"As a society we do not recognise these private cases. The public gain is so infinitesimal. We had one probationer who constructed a very ingenious water-butt for boys. Another had a scheme for clearing the streets of the people who get in the way. He got into trouble about some perambulators. Let me see your hands." They stopped at a lamp-post. "They are large, which is an advantage," said the president, fingering Andrew's palms; "but are they supple?" Andrew had thought very little about it, and he did not quite comprehend. "The hands," explained the president, "are perhaps the best natural weapon; but, of course, there are different ways of doing it." The young Scotchman's brain, however, could not keep pace with his companion's words, and the president looked about him for an illustration. They stopped at Gower Street station and glanced at the people coming out. None of them was of much importance, but the president left them alone. Andrew saw what he meant now, and could not but admire his forbearance. They turned away, but just as they emerged into the blaze of Tottenham Court Road they ran into two men, warmly shaking hands with each other before they parted. One of them wore an eye-glass. "Chamberlain!" exclaimed the president, rushing after him. "Did you recognise the other?" said Andrew, panting at his heels. "No! who was it?" "Stead, of the 'Pall Mall Gazette.'" "Great God," cried the president, "two at a time!" He turned and ran back. Then he stopped irresolutely. He could not follow the one for thought of the other. CHAPTER IV The London cabman's occupation consists in dodging thoroughfares under repair. Numbers of dingy streets have been flung about to help him. There is one of these in Bloomsbury, which was originally discovered by a student while looking for the British Museum. It runs a hundred yards in a straight line, then stops, like a stranger who has lost his way, and hurries by another route out of the neighbourhood. The houses are dull, except one, just where it doubles, which is gloomy. This house is divided into sets of chambers and has a new frontage, but it no longer lets well. A few years ago there were two funerals from it within a fortnight, and soon afterward another of the tenants was found at the foot of the stair with his neck broken. These fatalities gave the house a bad name, as such things do in London. It was here that Andrew's patron, the president, lived. To the outcast from work to get an object in life is to be born again. Andrew bustled to the president's chambers on the Saturday night following the events already described, with his chest well set. His springy step echoed of wages in the hearts of the unemployed. Envious eyes, following his swaggering staff, could not see that but a few days before he had been as the thirteenth person at a dinner-party. Such a change does society bring about when it empties a chair for the superfluous man.