written to his mother (without mention of any other detail) that he might, after all, continue to live in London, where Applegarth’s were about to establish a warehouse.  The question was how; if he put aside all the money he had for payment of pretended dividend to his mother and sister, how, in that case, was he himself to live?  At the thought of going about applying for clerk’s work, or anything of that kind, cold water flowed down his back; rather than that, he would follow Allchin’s example, and turn porter—­an independent position compared with bent-backed slavery on an office-stool.  Some means of earning money he must find without delay.  To live on what he had, one day longer than could be helped, would be sheer dishonesty.  Sherwood might succeed in bringing him a few hundreds—­of the ten thousand Will thought not at all, so fantastic did the whole story sound—­but that would be merely another small instalment of the sum due to the unsuspecting victims at St. Neots.  Strictly speaking, he owned not a penny; his very meals to-day were at the expense of his mother and Jane.  This thought goaded him.  His sleep became a mere nightmare; his waking, a dry-throated misery.

In spite of loathing and dread, he began to read the thick-serried columns of newspaper advertisement, Wanted!  Wanted!  Wanted!  Wants by the thousand; but many more those of the would-be employed than those of the would-be employers, and under the second heading not one in a hundred that offered him the slightest hint or hope.  Wanted!  Wanted.  To glance over these columns is like listening to the clamour of a hunger-driven multitude; the ears sing, the head turns giddy.  After a quarter of an hour of such search, Will flung the paper aside, and stamped like a madman about his room.  A horror of life seized him; he understood, with fearful sympathy, the impulse of those who, rather than be any longer hustled in this howling mob dash themselves to destruction.

He thought over the list of his friends.  Friends—­what man has more than two or three?  At this moment he knew of no one who wished him well who could be of the slightest service.  His acquaintances were of course more numerous.  There lay on his table two invitations just received—­the kind of invitation received by every man who does not live the life of a hermit.  But what human significance had they?  Not a name rose in his mind which symbolised helpfulness.  True, that might be to some extent his own fault; the people of whom he saw most were such as needed, not such as could offer, aid.  He thought of Ralph Pomfret.  There, certainly, a kindly will would not be lacking, but how could he worry with his foolish affairs a man on whom he had no shadow of claim?  No:  he stood alone.  It was a lesson in social science such as reading could never have afforded him.  His insight into the order of a man’s world had all at once been marvellously quickened, the scope of his reflections incredibly extended.  Some vague consciousness of this now and then arrested him in his long purposeless walks; he began to be aware of seeing common things with new eyes.  But the perception was akin to fear; he started and looked nervously about, as if suddenly aware of some peril.