“You don’t want me to go to him?” “Certainly I do. I’m going to take you with me when I tramp to work at 9 o’clock.” He was so cool and masterful that I could only laugh and walk on with him. CHAPTER XIV. I OBTAIN EMPLOYMENT. It was broad day when we emerged from the inclosure, and sound was awakening along the wintry streets. London stood before me rosy and refreshed, so that she looked no longer formidably unapproachable as she had in her garb of black and many jewels. I might have entered her yesterday with the proverbial half-crown, so easily was my lot to fall in accommodating places. Duke Straw, whom I was henceforth to call my friend, conducted me by a township of intricate streets to the shop of a law stationer, in a petty way of business, which stood close by Clare market and abutted on Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Here he had a little bedroom, furnished with a cheap, oil-cooking stove, whereon he heated his coffee and grilled his bacon. Simon Cringle, the proprietor of the shop, was taking his shutters down as we walked up. He was a little, spare man, with a vanity of insignificance. His iron-gray hair fell in short, well-greased ringlets and his thin beard in a couple more, that hung loose like dangled wood shavings; his coiled mustaches reminded one of watch springs; his very eyebrows, like bees’ legs, were humped in the middle and twisted up into fine claws at the tips. Duke, in his search for lodging and experience, had no sooner seen this curiosity than he closed with him. He gave my companion a grandiloquent “Good-morning.” “Up with the lark, Mr. Straw,” said he, “and I hope, sir, with success in the matter of getting the first worm?” Here he looked hard at me. “He found me too much of a mouthful,” said I; “so he brought me home for breakfast.” Duke laughed. “Come and be grilled,” said he. “Anyhow they roast malt-worms in a place spoken of by Falstaff.” We had a good, merry meal. I should not have thought it possible my heart could have lightened so. But there was a fascinating individuality about my companion that, I am afraid, I have but poorly suggested. He gave me glimmerings of life in a higher plane than that which had been habitual to me. No doubt his code of morals was eccentric and here and there faulty. His manner of looking at things was, however, so healthy, his breezy philosophy so infectious, that I could not help but catch some of his complaint--which was, like that of the nightingale, musical. Perhaps, had I met him by chance six months ago, my undeveloped soul would have resented his easy familiarity with a cubbish snarl or two. Now my receptives were awakened; my armor of self-sufficiency eaten to rags with rust; my heart plaintive for communion with some larger influence that would recognize and not abhor.