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6 breaking off in the middle—"I wish there'd been more of you to keep it up together."

Then they were gone, chuckling in senile delight over their good luck, and he was left alone. He glanced round the room—a big, handsome one, well filled with massive office furniture, and yet wearing the usual empty, barren look.

"It's taken twenty years," he said, "but I've done it. It's done—and yet there isn't as much of it as I used to think there would be."

He rose from his chair and went to the window to look out, rather impelled by restlessness than any motive. The prospect, at least, could not have attracted him. The place was closed in by tall and dingy houses, whose slate roofs shone with the rain which drizzled down through the smoky air. The ugly yard was wet and had a deserted look; the only living object which caught his eye was the solitary figure of a man who stood waiting at the iron gates. At the sight of this man, he started backward with an exclamation.

"The devil take the chap!" he said. "There he is again!"

He took a turn across the room, but he came back again and looked out once more, as if he found some irresistible fascination in the sight of the frail, shabbily clad figure.

"Yes," he said, "it's him, sure enough. I never saw another fellow with the same, done-for look. I wonder what he wants."

He went to the door and opening it spoke to a man who chanced to be passing.

"Floxham come in here," he said. Floxham was a