It was not, then, alone to pay his washing bill that John decided to part with the gold watch-chain. He had, in a moment of inspiration, conjured before him the possibility of asking Jill to lunch, and these two motives, uniting from opposite quarters of the compass of suggestion to one and the same end, he sacrificed the last pretentions he might have claimed to the opulence conveyed by a gold watch-chain and repaired to Payne and Welcome’s. With a bold and unconscious step, he strode into the little side entrance, which is a feature of all these jeweller’s shops displaying the mystical sign of the three brass balls. Without the slightest sense of shame, he pushed open one of the small doors that give admittance to the little boxes--those little boxes where the confession of one’s poverty is made. And to no sympathetic ear of a gentle priest are those terrible confessions to be whispered--the most terrible confession you can make in this world. The man to whom you tell your story of shame is greedy and willing to listen, eager and inexorable to make your penance as heavy as he may. A bailiff is, perhaps, more stony of heart than a pawnbroker; yet both are brothers in trade. The dearest things in the life of anyone are their possessions, and both these tradesmen deal in their heartless confiscation. The woman out at elbow, hollow-eyed, who comes to pawn her wedding ring, the man--shabby--genteel--wearing, until the nap is gone and the sleeves are frayed, the garment of his self-respect, who comes to put away his best and Sunday coat; they are all one to the pawnbroker. He beats them down to the last farthing, well knowing that, having once determined to part with their possessions, they will not willingly go away again without that for which they came. He has them utterly at his mercy. They are all one to him. The story in their faces is nothing to his eyes. He signs a hundred death warrants in the tickets that he writes every day--death warrants to possessions well-nigh as dear as life; but it means nothing to him. The awful thought about it all, is to consider the ease with which one loses the sense of shame which, upon a first transaction of the kind, is a hot wind blowing on the face, burning the cheeks to scarlet.