upon his back before the eyes of all: one whose functions were rather
like his own.

He saw that the steeplejack had now reached the point where his work was
waiting for him, work that required nerve and courage. He wondered
whether it were highly paid; he wondered also by what means the man
slung himself into position, and by what process the new gold had to be
applied so that it would stick. Perhaps he only polished up what was
already there, coated and covered from view by the grime of modern
industry. If so, how did he scrape off the dirt without also scraping
off the gold? Perhaps, on the other hand, all the old gold had to come
off before new gold could be put on. He wondered whether the man ever
forgot his perilous position, whether habit did not make him sometimes
careless, whether he ever felt giddy, and how far the exploit was really
attended by danger to one possessed of skill and a cool head; and as he
thought, putting himself in the man's place, his hands grew
sympathetically moist.

Well, he was wasting time, he must really get to his own work now; that
secretary would be wondering what had become of him. He glanced away
over the distant roofs that here and there emerged above the trees, and
then for a last look back again. And as he did so all at once he started
and uttered an acute exclamation of distress. A dark speck had suddenly
detached itself from the ball upon which the vane stood, and could now
be seen glissading with horrible swiftness down the slope of the spire.
It fell into the scaffolding, zigzagged from point to point, and
disappeared. There could be no mistake about it, it was the man himself
who had fallen: that single and minute expression of the popular will
had passed for ever from view; and the smooth and equable hum of the
unseen millions below went steadily on.