er stress of pleasure or of
pain, to make a point of eating his dinner."

Mr. Searle gave his plate another push. "Anything may happen now. I
don't care a straw."

"You ought to care. Have another chop and you WILL care. Have some
better tipple. Take my advice!" Mr. Simmons went on.

My friend--I adopt that name for him--gazed from between his two hands
coldly before him. "I've had enough of your advice."

"A little more," said Simmons mildly; "I shan't trouble you again. What
do you mean to do?"

"Nothing."

"Oh come!"

"Nothing, nothing, nothing!"

"Nothing but starve. How about meeting expenses?"

"Why do you ask?" said my friend. "You don't care."

"My dear fellow, if you want to make me offer you twenty pounds you set
most clumsily about it. You said just now I don't know you," Mr. Simmons
went on. "Possibly. Come back with me then," he said kindly enough, "and
let's improve our acquaintance."

"I won't go back. I shall never go back."

"Never?"

"Never."

Mr. Simmons thought it shrewdly over. "Well, you ARE sick!" he exclaimed
presently. "All I can say is that if you're working out a plan for cold
poison, or for any other act of desperation, you had better give it
right up. You can't get a dose of the commonest kind of cold poison
for nothing, you know. Look here, Searle"--and the worthy man made what
struck me as a very decent appeal. "If you'll consent to return home
with me by the steamer of the twenty-third I'll pay your passage down.
More than that, I'll pay for your beer."

My poor gentleman met it. "I believe I never made up my mind to anything
before, but I think it's made up now. I shall stay here till I take my
departure for a newer world than any patched-up newness of ours. It's an
odd feeling--I rather like it! What should I do at home?"

"You said just now you were homesick."

"I meant I was sick for a home. Don't I belong here? Haven't I longed to
get here all my life? Haven't I counted the months and the years till I
should be able to 'go' as we say? And now that I've 'gone,' that is that
I've come, must I just back out? No, no, I'll move on. I'm much obliged
to you for your offer. I've enough money for the present. I've about my
person some forty pounds' worth of British gold, and the same amount,
say, of the toughness of the heaven-sent idiot. They'll see me through
together! After they're gone I shall lay my head in some English
churchyard, beside some ivied tower, beneath