mes Mrs. Nichols
would send her daughter, a pale-faced, sullen child of seven,
to the hotel.

"Mother wants you," she said, in a whining tone.

"Very well, my dear," said Captain Nichols.

He rose to his feet at once, and accompanied his daughter
along the road. I suppose it was a very pretty example of the
triumph of spirit over matter, and so my digression has at
least the advantage of a moral.

Chapter XLVII

I have tried to put some connection into the various things
Captain Nichols told me about Strickland, and I here set them
down in the best order I can. They made one another's
acquaintance during the latter part of the winter following my
last meeting with Strickland in Paris. How he had passed the
intervening months I do not know, but life must have been very
hard, for Captain Nichols saw him first in the Asile de Nuit.
There was a strike at Marseilles at the time, and Strickland,
having come to the end of his resources, had apparently found
it impossible to earn the small sum he needed to keep body and
soul together.

The Asile de Nuit is a large stone building where pauper and
vagabond may get a bed for a week, provided their papers are
in order and they can persuade the friars in charge that they
are workingmen. Captain Nichols noticed Strickland for his
size and his singular appearance among the crowd that waited
for the doors to open; they waited listlessly, some walking to
and fro, some leaning against the wall, and others seated on
the curb with their feet in the gutter; and when they filed
into the office he heard the monk who read his papers address
him in English. But he did not have a chance to speak to him,
since, as he entered the common-room, a monk came in with a
huge Bible in his arms, mounted a pulpit which was at the end
of the room, and began the service which the wretched outcasts
had to endure as the price of their lodging. He and
Strickland were assigned to different rooms, and when, thrown
out of bed at five in the morning by a stalwart monk, he had made
his bed and washed his face, Strickland had already disappeared.
Captain Nichols wandered about the streets for an hour of
bitter cold, and then made his way to the Place Victor Gelu,
where the sailor-men are wont to congregate. Dozing against
the pedestal of a statue, he saw Strickland again.
He gave him a kick to awaken him.

"Come and have breakfast, mate," he said.

"Go to hell," answered Strickland.

I