I was feeling rather low. Waiting to know whether I get that job--it's
not lively."

He came down the Club steps with me. By the door of my cab a loafer was
standing; a tall tatterdemalion with a pale, bearded face. My distant
relative fended him away, and leaning through the window, murmured:
"Awful lot of these chaps about now!"

For the life of me I could not help looking at him very straight. But no
flicker of apprehension crossed his face.

"Well, good-by again!" he said: "You've cheered me up a lot!"

I glanced back from my moving cab. Some monetary transaction was passing
between him and the loafer, but, short-sighted as I am, I found it
difficult to decide which of those tall, pale, bearded figures was giving
the other one a penny. And by some strange freak an awful vision shot up
before me--of myself, and my distant relative, and Claud, and Richard,
and Willie, and Alan, all suddenly relying on ourselves. I took out my
handkerchief to mop my brow; but a thought struck me, and I put it back.
Was it possible for me, and my distant relatives, and their distant
relatives, and so on to infinity of those who be longed to a class
provided by birth with a certain position, raised by Providence on to a
platform made up of money inherited, of interest, of education fitting us
for certain privileged pursuits, of friends similarly endowed, of
substantial homes, and substantial relatives of some sort or other, on
whom we could fall back--was it possible for any of us ever to be in the
position of having to rely absolutely on ourselves? For several minutes
I pondered that question; and slowly I came to the conclusion that, short
of crime, or that unlikely event, marooning, it was not possible. Never,