“A government appointment for me!” he cried, when the popular editor offered to use his influence with a Cabinet minister in Daniel’s favour; “why, I should languish in the trammels of an official life. Regular hours and a regular salary would be the death of me in less than six months. I was born a dweller in tents, my dear Desmond, and my instincts are naturally disreputable. I can work seven hours at a stretch, and produce more copy in a given time than any man in London. I have been locked up in a room with a wet towel, a bottle of Scotch whiskey, and half a ream of paper, and have written five-and-thirty pages of a popular magazine between sunset and sunrise. But I must take it out in vagabondage afterwards. I am of the stuff which makes your Savages and your Morlands, and I shall die in a sponging-house when my time comes, I have no doubt. Nevertheless, I will ask a favour of you some day, Desmond; but it shall be for somebody better worth serving than I am.” Within a week of Eustace Thorburn’s return, Daniel Mayfield presented himself at the editor’s chambers. He had done no work for the _Areopagus_ for some little time, and Mr. Desmond was glad to bid him welcome. “I’ve been thinking of looking you up for the last three weeks, Dan,” said the editor, striking his pen across half a page of proof. “What second-hand twaddle this man writes! We want the sterling metal of your stylus, old fellow.” “Any new victim to be flayed alive?” asked Daniel. “I’ve been rather seedy for the last week or two, and perhaps a little of the old work will set me right again.” “You’ll find plenty of material there,” answered Mr. Desmond, pointing to a heap of cloth-covered volumes. “What have you been doing with yourself since I saw you last? No good, I suppose,” he added, without looking up from the proofs on which he was operating. “Well, no, not much good. It’s a business I shouldn’t care about repeating; but it’s a business that must be done--it must be done, Desmond, sooner or later, in every man’s life, I suppose.” The unwonted gravity of Daniel Mayfield’s tone surprised his friend. Laurence Desmond looked up from his desk, and for the first time perceived the change in his erratic contributor’s costume. “In mourning, Dan! I’m sorry to see that,” he said, gently. “Yes; I have buried the dearest friend I ever had--my only sister. God bless her! The _Freethinker’s Quarterly_ people won’t get me to do any more deistical articles for them, Laurence. I’m a bad fellow myself, with no opinions in particular about anything in heaven or earth. How should I have opinions? I’ve sold ’em too often to other people to have any left for myself. But I like to think that _she_ is in heaven, and I’ll never write a ‘rational’ essay again as long as I live.” The two men shook hands upon this, _without_ effusion--as it is the habit of Englishmen to do.