her, expelled by
his schoolmaster, and shunned by the society of the country-side, it
was small wonder that the brave soul revolted against its fellow-men,
and set its jaws in a proud resolve to lash the unfeeling world with
the contempt of a spirit bruised beyond the power of such lotions as
the worldly-wise recommended for the occasion. He whistled to his dog
_Stray_, and clenched his fists in impotent anger. An expression of
gentleness stole over his features. The idea was suggestive. He, too,
the proud, the honourable, the upright would steal, and thus punish
the world. He looked into his make-up box. It contained bitter
defiance, angry scorn, and a card-sharper's pack of cards. He took
them out; and thus SONOGUN, the expelled atheist, made up his mind.

CHAPTER II.

On the green table of life the cards fall in many ways, and the
proud king often has to bow his head before the meek and unassuming
ace.--BINNS.

AND now began for SONOGUN a time of moral stress and torture such
as he had never anticipated. It is an old saying, and perhaps (who
knows?) a truism, that virtue is its own reward, not, perhaps, the
reward that ambitious people look for, but the easy consciousness of
superiority which comes to those who feel themselves to be on a higher
level than the rest of the world, which struggles on a lower level.
Another philosopher, nameless, but illustrious, has declared, in
burning words, that "Honesty is the best policy," best in some form,
perhaps hardly understood now, but no less real because we are unable
to appraise it in the current coin of the realm over which Her Most
Gracious Majesty, whom may Heaven preserve, holds sway. But SONOGUN
had never thought of Heaven. To him, young, proud, gloomy, and moody,
Heaven had seemed only--(Several chapters of theological disquisition
omitted.--ED.) The click of the billiard-balls maddened him, the
sight of a cue made him rave like a maniac. One evening he was walking
homeward to Drury Lane. He had given his coat to a hot-potato-man,
deeming it, in his impulsive way, a bitter satire on the world's
neglect, that the senseless tubers should have jackets, while their
purveyor lacked a coat. The rain was pouring down, but it mattered
little to him. He had wrapped himself in that impenetrable mantle
of cold scorn, and thus he watched with a moody air the crowd of
umbrella-carrying respectabilities, who hurried on their way without
a thought of him. Suddenly some one slap