctually, and though they were very shy of paper acceptances
+      from their comrades as a general thing, they were shyer of his than of
+      most men&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These things Philip Bommaney junior attentively noted. At first the
+      clubmen rather wondered at him. He was in their precincts often, and would
+      smoke his pipe and watch whatever game might be going with tranquil
+      interest, but he never played, and could not be induced to bet. <i>Que
+      diable faisant-il dans cette gaière?</i> the clubmen wanted to know. He
+      never told them, and in a while they grew accustomed to him and his ways.
+      He continued his quiet watch upon Mr. Barter, and included Steinberg in
+      his field of observation. One evening, dining at the old restaurant, he
+      marked Barter, melancholy and alone. He was sitting in an attitude of
+      apparent dejection, tapping upon the table with a fork, and deep sunk in
+      what seemed to be an uncomfortable contemplation. But when the moth saw
+      his candle he brightened, and fluttered over to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You might come over,&rsquo; said Barter, when they had sat together until the
+      latest of the dining guests had gone away. &lsquo;You might come over to my
+      chambers and smoke a cigar if you&rsquo;ve nothing else to do. I don&rsquo;t care
+      about going down to the club tonight.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Steinberg spider was supposed to be waiting there, coldly patient and
+      insatiable, and Barter dreaded him. Philip had never entered the rooms,
+      but they had an attraction for him. He accepted his companion&rsquo;s
+      invitation, and they entered the chambers together. A fire lingered in the
+      grate, and Barter replenished it, and, having produced a box of cigars and
+      a bottle of cognac, proffered refreshment to his guest. The honest man
+      began somewhat to recoil from himself and from his companion. What was he
+      there for? The answer was pretty evident. There was nothing between this
+      loud-babbling youth and himself which could have drawn them into even a
+      momentary comradeship, if it had not been for the suspicion his father&rsquo;s
+      story had inspired in him. Frankly, he was there because he suspected the
+      man, because he desired to watch him, because, if he found the chance, he
+      was willing to set him in the dock. To smoke his tobacco and drink his
+      liquor in those circumstances had undoubtedly an air of treachery. In a
+      while he hardened himself, and closed his ears to all casuist pleadings,
+      whether for or against the course he had adopted. He would clear his
+      father if he could, and if there were any mere hope of doing it, he would
+      watch this fellow as a cat watches a mouse, and would go on doing it until
+      both of them were gray.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;By the way,&rsquo; said Barter innocently, &lsquo;do you never take a hand at&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His supple fingers supplied the hiatus, dealing out an imaginary pack of
+      cards with the flourishing dexterity native to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m here for, is it?&rsquo; thought Philip in his own mind. &lsquo;We
+      shall see.&rsquo; He said aloud, &lsquo;Sometimes,&rsquo; in an indifferent tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There&rsquo;s nothing worth seeing anywhere to-night,&rsquo; said young Barter.
+      &lsquo;Suppose we try a hand. What do you say to a game at Napoleon?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip consented, and his host produced two packs of cards from the
+      business safe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They fixed upon the points and they began to play. The points were not
+      those for which Mr. Barter really cared to play; for he was one of those
+      people who find no joy in cards unless they risk more than they can afford
+      to lose. But little fish are sweet, and he thought he had secured a
+      greenhorn. As it happened, the greenhorn, though he was but
+      eight-and-twenty, had travelled the world all over, and had found himself
+      compelled to survey mankind from China to Peru. He was, moreover, one of
+      those men who like to know things, and those quietly-observant eyes of his
+      had taken note of the proceedings of a hundred scoundrels in whose hands
+      the redoubtable Steinberg himself would have had but poor chances. The
+      Greek had been Philip&rsquo;s standing joy, the dish best spiced to suit his
+      intellectual palate. He had delighted over him aboard ship, on the
+      monstrous dreary railway journey between Atlantic and Pacific, in the
+      little towns which form the centre of scores of Texan ranches, in hells at
+      the Cape and in California, in the free ports of China, and on the borders
+      of the Bosphorus. In point of fact he was by experience as little fitted
+      to be played upon by a gentleman of young Mr. Barter&rsquo;s limited
+      accomplishments as almost any man alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Phil&rsquo;s interest in the game had grown grimly observant in the first ten
+      minutes. Young Mr. Barter had a knack, when he shuffled the cards, of
+      slily inclining the painted sides upwards. He had another knack of leaving
+      an honour at the bottom. He made a false cut with fair dexterity for an
+      amateur. He could, when occasion seemed to make it profitable, discard
+      with a fair air of unconsciousness. An ace dropped out of sight a hand or
+      two earlier, was followed by a valueless card dropped openly. The ace was
+      taken to supply its place with a perfect smiling effrontery. But Mr.
+      Barter&rsquo;s favourite trick came out when he had a weak hand. Then he smiled
+      across at his opponent, breathed softly the words &lsquo;six cards,&rsquo; and dropped
+      the worthless hand on the top of the pack, calling for a new deal All this
+      Philip Bommaney watched with a complete seeming innocence and good temper.
+      He lost his sixpences handsomely, made no protest, and looked unruffled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You play false for sixpences, do you?&rsquo; he said inwardly. &lsquo;I suppose a
+      scoundrel is a scoundrel all through, and that if you&rsquo;ll sell your soul
+      for so little, you could hardly object to driving a bargain for a larger
+      sum.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was often tempted in the course of a quarter of an hour to try Mr.
+      Barter with a sudden challenge, and see what would come of it. Surveying
+      his companion with that placid inquiry which Barter felt to be so
+      excessively uncomfortable, he came to have but a poor opinion of his
+      courage. He was one of those men who, even without knowing it, take
+      profound observations of their fellow-creatures. The true observer of
+      human nature is by no means a personage who is always on the strain after
+      insight into character. He is, on the contrary, pretty generally an
+      inward-looking man, who seems to notice little, and takes in his
+      surroundings as the immortal Joey Ladle did his wine. Philip judged Barter
+      to be a nervous man, and supposed him, even when strung to his bent, to
+      have no great tenacity or continuance of courage. He had learned more and
+      more to believe his father&rsquo;s story, though he had perhaps too carefully
+      guarded himself from his own eager desire to accept it Barter&rsquo;s every
+      action with the cards offered confirmation of the belief that he had taken
+      possession of the lost notes. He was certainly a petty rascal, and there
+      was obviously nothing but opportunity needed to make him bloom into a
+      rascal on a larger scale. So the temptation to drop the cards upon the
+      table, to look his companion in the face, and to ask simply, &lsquo;How about
+      that eight thousand pounds?&rsquo; grew more and more upon him, and had to be
+      more and more strenuously resisted. It seemed worth while to resist it To
+      begin with, if young Barter should be innocent, the querist could
+      evidently expect nothing else than to be taken for a madman. To continue,
+      if his name and the likeness to his father had already set the thief upon
+      his guard, and had prepared him for accusation, the question would only
+      reveal his own suspicion, and thereby weaken the chances of discovery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip combated his inward desire, but could not quell it. There seemed a
+      kind of intuition in it, a lurking certainty lay hidden behind all the
+      doubts he saw, and pushed him forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By and by young Mr. Barter tripped on the false cut, which he had hitherto
+      executed with a fair amateur dexterity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Excuse me,&rsquo; said Phil, as he gathered the spilt cards together. &lsquo;You
+      should make the three separate motions look like one. Do the trick so.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He performed the trick slowly, looking Barter in the face, and then went
+      through it swiftly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That is how the thing ought to be done, Mr. Barter,&rsquo; he said, with a
+      placidity which his companion found singularly disquieting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, that same unhappy want of self-command which had given Steinberg
+      so clear an insight into his young friend&rsquo;s mind, fell once more upon
+      Barter. He tried to look wondering, he tried to laugh. The result of that
+      frightened contortion of the features was nothing less than ghastly.
+      Unhappily for himself he knew it, and so he grew ghastlier yet, and for
+      the life of him could not tell where to set his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;So you&rsquo;re a sharper in a small way, are you, Mr. Barter?&rsquo; Philip inquired
+      suavely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;How dare you talk to me like that?&rsquo; the detected rascal stammered. &lsquo;You
+      come into a gentleman&rsquo;s rooms, and lose an odd half-crown or two&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had got as far as this he ventured to look his companion in the
+      face, and seeing there a very marked and readable prophecy of unpleasant
+      things, he backed, and in the act of doing so, tripped, and fell into a
+      chair. The intention in Phil&rsquo;s mind became simply unconquerable. He cast
+      rapidly about him for an instant, saw all the consequences of failure
+      which might follow if he denounced the trembling wretch at once, and set
+      him on his guard. And yet he could not help doing what he did, and could
+      not restrain the words which rose to his lips. He took Barter by the
+      collar, and lifted him to his feet with an unsuspected strength, and put
+      the question to him quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;How many of those stolen notes has Steinberg changed for you?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a bold thing to do, it was perhaps a foolish thing to do, and yet
+      it was the game. Barter stared at him speechlessly. His lips moved, but he
+      said nothing. Then his jaw fell as a dead man&rsquo;s jaw falls, and being
+      released at that instant, he dropped into the chair like a sack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Now the best thing for you to do,&rsquo; said Phil, sternly regarding him,
+      &lsquo;will be to make a clean breast of it. I have been tracking you since the
+      second day of our acquaintance.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barter groaned, with a tremulous and hollow sound, but made no other
+      answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;How many of those notes are in Steinberg&rsquo;s hands?&rsquo; Phil asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rascal&rsquo;s wits had begun to work again, if only a little, and he could
+      by this time have answered if he would. But he knew that his own
+      cowardice, if nothing else, had given away the game. After such a
+      confession as his own terror had made, what was the use of bluster or
+      pretence? He could not guess how much was known. He was completely
+      cornered, and must fight or yield. His native instinct at any moment was
+      ready to teach him how much discretion was the better part of valour, and
+      now to fight seemed mere madness. In the very terror of the night which
+      thus suddenly enveloped him he saw one gleam of hope. There was one stroke
+      to be made which might save him, in part at least, from the consequences
+      of his own misdeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip gave these reflections but little time to grow distinct to Barter&rsquo;s
+      mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;How many of those notes?&rsquo; he asked slowly, emphasising almost every word
+      by a tap of his knuckles upon the table, &lsquo;have passed into Steinberg&rsquo;s
+      hands?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;All,&rsquo; gasped Barter; &lsquo;every one of them!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That will do for the present,&rsquo; said Philip, and at that instant there
+      came a loud summons at the door, whereat the miserable Barter started, and
+      clasped his hands in renewed terror. He fancied an officer of justice
+      there, his arrival accurately timed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip, throwing a glance about the room, and assuring himself that there
+      was no means of unobserved exit, answered the summons in person. He had
+      until that moment kept perfect possession of himself except for his
+      obedience to that overmastering intuition, but beholding Mr. Steinberg at
+      the doorway he felt a great leap at his heart, and a sudden dryness in his
+      throat. He examined these phenomena afterwards, and decided in his own
+      mind that they were assignable to fear. He came to the belief which he
+      cherishes until now, that he had to screw up his courage pretty tightly
+      before he could face the idea of confronting the partners in rascality
+      together. But here it may be observed in passing that this kind of
+      self-depreciation is a favourite trick with men of unusual nerve, and is
+      rarely resorted to by any but the most courageous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steinberg recognised him by the light of the gas-lamp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Good-evening,&rsquo; he said, nodding. &lsquo;Barter&rsquo;s here, I suppose.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Sir,&rsquo; said Phil, with recovered coolness, a certain light of humour
+      dawning in his mind, &lsquo;Mr. Barter is within, and I have no doubt will be
+      very happy to see you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steinberg cast a sidelong glance at him, and entered. Phil closed the
+      door, and followed close upon his heels. Barter, with his pale complexion
+      fallen to the tint of dead ashes, sat huddled in the arm-chair, staring
+      white-eyed like a frightened madman. Steinberg stared back at him in sheer
+      amazement at his looks, and Phil, closing the door, turned the key in the
+      lock and pocketed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Hillo!&rsquo; cried Steinberg, turning swiftly round at the click, &lsquo;what&rsquo;s this
+      mean?&rsquo; He measured Philip with his eye&mdash;a very evil and wicked eye it
+      was&mdash;and dropped back a step or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What&rsquo;s this mean?&rsquo; Steinberg asked again, his quick glance darting from
+      one to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It means, sir,&rsquo; said Phil, with a glad tranquillity, &lsquo;that your
+      fellow-scoundrel, the courageous gentleman in the arm-chair there, is in
+      the act of making his confession.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steinberg sent one savage glance at Barter, and then dashed at him, and
+      planting both hands within the collar of his shirt, so banged him to and
+      fro that he would inevitably have done him a mischief of a serious sort
+      but for Phil&rsquo;s intervention. The method of intervention was less tranquil
+      than Philip&rsquo;s motion up to this time had been. He tore Steinberg from his
+      grip of the betrayer with a force he had no time to measure, and hurled
+      him across the room. He staggered at the door, and his head coming noisily
+      in contact with it, he slipped down into a sitting posture with an
+      expression suddenly changed from ferocity to a complete vacuity and
+      indifference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Mr. Barter, scared as he had been, and shaken to his centre, had begun
+      to think again, and when he saw that Steinberg&rsquo;s chance in the enemy&rsquo;s
+      hands was less than nothing, that fact formed as it were the last
+      necessary plank for the raft of safety he desired to construct. He got up
+      from his place, animated by this great idea, and staggering to the
+      helpless Steinberg, fell down beside him and gripped his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Tie him, Mr. Bommaney, tie him!&rsquo; gurgled Barter. &lsquo;He&rsquo;s been the ruin of
+      me, curse him. I should have been an honest man if it hadn&rsquo;t been for him.
+      It&rsquo;s him that led me into it, and he&rsquo;s had every sixpence of the money.
+      I&rsquo;ve been his tool, his miserable tool. Tie him, Mr. Bommaney, before he
+      comes round again. I&rsquo;ll hold him for you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One may get good advice from the most unexpected quarter, and whencesoever
+      good advice may come it is worth while to follow it. Phil took a dandy
+      scarf from Steinberg&rsquo;s own neck, and tied him tightly, wrist to wrist Then
+      he helped him to his feet, and set him in a chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;He came here to-night,&rsquo; Barter gurgled on, with tears of sincerest
+      penitence, &lsquo;to bleed me again. He&rsquo;s got my I.O.U. for £82 he cheated me of
+      last week. He&rsquo;s had every penny of the money. I haven&rsquo;t had so much as a
+      single farthing of it myself. I&rsquo;ll swear I haven&rsquo;t.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That&rsquo;s your lay, is it?&rsquo; said Steinberg, whose scattered wits were coming
+      back to him. &lsquo;You shall answer for this violence in the proper quarter,
+      Bommaney.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I will answer for it in the proper quarter,&rsquo; Phil replied. &lsquo;I will
+      trouble you, Mr. Steinberg, to come to the proper quarter now.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You won&rsquo;t forget,&rsquo; said Barter, &lsquo;that I helped to capture him. You&rsquo;ll
+      speak a word for me, Mr. Bommaney?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve been that villain&rsquo;s victim all along. I should never have gone wrong
+      if it hadn&rsquo;t been for him, and I&rsquo;ve wanted to send the money back over and
+      over again, but he got it into his own hands and wouldn&rsquo;t listen to it,
+      and after all I never took the money, Mr. Bommaney&mdash;I only found it.
+      It was Steinberg kept it. He said I should be a fool to let it go.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What sentiments of contempt and rage inspired Mr. Steinberg&rsquo;s bosom at
+      this juncture must be imagined. He looked them all, but verbally expressed
+      none of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Get up,&rsquo; said Phil, addressing him. Steinberg obeyed. &lsquo;Take a seat in
+      that corner.&rsquo; Steinberg obeyed again. &lsquo;Now you&mdash;&rsquo; to Barter, &lsquo;take a
+      place in that corner, behind the desk.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;With pleasure, Mr. Bommaney,&rsquo; said Barter, &lsquo;with the very greatest
+      willingness. I desire to make no resistance to the law. I helped to
+      capture the criminal Please remember that, Mr. Bommaney. Pray remember
+      that.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took hold of a heavy ruler which happened to be lying on the desk, and
+      deeming that he and the other rascal were about to be left alone together,
+      he showed it shakily to Steinberg, as a hint that he was not without means
+      of protection against a man unarmed and bound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Phil unlocked the door, inserted the key on the other side, disappeared,
+      and turned the lock anew. The two criminals heard his footstep sounding
+      elate, triumphant, and threatening to their ears as he went along the
+      boarded floor. They listened as the footstep crossed the square boulders
+      of the courtyard, and listened still until their sound melted into the
+      blended noises of the outer street. A minute later the step was heard
+      returning, accompanied by another, solid and terrible. They knew it, and
+      their hearts, low as they were already, sank at it. The door opened and
+      Phil reappeared, followed by a policeman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I give these two in charge,&rsquo; the young man said, &lsquo;the one as the thief,
+      the other as the receiver of a bundle of bank-notes of the value of eight
+      thousand pounds, the property of my father, Mr. Philip Bommaney of
+      Coalporter&rsquo;s Alley.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m quite willing to go without resistance,&rsquo; said Mr. Barter from behind
+      the table. &lsquo;I assisted in the capture, and I am ready to say anything.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That&rsquo;s the first true word you&rsquo;ve spoken,&rsquo; Steinberg snarled. &lsquo;You can
+      take this thing off,&rsquo; holding out his hands. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll go quietly. I can get
+      bail in an hour.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t have it taken off, Mr. Bommaney, not if we&rsquo;re to travel in the same
+      vehicle. He threatened me while you were away. He said if they gave him
+      fifty years he&rsquo;d kill me when he came out again. He&rsquo;ll do it, because I
+      made a clean breast of it, didn&rsquo;t I, Mr. Bommaney? I made a clean breast
+      of it, officer. I&rsquo;m ready to&mdash;tell everything. He&rsquo;s ruined me, and
+      now he says he&rsquo;ll kill me because I&rsquo;m ready to make a clean breast of it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I choose to be taken separately, if you please. I myself will pay the
+      fare. I won&rsquo;t travel with that cackling idiot.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I will go with Mr. Bommaney with pleasure,&rsquo; said the penitent. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll go
+      with you with pleasure anywhere. I&rsquo;d rather go with you a great deal.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was hardly to be expected that Philip should feel very warmly towards
+      either of his two companions, but of the two he misliked Steinberg the
+      less. And, since it seemed humane and reasonable to choose, he chose
+      Steinberg as his travelling companion. The officer set Steinberg&rsquo;s hat
+      upon his head, and the quartet set out. The sight of a man with his hands
+      tightly bound with a scarlet muffler gathered a momentary little crowd at
+      the Inn gate; but, a pair of hansoms being summoned, captives and captors
+      were speedily relieved from vulgar observation. The station reached, it
+      turned out that the communicative Mr. Barter, in the exuberance of his
+      heart, had exposed to the officer <i>en route</i> the whereabouts of the
+      lost notes. He declared that to his knowledge they rested in a safe, the
+      position of which he indicated, in Steinberg&rsquo;s Hatton Garden office. The
+      Inspector before whom the charge was made deemed this intelligence worthy
+      of being acted on at once. The two prisoners were searched, and Mr. Barter
+      was so good as to point out, among Steinberg&rsquo;s keys, those which were
+      necessary for the purposes of investigation. He even went so far as to
+      offer his assistance as guide; but this was declined with a chilliness
+      singularly at variance with the solicitous warmth of the proposal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I think, sir,&rsquo; said the Inspector, with an arctic disrespect which was so
+      frozen as to be almost respectful, &lsquo;that we can manage this without your
+      assistance.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Divisional Superintendent, being communicated with by telephone,
+      arrived upon the scene. The matter in hand having been laid before him
+      with curt official brevity, he asked for the keys, called to himself a
+      constable, and was preparing to set out, when Philip begged permission to
+      accompany him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;The notes, sir,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;were left in my father&rsquo;s trust by a dear old
+      friend of his. My father himself was supposed to have made use of them&mdash;a
+      thing of which he was incapable. If I can take to him the news that they
+      are found, I can lift a load of undeserved disgrace from the mind of an
+      honourable man.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I shall be pleased to have your company, Mr. Bommaney,&rsquo; the
+      Superintendent answered, touched a little by the young man&rsquo;s earnestness.
+      So the three got into a four-wheeler, and bowled away to Hatton Garden,
+      and there made entry into the chambers lately occupied by Mr. Steinberg.
+      There was no gas here, but the constable&rsquo;s dark lantern showed the way. It
+      revealed the safe in the position the communicative criminal had assigned
+      to it. It revealed the notes, snugly spread out in one crisp little heap,
+      and arranged with business-like precision in the order of their numbers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This golden spectacle once seen, Phil dashed into the street, hailed a
+      hansom, and drove pell-mell, exciting the cabman who conducted him by the
+      promise of a double fare, to the residence of old Brown and old Brown&rsquo;s
+      daughter. There he told the glorious news, a little broken and halting in
+      his speech. Patty threw her arms about him, and cried without concealment
+      or restraint. Old Brown blew his nose with a suspicious frequency, and
+      shook his adopted son-in-law by the hand at frequent intervals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Phil,&rsquo; he cried at last, &lsquo;where&rsquo;s your father? By God, sir, he never had
+      any need to run away from me, because he happened to lose a handful of
+      paltry money. What had he got to do but come and say, &ldquo;Brown, it&rsquo;s gone!&rdquo;
+       He hadn&rsquo;t trust enough in me to think I&rsquo;d believe him. Let&rsquo;s get at him.
+      Where is he?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old boy tugged furiously at the bell-pull.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Send Brenner round to the stable,&rsquo; he said to the servant. &lsquo;Tell him to
+      get the horses to, and bring the carriage round at once. Where&rsquo;s your
+      father, Phil?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;He&rsquo;s down Poplar way,&rsquo; said Phil. &lsquo;Hornett, his old clerk, is living in
+      the same house with him.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;We&rsquo;ll go down, and rouse him up,&rsquo; the old boy said, with a moist eye and
+      trembling hand. &lsquo;Phil, my lad,&rsquo; he went on, grasping the young fellow&rsquo;s
+      hand in his own, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m getting to be an old &lsquo;un. You wouldn&rsquo;t think it to
+      look at me, because, thank God, I&rsquo;ve always known how to take my trouble
+      lightly, but I&rsquo;ve seen a lot of it in my time, and you can take my word
+      for this&mdash;there isn&rsquo;t any trouble in the world that&rsquo;s hardly so
+      bitter as for an honest man to have to take another for a rogue.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it came to pass that Bommaney senior, who after all, perhaps, hardly
+      deserved to be made a hero of, was plenteously bedewed with the tears of
+      three most honourable and high-minded people, and was, set up in their
+      minds as a sort of live statue of undeserved martyrdom. They who learned
+      the tale afterwards mourned his weakness, and supposed him to be the
+      victim of a too sensitive organisation. He lives now with a genuine halo
+      of sanctity about him, and seems in the minds of some to have suffered for
+      the sake of a great principle, quite noble, but not quite definitely
+      defined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Odd things happen every day in the world, and pass by unregarded. The
+      worship of Bommaney senior&rsquo;s sensibilities seems a trifle dull when all
+      things are considered, though one has to be glad that an honest son can
+      think of him with pity mixed with admiration. But perhaps the oddest thing
+      of all in connection with this story may be looked for in the shorthand
+      reporter&rsquo;s notes of the Recorder&rsquo;s speech at the Old Bailey, when the
+      accusation against Messrs. Barter and Steinberg came to be heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You, Barter,&rsquo; said the learned Recorder, &lsquo;appear to have been drawn into
+      this by the influence of an intelligence stronger and abler than your own.
+      You appear, in a moment of weakness, to have been led away by that
+      stronger intelligence from the paths of rectitude. But you have displayed
+      so clear a sense of the enormity of your conduct, and have, by your
+      complete disclosures of the crime committed by you and your companion,
+      and, by your evidence in Court to-day, shown so complete a repentance for
+      it, that I do not think that it would be politic or just to lay a severe
+      term of imprisonment upon you. Nevertheless, the law of the land must be
+      justified, and I feel a pleasure in believing that in justifying the law I
+      am affording you an opportunity for reflection, for the formation of good
+      resolutions for the future, and for a confirmation of those better desires
+      which I believe&mdash;in spite of your association with this criminal
+      enterprise&mdash;to animate your mind.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, to my fancy, this has a distinct element of comedy in it; but the
+      learned Recorder resembled some of his unlearned brethren, in respect to
+      the fact that he could not be expected to know everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Barter thrives again, but he is even now awaiting, with the uneasiest
+      sensations, the liberation of the man who betrayed him into crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Young Mr. Barter&rsquo;s Repentance, by
+David Christie Murray
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+</pre>
+  </body>
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