in common between smoke and poetry, over and above their being both Fads.  Besides, Mrs. Crowl was sulking in the kitchen.  She had been arranging for an excursion with Peter and the children to Victoria Park. (She had dreamed of the Crystal Palace, but Santa Claus had put no gifts in the cobbler’s shoes.) Now she could not risk spoiling the feather in her bonnet.  The nine brats expressed their disappointment by slapping one another on the staircases.  Peter felt that Mrs. Crowl connected him in some way with the rainfall, and was unhappy.  Was it not enough that he had been deprived of the pleasure of pointing out to a superstitious majority the mutual contradictions of Leviticus and the Song of Solomon?  It was not often that Crowl could count on such an audience.

“And you still call Nature Beautiful?” he said to Denzil, pointing to the ragged sky and the dripping eaves.  “Ugly old scare-crow!”

“Ugly she seems to-day,” admitted Denzil.  “But what is Ugliness but a higher form of Beauty?  You have to look deeper into it to see it; such vision is the priceless gift of the few.  To me this wan desolation of sighing rain is lovely as the sea-washed ruins of cities.”

“Ah, but you wouldn’t like to go out into it,” said Peter Crowl.  As he spoke the drizzle suddenly thickened into a torrent.

“We do not always kiss the woman we love.”

“Speak for yourself, Denzil.  I’m only a plain man, and I want to know if Nature isn’t a Fad.  Hallo, there goes Mortlake!  Lord, a minute of this will soak him to the skin.”

The labour leader was walking along with bowed head.  He did not seem to mind the shower.  It was some seconds before he even heard Crowl’s invitation to him to take shelter.  When he did hear it he shook his head.

“I know I can’t offer you a drawing-room with duchesses stuck about it,” said Peter, vexed.

Tom turned the handle of the shop door and went in.  There was nothing in the world which now galled him more than the suspicion that he was stuck-up and wished to cut old friends.  He picked his way through the nine brats who clung affectionately to his wet knees, dispersing them finally by a jet of coppers to scramble for.  Peter met him on the stairs and shook his hand lovingly and admiringly, and took him into Mrs. Crowl’s bedroom.

“Don’t mind what I say, Tom.  I’m only a plain man, and my tongue will say what comes uppermost!  But it ain’t from the soul, Tom, it ain’t from the soul,” said Peter, punning feebly, and letting a mirthless smile play over his sallow features.  “You know Mr. Cantercot, I suppose?  The Poet.”

“Oh, yes; how do you do, Tom?” cried the Poet.  “Seen the New Pork Herald lately?  Not bad, those old times, eh?”

“No,” said Tom, “I wish I was back in them.”