know how he lives," she said. "He pays us scarce anything. We
can't keep him much longer."

He was fast asleep, lying back in a chair with his mouth half open,
wrapped in a shabby overcoat. He looked very mean; and when he awoke it
was only one long wail on his hard luck. He couldn't get any work.
People had a prejudice against him; they looked at him askance. He had a
great desire for sleep--couldn't somehow keep awake.

"If I could tell you the dreams I have!" he cried fretfully. "Silliest
rotten stuff. I try to tell 'em to the woman here or her husband
sometimes, but they won't listen. Shouldn't be surprised if they think
I'm a bit off. They say I'm always talking to myself. I'm sure I'm
not.--I wish I could get out of here. Can't you get me a job?" he asked,
turning to Mr. G.M.

"Well, Gus, I'll see. I'll do my best."

"Lummy!" exclaimed Barber excitedly, "you ought to see the things I
dream. I can't think where the bloomin' pictures come from. And yet I've
seen it all before. I know all those faces. They are not all white. Some
are brown like Egyptians, and some are quite black. I've seen them
somewhere. Those long terraces and statues and fountains and marble
courts, and the blue sky and the sun, and those dancing girls with the
nails of their hands and feet stained red, and the boy in whose hair I
wipe my fingers, and the slave I struck dead last night--"

His eyes were delirious, terrible to see.

"Ah," he cried hoarsely, "I am stifling here. Let us go into the air."

And indeed he was changing so much--not essentially in his person,
though his face had become broader, intolerant, domineering and
cruel--but there was pouring from him so great an emanation of power
that it seemed to crack and break down the poor little room. Mr. G.M.
and myself had no desire to thwart him, and it never occurred to us to
do so. We should as soon have thought of stopping a thunderstorm. We
followed him outside on to the space of level ground before the house
and listened humbly while he spoke.

As well as I can recollect, he was lamenting some hindrance to his
impulses, some flaw in his power. "To have the instincts of the ruler
and no slaves to carry out my will. To wish to reward and punish and to
be deprived of the means. To be the master of the world, but only in my
own breast--Oh, fury! The ploughboy there is happy, for he has no
longings outside of his simple round life. While I--if I had the earth
in my hand, I sho