On the way up, just as he was nearing the gates, Dick overtook Rick, who was a little way ahead of him. "Come, let us go up together," said Rick. At the gates, however, Dick began to grow uneasy. His brother's reputation on earth among "the godly" was a curiously unwelcome memory to Dick now the Bar was so near and the Doom's-man was in sight. "You go first," said Dick to his brother; falling behind as if to dissociate himself from him. Rick passed the gate and stood silently at the Bar. "Place the brothers side by side," said the Doom's-man sternly. "If you please," began Dick, stumbling in his speech, so afraid was he of being confounded in the judgment of his brother; "If you please. . . ." Said the Doom's-man: "Let the Advocates state the case." The Black-robed Advocate claimed Rick boldly. The verdict of Rick's fellow-citizens, he asserted, was emphatic on the point that Rick was legitimately his. And he went with the majority, and claimed a verdict accordingly. The White-robed Advocate advanced, more hesitatingly, that Dick presumably should go with _him_. The Community, he averred, had long ago decided that only in this way would justice have its due. The Doom's-man's verdict was simplicity itself. A nature so contented, and so little given to fault-finding, would be the typical one for the Black Advocate's household, said the Doom's-man, humorously contemplating Dick. "Take him away with you," said he to the Black Advocate: "the man will give you no trouble, _as you know_. "But that restless, fault-finding fellow there," and he indicated Rick with a movement of his forefinger, "it would need a faultless abode like _yours_ to satisfy him," and he signed to the silent White Advocate at his side. "Take him, he is yours," said the Doom's-man solemnly. And with that the Advocates departed with their awards. FRIEND OR FOE? I. SIR EDWARD lay back lazily in his chair, with a letter in a woman's handwriting crumpled at his feet. "She must make the best of it now," said he, gazing at the fire. "She is not worse off than others, come to that." And he lolled among the cushions, gazing into the fire, with a hard and cruel look on his countenance, on which the stamp of sensuality was unmistakably impressed. It was a large and luxuriously-furnished apartment, with everything so arranged as to minister to the senses and afford them the fullest gratification which suggestions could impart. But Sir Edward, lolling by the fire this evening, experienced little satisfaction in his luxurious surroundings: the eroding tooth of thought they could no way quiet; and it was the irritation of this that he most desired to have allayed. He lighted a cigar, and began to smoke vigorously, leaning back the while and contemplating the smoke-clouds that drifted round in swirling folds and spirals, an occasional ring mounting airily over all.