William Hollis was a disappointed and embittered man. Life had gone wrong with him; but a small jar of Blackhampton Old Ale softens failure and evokes the quality of self-pity. However, as he approached Mr. Munt's gate and gained a clearer view of the newest and most imposing house on The Rise, the sense of failure rose in him to a pitch that was hard to bear. So this was what Melia's father had done! No wonder she despised a man like himself. It was not very surprising after all that she hardly threw a word to him now from one day's end to another. III A man in an apron that had once been white and in a cloth cap that had once been navy blue was painting a series of bold letters on Mr. Josiah Munt's front gate. Bill Hollis was overwhelmed with depression, but at this interesting sight curiosity stirred him. He advanced upon the decorative artist who was whistling gently over a job in which he took a pride and a pleasure. Upon the ornate front of the large green gate was being inscribed the word STRATHFIELDSAYE Bill recognized the artist as a near neighbor of his own in Love Lane. "Working for the Nobs, are you, Wickens?" There was a world of scorn in the tone of William Hollis, a world of sarcasm. And yet what was scorn and what was sarcasm in the presence of a hard fact, clear, outstanding, fully accomplished! The artist expectorated a silent affirmative. "Piecework, I suppose? Cut rates?" Mr. Munt had the reputation of being a very keen man of business. The artist was too much absorbed in his labors to indulge in promiscuous talk. William Hollis peered through the gate, to the rows of newly planted shrubs on either side the curving carriage drive. "Bleeding upstart" he muttered; then he turned on his heel and walked on up the road. He had gone but a few yards when quite unexpectedly he came upon a massive figure in a black and white checked summer suit and a white billycock hat worn at a rather rakish angle. It was his father-in-law and they were face to face. Mr. Munt was proceeding with a kind of elephantine dignity along the exact center of the sidewalk, and instinctively, before he was aware of what he had done, his son-in-law by stepping nimbly into the grassgrown gutter had conceded it to him. But in almost the same instant he scorned himself for his action; and the gesture of lordly indifference with which the proprietor of the Duke of Wellington directed his gaze upon the western gables of Strathfieldsaye, without a flicker of recognition of the person who had made way for him, suddenly brought William Hollis to the bursting point.