invertebrate creature, which sprawls helplessly upon the sands whereon
the wave has deposited it, and may be cloven in half without feeling
itself noticeably worse for the operation. He had awakened to the
knowledge that there was a wider and more agreeable world beyond that
little provincial borough, and that a handsome face and figure and a
vigorous intellect were commodities for which there must be some kind
of market.

Once convinced of the utter worthlessness of his prospects in
Barlingford, Mr. Sheldon turned his eyes Londonwards; and his father
happening at the same time very conveniently to depart this life,
Philip, the son and heir, disposed of the business to an aspiring young
practitioner, and came to the metropolis, where he made that futile
attempt to establish himself which has been described.

The dentist had wasted four years in London, and ten years had gone by
since Georgy's wedding; and now for the first time he had an
opportunity of witnessing the domestic happiness or the domestic misery
of the woman who had jilted him, and the man who had been his
successful rival. He set himself to watch them with the cool
deliberation of a social anatomist, and he experienced very little
difficulty in the performance of this moral dissection. They were
established under his roof, his companions at every meal; and they were
a kind of people who discuss their grievances and indulge in their
"little differences" with perfect freedom in the presence of a third,
or a fourth, or even a fifth party.

Mr. Sheldon was wise enough to preserve a strict neutrality. He would
take up a newspaper at the beginning of a little difference, and lay it
down when the little difference was finished, with the most perfect