... They saw merely the back of a man, if they saw him at all. The talk was not interrupted on the way to the street and beyond.... Bellair came up with a start to find the boy at his side. 5 For a square or two, Davy Acton walking beside him, Bellair did not speak. He had needed that last bit. The morning would have blurred his hard-earned knowledge of Lot & Company and the world, without that moment under the iron stairs. It was hard to take, but a man mustn’t forget such realities as this. He loses his grip on the world when he forgets. Happy to lose, of course, but the point of his effectiveness is gone when these rock-bottom actualities are forgotten.... He looked down, Davy was hopping every third step to keep up. Bellair had quickened his pace to put the stench of the swamp farther behind him, but it was still in his nostrils.... He laughed. “I was thinking, Davy, and the thoughts were like spurs. We’re in no hurry, really.” He would not take the boy to a stately and formal dining-room for him to be embarrassed. Bellair felt that he had something very precious along; a far graver solution than luncheon with Broadwell. They sat down at a little table in the corner of one of the less crowded restaurants. As they waited, Bellair said, drawing out the paper he had received from the dreaming Mr. Nathan: “I want you to see this first. In fact, I was particularly concerned about getting it, just to show you. Davy, it hit me like a rock--the way you looked at me in the hotel yesterday. I couldn’t have that. We’ve been too good friends----” Davy read the letter carefully, deep responsibility upon his understanding. “Did you have trouble getting it?” he asked finally. “It took the forenoon, Davy. I found that they had not taken the trouble to tell my old friends on the different floors that I was not a thief. What was worse for me, they let you think so----” “I wouldn’t believe it at first,” said Davy. “I’m glad of that.” “I said to Mr. Broadwell, that they’d find out differently and be sorry. They didn’t let us know when they found out----” “That’s why it was important for me to come back----” “But why did you go away like that?” The boy’s mind dwelt in the fine sense of being treated as an equal. Bellair felt called upon to be very explicit and fair: “I came to the time when I couldn’t live with myself any longer--and stay in the cage with Mr. Sproxley. I saw a ship in the harbour the Sunday before--a sailing-ship,” he began, and then made a picture of it; also of his own hopelessness and what the years would mean, not touching specific dishonesties, but suggesting the atmosphere which had suddenly become poisonous to him. He did not forget that Davy had no other place, that he must keep a certain sense of loyalty, or be destroyed in such conditions.