All the way along the canal bank Mr. Mortimer continued to carol.
Mercurial man! Like all actors he loved applause, but unlike the most
of them he was capable of supplying it when the public failed; and this
knack of being his own best audience had lifted him, before now, out of
quite a number of Sloughs of Despond and carried him forward singing.

He had left care behind him in Mr. Hucks's yard, and so much of noble
melancholy as he kept (for the sake of artistic effect) took a tincture
from the sunset bronzing the smoke-laden sky and gilding the unlovely
waterway. Like the sunset, Mr. Mortimer's mood was serene and golden.
His breast, expanding, heaved off all petty constricting worries,
"like Samson his green wythes": they fell from him as he rode, and as he
rode he chanted--

"The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot . . ."

Old Jubilee--if, like John Gilpin's horse, he wondered more and more--
was a philosophical beast and knew his business. Abreast of the boat,
beside the angle of the Orphanage wall, he halted for his rider to
alight, and began to nose for herbage among the nettles. Nor did he
betray surprise when Mr. Mortimer, after a glance down the towpath
towards the iron bridge and the tram-lights passing there, walked off
and left him to browse.

Fifteen minutes passed. The last flush of sunset had died out of the
sky, and twilight was deepening rapidly, when Mr. Mortimer came
strolling back. Apparently--since he came empty-handed--his search for
a saucepan had been unsuccessful. Yet patently the disappointment had