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“I know that,” said Tony grimly. “I’ll have to lump it, same as before. But come on, I’m hungry and it’s a long way to a cheap feed. We might as well begin straight off. We’ll both look for work this afternoon, but I’m going to have dinner first, it sort of gives confidence. Oh, come along! Don’t be an ass. I haven’t had anybody to yarn to for a long time, and we ought to have a good deal to say to each other.”

They did have a good deal to say, and it would be hard to tell which of them got most out of the partnership. Afterwards, when Tony had been working at Garstin’s for some months and Waterhouse had got a little tutoring to do (it was as Tony said: when you weren’t on your hands and knees for it, it came), they agreed that it paid almost as well to yarn as to work together, except that there was so little time. It was lucky that Waterhouse’s work chanced to be in the morning, or there would have been no time at all.

“You’re a refreshing beggar, Tony,” he said. “You make the world feel very large somehow—and you’re a bit of an impressionist too. Your details are few and sudden, but quite convincing.”

“Does that rot mean that I give you the feel of things?” enquired Tony politely.

“It does, my young friend. Don’t be too respectful; you’ll strain yourself.”

“Because,” resumed that unheedful young man, much interested in his own remarks, “you give me the feel of books. The Straines gave it to me first—they set a sort of standard—and anyhow, I suppose I took easily to books; you see, I hadn’t any other boys round to tell me they were effeminate.”

“Do you mean that the Straines set you a standard in literature?”

“Oh yes, but much more than that. Life—from fine