girls who have lost their hearts to him--some more, some
less. I do not pretend to be in a different position from my neighbors,
or in a better one. To some slight extent I may be to blame. But, after
all, when a man sees cheeks redden and eyes brighten at his approach,
he loses prudence. At the time he does not think what may be the
consequences. But the day comes when he sees that he must take heed what
he is about. He communes with himself about the future, and if he be a
man of honor he maps out in his mind the several courses it is allowed
him to follow, and chooses that one which he may tread with least pain
to others. May that day for introspection come to few as it has come to
me. Love is, indeed, a madness in the brain. Good-night."

[Illustration]

When he finished I would wake up, open the door for Marriot, and light
him to his sleeping-chamber with a spill.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IX.

JIMMY.

With the exception of myself, Jimmy Moggridge was no doubt the most
silent of the company that met so frequently in my rooms. Just as
Marriot's eyebrows rose if the cane chair was not empty when he strode
in, Jimmy held that he had a right to the hearth-rug, on which he loved
to lie prone, his back turned to the company and his eyes on his pipe.
The stem was a long cherry-wood, but the bowl was meerschaum, and Jimmy,
as he smoked, lay on the alert, as it were, to see the meerschaum
coloring. So one may strain his eyes with intent eagerness until he can
catch the hour-hand of a watch in action. With tobacco in his pocket
Jimmy could refill his pipe without moving, but sometimes he crawled
along the hearth-rug to let the fire-light play more exquisitely on his
meerschaum bowl. In time, of course, the Arcadia Mixture made him more
and more like the rest of us, but he retained his individuality until he
let his bowl fall off. Otherwise he only differed from us in one way.
When he saw a match-box he always extracted a few matches and put them
dreamily into his pocket. There were times when, with a sharp blow on
Jimmy's person, we could doubtless have had him blazing like a
chandelier.

[Illustration]

Jimmy was a barrister--though this is scarcely worth mentioning--and
it had been known to us for years that he made a living by contributing
to the _Saturday Review_. How the secret leaked out I cannot say with
certainty. Jimmy never forced it upon us, and I cannot remember any
paragraphs