“Does that alter your opinion of me?” asked the other.

“I sha’n’t believe it till I have cashed the cheque.”

“You’re one of those young fellows who think so much of themselves they’ve no good opinion to spare for anyone else.  And what’s more, I’ve still half a mind to give you a good thrashing before I give you the cheque.  There’s just about time, and I shouldn’t wonder if it did you good.  You want some of the conceit taken out of you, my lad.”

Hilliard seemed not to hear this.  Again he fixed his eyes on the other’s countenance.

“Do you say you are going to pay me four hundred pounds?” he asked slowly.

“Four hundred and thirty-six.  You’ll go to the devil with it, but that’s no business of mine.”

“There’s just one thing I must tell you.  If this is a joke, keep out of my way after you’ve played it out, that’s all.”

“It isn’t a joke.  And one thing I have to tell you.  I reserve to myself the right of thrashing you, if I feel in the humour for it.”

Hilliard gave a laugh, then threw himself back into the corner, and did not speak again until the train pulled up at New Street station.

CHAPTER II

An hour later he was at Old Square, waiting for the tram to Aston.  Huge steam-driven vehicles came and went, whirling about the open space with monitory bell-clang.  Amid a press of homeward-going workfolk, Hilliard clambered to a place on the top and lit his pipe.  He did not look the same man who had waited gloomily at Dudley Port; his eyes gleamed with life; answering a remark addressed to him by a neighbour on the car, he spoke jovially.

No rain was falling, but the streets shone wet and muddy under lurid lamp-lights.  Just above the house-tops appeared the full moon, a reddish disk, blurred athwart floating vapour.  The car drove northward, speedily passing from the region of main streets and great edifices into a squalid district of factories and workshops and crowded by-ways.  At Aston Church the young man alighted, and walked rapidly for five minutes, till he reached a row of small modern houses.  Socially they represented a step or two upwards in the gradation which, at Birmingham, begins with the numbered court and culminates in the mansions of Edgbaston.

He knocked at a door, and was answered by a girl, who nodded recognition.

“Mrs. Hilliard in?  Just tell her I’m here.”

There was a natural abruptness in his voice, but it had a kindly note, and a pleasant smile accompanied it.  After a brief delay he received permission to go upstairs, where the door of a sitting-room stood open.  Within was a young woman, slight, pale, and pretty, who showed something of embarrassment, though her face made him welcome.

“I expected you sooner.”

“Business kept me back.  Well, little girl?”