till slipped in as though his goods were stolen.

And at last there came a moment when Lancelot felt he could bear it no
longer. And then he suddenly saw daylight. Why should he teach only
Rosie? Nay, why should he teach Rosie at all? If he _was_ reduced to
giving lessons--and after all it was no degradation to do so, no
abandonment of his artistic ideal, rather a solution of the difficulty
so simple that he wondered it had not occurred to him before--why
should he give them at so wretched a price? He would get another
pupil, other pupils, who would enable him to dispense with the few
shillings he made by Rosie. He would not ask anybody to recommend him
pupils--there was no need for his acquaintances to know, and if he
asked Peter, Peter would probably play him some philanthropic trick.
No, he would advertise.

After he had spent his last gold breast-pin in advertisements, he
realised that to get piano-forte pupils in London was as easy as to get
songs published. By the time he had quite realised it, it was May, and
then he sat down to realise his future.

The future was sublimely simple--as simple as his wardrobe had grown.
All his clothes were on his back. In a week or two he would be on the
streets; for a poor widow could not be expected to lodge, partially
board (with use of the piano, gas), an absolutely penniless young
gentleman, though he combined the blood of twenty county families with
the genius of a pleiad of tone-poets.

There was only one bright spot in the prospect. Rosie's lessons would
come to an end.

What he would do when he got on the streets was not so clear as the
rest of this prophetic vision. He might take to a barrel-organ--but
that would be a cruel waste of his artistic touch. Perhaps he would
die on a doorstep, like the professor of many languages whose
starvation was recorded in that very morning's paper.

Thus, driven by the saturnine necessity that sneers at our puny
resolutions, Lancelot began to meditate surrender. For surrender of
some sort must be--either of life or ideal. After so steadfast and
protracted a struggle--oh, it was cruel, it was terrible; how noble,
how high-minded he had been; and this was how the fates dealt with
him--but at that moment----

"Sw--eet" went the canary, and filled the room with its rapturous
demi-semi-quavers, its throat swelling, its little body throbbing with
joy of the sunshine. And then Lancelot remembered--not the joy of the
suns