thought struck him--if he was as much upset as this over a small
side-issue, what would he be like when he had done adding that luster to
the constitutional edifice which the nation in its crisis would
presently be demanding of him? The wear and tear were going to be
considerable.

Circumstance had departed as he retraced his steps to the domestic wing.
The lackeys, having done their ceremonial duty, had disappeared: he was
free to go unobserved. As he ascended the marble staircase which led
from the great hall toward the private apartments he was still thinking
of the steeplejack, the man who somehow seemed now to be an emblem of
himself. This man, set to the superfluous task of regilding the
weathercock of the Legislature, doing it in defiance of master craftsmen
and fellow-workmen, lured to do it because the cost of the hiring of the
scaffolding had become an expensive charge on the Board of Works, and
then, after the custom of the Trade, primed, emboldened, and made drunk
to do it, drunk to a point which had brought him to destruction--yes, he
was like that man; his temptations, his perils, his essential
superfluity were all the same. As he went up the stair he tried to
imagine he was the man himself, going up and up, a solitary and uplifted
figure, fixing his thoughts on things above in order that he might
forget the gulf which yawned below. He took his hand from the
balustrade, and gazing upward at the gilt and crystal chandelier
suspended from the dome above, so entirely forgot his surroundings for
one moment that, missing a step, he lost balance backwards and fell with
amazing thoroughness down the full flight of steps till he reached the
bottom.