the discovery that he was faint with hunger and fatigue. With a dismal sense of foreboding, which habit had rendered involuntary, he thrust his hands in those pockets which on many occasions had had nothing to yield. To his joy his search was rewarded with a sovereign and a halfpenny. As he held the coins in his fingers a strange weary feeling of gratitude stole over him. His days of bodily privation were at an end. Not again would he know what it was to need food and yet lack the wherewithal of obtaining it. After all he must not dare to deride success. Its attributes were substantial, definite, necessary.
As he crossed the square in search of a restaurant of whose merits he was aware, the large letters of the news-bill of an evening journal caught his eye. Murder Trial—Sensational Speech for the Defence—Scenes in Court—Verdict.
"Here, boy, a paper," he said, holding out the halfpenny.
He clutched the paper greedily and crumpled it in his fist. It almost seemed as he did so that fame itself was tangible, that it was something that he could crumple in his hand.
In the eating-house he passed a glorious hour in which he devoured beefsteak and potatoes and consumed a tankard of ale. He read the account of the trial over and over again, although as rendered by the evening journal it had no meaning for him. Even the bald résumé of bare facts seemed far otherwise than those as rendered to himself. He could not recognize one of the incidents. Hardly a word was intelligible to the chief actor in that crowded and pregnant drama. "Mr. Norcutt for
