With men who live the life of action the coming of each new day brings a fresh impulse and fresh inspiration. John Gore seemed to throw off the stupor of the night as the grayness of the dawn deepened into bands of blue and gold across the east. He shook himself, dashed cold water over his head and face, and, putting on fresh linen and new clothes, went down into the house before a servant so much as stirred. Opening the street door, he met the dewy breath of the morning and all the silent and gradual glamour of the dawn. He was not the man to mope and write sonnets in a corner, or to surrender a strenuous will to feeble speculation. Wandering down to the river, he hired a waterman who happened to be industriously early with a pot of paint down by Charing Stairs, and, making the man row him into mid-stream, he stripped and plunged, and swam a good half-mile with the tide, feeling the fitter for it in body and heart. Returning, he breakfasted alone, and, inquiring from the man Rogers, learned that my lord had rung for his morning cup of chocolate, which he always drank in bed. He heard also the account of how Sparkin had been sent to school some days ago, for John Gore had entered the youngster as a boarder at St. Paul’s. He had been packed off, as Mr. Rogers described it, like a pressed man to a king’s ship, swearing that he would desert at the first chance, and cut the servant’s throat who had had the insolence to drag him schoolward by the collar. But Rogers, who had been sent by my lord to inquire after the child, confessed that he had found Sparkin more resigned to his fate. He had fought three fights in as many days, and been royally licked in the last encounter. Defeat seemed to have decided Mr. Sparkin to remain, in order to be avenged as honor and the prestige of the past demanded. My lord was luxuriously at his ease, leaning against a pile of pillows in the four-post bed, when his son paid him a morning call. He lost a little of his dignity in a silk nightcap and a black velvet bed-gown as elaborately belaced as some priestly vestment. But Stephen Gore was still the great gentleman, the man of affairs, the dispenser of favors, as the litter on the quilt testified—letters, pamphlets, a needy poet’s new book of poems, bills, petitions, and what not. The man Rogers was laying out shirts, stockings, and silk underwear—preparing for that most solemn ceremonial, the sacrament of the toilet. “You can leave us, Rogers, for half an hour. If any of my people call, keep them waiting till I ring.” John Gore had opened the window, and stood looking down into the little garden at the back of the house.