what sobered parent
to bed.

Having raked together from the sodden _debris_ beneath his window some
disfigured remains of his poor treasures, Ned Hazell had left the house
in the early hours of the morning, in good earnest for ever.

When he confided the excitements of the night to Henry at lunch next
day, and heard in return his friend's news, nothing could be more plain
than that they should set up lodgings together; and it was, therefore,
to the rooms of which Ned was already in possession that Henry's cab had
toppled with his various belongings, after those tearful farewells at
his father's door. Esther followed presently to help make the place
straight and dainty for the two boys, and having left them, late that
evening, with flowers in all the jars, and the curtains as they should
be, they were fairly launched on their new life together.

In Mike Henry had a stanch friend and an admirer against all comers, and
in Henry Mike had a friend and admirer no less loyal; but their
friendship was one for which an on-looker might have found it less easy
to give reasons than for that of Henry and Ned. Mike and Henry loved
each other, it would appear, less for any correspondence in dispositions
or tastes, as just because they were Mike and Henry. Right away down in
their natures there was evidently some central affinity which operated
even in spite of surface contradictions. There was much of this
intrinsic quality in the affection of Henry and Ned also, but it was
much more to be accounted for by evident mutual sympathies. It was
largely the impassioned fellowship of two craftsmen in love with the
same art. Both had their literary ambitions; but, irrespective of those,
they both loved poetry. Yes, how they loved it! Ned was perhaps
particularly a born appreciator; and it was worth seeing how the tears
would come into his fine eyes, as his voice shook with tenderness over a
fine phrase or a noble passage. They had discovered some of the most
thrilling things in English literature together, at that impressionable
age when such things mean most to us. Together they had read Keats for
the first wonderful time; together learned Shakespeare's Sonnets by
heart; together rolled out over tavern-tables the sumptuous cadences of
De Quincey. Wonderful indeed, and never to be forgotten, were those
evenings when, the day at last over, they would leave their offices
behind them, and, while the sunset was turning the buildings of Tyre
in