"And two days ago you could not afford to pay for a fire in the middle of winter."
"You are perfectly right."
"Two days ago you could not fill your belly when you were hungry."
"I shall never taste hunger again—that honest, bitter, medicinal hunger that merges the mind in the soul. I shall never taste again that ascetic clarity which makes the heart supple and arms the brain."
"You talk like a Methodist."
"My father was a country preacher."
"I expect this is the swing of the pendulum. You must have undergone great mental excitement in making your effort—and what an effort it was! And now the clock has swung right back; you are below par: you have got the blues."
"I hate myself; I hate my cursed profession."
"Yes, the mercury has fallen. The higher the rise the greater the drop. But make an effort to be rational. Look at this."
The solicitor handed the advocate a brief. It was marked with a retaining fee of a hundred guineas.
"Two days ago that was beyond the dreams of your avarice. And now it is a mere forerunner of the beginning. You will be compelled to change your quarters and keep a clerk."
"You remind me of the devil—the real authentic mediæval Mephistopheles," said Northcote, with his fingers trembling upon the tape. "You are in the pay of the genie, you smug-hearted materialist."
"Ah, the genie again! I am afraid to confess that that genie of yours gave me a very bad quarter of an hour," cried Mr. Whitcomb, laughing heartily at the recollection. "I was never in such a panic
