unexampled, between this man and himself--this man, a sorry vagrant;
himself, become now but a--"You were about to--?"

"I had, sir, so far forgotten myself as to venture to think of applying
for temporary assistance; however--" Dandy Joe began to shuffle off in a
spiritless way, when--

"You are hungry?" said John Steele.

"A little, sir."

"A modest answer in view of the actual truth, I suspect," observed the
other. But although his words were brusk, he felt in his pocket; a
sovereign--it was all he had left about him. When he had departed
post-haste for Strathorn House, he had neglected to furnish himself with
funds for an indefinite period; a contingency he should have foreseen
had risen; for the present he could not appear at the bank to draw
against the balance he always maintained there. His own future, how he
should be able to subsist, even if he could evade those who sought him,
had thus become problematical. John Steele fingered that last sovereign;
started to turn, when he caught the look in the other's eyes. Did it
recall to him his own plight but a short twenty-four hours before?

"Very well!" he said, and was about to give the coin to the man and walk
away, when another thought held him.

This fellow had been a link in a certain chain of events; the temptation
grew to linger with him, the single, tangible, though paltry and
useless, figure in the drama he could lay hands on. John Steele looked
around; in a byway he saw the lighted window of a cheap oyster buffet.