is office was over there"--he pointed across the street.
"He went wrong. He come here too often--that wasn't my fault. He had an
eye like a hawk, and you couldn't read it. Now I can read your eye like
a book. There's a bit of spring in 'em, M'sieu'. His eyes were hard
winter-ice five feet deep and no fishing under--froze to the bed. He had
a tongue like a cross-cut saw. He's at the bottom of the St. Lawrence,
leaving a bad job behind him.

"Have a drink--hein?" He jerked a finger backwards to the saloon door.
"It's Sunday, but stolen waters are sweet, sure!"

The Forgotten Man shook his head. "I don't drink, thank you."

"It'd do you good. You're dead beat. You've been travelling hard--eh?"

"I've come a long way, and travelled all night."

"Going on?"

"I am going back to-morrow."

"On business?"

Charley nodded--he glanced involuntarily at the sign across the street.

Jean Jolicoeur saw the look. "Lawyer's business, p'r'aps?"

"A lawyer's business--yes."

"Ah, if Charley Steele was here!"

"I have as good a lawyer as--"

The landlord laughed scornfully. "They're not made. He'd legislate the
devil out of the Pit. Where are you going to stay, M'sieu'?"

"Somewhere cheap--along the river," answered the Forgotten Man.

Jolicoeur's good-natured face became serious. "I'll tell you a
place--it's honest. It's the next street, a few hundred yards down, on
the left. There's a wooden fish over the door. It's called The Black
Bass--that hotel. Say I sent you. Good luck to you, countryman! Ah, la;
la, there's the second bell--I must be getting to Mass!" With a nod he
turned and went into the house.

The Forgotten Man passed slowly up the street, into the side street, and
followed it till he came to The Black Bass, and turned into the small
stable-yard. A stable-man was stirring. He at once put his dogs into
a little pen set apart for them, saw them fed from the kitchen, and,
betaking himself to a little room behind the bar of the hotel, ordered
breakfast. The place was empty, save for the servant--the household were
at Mass. He looked round the room abstractedly. He was thinking of a
crippled man in a hospital, of a girl from a village in the Chaudiere
Valley. He thought with a shiver of a white house on the hill. He
thought of himself as he had never done before in his life. Passing
along the street, he had realised that he had no moral claim upon
anything or anybody within these precincts of his past life. The