llow," continued Henry, "as used to work with me a good
many years ago now at a small hotel in the City. He was a waiter, like
myself--not a bad sort of chap, though a bit of a toff in his off-hours.
He'd been engaged for some two or three years to one of the chambermaids.
A pretty, gentle-looking little thing she was, with big childish eyes,
and a voice like the pouring out of water. They are strange things,
women; one can never tell what they are made of from the taste of them.
And while I was there, it having been a good season for both of them,
they thought they'd risk it and get married. They did the sensible
thing, he coming back to his work after the week's holiday, and she to
hers; the only difference being that they took a couple of rooms of their
own in Middleton Row, from where in summer-time you can catch the glimpse
of a green tree or two, and slept out.

"The first few months they were as happy as a couple in a play, she
thinking almost as much of him as he thought of himself, which must have
been a comfort to both of them, and he as proud of her as if he made her
himself. And then some fifteenth cousin or so of his, a man he had never
heard of before, died in New Zealand and left him a fortune.

"That was the beginning of his troubles, and hers too. I don't say it
was enough to buy a peerage, but to a man accustomed to dream of half-
crown tips it seemed an enormous fortune. Anyhow, it was sufficient to
turn his head and give him ideas above his station. His first move, of
course, was to chuck his berth and set fire to his dress suit, which,
being tolerably greasy, burned well. Had he stopped there nobody could
have blamed him. I've often thought myself that I would willingly give
ten years of my life, provided anybody wanted them, which I don't see how
they should, to put my own behind the fire. But he didn't. He took a
house in a mews, with the front door in a street off Grosvenor Square,
furnished it like a second-class German restaurant, dressed himself like
a bookmaker, and fancied that with the help of a few shady City chaps and
a broken-down swell or two he had gathered round him, he was fairly on
the road to Park Lane and the House of Lords.

"And the only thing that struck him as being at all in his way was his
wife. In her cap and apron, or her Sunday print she had always looked as
dainty and fetching a little piece of goods as a man could wish to be
seen out with. Dressed accordin