call Fleet Street to his ear.

It was all unique, delightful, the dream of an artistic soul realised.
Three years before David Steel had worked in an attic at a bare deal
table, and his mother had L3 per week to pay for everything. Usually
there was balm in this recollection.

But not to-night, Heaven help him, not to-night! Little grinning demons
were dancing on the oak cornices, there were mocking lights gleaming from
Cellini tankards that Steel had given far too much money for. It had not
seemed to matter just at the time. If all this artistic beauty had
emptied Steel's purse there was a golden stream coming. What mattered it
that the local tradesmen were getting a little restless? The great
expense of the novelist's life was past. In two years he would be rich.
And the pathos of the thing was not lessened by the fact that it was
true. In two years' time Steel would be well off. He was terribly short
of ready money, but he had just finished a serial story for which he was
to be paid L500 within two months of the delivery of the copy; two novels
of his were respectively in their fourth and fifth editions. But these
novels of his he had more or less given away, and he ground his teeth as
he thought of it. Still, everything spelt prosperity. If he lived, David
Steel was bound to become a rich man.

And yet he was ruined. Within twenty-four hours everything would pass out
of his hands. To all practical purposes it had done so already. And all
for the want of L1,000! Steel had earned twice that amount during the
past twelve months, and the fruits of his labour were as balm to his soul
about him. Within the next twelve months he could pay the debt three
times over. He would cheerfully have taken the bill and doubled the
amount for six months' delay.