ging in the rare, the sovereign luxury of thinking, he had suddenly
become aware of time's precious fluency, and wondered why everyone else
didn't think about it as passionately as he did. In the privacy of
his room, weary after the day afoot, he took off his cutaway coat and
trousers and enjoyed his old habit of stretching out on the floor for
a good rest. There he would lie, not asleep, but in a bliss of passive
meditation. He even grudged Mrs. Purp the little chats she loved--she
made a point of coming up with clean towels when she knew he was in his
room, because she cherished hearing him talk. When he heard her knock,
he had to scramble hastily to his feet, get on his clothes, and pretend
he had been sitting calmly in the rocking chair. It would never do
to let her find him sprawled on the floor. She had an almost painful
respect for him. Once, when prospective lodgers were bargaining for
rooms, and he happened to be wearing his Beagle and Company attire, she
had asked him to do her the favour of walking down the stairs, so that
the visitors might be impressed by the gentility of the establishment.

Of course he loved to waste time--but in his own way. He gloated on the
irresponsible vacancy of those evening hours, when there was nothing to
be done. He lay very still, hardly even thinking, just feeling life go
by. Through the open window came the lights and noises of the street.
Already his domestic life seemed dim and far away. The shrill appeals
of the puppies, their appalling innocent comments on existence, came
but faintly to memory. Here, where life beat so much more thickly and
closely, was the place to be. Though he had solved nothing, yet he
seemed closer to the heart of the mystery. Entranced, he felt time
flowing on toward him, endless in sweep and fulness. There is only one
success, he said to himself--to be able to spend your life in your own
way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it. Youth,
youth is the only wealth, for youth has Time in its purse!

In the store, however, philosophy was laid aside. A kind of intoxication
possessed him. Never before had old Mr. Beagle (watching delightedly
from the mezzanine balcony) seen such a floorwalker. Gissing moved to
and fro exulting in the great tide of shopping. He knew all the best
customers by name and had learned their peculiarities. If a shower came
up and Mrs. Mastiff was just leaving, he hastened to give her his arm as
far as her limous