Peter looked up and smiled. “What an old brick you are,” he said. “Do you remember that fight Christmas time, years ago? ... You're always like that.... I've been an ass to bother you with it all and while we've got each other things can't be so bad.” He got up and stretched his arms. “Well, it's bedtime, especially as you've got to be off early to that old restaurant--” Stephen stepped back from him. “I've been meaning to tell you,” he said, “that's off. The place ain't paying and the boss shut four of us down to-night ... I'm not to go back ... Peter, boy,” he finished, almost triumphantly. “We're up against it ... I've got a quid in my pocket and that's all there is to it.” They faced one another whilst the candle behind them guttered and blew in the window cracks, and the cluster of stars, still caught in the dirty roofs and chimneys of Bucket Lane, twinkled, desperately--in vain. CHAPTER VIII STEPHEN'S CHAPTER I No knight--the hero of any chronicle--ever went forward to his battle with a braver heart than did Peter now in his desperate adventure against the world. His morbidity, his introspection, his irritation with Stephen's simplicities fled from him... he was gay, filled with the glamour of showing what one could do... he did not doubt but that a fortnight would see him in a magnificent position. And then--the fortnight passed and he and Stephen had still their positions to discover--the money moreover was almost at an end... another fortnight would behold them penniless. It was absurd--it was monstrous, incredible. Life was not like that--Peter bit his lip and set out again. Editors had not, on most occasions, vouchsafed him even an interview. Then had come no answer to the four halfpenny wrappers. The world, like a wall of shining steel, closed him in with impenetrable silence. It was absurd--it was monstrous. Peter fought desperately, as a bird beats with its wings on the bars of its cage. They were having the worst of luck. On several occasions he had been just too late and some one had got the position before him. Stephen too found that the places where he had worked before had now no job for him. “It was the worst time in the world... a month ago now or possibly in a month's time....” Stephen did not tell the boy that away from London there were many things that he could do--the boy was not up to tramping. Indeed, nothing was more remarkable than the way in which Peter's strength seemed to strain, like a flood, away. It was, perhaps, a matter of nerves as much as physical strength--the boy was burning with the anxiety of it, whereas to Stephen this was no new experience. Peter saw it in the light of some horrible disaster that belonged, in all the world's history, to him alone. He came back at the end of one of his days, white, his eyes almost closed, his fingers twitching, his head hanging a little ... very silent.