“Have we any souls?” said Rees. “I don’t feel as if I had any such relic of respectability about me. Whatever I may have had left of that sort Deborah took away with her the day she came here with my mother. When I’m tired of this life I shall go to Carstow and claim it back from her.” “Do you think, Rees,” suggested Sep, after a pause, “that a man who’s led the sort of life we have is--is--well--quite good enough for a woman like Miss Audaer?” “My dear boy, why trouble ourselves with questions of that sort? As long as they’ll have us and worship us, no matter what sort of lives we’ve led, why should we worry ourselves by trying to lead any better?” “And you think Miss Audaer worships you still?” Rees got up, swaggered confidently across the room to his desk, unlocked it, and took from an inner drawer a woman’s little morocco purse, which he flung across the table carelessly to his companion. “Look inside,” said he. Sep opened it almost reverently, and found that it contained ten sovereigns. “Her savings for half a year at least,” explained Rees. “The day she came here she left it on the desk, sliding it under a piece of blotting paper, because she knew I was badly off. You see I have not touched it,” he added, magnanimously. “So I should think,” said Sep, laconically. “Are you sure, though, Rees, whether she left it at the beginning or the end of her visit--on her coming in or on her going away?” “What do you mean?” asked Rees sharply. “Why, that perhaps she left it for the old Rees, whom she had known, and would not have left it for the new Rees whom she had to learn to know.” Limp and undecided in action, Sep was shrewd of thought and could be plain of speech. Rees received his suggestion very haughtily, and the two men were on the verge of a quarrel when the sound of the turn of a latch-key in the front door caused them instantly to drop their voices. For mistrust of their elder was the bond on which the friendship between the two younger men now chiefly rested. Amos Goodhare entered in brisk and jaunty fashion. He alone of the three seemed to have found their alternately riotous and risky life perfectly agreeable to his tastes and constitution. After having grown old in the pursuit of learning, he was now growing young again at the fountain of pleasure. If he had lost something in dignity, he had gained in distinction, and the man on whom all had looked as an intellectual marvel seemed now remarkable rather for his well-cut clothes and the easy condescension of his manner. “Well, boys,” was his greeting, “you don’t seem to understand how to make Christmas merry. I’ve come to show you how it can be made useful.” “By taking a lesson at Drury Lane, perhaps, and buttering the pavement outside rich old gentlemen’s doors,” suggested Rees ironically. Amos gave the young man a glance of no particular warmth and said: