showed no trace of servility, but he was always polite. He accepted
failure with good grace, and did not resent scorn, abuse, or even
violence from intended victims. He was rarely combative. Fighting was not
his special gift; he met misfortune with patient passivity Resistance he
found a mistake. But for all this a certain sense of superiority was,
never wanting in Nickie the Kid; the shabbiest clothes, a deplorable hat,
fragmentary boots, shirtlessness, the most distressing situations all
failed to wholly eliminate a touch of impudent dignity, a trace of rakish
self-satisfaction which as a rule escaped the attention of his clients;
but, here and there, a student of human nature found it delightfully
whimsical. Sometimes it appeared that this spice of egotism sprang from a
blackguardly sense of humour that found joy in the abounding weaknesses
and simplicity of the people he imposed upon, but, on the other hand, it
would be sufficient to show that Mr. Crips was inspired only with gross
selfishness or to comprehend that the stability of society depends upon
fair dealing and faithful labour.

Nevertheless there were occasions when Nickie the Kid deliberately
undertook to earn his daily bread. For a week he served as waiter in a
six penny restaurant. He had been a "super" in drama and a practical
crocodile in pantomime and was long in the employ of a fashionable
undertaker as second in command on the hearse. In this latter billet he
had to keep his hair dyed a presentable black, but otherwise the duties
were light, and Nickie might still have been useful mute, only that he
had the misfortune to get drunk at the funeral of an eminent politician
and behaved himself in a way obnoxious to the other mourners.

Some credit must be given to Crips for the above in view of the fact that
he had long, since discovered how unnecessary work was to a man free of
prejudices and unhampered with conscience. Every man should be master of