she said. "Will you have your coffee out here?"

He shook himself peevishly away from her embrace. "Coffee?" he exclaimed. "Who the devil wants coffee, Bessie? A man wants something stronger than coffee. Besides—what's the good of making a fuss about my being home as early as this? You don't suppose I should have come home but for a very good reason—do you?"

The girl winced a little, and drew away from him. "I thought perhaps for once you were glad to come home, father," she said timidly. "And you know I always like to think of us sitting out in the garden—under the stars—and drinking our coffee. The best people do that every night of their lives—after dinner."

"After dinner!" he reminded her, raising a finger, and shaking it at her. "That makes all the difference in the world; I dare say anyone might drink the stuff after a good dinner—just to oblige a friend. But what is anyone to do—in what condition of mind do you imagine a man to be—when[22] his dinner has been a thing not of the stalled ox order—but of herbs? Besides—I'm upset—annoyed."

[22]

"I'm sorry, father," said the girl softly. She tiptoed into the house, and softly called to someone within; came out again, and sat down at the further side of the table, folding her hands upon it, and looking at the shabby figure of the man on the other side of it.

"What has gone wrong, dear?" she whispered; and at the question he suddenly turned upon her, and opened the very floodgates of his wrath and misery.

"Turned out—ejected—thrust to the door with gibes and laughter!" he exclaimed. "For how many years have I not, in a sense, been the very prop and stay of that place—its chief ornament—the one being who in an impoverished and sordid neighbourhood has shed upon it the light of what I may term real intellect. I ask you, Bessie—for how many years?"

"For more years than I can remember, father," whispered the girl, turning away her head.

"Exactly," he responded triumphantly. "It has been to me not a mere house of refreshment—but a club—a place in which, by virtue of long usage, I had a species of proprietary right. They'll find their mistake out, of course; they're bound to do that in time. The Arcadia Arms without me degenerates into a mere low public-house—a pot-house; I had succeeded in raising the place. I was a feature—almost an institution. And now a vulgar creature—without 

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