his intellectual appreciation of the parable; but in his heart, for all
his gratitude, he thought Barney bill rather a prosy moralizer. It was
one of the disabilities of advanced old age. Alas! what can bridge the
gulf between fourteen and fifty?

"Anyhow, you've got a friend at the back of yer, sonny, and don't make
no mistake about it. If you're in trouble let me know. I can't say
fairer than that, can I?"

That, for a season, was the end of Barney Bill, and Paul found himself
thrillingly alone in London. At first its labyrinthine vastness
overwhelmed him, causing him to feel an unimportant atom, which may
have been good for his soul, but was not agreeable to his vanity. By
degrees, however, he learned the lay of the great thoroughfares,
especially those leading to the quarters where artists congregate, and,
conscious of purpose and of money jingling in his pocket, he began to
hold his head high in the crowded streets. In the house in Barn Street,
off the Euston Road, where he lodged, he was called "Mr. Paul" by his
landlady, Mrs. Seddon, and her thirteen-year-old daughter, Jane, which
was comforting and stimulating. Jane, a lanky, fair, blue-eyed girl,
who gave promise of good looks, attended to his modest wants with a
zeal somewhat out of proportion to the payment received. Paul had the
novel sensation of finding some one at his beck and call. He beckoned
and called often, for the sheer pleasure of it. So great was the change
in his life that, in these early days, it seemed as if he had already
come into his kingdom. He strutted about, poor child, like the prince
in a fairy tale, and, in spite of Barney Bill's precepts-lie outgrew
his boots immediately. Mrs. Seddon, an old friend of Barney Bill, whom
she addressed and spoke as Mr. William, kept a small shop in which she
sold newspapers and twine and penny bottles of ink. In the little
back-parlour Mrs. Seddon and Tane and Paul had their meals, while the
shop boy, an inconsiderable creature with a perpetual cold in his head,
attended to the unexpected customer. To Paul, this boy, with whom a few
months ago he would have joyously changed places, was as the dust
beneath his feet. He sent him on errands in a lordly way, treating him
as, indeed, he had treated the youth of Budge Street after his triumph
over Billy Goodge, and the boy obeyed meekly. Paul believed in himself;
the boy didn't. Almost from the beginning he usurped an ascendancy over
the little household. For