stepping-stone.

He spoke loftily of his independence.

"But how are you going to earn your living?" asked Jane, the
practical.

"I shall follow one of the arts," Paul replied. "I think I am a
poet, but I might be a painter or a musician."

"You do sing and play lovely," said Jane.

He had recently purchased from a pawnshop a second-hand mandoline,
which he had mastered by the aid of a sixpenny handbook, and he
would play on it accompaniments to sentimental ballads which he sang
in a high baritone.

"I'll not choose yet awhile," said Paul, disregarding the tribute.
"Something will happen. The 'moving finger' will point--"

"What moving finger?"

"The finger of Destiny," said Paul.

And, as the superb youth predicted, something did happen a day or
two afterwards.

They were walking in Regent Street, and stopped, as was their wont,
before a photographer's window where portraits of celebrities were
exposed to view. Paul loved this window, bad loved it from the