he eye,
that all his capital had gone in the new start, and it was already
clear that his business did not thrive.

"We shall starve him out!" cried the assistant, snapping his thumb and
finger.

"And what'll become of him then?" asked Will.

"Oh, that's for him to think about," replied Allchin. "Wouldn't he
starve us, if he could, sir?"

And Warburton, brooding on this matter, stood appalled at the ferocity
of the struggle amid which he lived, in which he had his part. Gone was
all his old enjoyment of the streets of London. In looking back upon
his mood of that earlier day, he saw himself as an incredibly ignorant
and careless man; marvelled at the lightness of heart which had enabled
him to find amusement in rambling over this vast slaughter-strewn field
of battle. Picturesque, forsooth! Where was its picturesqueness for
that struggling, soon-to-be-defeated tradesman, with his tipsy wife,
and band of children who looked to him for bread? "And I myself am
crushing the man--as surely as if I had my hand on his gullet and my
knee on his chest! Crush him I must; otherwise, what becomes of that
little home down at St. Neots--dear to me as his children are to him.
There's no room for both of us; he has come too near; he must pay the
penalty of his miscalculation. Is there not the workhouse for such
people?" And Will went about repeating to himself. "There's the
workhouse--don't I pay poor-rates?--the workhouse is an admirable
institution."

He lay awake many an hour of these winter nights, seeing in vision his
own life and the life of man. He remembered the office in Little Ailie
Street; saw himself and Godfrey Sherwood sitting together, talking,
laughing, making a jest of their effort to support a doomed house.
Godfrey used to repeat legends, sagas, stories of travel, as though
existence had not a care, or the possibility of one; and he, in turn,
talked about some bit of London he had been exploring, showed an old
map he had picked up, an old volume of London topography. The while,
world-wide forces, the hunger-struggle of nations, were shaking the
roof above their heads. Theoretically they knew it. But they could
escape in time; they had a cosy little corner preserved for themselves,
safe from these pestilent worries. Fate has a grudge against the
foolishly secure. If he laughed now, it was in self-mockery.

The night of London, always rife with mysterious sounds, spoke
dreadfully to his straining ear. He heard v