"It's the rottenest gift a man can be born with," cried Bakkus with startling vindictiveness. "It turns him into an idle, sentimental, hypocritical and dissolute hound. If I hadn't been cursed young with a voice like a Cherub, I should possibly be on the same affable terms with the Almighty as my brother, the Archdeacon, or profitably paralysing the intellects of the young like my brother, the preparatory schoolmaster." He was a lean and rusty man of forty, with long black hair brushed back over his forehead, and cadaverous cheeks and long upper lip which all the shaving in the world could not redeem for the blue shade of the strong black beard which at midnight showed almost black. But for his black, mocking eyes, he might have been taken for the seedy provincial tragedian of the old school. "Young man----" said he. "My name," said Andrew, "is Lackaday." "And you don't like people to be familiar and take liberties." Andrew met the ironical glance. "That is so," said he quietly. "Then, Mr. Lackaday----" "You can omit the 'Mr.,'" said Andrew, "if you care to do so." "You're more English than I thought," smiled Horatio Bakkus. "I'm proud that you should say so," replied Andrew. "I was about to remark," said Bakkus, "when you interrupted me, that I wondered why a young Englishman of obviously decent upbringing should be pursuing this contemptible form of livelihood." "I beg your pardon," said Andrew, pausing in the act of conveying to his mouth a morsel of sandwich. He was puzzled; comrades down on their luck had cursed the profession for a _sale métier_ and had wished they were road sweepers; but he had never heard it called contemptible. It was a totally new conception. Bakkus repeated his words and added: "It is below the dignity of one made in God's image." "I am afraid I do not agree with you," replied Andrew, stiffly. "I was born in the profession and honourably bred in it and I have known no other and do not wish to know any other." "You were born an imitator? It seems rather a narrow scheme of life." "I was born in a circus, and whatever there could be learned in a circus I was taught. And it was, as you have guessed, a decent upbringing. By Gum, it was!" he added, with sudden heat. "And you're proud of it?" "I don't see that I've got anything else to be proud of," said Andrew. "And you must be proud of something?" "If not you had better be dead," said Andrew. "Ah!" said Bakkus, and went on with his supper. Andrew, who had hitherto held himself on the defensive against impertinence, and was disposed to dislike the cynical attitude of his new acquaintance, felt himself suddenly disarmed by this "Ah!" Perhaps he had dealt too cruel a blow at the disillusioned owner of the pretty little tenor voice in which he could not take very much pride. Bakkus broke a silence by remarking: "I envy you your young enthusiasm. You don't think it better we were all dead?" "I should think not!" cried Andrew.