e's a pension after twenty years. Well ... not that you'll need to
bother about it by that time.... As I say, it's a jumping-off place.
Fine country, you know. But what about a little drink? I know a place in
Chandos Street--they know me there. And now about coming down to
Chingford...."

Mr. Spokesly accompanied his friend through the great Arch of Victoria
into the Square and as they made their way round by the National Gallery
he reached a decision. He would go. His elderly friend, toddling beside
him, added details which only confirmed the decision. That gentleman
knew a good thing. He himself, however, having more by luck than
judgment held on to his shipping shares, was now in a position of
comfortable independence. He had served his country and sacrificed his
sons and now he was going to enjoy himself for the rest of his life.
After drawing enormous interest and bonuses he had sold at the top of
the market and was buying bonds "which would go up" a stockbroking
friend had told him. "A safe six hundred a year--what do I want with
more?" he wheezed as they entered the place in Chandos Street. "My dear
wife, she's so nervous of these shipping shares; and there's no doubt
they _are_ a risk. Mine's a large port-wine, please."

Yes, he would go, and it interested Mr. Spokesly to see how little his
tender and beautiful picture of two old people "going down the hill
together" appealed to him. With a sudden cleavage in the dull mistiness
which had possessed his heart for so long, he saw that there was
something in life which they had missed. He saw that if a man sets so
low a mark, and attains it by the aid of a craven rectitude and animal
cunning, he will miss the real glory and crown of life, which by no
means implies victory. He was prepared to admit he had not done a great
deal with his own life so far. But he was laying a new course. The night
he received his instructions to depart he walked down to the river and
along the embankment to his hotel with a novel exaltation of spirit. The
taste of life was coming back. He saw, in imagination, that new place to
which he was bound, a tiny settlement concealed within the secure
recesses of a huge tropical harbour. He saw the jetty, with its two red
lights by the pipe-line and the verandahed houses behind the groves of
Indian laurel. He saw the mountains beyond the clear water purple and
black against the sunset or floating above the mist in the crystal
atmosphere of the da