To this kind of clever boy there are always two or three dangers. One is that he should be led on to think more and more of froth and less of fact; another, that he should grow conceited over his eloquence and neglect his business. A third temptation which peculiarly besets this kind is that he should take to drink. Oratory is thirsty work, and places where young men orate are often in immediate proximity to bars. As yet, however, Charley was only twenty. He was still at the first stage of everything--oratory, business, and love; and he was still at the stage when everything appears possible--the total abolition of injustice, privilege, class, capital, power, oppression, greed, sweating, poverty, suffering--by the simple process of tinkering the constitution. "Oh," he cried, "we shall have the most glorious, the most splendid time, Lily! The power of the people is only just beginning; it hasn't begun yet. We shall see the most magnificent things...." He enumerated them as above indicated. Well, it is very good that young men should have such dreams and see such visions. I never heard of any girl being thus carried out of herself. The thing belongs exclusively to male man in youth, and it is very good for him. When he is older he will understand that over and above the law and the constitution there is something else more important still--namely, that every individual man should be honest, temperate, and industrious. In brief, he will understand the force of the admonition: "Be good, my child, or else you will become an intolerable nuisance to everybody." The sun sank behind Harrow-on-the-Hill. The red light of the west flamed in the boy's bright eyes. Presently the girl rose. "Yes, Charley," she said, less sympathetic than might have been expected; "yes, and it will be a very fine time, if it comes. But I don't know. People will always want to get rich, won't they? I think this beautiful time will have to come after us. Perhaps we had better be looking after our own nest first." "Oh, it will come--it will come!" "I like to hear you talk about it, Charley. But if we are ever to marry--if I am to give up the post-office, you must make a bigger screw. Remember what you promised. The shorthand and the French class. Put them before your speechifying." "All right, Lily dear, and then we will get married, and we will have the most splendid time. Oh, there's the most splendid time for us--ahead!" II. It is six months later and mid-winter, and the time is again the evening. The day has been gloomy, with a fog heavy enough to cause the offices to be lit with gas, so that the eyes of all London are red and the heads of all London are heavy. Lily stepped outside the post-office, work done. She was going home. At the door stood her sweetheart, waiting for her. She tossed her head and made as if she would pass him without speaking. But he stepped after and walked beside her.