another laugh--louder this time, and contemptuous.

'Sops to the dog that's beginning to show his teeth!' he exclaimed. 'It
shows you what's coming. The capitalists are beginning to look about
and ask what they can do to keep the people quiet. Lectures on
literature! Fools! As if that wasn't just the way to remind us of what
we've missed in the way of education. It's the best joke you could hit
on. Let him lecture away; he'll do more than he thinks.'

'Where does he give them?' Grail inquired.

'He hasn't begun yet. Bower seems to be going round to get men to hear
him. Do you think you'd like to go?'

'It depends what sort of a man he is.'

'A conceited young fool, I expect.'

Grail smiled.

In such conversation they passed the Archbishop's Palace; then, from
the foot of Lambeth Bridge, turned into a district of small houses and
multifarious workshops. Presently they entered Paradise Street.

The name is less descriptive than it might be. Poor dwellings, mean and
cheerless, are interspersed with factories and one or two small shops;
a public-house is prominent, and a railway arch breaks the perspective
of the thoroughfare midway. The street at that time--in the year
'80--began by the side of a graveyard, no longer used, and associated
in the minds of those who dwelt around it with numberless burials in a
dire season of cholera. The space has since been converted into a
flower-garden, open to the children of the neighbourhood, and in summer
time the bright flower-beds enhance the ignoble baldness of the by-way.

When they had nearly reached the railway arch Ackroyd stopped.

'I'm just going in to Bower's shop,' he said; 'I've got a message for
poor old Boddy.'

'Boddy?'

'You know of him from the Trent girls, don't you?'

'Yes, yes,' Grail answered, nodding. He seemed about to add something,
but checked himself, and, with a 'good-bye,' went his way.

Ackroyd turned his steps to a little shop close by. It was of the kind
known as the 'small general'; over the door stood the name of the
proprietor--'Bower'--and on the woodwork along the top of the windows
was painted in characters of faded red: 'The Little Shop with the Large
Heart.' Little it certainly was, and large of heart if the term could
be made to signify an abundant stock. The interior was so packed with
an indescribable variety of merchandise that there was scarcely space
for more than two customers between door and counter. From an inner
room ca