This arrangement suited Humphrey Statham admirably. Two hundred a year to a very young man, who has never had any command of money, is an important sum. He left the counting-house; and whatever respect and regard he may have felt for his father had been obliterated by the invariable sternness and opposition with which all his advances had been received. Two hundred a year! He would be off back at once to Rhineland, where, among the painters, he could live like a prince with such an income; and he went--and in six months came back again. The thing was changed somehow; it was not as it used to be. There were the same men, indeed, living the same kind of life, equally glad to welcome their English comrade, and to give him the run of their studios and their clubs and kneipes; but after a time this kind of life seemed very flat and vapid to Humphrey Statham. The truth is, that during his six weeks' office experience he had seen something of London; and on reflection he made up his mind that, after all, it was perhaps a more amusing place than any of the Rhineland towns. On his return to London he took a neat lodging, and for four or five years led a purposeless idle life, such a life as is led by hundreds of young men who are burdened with that curse--a bare sufficiency, scarcely enough to keep them, more than enough to prevent them from seeking employment, and to dull any aspirations which they may possess. It was during this period of his life that Humphrey made the acquaintance of Tom Durham, whose gaiety, recklessness, and charm of manner, fascinated him at once; and he himself took a liking to the frank, generous, high-spirited young man, Tom Durham's knowledge of the world made him conscious that, though indolent, and to a certain extent dissipated, Humphrey Statham was by no means depraved, and to his friend Mr. Durham therefore exhibited only the best side of his nature. He was engaged in some wild speculations just at that time, and it was while careering over the country with Tom Durham in search of a capitalist to float some marvellous invention of that fertile genius, that Humphrey Statham met with an adventure which completely altered the current of his life.