he
ceaseless murmur of a great city. In the midst of all this eager
activity, he was only a spectator. Busy enough the world around him
seemed to be; he alone was idle.

Well, what had he to look forward to on this dull day, when once he had
finished his breakfast and his newspapers? It had already begun to
drizzle; there was to be no saunter up to the park. He would stroll
along to his club, and say "Good morning" to one or two acquaintances.
Perhaps he would glance at some more newspapers. Perhaps, tired of
reading news that did not interest, and forming opinions never to be
translated into action, he would take refuge in the library. Somehow,
anyhow, he would desperately tide over the morning till lunch-time.

Luncheon would be a break; but after--? He had not been long enough in
England to become familiar with the whist-set; similarly, he had been
too long abroad to be proficient in English billiards, even if he had
been willing to make either whist or pool the pursuit of his life. As
for afternoon calls and tea-drinking, that may be an interesting
occupation for young gentlemen in search of a wife, but it is too
ghastly a business for one who has no such views. What then? More
newspapers? More tedious lounging in the hushed library? Or how were the
"impracticable hours" to be disposed of before came night and sleep?

George Brand did not stay to consider that, when a man in the prime of
health and vigor, possessed of an ample fortune, unfettered by anybody's
will but his own, and burdened by neither remorse nor regret,
nevertheless begins to find life a thing too tedious to be borne, there
must be a cause for it. On the contrary, instead of asking himself any
questions, he set about getting through the daily programme with an
Englishman's determination to be prepared for the worst. He walked up to
his club, the Waldegrave, in Pall Mall. In the morning-room there were
only two or three old gentlemen, seated in easy-chairs near the fire,
and grumbling in a loud voice--for apparently one or two were rather
deaf--about the weather. Brand glanced at a few more newspapers. Then a
happy idea occurred to him; he would go up to the smoking-room and smoke
a cigarette.

In this vast hall of a place there were only two persons--one standing
with his back to the fire, the other lying back in an easy-chair. The
one was a florid, elderly gentleman, who was first cousin to a junior
Lord of the Treasury, and therefore claimed t