arroll fancied, a faint odor of attar of rose and
sandal-wood evident in the horribly close car. The men had in their
grips rosaries, and Eastern stuffs or Eastern trinkets of the
cheapest description.

To Arthur Carroll, regarding them, the fancy occurred, as it had
often occurred, of himself following a similar pursuit. He had
revolved in his mind all possible schemes of money-making, of winning
an honest living. All the more dignified methods, the methods
apparently suited to himself, seemed out of his reach. He pictured
himself laden with a heavy grip, with two of them, one painfully
poised on the hip, the other dragging at the hand, going about the
country, concealing his rage with abjectness and humility, striving
to dispose of his small and worthless wares for money enough to keep
the machinery going.

"I believe I would make a very good peddler," he thought. Although
his grace of address was involuntary, like any keenly intelligent and
retrospective man, he could not avoid being aware of it. He felt that
he could outstrip that saturnine Syrian in his own field.

Looking away from them, his eyes met the little boy's, also returning
from a sober, innocent contemplation of them, and the boy's eyes
again smiled at him with an odd, confidential expression. So clearly
wise and understanding was their direct regard, that it almost seemed
as if the child guessed at the man's thoughts; but that was, of
course, impossible. Carroll smiled at him again, and the little face
blushed and dimpled like a girl's with admiration and grateful
delight. He was a daintily built little boy, with nothing of Eddy's
little dash of manner, but he was charming. The car reached Port
Willis and proceeded along the principal street. Carroll suddenly
reflected that he must soon get off; he would reach the end of the
line. Again his errand loomed up before him. The necessity for
immediate action removed the paralyzing effect which the very horror
of it had had upon him for a time. Curiously enough, during the
half-hour in the car he had held, as it were, a little truce with
this fell appetite which had seized upon him. He had thought very
little of it. The strange inertia of passivity in motion of the other
passengers had seized upon him, but now was coming a period of
wakening. The passengers began to drop off. The bridal-party went out
chattering and laughing, the prospective bride with ugly red spots of
agitation on her high cheek-bones,