He read the ‘Tocsin,’ that is to say, he glanced his eye up and down the columns and paused wherever he caught words such as ‘villains,’ ‘titled scoundrels,’ ‘vampires,’ and so on.  The expositions of doctrine he passed over; anything in the nature of reasoning muddled him.  From hearing them incessantly repeated he knew the root theories of Socialism, and could himself hold forth on such texts as ‘the community of the means of production’ with considerable fluency and vehemence; but in very fact he concerned himself as little with economic reforms as with the principles of high art, and had as little genuine belief in the promised revolution as in the immortality of his own soul.  Had he been called upon to suffer in any way for the ‘cause of the people,’ it would speedily have been demonstrated of what metal his enthusiasm was made.

But there came a different kind of test.  In the winter which followed upon Mutimer’s downfall, Nicholas Dabbs fell ill and died.  He was married but had no children, and his wife had been separated from him for several years.  His brother Daniel found himself in flourishing circumstances, with a public-house which brought in profits of forty pounds a week It goes without saying that Daniel forthwith abandoned his daily labour and installed himself behind the bar.  The position suited him admirably; with a barmaid and a potman at his orders (he paid them no penny more than the market rate), he stood about in his shirt sleeves and gossiped from morn to midnight with such of his friends as had leisure (and money) to spend in the temple of Bacchus.  From the day that saw him a licensed victualler he ceased to attend the Socialist meetings; it was, of course, a sufficient explanation to point to the fact that he could not be in two places at the same time, for Sunday evening is a season of brisk business in the liquor trade.  At first he was reticent on the subject of his old convictions, but by degrees he found it possible to achieve the true innkeeper’s art, and speak freely in a way which could offend none of his customers.  And he believed himself every bit as downright and sincere as he had ever been.

Comfortably established on a capitalist basis, his future assured because it depended upon the signal vice of his class, it one day occurred to Daniel that he ought to take to himself a helpmeet, a partner of his joys and sorrows.  He had thought of it from time to time during the past year, but only in a vague way; he had even directed his eyes to the woman who might perchance be the one most suitable, though with anything but assurance of his success if he seriously endeavoured to obtain her.  Long ago he had ceased to trouble himself about his first love; with characteristic acceptance of the accomplished fact, he never really imagined that Alice Mutimer, after she became an heiress, could listen to his wooing, and, to do him justice, he appreciated the delicacy of his position, if he should continue to press his