The scene of the tragedy, that shop in the Strand, was well-lit and
well-appointed. But he, Savage Keith Rickman, had much preferred the
dark little second-hand shop in the City where he had laboured as a
boy. There was something soothing in its very obscurity and
retirement. He could sit there for an hour at a time, peacefully
reading his Homer. In that agreeable dusty twilight, outward forms
were dimmed with familiarity and dirt. His dreams took shape before
him, they came and went at will, undisturbed by any gross collision
with reality. There was hardly any part of it that was not consecrated
by some divine visitation. It was in the corner by the window,
standing on a step-ladder and fumbling in the darkness for a copy of
Demosthenes, _De Corona_, that he lit on his first Idea. From his seat
behind the counter, staring, as was his custom, into the recess where
the coal-scuttle was, he first saw the immortal face of Helen in
Leuce.

Here, all that beautiful world of thought lay open to the terrific
invasion of things. His dreams refused to stand out with sufficient
distinctness from a background of coloured bindings, plate glass and
mahogany. They were liable at any moment to be broken by the violent
contours of customers. A sight of Helen in Leuce could be obtained
only by dint of much concentrated staring at the clock; and as often
as not Mr. Rickman's eye dropt its visionary freight on encountering
the cashier's eye in its passage from the clock to the paper.

But (as he reflected with some humour) though Mr. Rickman's ideas so
frequently miscarried, owing to that malignant influence, his genius,
like Nature irresistible and indestructible, compelled him perpetually