pence, though as rich in dreams, as at thirteen.

Necessity had compelled him to take what he could get. This time it
was a leading part; but a leading part in a crude melodrama in a
fit-up company. They had played in halls and concert rooms, on pier
pavilions, in wretched little towns. It was glorious July Weather
and business was bad--so bad that the manager abruptly closed the
treasury and disappeared, leaving the company stranded a hundred and
fifty miles from London, with a couple of weeks' salary unpaid.

Paul was packing his clothes in the portmanteau that lay on the
narrow bed in his tiny back bedroom, watched disconsolately by a
sallow, careworn man who sat astride the one cane chair, his hat on
the back of his head, the discoloured end of a cigarette between his
lips.

"It's all very well for you to take it cheerfully," said the latter.
"You're young. You're strong. You're rich. You've no one but
yourself. You haven't a wife and kids depending on you."

"I know it makes a devil of a difference," replied Paul,
disregarding the allusion to his wealth. As the leading man, he was
the most highly paid member of the disastrous company, and he had
acquired sufficient worldly wisdom to know that to him who has but a
penny the possessor of a shilling appears arrogantly opulent. "But
still," said he, "what can we do? We must get back to London and try
again."

"If there was justice in this country that son of a thief would get
fifteen years for it. I never trusted the skunk. A fortnight's