Flanking
that round and ruthless arbiter, which drove him day by day to stand up
on feet whose time had come to rest, were the effigies of his past
triumphs. On the one hand, in a papier-mache frame, slightly tinged with
smuts, stood a portrait of the "Honorable Bateson," in the uniform of his
Yeomanry. Creed's former master's face wore that dare-devil look with
which he had been wont to say: "D---n it, Creed! lend me a pound. I've
got no money!" On the other hand, in a green frame which had once been
plush, and covered by a glass with a crack in the left-hand corner, was a
portrait of the Dowager Countess of Glengower, as this former mistress of
his appeared, conceived by the local photographer, laying the
foundation-stone of the local almshouse. During the wreck of Creed's
career, which, following on a lengthy illness, had preceded his salvation
by the Westminster Gazette, these two household gods had lain at the
bottom of an old tin trunk, in the possession of the keeper of a
lodging-house, waiting to be bailed out. The "Honorable Bateson" was now
dead, nor had he paid as yet the pounds he had borrowed. Lady Glengower,
too, was in heaven, remembering that she had forgotten all her servants
in her will. He who had served them was still alive, and his first
thought, when he had secured his post on the "Westminister," was to save
enough to rescue them from a dishonourable confinement. It had taken him
six months. He had found them keeping company with three pairs of
woollen drawers; an old but respectable black tail-coat; a plaid cravat;
a Bible; four socks, two of which had toes and two of which had heels;
some darning-cotton and a needle; a pair of elastic-sided boots; a comb
and a sprig of white heather, wrapped up with a little piece of
shaving-soap and two pipe-cleaners in a bit of the Globe newspaper; also
two collars, whose lofty points, separated by gaps of quite two inches,
had been wont to reach their master's gills; the small alarum clock
aforesaid; and a tiepin formed in the likeness of Queen Victoria at the
date of her first Jubilee. How many times had he not gone in thought
over those stores of treasure while he was parted from them! How many
times since they had come back to him had he not pondered with a slow but
deathless anger on the absence of a certain shirt, which he could have
sworn had been amongst them.

But now he lay in bed waiting to hear the clock go off, with his old
bristly chin