When he passed out of the nobleman’s service he took chambers in the Temple, and devoted his abundant leisure to writing his memoirs, and the pleasantest part of his life began.  The Temple suited him perfectly, its Bohemianism was congenial to him, the library was convenient, and as no man likes to wholly cut himself adrift from his profession, the vicinity of the law courts, and a modicum of legal conversation in the evening, sufficed to maintain in his absent-minded head the illusion that he was practising at the bar.  His chambers were bare and dreary, unadorned with spoils from India or China.  Mr. Stokes retained nothing; he had passed through life like a bird.  He had drifted, and all things had drifted from him; he did not even possess a copy of his Cradleland of Arts and Creeds.  He had lost all except a small property in Kent, and appeared to be quite alone in the world.

Mr. Stokes talked rarely of his love affairs, and his allusions were so partial that nothing exact could be determined about him.  It was, however, noticed that he wore a gold bracelet indissolubly fastened upon his right wrist, and it was supposed that an Indian princess had given him this, and that a goldsmith had soldered it upon him in her presence, as she lay on her death-bed.  It was noticed that a young girl came to see him at intervals, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by her aunt.  Mr. Stokes made no secret of this young person, and he spoke of her as his adopted daughter.  Mr. Stokes dined at a theatrical club.  All men liked him; he was genial and harmless.

Mr. Joseph Silk was the son of a London clergyman.  He was a tall, spare young man, who was often met about the Temple, striding towards his offices or the library.  He was comically careful not to say anything that might offend, and nervously concerned to retreat from all persons and things which did not seem to him to offer possibilities of future help; and his assumed geniality and good-fellowship hung about him awkwardly, like the clothes of a broad-chested, thick-thighed man about miserable limbs.  For some time Silk had been seriously thinking of cutting himself adrift from all acquaintanceship with Hall.  He had, until now, borne with his acquaintanceship because Hall was connected with a society journal that wrote perilously near the law of libel; several times the paper had been threatened with actions, but had somehow, much to Silk’s chagrin, managed to escape.  All the actionable paragraphs had been discussed with Silk; on each occasion Hall had come down to his chambers for advice, and he felt sure that he would be employed in the case when it did come off.  But unfortunately this showed no signs of accomplishment.  Silk read the paper every week for the paragraph that was to bring him fame; he would have given almost anything to be employed “in a good advertising case.”  But he had noticed that instead of becoming more aggressive and personal, that week by week the newspaper was