felt that the light of Romance was going out of my life. As we reached
the top of the ladder, somebody began to call harshly, startlingly. I
heard my own name and the words, "mahn ye were speerin' after."

The light was obscured, the voice began clamouring insistently.

"John Kemp, Johnnie Kemp, noo. Here's the mahn ye were speerin' after.
Here's Macdonald."

It was the voice of Barnes, and the voice of the every day. I discovered
that I had been tremendously upset. The pulses in my temples were
throbbing, and I wanted to shut my eyes--to sleep! I was tired; Romance
had departed. Barnes and the Macdonald he had found for me represented
all the laborious insects of the world; all the ants who are forever
hauling immensely heavy and immenlsely unimportant burdens up weary
hillocks, down steep places, getting nowhere and doing nothing.

Nevertheless I hurried up, stumbling at the hatchway against a man who
was looking down. He said nothing at all, and I was dazed by the light.
Barnes remarked hurriedly, "This 'll be your Mr. Macdonald"; and,
turning his back on me, forgot my existence. I felt more alone than
ever. The man in front of me held his head low, as if he wished to butt
me.

I began breathlessly to tell him I had a letter from
"my--my--Rooksby--brother-in-law--Ralph Rooks-by"--I was panting as if I
had run a long way. He said nothing at all. I fumbled for the letter in
an inner pocket of my waistcoat, and felt very shy. Macdonald maintained
a portentous silence; his enormous body was enveloped rather than
clothed in a great volume of ill-fitting white stuff; he held in his