The partner, clean-shaven, ruddy-cheeked, was lounging against the mantel-piece, hands in pockets, a whimsical smile playing around the comers of his mouth. His speech, though business-like, was kindly. He looked a gentleman. Joyce was seized with a mad, despairing impulse. He flushed to the roots of his hair, clenched his hands by his sides and advanced an involuntary step towards his interlocutor. “I will tell you the truth,” he cried breathlessly. “I must find work soon or I shall starve. Give it to me and I will work night and day for you. I took a double first at Oxford. I practised as a solicitor. I lived beyond my means and misappropriated trust-money. I could not pay it back. My name was struck off the rolls and I had two years’ hard labour. I have been looking for work every day for five months. I am not such a fool as to risk that hell again. For God’s sake give me a chance and set me on my feet again.” His voice rang with the agony of entreaty. His lips quivered. When he ceased speaking he was shaking from head to foot. The young man shifted the crossing of his feet and put up an eyeglass that had been dangling on his waistcoat. “Well, you have pretty damned cheek, I must say!” he remarked, with a drawl. Joyce stared at him for a moment stupidly, and then turned away without a word, crushed and humiliated to his soul. Round and round the rectangular well-staircase he went, dizzy with the reaction. He could knock at no more doors. The names seemed to swell large and to jeer at him as he passed. A burst of laughter from two men, issuing from some office above, echoed and rattled down the staircase and jarred upon every nerve of his body. He quickened his pace to a run, and did not stop until he reached the sweltering street. White and faint he leant against the wall, vaguely conscious of the ceaselessly hurrying mass that passed him by. After a minute or two he recovered self-possession enough to move onwards with the westward stream on the pavement. His quest of work was abandoned. He could only feel sickening regret for having given way to his insane impulse and shrink from the echoing tones of the other man’s cynical contempt. The last shred of his self-respect was torn away. He seemed to be the naked gaol-bird before those thousand eyes that glanced upon him. The idea grew into morbid exaggeration. A man or woman making way for him to pass appeared to be shrinking from the soil of his touch. Every policeman was identifying him. A penny-toy man by the Mansion House, who had taken off his cap and was scratching a closely-cropped head, grinned at him with the familiarity of an old acquaintance.