went his way. If there was a
thoughtfulness in the generosity of this action, the mode in which it
was performed--the measured coldness of the words--the look of impassive
examination that accompanied them, and the abstention from anything that
savoured of apology for a liberty--were all deeply felt by the other.

It was true, Walpole had often heard him tell of the freedom with which he
had treated Dick Kearney's wardrobe, and how poor Dick was scarcely sure he
could call an article of dress his own, whenever Joe had been the first
to go out into the town. The innumerable straits to which he reduced that
unlucky chum, who had actually to deposit a dinner-suit at an hotel to save
it from Atlee's rapacity, had amused Walpole; but then these things were
all done in the spirit of the honest familiarity that prevailed between
them--the tie of true _camaraderie_ that neither suggested a thought of
obligation on one side nor of painful inferiority on the other. Here it
was totally different. These men did not live together with that daily
interchange of liberties which, with all their passing contentions, so
accustom people to each other's humours as to establish the soundest and
strongest of all friendships. Walpole had adopted Atlee because he
found him useful in a variety of ways. He was adroit, ready-witted, and
intelligent; a half-explanation sufficed with him on anything--a mere hint
was enough to give him for an interview or a reply. He read people readily,
and rarely failed to profit by the knowledge. Strange as it may seem,
the great blemish of his manner--his snobbery--Walpole rather liked than
disliked it. I was a sort of qualifying element that satisfied him, as
though it said, 'With all that fellow's cleverness, he is not "one of us."
He might make a wittier reply, or write a smarter note; but society has
its little tests--not one of which he could respond to.' And this was an
inferiority Walpole loved to cherish and was pleased to think over.

Atlee felt that Walpole might, with very little exercise of courtesy, have
dealt more considerately by him.

'I'm not exactly a valet,' muttered he to himself, 'to whom a man flings a
waistcoat as he chucks a shilling to a porter. I am more than Mr. Walpole's
equal in many things, which are not accidents of fortune.'

He knew scores of things he could do better than him; indeed, there were
very few he could not.

Poor Joe was not, however, aware that it was in the 'not