ht it due to
you after all you've done for me not to throw up my efforts to get
employment in England without letting you know first. I'm entirely at
the end of my resources."

The phrase struck Shelton as one that he had heard before.

"But I wrote to you," he said; "did n't you get my letter?"

A flicker passed across the vagrant's face; he drew the letter from his
pocket and held it out.

"Here it is, monsieur."

Shelton stared at it.

"Surely," said he, "I sent a cheque?"

Ferrand did not smile; there was a look about him as though Shelton by
forgetting to enclose that cheque had done him a real injury.

Shelton could not quite hide a glance of doubt.

"Of course," he said, "I--I--meant to enclose a cheque."

Too subtle to say anything, Ferrand curled his lip. "I am capable of
much, but not of that," he seemed to say; and at once Shelton felt the
meanness of his doubt.

"Stupid of me," he said.

"I had no intention of intruding here," said Ferrand; "I hoped to see
you in the neighbourhood, but I arrive exhausted with fatigue. I've
eaten nothing since yesterday at noon, and walked thirty miles." He
shrugged his shoulders. "You see, I had no time to lose before assuring
myself whether you were here or not."

"Of course--" began Shelton, but again he stopped.

"I should very much like," the young foreigner went on, "for one of your
good legislators to find himself in these country villages with a penny
in his pocket. In other countries bakers are obliged to sell you an
equivalent of bread for a penny; here they won't sell you as much as a
crust under twopence. You don't encourage poverty."

"What is your idea now?" asked Shelton, trying to gain time.

"As I told you," replied Ferrand, "there 's nothing to be done at
Folkestone, though I should have stayed there if I had had the money
to defray certain expenses"; and again he seemed to reproach his patron
with the omission of that cheque. "They say things will certainly be
better at the end of the month. Now that I know English well, I thought
perhaps I could procure a situation for teaching languages."

"I see," said Shelton.

As a fact, however, he was far from seeing; he literally did not know
what to do. It seemed so brutal to give Ferrand money and ask him to
clear out; besides, he chanced to have none in his pocket.

"It needs philosophy to support what I 've gone through this week," said
Ferrand, shrugging his shoulders. "On Wednesday last