Page:The Yellow Book - 06.djvu/109

 might-have-beens and the "fatuous ineffectual yesterdays" of life. There is a certain sardonic satisfaction to be gleaned from a frank recognition of the fact that you are the architect of your own misfortune. He felt that satisfaction, and laughed at Darkey, who was one of those who bleat about "ill-luck" and "victims of circumstance."

"No doubt," he would say, "you're a very deserving fellow, Darkey, who s been treated badly. I'm not." To have attained such wisdom at twenty-five is not to have lived altogether in vain.

A park-keeper presently arrived to unlock the gates, and the band of outcasts straggled indolently towards the nearest sheltered seats. Some went to sleep at once, in a sitting posture. Darkey produced a clay pipe, and, charging it with a few shreds of tobacco laboriously gathered from his waistcoat pocket, began to smoke. He was accustomed to this sort of thing, and with a pipe in his mouth could contrive to be moderately philosophical upon occasion. He looked curiously at his companion, who lay stretched at full length on another bench.

"I say, pal," he remarked, "I've known ye two days; ye've never told me yer name, and I don't ask ye to. But I see ye've not slep' in a park before."

"You hit it, Darkey; but how?"

"Well, if the keeper catches ye lying down he'll be on to ye. Lying down s not allowed."

The man raised himself on his elbow.

"Really now," he said, "that's interesting. But I think I ll give the keeper the opportunity of moving me. Why, it's quite fine, the sun's coming out and the sparrows are hopping round—cheeky little devils! I m not sure that I don t feel jolly."

"I wish I d got the price of a pint about me," sighed Darkey, and