‘Yes, I have come back to work. Even now, it’s difficult to realise that I must work or starve. I understand how fellows who have unexpectedly lost their income go through life sponging on relatives and friends. I understand how an educated man goes sinking through all the social grades, down to the common lodging-house and the infirmary. And I honestly believe there’s only one thing that saves me from doing likewise.’ ‘And what’s that?’ ‘I can’t tell you--not yet, at all events.’ ‘I always thought you a very fine specimen of the man born to do nothing,’ said Munden, with that smile which permitted him a surprising candour in conversation. ‘And you were quite right,’ returned Tarrant, with a laugh. ‘I am a born artist in indolence. It’s the pity of pities that circumstances will frustrate Nature’s purpose.’ ‘You think you can support yourself by journalism?’ ‘I must try.--Run your eye over that.’ He took from the table a slip of manuscript, headed, ‘A Reverie in Wall Street.’ Munden read it, sat thoughtful for a moment, and laughed. ‘Devilish savage. Did you write it after a free lunch?’ ‘Wrote it this morning. Shall I try one of the evening papers with it,--or one of the weeklies?’ Munden suggested a few alterations, and mentioned the journal which he thought might possibly find room for such a bit of satire. ‘Done anything else?’ ‘Here’s a half-finished paper--“The Commercial Prospects of the Bahamas.”’ ‘Let me look.’ After reading a page or two with critically wrinkled forehead, Munden laid it down. ‘Seems pretty solid,--libellous, too, I should say. You’ve more stuff in you than I thought. All right: go ahead.--Come and dine with me to-morrow, to meet a man who may be useful.’ ‘To-morrow I can’t. I dine at Lady Pollard’s.’ ‘Who is she?’ ‘Didn’t you know Pollard of Trinity?--the only son of his mother, and she a widow.’ ‘Next day, then.’ ‘Can’t. I dine with some people at Bedford Park.’ Munden lifted his eyebrows. ‘At this rate, you may live pretty well on a dress suit. Any more engagements?’ ‘None that I know of. But I shall accept all that offer. I’m hungry for the society of decent English people. I used to neglect my acquaintances; I know better now. Go and live for a month in a cheap New York boarding-house, and you’ll come out with a wholesome taste for English refinement.’ To enable his friend to read, Tarrant had already lit a lamp. Munden, glancing about the room, said carelessly: ‘Do you still possess the furniture of the old place?’ ‘No,’ was the answer, given with annoyance. ‘Vawdrey had it sold for me.’ ‘Pictures, books, and all the nick-nacks?’ ‘Everything.--Of course I’m sorry for it; but I thought at the time that I shouldn’t return to England for some years.’ ‘You never said anything of that kind to me.’ ‘No, I didn’t,’ the other replied gloomily. And all at once he fell into so taciturn a mood, that his companion, after a few more remarks and inquiries, rose from his chair to leave.