This house had been hastily run up, like those surrounding it, and the tempest from without rattled and shook the walls and windows as though to drive them in. But the room itself, though no more than an attic, bore an air of comfort very pleasant to the eyes of the homeless Grey, whose own quarters only contained the barest necessities of life; for there were some rough shelves full of books in one corner, and a rug before the fire gave a look of comfort to the place. Two armchairs of rude pattern, but furnished with down cushions, seemed to invite repose; and everything was scrupulously clean, even to the boards of the floor. "’A poor thing, but mine own,’" spoke the Old Lion, with his grim smile, as he motioned to Grey to take one chair, and he himself pulled up the other. "I have dwelt here two years and more now, and I have not been unhappy; albeit I never thought to end my days in a garret, as belike I shall do now." "Fortune has been hard upon you," spoke Grey earnestly. "You have the gifts and the powers; it is cruel that your limbs should have become crippled." "We must take the rough and the smooth of life as we find it," answered the other. "I have had my moments of rebellion—I have them still; but I seek the consolations of philosophy; and I have never yet wanted for bread or shelter. But there be times when the future looks dark before me. Those who remember me, and pity my misfortunes, drop away one by one. I lacked not for patrons at the first. When I could not longer tread the boards, I was ofttimes engaged to make men laugh or weep at some gay rout at a nobleman’s house. Then, too, my jests and quips were in request at gay supper-parties, and I was paid to set the table in a roar, which in all sooth was not difficult when the wine-bottle was going round and round. Oh, I knew gay times for many a year after my stage career closed. But patrons have died off one by one. I am more crippled than I was, and the young wits are pushing to the front, whilst the Old Lion has been crowded out. My pen still serves me in a measure. I can turn an epigram, or write a couplet, or even make shift to pen a sonnet that lacks not the true ring. Grist yet comes to the mill, but more and more slowly. There come moments when I wonder what will be the end of the Old Lion’s career—the poorhouse, or a death by slow starvation in some garret!" "No, no," cried Grey almost fiercely; "that would be shame indeed. Surely, if nothing better turn up, there must be places of refuge for fallen genius. Have not almshouses been built, again and again, by the well-disposed for such men as sickness has laid aside? You smile, but in sooth it is so." "Ay, and how many are there to claim the benefits of pious founders? Yet no matter. I brought you not here to talk of my troubles, but of yours. That romance of which you speak—"