 leaving the house they found themselves in a thick fog, through which
trickled drops of warm rain. Nevertheless, they pursued their purpose, and
presently were seated in one of the boxes of a small coffee-shop. Their only
companion in the place was a cab-driver, who had just finished a meal, and was
now nodding into slumber over his plate and cup. Reardon ordered fried ham and
eggs, the luxury of the poor, and when the attendant woman was gone away to
execute the order, he burst into excited laughter.
    »Here we sit, two literary men! How should we be regarded by -«
    He named two or three of the successful novelists of the day.
    »With what magnificent scorn they would turn from us and our squalid feast!
They have never known struggle; not they. They are public-school men, University
men, club men, society men. An income of less than three or four hundred a year
is inconceivable to them; that seems the minimum for an educated man's support.
It would be small-minded to think of them with rancour, but, by Apollo! I know
that we should change places with them if the work we have done were justly
weighed against theirs.«
    »What does it matter? We are different types of intellectual workers. I
think of them savagely now and then, but only when hunger gets a trifle too
keen. Their work answers a demand; ours - or mine at all events - doesn't. They
are in touch with the reading multitude; they have the sentiments of the
respectable; they write for their class. Well, you had your circle of readers,
and, if things hadn't gone against you, by this time you certainly could have
counted on your three or four hundred a year.«
    »It's unlikely that I should ever have got more than two hundred pounds for
a book; and, to have kept at my best, I must have been content to publish once
every two or three years. The position was untenable with no private income. And
I must needs marry a wife of dainty instincts! What astounding impudence! No
wonder Fate pitched me aside into the gutter.«
    They ate their ham and eggs, and exhilarated themselves with a cup of
chicory - called coffee. Then Biffen drew from the pocket of his venerable
overcoat the volume of Euripides he had brought, and their talk turned once more
to the land of the sun. Only when the coffee-shop was closed did they go forth
again into the foggy street
