as bad as theft. No, no; I shall
never be a thief--I 've had too many opportunities," said he, with pride
and bitterness. "That's not in my character. I never do harm to anyone.
This"--he touched the papers--"is not delicate, but it does harm to no
one. If you have no money you must have papers; they stand between you
and starvation. Society, has an excellent eye for the helpless--it never
treads on people unless they 're really down." He looked at Shelton.

"You 've made me what I am, amongst you," he seemed to say; "now put up
with me!"

"But there are always the workhouses," Shelton remarked at last.

"Workhouses!" returned Ferrand; "certainly there are--regular palaces: I
will tell you one thing: I've never been in places so discouraging as
your workhouses; they take one's very heart out."

"I always understood," said Shelton coldly; "that our system was better
than that of other countries."

Ferrand leaned over in his chair, an elbow on his knee, his favourite
attitude when particularly certain of his point.

"Well," he replied, "it 's always permissible to think well of your own
country. But, frankly, I've come out of those places here with little
strength and no heart at all, and I can tell you why." His lips lost
their bitterness, and he became an artist expressing the result of his
experience. "You spend your money freely, you have fine buildings,
self-respecting officers, but you lack the spirit of hospitality. The
reason is plain; you have a horror of the needy. You invite us--and when
we come you treat us justly enough, but as if we were numbers, criminals,
beneath contempt--as if we had inflicted a personal injury on you; and
when we get out again, we are naturally degraded."

Shelton bit his lips.

"How much money will you want for your ticket, and to make a start?" he
asked.

The nervous gesture escaping Ferrand at this juncture betrayed how far
the most independent thinkers are dependent when they have no money in
their pockets. He took the note that Shelton proffered him.

"A thousand thanks," said he; "I shall never forget what you have done
for me"; and Shelton could not help feeling that there was true emotion
behind his titter of farewell.

He stood at the window watching Ferrand start into the world again; then
looked back at his own comfortable room, with the number of things that
had accumulated somehow--the photographs of countless friends, the old
arm-chairs, the stock of