ch, who find time drag remorselessly on their
hands, who have desperately to invent occupations and a whirl of
amusements, who keep pursuing shadows they can never lay hold of, who
are really in a piteous case; and I suppose you take credit to yourself,
Linn, my boy, that you are one of the distractions that help them to
lighten the unbearable weariness of their life. Well," he continued, in
his rambling way, "it isn't quite what I had looked forward to; I had
looked forward to something different for you. I can remember, when we
used to have our long Sunday walks in those days, what splendid
ambitions you had for yourself, and how you were all burning to
begin--the organist of Winstead Church was to produce his Hallelujah
Chorus, and the nations were to listen; and the other night, when I was
in your room at the theatre, when I saw you smearing your face and
decking yourself out for exhibition before a lot of fashionable idlers,
I could not help saying to myself, 'And this is what Linn Moore has come
to!'"

"Yes, that is what Linn Moore has come to," the other said, with entire
good-nature. "And what has Maurice Mangan come to? I can remember when
Maurice Mangan was to be a great poet, a great metaphysician, a great--I
don't know what. Winstead was far too small a place for him; he was to
go up and conquer London, and do great and wonderful things. And what is
he now?--a reporter of the gabble of the House of Commons."

"I suppose I am a failure," said this tall, thin, contemplative-looking
man, who spoke quite dispassionately of himself, just as he spoke with a
transparent honesty and simplicity of his friend. "But at least I have
kept myself to myself. I haven't sold myself over to the Moloch of
fashion--"

"Oh, your dislike of fashionable people is a mere bundle of prejudice!"
Lionel cried. "The truth is, Maurice, you don't know those fashionable
people you seem to despise so heartily. If you did, you would discover
that they had the ordinary human qualities of other people--only that
they are better educated and more courteous and pleasant in manner. Then
their benevolence--if you knew how much they give away in charity--"

"Benevolence!" Mangan broke in, impatiently. "What is benevolence? It is
generally nothing more or less than an expression of your own
satisfaction with yourself. You are stuffed with food and wine; your
purse is gorged; 'here's a handful of sovereigns for you, you poor devil
crouching at th