picked it up, thinking: 'How the dickens
did that get in here?' It was from a colonial print of three years back;
and he sat staring, as if in that forlorn slip of yellow paper he had
encountered some ghost from his past.

These were the words he read: "We hope that the setback to civilisation,
the check to commerce and development, in this promising centre of our
colony may be but temporary; and that capital may again come to the
rescue. Where one man was successful, others should surely not fail? We
are convinced that it only needs...." And the last words: "For what can
be sadder than to see the forest spreading its lengthening shadows, like
symbols of defeat, over the untenanted dwellings of men; and where was
once the merry chatter of human voices, to pass by in the silence...."

On an afternoon, thirteen years before, he had been in the city of
London, at one of those emporiums where mining experts perch, before
fresh flights, like sea-gulls on some favourite rock. A clerk said to
him: "Mr. Scorrier, they are asking for you downstairs--Mr. Hemmings of
the New Colliery Company."

Scorrier took up the speaking tube. "Is that you, Mr. Scorrier? I hope
you are very well, sir, I am--Hemmings--I am--coming up."

In two minutes he appeared, Christopher Hemmings, secretary of the
New Colliery Company, known in the City-behind his back--as
"Down-by-the-starn" Hemmings. He grasped Scorrier's hand--the gesture
was deferential, yet distinguished. Too handsome, too capable,
too important, his figure, the cut of his iron-grey beard, and his
intrusively fine eyes, conveyed a continual courteous invitation to
inspect their infallibilities. He stood, like a City "Atlas," with
his legs apart, his coat-tails gathered in his hands, a whole globe of
financial matters deftly balanced on his nose. "Look at me!" he seemed
to say. "It's heavy, but how easily I carry it. Not the man to let it
down, Sir!"

"I hope I see you well, Mr. Scorrier," he began. "I have come round
about our mine. There is a question of a fresh field being opened
up--between ourselves, not before it's wanted. I find it difficult to
get my Board to take a comprehensive view. In short, the question is:
Are you prepared to go out for us, and report on it? The fees will be
all right." His left eye closed. "Things have been very--er--dicky; we
are going to change our superintendent. I have got little Pippin--you
know little Pippin?"

Scorrier murmured, with a feel