On Everything
of that hot night, and drowned or modified the differences of cabmen and others in the Public Bar; as he sang the two disputants rose almost to the lyric in their enthusiasm, the one for the new world that was so soon to be, the other for that gloomy art of his by which he read the hearts of men and saw their doom.
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It has been remarked by many that we mortals are surrounded by coincidence, and least observe Fate at its nearest approach, so that friends meet or leave us unexpectedly, and that the accidents of our lives make part of a continual play. So it was with these two. For as they warmly debated, and one of them had upset and broken his glass while the other lay back repeating again and again some favourite phrase, a third was on his way to meet them. A man much older than either, a man who did nothing at all and lived when his sister remembered him, was in that neighbourhood, vaguely wandering and feeling in every pocket for a coin. His hand trembled with age, and also a little with anxiety, but to his great joy he felt at last through the lining of his coat a large round hardness, and very carefully searching through a tear, and aided by the light that shone from the windows of "The Lord Benthorpe," he discovered and possessed half a crown. With that he entered in, for he knew that his friends were there. In what respect he held them, their accomplishments, and their public fame, I need not say, for
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