He was talking to his friend Harvey Munden, the journalist. The room in which they stood might with advantage have been larger, but as a bed-chamber it served well enough, and only the poverty of its occupant, who put it to the additional use of sitting-room and study, made the lack of space particularly noticeable. The window afforded a prospect pleasant enough to eyes such as theirs. Above the lower houses on the opposite side of the way appeared tall trees, in the sere garb of later autumn, growing by old Westminster School; and beyond them, grey in twilight, rose the towers of the Abbey. From this point of view no vicinage of modern brickwork spoilt their charm; the time-worn monitors stood alone against a sky of ruddy smoke-drift and purple cloud. ‘The old Adam is stronger than ever in me,’ he pursued. ‘If I were condemned for life to the United States, I should go mad, and perish in an attempt to swim the Atlantic.’ ‘Then why did you stay so long?’ ‘I could have stayed with advantage even longer. It’s something to have studied with tolerable thoroughness the most hateful form of society yet developed. I saw it at first as a man does who is living at his ease; at last, as a poor devil who is thankful for the institution of free lunches. I went first-class, and I came back as a steerage passenger. It has been a year well spent.’ It had made him, in aspect, more than a twelve-month older. His lounging attitude, the spirit of his talk, showed that he was unchanged in bodily and mental habits; but certain lines new-graven upon his visage, and an austerity that had taken the place of youthful self-consciousness, signified a more than normal progress in experience. ‘Do you know,’ said Munden slyly, ‘that you have brought back a trans-Atlantic accent?’ ‘Accent? The devil! I don’t believe it.’ ‘Intonation, at all events.’ Tarrant professed a serious annoyance. ‘If that’s true, I’ll go and live for a month in Limerick.’ ‘It would be cheaper to join a Socialist club in the East End. But just tell me how you stand. How long can you hold out in these aristocratic lodgings?’ ‘Till Christmas. I’m ashamed to say how I’ve got the money, so don’t ask. I reached London with empty pockets. And I’ll tell you one thing I have learnt, Munden. There’s no villainy, no scoundrelism, no baseness conceivable, that isn’t excused by want of money. I understand the whole “social question.” The man who has never felt the perspiration come out on his forehead in asking himself how he is going to keep body and soul together, has no right to an opinion on the greatest question of the day.’ ‘What particular scoundrelism or baseness have you committed?’ asked the other. Tarrant averted his eyes. ‘I said I could understand such things.’ ‘One sees that you have been breathed upon by democracy.’ ‘I loathe the word and the thing even more than I did, which is saying a good deal.’ ‘Be it so. You say you are going to work?’