t gave when merely thrust open, and then lifted it
to its former place. He mounted the stairs--there was not a nail in his
boots which did not know each shred of fraying timber in them--thridded
an unerring way through the outspread lumber on the floor to the stand
at which he commonly worked, set the gas-bracket blazing there, and
began to stack type as if for dear life, but without a copy. The clock
at Trinity struck the hours half a mile away. The clock at Christ's
followed a second or two later, nearer and clearer. Then a mile off,
soft and mellow, but unheard unless the ear waited for them, the bells
of the Old Church chimed. Three o'clock was sounding, and the summer
dark was at its deepest, when Paul secured a first proof of the work on
which he had been engaged, and hid away the forme in a hollow beneath
the stairs.

In this wise he stole two hours from sleep nightly for a month; and at
the end of that time, lo! a printed poem, molten and cast, and re-molten
and re-cast, chiselled and fined and polished, and all in Paul's
brain-factory, without a guiding touch of pen or pencil--the work of a
year.

The night after the completion of this task Ralston lectured for the
Young Men's Christian Institute, and Paul was there. He was there right
early, and secured a seat in the front row. The theme was 'In Memoriam.'
Ralston talked and Paul listened. In five minutes Ralston was talking to
Paul. Even now, in this strange review of the things that had helped or
daunted him in all his days, the self-exiled Solitary, perched alone in
his eyrie in the Rocky Mountains, encompassed by amorphous smoke-cloud,
whilst the unseen river gnashed on its rocky teeth and howled--even now
he felt the controlling magic of the voice and manner, even now he felt
the triumph which sprang from the knowledge that this man chose him from
the throng, played on him with splendid improvisations, made him the
receptive and distributive instrument for his thoughts.

'I know,' said the living Paul Armstrong, looking back on the dead
aspiring creature he had been. 'Not a self-accusing thought! Pure
worship in the eyes. And the visage! not this battered mask, but the
face of eighteen! Not an ounce of alcohol ever fired his blood from his
cradle till now. A meagre table all his life through--enough and barely
enough. Clean hands and a pure heart, and burning ardour in the eyes.
_I_ could talk to a lad like that. Eh, me!'

The lecture was over; the au