assurance that they were the artisan's appanage.
She could not bear to see him eat things unbefitting his station. Arthur
Constant opened his mouth and ate what his landlady gave him, not first
deliberately shutting his eyes according to the formula, the rather
pluming himself on keeping them very wide open. But it is difficult for
saints to see through their own halos; and in practice an aureola about
the head is often indistinguishable from a mist. The tea to be scalded
in Mr. Constant's pot, when that cantankerous kettle should boil, was
not the coarse mixture of black and green sacred to herself and Mr.
Mortlake, of whom the thoughts of breakfast now reminded her. Poor Mr.
Mortlake, gone off without any to Devonport, somewhere about four in the
fog-thickened darkness of a winter night! Well, she hoped his journey
would be duly rewarded, that his perks would be heavy, and that he would
make as good a thing out of the "traveling expenses" as rival labor
leaders roundly accused him of to other people's faces. She did not
grudge him his gains, nor was it her business if, as they alleged, in
introducing Mr. Constant to her vacant rooms, his idea was not merely to
benefit his landlady. He had done her an uncommon good turn, queer as
was the lodger thus introduced. His own apostleship to the sons of toil
gave Mrs. Drabdump no twinges of perplexity. Tom Mortlake had been a
compositor; and apostleship was obviously a profession better paid and
of a higher social status. Tom Mortlake--the hero of a hundred
strikes--set up in print on a poster, was unmistakably superior to Tom
Mortlake setting up other men's names at a case. Still, the work was not
all beer and skittles, and Mrs. Drabdump felt that Tom's latest job was
not enviable. She shook his door as she passed it on her way to the
kitchen, but there was no response. The street door was only a few feet
off down the passage, and a glance at it dispelled the last hope that
Tom had abandoned the journey. The door was unbolted and unchained, and
the only security was the latch-key lock. Mrs. Drabdump felt a whit
uneasy, though, to give her her due, she never suffered as much as most
housewives do from criminals who never come. Not quite opposite, but
still only a few doors off, on the other side of the street, lived the
celebrated ex-detective, Grodman, and, illogically enough, his presence
in the street gave Mrs. Drabdump a curious sense of security, as of a
believer living un