Albert Langly found himself compelled to search for a cheaper room. The thin young man bitterly regretted that good money had to be wasted on food, clothes and rent. A person cannot live without food; Langly had tried it, not as an economical experiment, but largely through forgetfulness, and he found, to his astonishment, that hunger actually forced itself upon his attention, after a sufficient lapse of time. The changeable English climate, not to mention the regulations of that moral body the police force, compelled him to cover himself; and a room he needed mainly to keep his stacks of music dry. The church of St. Martyrs-in-the-East afforded a very good living to its rector and a very poor one for its organist, although if people were paid according to professional efficiency in this world, the salaries of clergyman and musician might have been reversed. Those who entered the church door came, not to hear the sermon, but to listen to the music. Langly never applied for more remuneration, because deep down in his musical soul he knew he was already taking advantage of the generosity of the church authorities, and he lived in constant fear that some day they would discover this and righteously dismiss him. To be allowed to play on that splendid instrument, erected at the cost of an unbelievable amount of money, was a privilege which he felt he ought to pay for, if he were the honest man the deacons thought him. He tried to soothe his troubled conscience, by telling it that he would refuse to take money were it not that sheet music was so dear, even when bought from the man who gave the largest discount in London, to whose shop Langly tramped miles once a week; but thus the guilty have ever endeavoured to lull the inward monitor, well knowing, while they did so, the sophistry of their excuses. The consciousness of deceit told on Langly’s manner; he cringed before the rector and those in authority. Never did one of the kindly but deluded men accost their organist without causing a timorous fear to spring up in his heart that the hour of his dismissal had arrived. Yet, let moralists say what they will, the wicked do prosper sometimes on this earth when they shouldn’t, while the innocent suffer for the misdeeds done by others. There was the case of Belcher, for example, and although it must in justice be admitted that Belcher’s hard luck caused the organist many twinges of conscience, still of what avail are twinges of conscience when the harm is wrought? If, in our selfishness, we bring disaster on a fellow-creature, after-regret can scarcely be called reparation.