“And a collection of the one is about as useless as a collection of the other, Brimberly!”

“Why, true, sir, one man can’t live in a dozen places all at once, but why not work round ’em in turn, beginning, say, at your imposing Venetian palazzo—­canals, sir, gondoleers—­picturesque though dampish?  Or your shally in the Tyro-leen Halps, sir, or—­”

“Brimberly, have the goodness to—­er—­shut up!”

“Certingly, sir.”

“To-day is my birthday, Brimberly, and to-night I’ve reached a kind of ‘jumping off’ place in my life, and—­between you and me—­I’m seriously thinking of—­er—­jumping off!”

“I crave parding, sir?”

“I’m thirty-five years old,” continued Young R., his frown growing blacker, “and I’ve never done anything really worth while in all my useless life!  Have the goodness to look at me, will you?”

“With pleasure, sir!”

“Well, what do I look like?”

“The very hacme of a gentleman, sir!”

“Kind of you, Brimberly, but I know myself for an absolutely useless thing—­a purposeless, ambitionless wretch, drifting on to God knows what.  I’m a hopeless wreck, a moral derelict, and it has only occurred to me to-night—­but”—­and here the speaker paused to flick the ash from his cigar—­“I fear I’m boring you?”

“No, sir—­ho, no, not at all, indeed, sir!”

“You’re very kind, Brimberly—­light a cigarette!  Ah, no, pardon me, you prefer my cigars, I know.”

“Why—­why, sir—­” stammered Mr. Brimberly, laying a soothing hand upon his twitching whisker, “indeed, I—­I—­”

“Oh—­help yourself, pray!”

Hereupon Mr. Brimberly took a cigar very much at random, and, while Young R. watched with lazy interest, proceeded to cut it—­though with singularly clumsy fingers.

“A light, Mr. Brimberly—­allow me!”

So Ravenslee held the light while Mr. Brimberly puffed his cigar to a glow, though to be sure he coughed once and choked, as he met Young R.’s calm grey eye.

“Now,” pursued his master, “if you’re quite comfortable, Mr. Brimberly, perhaps you’ll be good enough to—­er—­hearken further to my tale of woe?”

Mr. Brimberly choked again and recovering, smoothed his writhing whiskers and murmured:  “It would be a honour!”

“First, then, Brimberly, have you ever hated yourself—­I mean, despised yourself so utterly and thoroughly that the bare idea of your existence makes you angry and indignant?”

“Why—­no, sir,” answered Mr. Brimberly, staring, “I can’t say as I ’ave, sir.”

“No,” said his master with another keen glance, “and I don’t suppose you ever will!” Now here again, perhaps because of the look or something in Young R.’s tone, Mr. Brimberly took occasion to emit a small, apologetic cough.

“You have never felt yourself to be a—­cumberer of the earth, Brimberly?”

Mr. Brimberly, having thought the matter over, decided that he had not.