‘I am out of a situation.’ 

 ‘You look as if you were out of a situation.’ Again the scorn. ‘Are you the sort of clerk who is always out of a situation? You are a thief.’ 

 ‘I am not a thief.’ 

 ‘Do clerks come through the window?’ I was still,—he putting no constraint on me to speak. ‘Why did you come through the window?’ 

 ‘Because it was open.’ 

 ‘So!—Do you always come through a window which is open?’ 

 ‘No.’ 

 ‘Then why through this?’ 

 ‘Because I was wet—and cold—and hungry—and tired.’ 

 The words came from me as if he had dragged them one by one,—which, in fact, he did. 

 ‘Have you no home?’ 

 ‘No.’ 

 ‘Money?’ 

 ‘No.’ 

 ‘Friends?’ 

 ‘No.’ 

 ‘Then what sort of a clerk are you?’ 

 I did not answer him,—I did not know what it was he wished me to say. I was the victim of bad luck, nothing else,—I swear it. Misfortune had followed hard upon misfortune. The firm by whom I had been employed for years suspended payment. I obtained a situation with one of their creditors, at a lower salary. They reduced their staff, which entailed my going. After an interval I obtained a temporary engagement; the occasion which required my services passed, and I with it. After another, and a longer interval, I again found temporary employment, the 

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