He was warmly and decently clad, and I could only wonder at his choice of bedroom. He read me in a look. “I’ve a craving for experiences,” he said. “These aren’t my usual quarters.” “No,” I said; “I suppose not.” “Nor yours?” he went on, with a keen glance at me. To give my confidence to a stranger was an unwise proceeding, but I was guileless as to the craft of great cities, and in this case my innocence was in a manner my good fortune. I told him that I was only yesterday from the country, after a three days’ tramp, and how I was benighted. “Ah,” he said. “Up after work, I suppose?” “Yes,” I answered. “Well,” said he, “let’s understand your capacities. Guess my age first.” “Forty,” said I, at a venture, for indeed he might have been that or anything else. “I’m 21,” he said. “Don’t I look it? We mature early in London here. What do you think’s my business?” “Oh, you’re a gentleman, aren’t you?” I asked, with some stir of shyness. “I’m a printer’s hand. That means something very different to you, don’t it? Maybe you’ll develop in time. Where are you from?” I told him. “Ah,” he said. “You’ve a proverb down your way: ‘Manners makeyth man.’ So they may, as they construe it--a fork for the fingers and a pretty trick of speech; but it’s the manners of the soul make the gentleman. Do you believe in after-life?” “Of course I do. Where do the ghosts come from otherwise?” He laughed pleasantly, rubbing his chin in a perplexed manner, and then I noticed that his fingers were stunted like a mechanic’s and stained with printer’s ink. “Old Ripley would fancy you,” he said. “Who’s he?” “My governor--printer, binder and pamphleteer, an opponent of all governments but his own. He’s an anarchist, who’d like to transfer himself and his personal belongings to some desert satellite, after laying a train to blow up the earth with nitro-glycerin and then he’d want to overturn the heavenly system.” “He doesn’t sound hopeful.” “No, he isn’t, but he’s fairly original for a fanatic. I wonder if he’d give you work?” “Oh, thanks!” I exclaimed. “Nonsense; you needn’t mind him. He’s only gas. Unmixed with his native air he wouldn’t be explosive, you know. I can imagine him a very unprogressive angel. It’s notoriety he wants. Nothing satisfies his sort in the end like a scaffold outside of Newgate with 40,000 eyes looking on and 12 guineas paid for a window in the ‘Magpie and Stump.’” “Are you----” I began, when he took me up with: “His kind? Not a bit of it. I’m an idealist--a dreamer asking the way to Utopia. I look about for the finger-posts in places like this. One must learn and suffer to dream properly.” “You can do that and yet have ugly enough dreams,” I said, with subdued emphasis. “That oughtn’t to be so,” he said, looking curiously at me. “Nightmare comes from self-indulgence. Cosset your grievances and they’ll control you. You must be an ascetic in the art of sensation.”