wish you
would keep an eye lifting for a journalistic billet for me."

And then I told him that I was leaving the _Daily Gazette_, and spoke of
the work I had done, and of my little journalistic experiences at
Cambridge.

He combed his glossy black beard with the fingers of one hand; a white
hand it was, save where cigarettes had browned the first and second
fingers; a hand that had never known physical toil, though its owner
always addressed "working" men as one of themselves. He wore a fiery red
necktie, and a fiery diamond on the little finger of the hand that
combed his beard. A self-indulgent life in the city was telling on him,
but Clement Blaine was still rather a fine figure of a man, in his
coarse, bold way. He had a varnished look, and, dressed for the part,
would have made a splendid stage pirate.

"It's odd you should have come to me to-day," he said. "Look here!"

He handed me a cutting from a daily paper.

At Holloway, yesterday afternoon, an inquest was held on the body of
a man named Joseph Cartwright, who is said to have been a
journalist. This man was found dead upon his bed, fully dressed, on
Tuesday morning. The medical evidence showed death to be due to
heart failure, and indicated alcoholism as the predisposing cause. A
verdict was returned in accordance with the medical evidence.

"He was my assistant editor," said Clement Blaine, as I looked up from
my perusal of this sorry tale.

"Really?" I said.

"Yes, a clever fellow; most accomplished journalist, but----" And Mr.
Blaine raised his elbow with a significant gesture, by which he
suggested the act of drinking.

Within the hour I had accepted an engagement as assistant editor of _The
Mass_ with the magnificent sum of two pounds a week by way of
remuneration.

"It's poor pay," said Blaine. "And I only wish I could double it. But
that's all it will run to at present, and--well, of course, it counts
for something to be working for the cause as directly as we do in _The
Mass_."

I nodded, not without qualms. My education made it impossible for me to
accept unreservedly the most scurrilous features of the journal. But the
cause was good--I was assured of that; and I would introduce
improvements, I thought. I was still very inexperienced. Meantime, I was
not to know the carking anxiety of the out-of-work. I could still pay my
way at the Bloomsbury lodging. This was something.

Beatrice expressed herself as delig