't much stock--nothing like what there
ought to be. Denbow has been coming down the hill; he's stopped himself
only just in time. When I first knew him he was doing reasonably well.
It's a good position for that kind of shop. Swarms of men, you know, go
backwards and forwards along the Westminster Bridge Road, and just the
kind of men, lots of them, that take up photography--the better kind of
clerk, and the man of business who lives in the south suburbs. And
photography is going ahead so. I have all sorts of ideas. One might
push the printing branch of the business--and have dark rooms for
amateurs--and hit on a new hand-camera--and perhaps even start a paper,
call it _Camera Notes_, or something of that kind. Don't smile and look
sceptical----'

'Not at all. It seems to me the best suggestion I've heard from you
yet.'

'Think so? I'm awfully glad of that. You know, Rolfe, a fellow like
myself--decent family, public school, and that kind of thing--naturally
fights shy of shopkeeping. But I've got to the point that I don't care
what I do, if only it'll bring me a steady income in an honest way. I
ought to be able to make several hundreds a year, even at starting, out
of that business.'

'Have you spoken of it in the usual quarter?'

'No, I haven't.' Cecil's countenance fell. 'I should if I made a
successful start. But I've talked of so many things, I'm ashamed. And
she mightn't quite understand; perhaps she would think I was going
down--down----'

'How is her father?'

'Neither better nor worse. That man will take another ten years over
his dying--see if he doesn't. Well, we've got used to it. We're neither
of us young any longer; we've lost the best part of our lives. And all
for what? Because we hadn't money enough to take a house three times
bigger than we needed! Two lives wasted because we couldn't feed fifty
other people for whom we didn't care a damn! Doesn't it come to that?'

'No doubt. What does Denbow ask?'

'For the stock, two hundred pounds; shop-fittings, fifty; business as
it stands, say three hundred. The rent is ninety-five. Floor above the
shop let to a family, who pay twenty-four shillings a week--a
substantial set-off against the rent; but I should like to get rid of
the people, and use the whole house for business purposes. There's
three years of Denbow's lease to run, but this, he says, the landlord
would be willing to convert into a seven years' lease to a new tenant.
Then one must allo