carelessly serene; and the leisurely tapping of his iron-shod stick
accompanied his footfalls with a self-confident sound on the flagstones.
It was impossible to connect such a fine presence and this unruffled
aspect with the belittling troubles of poverty; the man's whole
existence appeared to pass before you, facile and large, in the freedom
of means as ample as the clothing of his body.

The irrational dread of having to break into his five hundred pounds for
personal expenses in the hotel disturbed the steady poise of his mind.
There was no time to lose. The bill was running up. He nourished the
hope that this five hundred would perhaps be the means, if everything
else failed, of obtaining some work which, keeping his body and soul
together (not a matter of great outlay), would enable him to be of use
to his daughter. To his mind it was her own money which he employed, as
it were, in backing her father and solely for her benefit. Once at work,
he would help her with the greater part of his earnings; he was good for
many years yet, and this boarding-house business, he argued to himself,
whatever the prospects, could not be much of a gold-mine from the first
start. But what work? He was ready to lay hold of anything in an honest
way so that it came quickly to his hand; because the five hundred pounds
must be preserved intact for eventual use. That was the great point.
With the entire five hundred one felt a substance at one's back; but
it seemed to him that should he let it dwindle to four-fifty or even
four-eighty, all the efficiency would be gone out of the money, as though
there were some magic power in the round figure. But what sort of work?

Confronted by that haunting question as by an uneasy ghost, for whom he
had no exorcising formula, Captain Whalley stopped short on the apex
of a small bridge spanning steeply the bed of a canalized creek with
granite shores. Moored between the square blocks a seagoing Malay prau