vepence. Here's one who was a soldier; he's done
for! All brutalised; not one with any courage left! But, believe me,
monsieur," he went on, opening another door, "when you come down to
houses of this sort you must have a vice; it's as necessary as breath is
to the lungs. No matter what, you must have a vice to give you a little
solace--'un peu de soulagement'. Ah, yes! before you judge these swine,
reflect on life! I've been through it. Monsieur, it is not nice never
to know where to get your next meal. Gentlemen who have food in their
stomachs, money in their pockets, and know where to get more, they never
think. Why should they--'pas de danger'! All these cages are the same.
Come down, and you shall see the pantry." He took Shelton through the
kitchen, which seemed the only sitting-room of the establishment, to an
inner room furnished with dirty cups and saucers, plates, and knives.
Another fire was burning there. "We always have hot water," said the
Frenchman, "and three times a week they make a fire down there"--he
pointed to a cellar--"for our clients to boil their vermin. Oh, yes, we
have all the luxuries."

Shelton returned to the kitchen, and directly after took leave of the
little Frenchman, who said, with a kind of moral button-holing, as if
trying to adopt him as a patron:

"Trust me, monsieur; if he comes back--that young man--he shall have
your letter without fail. My name is Carolan Jules Carolan; and I am
always at your service."

CHAPTER IV

THE PLAY

Shelton walked away; he had been indulging in a nightmare. "That old
actor was drunk," thought he, "and no doubt he was an Irishman; still,
there may be truth in what he said. I am a Pharisee, like all the rest
who are n't in the pit. My respectability is only luck. What should I
have become if I'd been born into his kind of life?" and he stared at
a stream of people coming from the Stares, trying to pierce the mask of
their serious, complacent faces. If these ladies and gentlemen were put
into that pit into which he had been looking, would a single one of them
emerge again? But the effort of picturing them there was too much for
him; it was too far--too ridiculously far.

One particular couple, a large; fine man and wife, who, in the midst of
all the dirt and rumbling hurry, the gloomy, ludicrous, and desperately
jovial streets, walked side by side in well-bred silence, had evidently
bought some article which pleased them. There was nothing o