"I am quite happy," he said. "Lizzie is a good wife, and I love her better to-day than the day I married her; but the price I paid for her was too high. Mount Rorke has behaved shamefully, and so has everybody but you. I never see any of the old lot now. Snowdown came once to dine about a year ago, but I never go anywhere where Lizzie is not asked. Mount Rorke has only written once since my marriage, and then it was to say he never wished to see me again. The next I heard was the announcement of his marriage." "So he has married again," said Mike, looking at Frank, and then he thought--"So you who came from the top shall go to the bottom! Shall he who came from the bottom go to the top?" "I have not heard yet of a child. I have tried to find out if one is expected; but what does it matter?--Mount Rorke wouldn't give me a penny-piece to save me from starvation, and I should have time to starve a good many times before he goes off the hooks. I don't mind telling you I'm about as hard up as a man possibly can be. I owe three quarters' rent for my rooms in Temple Gardens, nearly two hundred pounds. The Inn is pressing me, and I can't get three hundred for my furniture, and I'm sure I paid more than fifteen hundred for what there is there." "Why don't you sell a share in the paper?" "I have sold a small part of it, a very small part of it, a fifth, and there is a fellow called Thigh--you know the fellow, he has edited every stupid weekly that has appeared and disappeared for the last ten years--well, he has got hold of a mug, and by all accounts a real mug, one of the right sort, a Mr. Beacham Brown. Mr. Brown wants a paper, and has commissioned Thigh to buy him one. Thigh wants me to sell a half share in the _Pilgrim_ for a thousand, but I shall have to give Thigh back four hundred; and I shall--that is to say, I shall if I agree to Thigh's terms--become assistant editor at a salary of six pounds a week; two pounds a week of which I shall have to hand over to Thigh, who comes in as editor at a salary of ten pounds a week. All the staff will be engaged on similar conditions. Thigh is 'working' Beacham Brown beautifully--he won't have a sixpence to bless himself with when Thigh has done with him." "And are you going to accept Thigh's terms?"