They were not long in finding out that the invitation had been given and accepted under a misapprehension on both sides. Faraday, as soon as he had settled his guest in a chair, came straight to the point with "Now tell me—how long have you been interested in social questions?" "In social questions?" William repeated blankly. "I’m afraid I don’t—— What sort of questions do you mean?" It was Faraday’s turn to be taken aback, and, though he did not say it, his eyes looked. "Then what the devil——?" William’s fell before them nervously, and he shifted in his chair like a child detected in a blunder. "I’m afraid I don’t——" he said again—and halted. "Then you didn’t know," his companion queried, "that I am ’Vindex’ of _The Torch_?" "I’m afraid not," muttered William, who had heard neither of one nor the other. "Vindex" of _The Torch_ sighed inwardly. He was young, ambitious, fiercely in earnest and ever on the look-out for his Chance; and, the wish being father to the thought, he had momentarily mistaken William for an embodiment of his Chance and dreamed dreams since the morning—dreams of a comrade like-minded and willing to be led, whose newly-inherited riches might be used to endow a periodical that should preach a purer and more violent rebellion even than _The Torch_ itself. With the aid of William’s three pounds a week—magnified many times over in the eyes of his eager mind—he had seen himself casting the hated insurance behind him and devoting himself heart and pen to the regeneration of the State and Race by means of the Class War. And lo!—as a couple more searching questions revealed to him—in place of a patron and comrade was a nervous little nincompoop, bewildered at finding himself for the first time out of leading-strings, to whom a hundred and fifty a year was wealth untold and who had never so much as heard of the Class War! For a moment he was more than half inclined to be angry with the nervous little nincompoop whose blundering, egoistic attempt at confidence had induced him to believe that the secret of his identity had been penetrated by an ardent sympathizer. (It was an open secret in "advanced" circles, though carefully guarded in the office.) Then, more justly, he softened, recognizing that the blunder was his own, the mistake of his own making—and, pitying William’s dropped jaw and open confusion, poured him out a whisky and endeavoured to set him at his ease.