While I stood in the room watching the two men, and eager to know what work was to be given me to do that would enable me to touch again the life I had left, Fanshawe and the stranger discussed me in low voices, as they might have discussed some piece of furniture they contemplated putting in some particular place. I caught one or two of their remarks; I listened with the humility that years had bred in me to what they said of me. "You can kick or bully him into anything," I heard Fanshawe say, as he looked over his shoulder at me contemptuously. "For the sake of his bread and butter he'll do what he's told, and he'll do it humbly. If any feeling of revenge is left in him, it will act as a spur; but I don't think the spur will be needed. If he gets troublesome, you can always kick him into the road; he'll crawl back to you, and lick your hand, like the shabby dog he is." "We must give him a name," said the stranger, looking at me with a thoughtful frown. "We can't send him among those people with his old label attached to him." "No--no--you won't do that," I pleaded; for the thought of that had not occurred to me before. "Give me any name you like." "Oh, we won't shame you, Mr. Charles Avaline," sneered Fanshawe; "you needn't be afraid of that. What name would you like?" "What were you in prison--I mean, what work did you do?" demanded the other suddenly. "I worked in the tinsmith's shop for the most part," I said. "They told me I made a good workman; they showed my work to visitors sometimes; and then they would call my number--145 was my number--and point me out, and whisper." "That will do as well as anything else," said the other man, who was evidently paying no attention to my remarks. "We'll christen you 'Tinman'; that shall be your name from this time forward. See that you answer to it." He got up and sauntered to the door, with a careless nod to Jervis Fanshawe; stopped there, and turned round, slapping the side of his leg with a light cane he carried. I remember that he reminded me in a strange haunting fashion of another man I had seen, who had stood with his arms akimbo, and with a light cane resting on one hip and under his hand. "And by the way, Tinman, you'd better know your new master's name. I am Murray Olivant; keep that name in your mind, because you'll have to remember it. Fanshawe will tell you what to do, and when I want you." He sauntered out of the room, banging the door behind him. Jervis Fanshawe turned to me, rubbing his lean hands together, and grinning delightedly.