through his consul?"

The Frenchman shook his head.

"Might as well look for diamonds at the bottom of the sea."

"Do you think he will come back here? But by that time I suppose, you'll
hardly be here yourself?"

A gleam of amusement played about the Frenchman's teeth:

"I? Oh, yes, sir! Once upon a time I cherished the hope of emerging; I
no longer have illusions. I shave these specimens for a living, and
shall shave them till the day of judgment. But leave a letter with me by
all means; he will come back. There's an overcoat of his here on which
he borrowed money--it's worth more. Oh, yes; he will come back--a youth
of principle. Leave a letter with me; I'm always here."

Shelton hesitated, but those last three words, "I'm always here," touched
him in their simplicity. Nothing more dreadful could be said.

"Can you find me a sheet of paper, then?" he asked; "please keep the
change for the trouble I am giving you."

"Thank you," said the Frenchman simply; "he told me that your heart was
good. If you don't mind the kitchen, you could write there at your
ease."

Shelton wrote his letter at the table of this stone-flagged kitchen in
company with an aged, dried-up gentleman; who was muttering to himself;
and Shelton tried to avoid attracting his attention, suspecting that he
was not sober. Just as he was about to take his leave, however, the old
fellow thus accosted him:

"Did you ever go to the dentist, mister?" he said, working at a loose
tooth with his shrivelled fingers. "I went to a dentist once, who
professed to stop teeth without giving pain, and the beggar did stop my
teeth without pain; but did they stay in, those stoppings? No, my bhoy;
they came out before you could say Jack Robinson. Now, I shimply ask you,
d'you call that dentistry?" Fixing his eyes on Shelton's collar, which
had the misfortune to be high and clean, he resumed with drunken scorn:
"Ut's the same all over this pharisaical counthry. Talk of high morality
and Anglo-Shaxon civilisation! The world was never at such low ebb!
Phwhat's all this morality? Ut stinks of the shop. Look at the
condition of Art in this counthry! look at the fools you see upon th'
stage! look at the pictures and books that sell! I know what I'm talking
about, though I am a sandwich man. Phwhat's the secret of ut all? Shop,
my bhoy! Ut don't pay to go below a certain depth! Scratch the skin,
but pierce ut--Oh! dear, no! We hate to see the b