brother were borne down the steep stairs and out of the little flat he
had not left for the last five years of his life.

The two had lived together since Philip had returned from India as a man
of fifty, with the reasonable hope of enjoying his pensioned retirement.
Philip had spent his energy freely in the Indian Civil Service, and the
two middle-aged brothers, either too poor to marry, too shy, or both,
determined to combine resources with companionship and keep house
together.

For a time they sailed contentedly downstream. Philip's public spirit and
industrious habits would not permit of what he called "a life of indolent
ease." He rose early and put in a good eight hours' day at various unpaid
labours. He became churchwarden of the parish, joined the vestry, and was
a much valued unit of that obscure element in the population which does a
great part of the public work for which individuals of a less modest type
get the recognition.

David earned his living as a journalist and literary hack. He had never
done or been anything else in his life, although to his small circle he
loved, in a guileless way, to convey the impression that his youthful
performances had been of no little brilliance.

He would mention the names of the celebrated editors by whom he had been
employed as literary or dramatic critic, and was never tired of
eulogizing these and other lettered heroes for whom he had slaved in the
distant past. He insisted on the appreciation that these forgotten lions
had shown of his work; but, however that might be, its manifestation had
certainly never been translated into terms of cash, for within no one's
memory had David's pecuniary resources been other than exiguous.