Some little time afterwards, when Joyce thought over his mental condition in those first days of his return to London, the cheap cynicism, the pettishness, and the languor which he had suffered to possess him, he wondered why old Jack Byrne, with whom he had taken up his quarters, had not rebuked him for it, and one day, with some considerable confusion, he asked the old man the reason. "Why didn't I speak to you about it, and pitch into you for it, my boy?" said the old man, with his peculiar soft laugh. "Because it's best to let some things have their run, and come to a stop of their own accord. I saw plainly enough what would be the result of that love business, long ago, when you first told me of it. Why didn't I say so then? Why, you don't imagine I should have attempted to influence you in such a matter, when I had never even seen the lady, and had only general experience to take as my guide? I did give you as many hints as I thought prudent or decent in a letter which I wrote to you, my lad; but you didn't seem to profit by them much, or, indeed, to take any heed of them. You went sailing away straight and smoothly enough until that squall came down upon you and carried away your masts and your rigging, and left you a helpless log tossing on the waters. It was so nice to be a helpless log, wasn't it?--so nice that you thought you would never be anything else. But, God bless you, I knew differently; I'd seen the same case a hundred times before, and I knew if you were left alone you would come all right in time. And now you have come all right, and you're doing your work well, and they think highly of you at the _Comet_ office." "I'm glad of that; that's the best news you could give me. Do they think well of me? Do they think I do my work well, and----" "Good Lord, what a swallow the lad has for flummery!" grumbled old Byrne. "He'd like me to repeat every word of praise to him. It's wonderful to see how he glows under it--no, not wonderful, when one recollects how young he is. Ah, youth, youth! Do they? Yes, of course they do; you know that well enough. It's deuced lucky you gave up that notion of going to Berlin, Walter, boy." "Yes," said Joyce, with a sigh, as he remembered all about the proposal; "I'm better here." "Better here, I should think you were, indeed! A correspondent can't do much in the way of making his mark. He can be serious and well informed, or chatty and nonsensical; he can elect between describing the councils of cabinets or the circumference of crinolines; but in either case his scope is limited, and he can never get much fame for himself. Now in your present position as an essayist and leader-writer of remarkable ability--oh, you needn't pretend to blush, you know I shouldn't say what I didn't think--there is possibly a very bright future in store for you! And to think that years ago you possessed a distaste for politics!"