or this:— ———————————————————-       WILL AMERICA FIGHT?     

      ANTI-GERMAN RIOT IN BAGDAD. THE MUNICIPAL SCANDALS AT DAMASCUS. 

       MR. BUTTERIDGE'S INVENTION FOR AMERICA.———————————————————-     

       Bert stared at these over the card of pump-clips in the pane in the door with unseeing eyes. He wore a blackened flannel shirt, and the jacketless ruins of the holiday suit of yesterday. The boarded-up shop was dark and depressing beyond words, the few scandalous hiring machines had never looked so hopelessly disreputable. He thought of their fellows who were       “out,” and of the approaching disputations of the afternoon. He thought of their new landlord, and of their old landlord, and of bills and claims. Life presented itself for the first time as a hopeless fight against fate....     

       “Grubb, o' man,” he said, distilling the quintessence, “I'm fair sick of this shop.”      

       “So'm I,” said Grubb.     

       “I'm out of conceit with it. I don't seem to care ever to speak to a customer again.”      

       “There's that trailer,” said Grubb, after a pause.     

       “Blow the trailer!” said Bert. “Anyhow, I didn't leave a deposit on it. I didn't do that. Still—”      

       He turned round on his friend. “Look 'ere,” he said, “we aren't gettin' on here. We been losing money hand over fist. We got things tied up in fifty knots.”      

       “What can we do?” said Grubb.     

       “Clear out. Sell what we can for what it will fetch, and quit. See? It's no good 'anging on to a losing concern. No sort of good. Jest foolishness.”      

       “That's all right,” said Grubb—“that's all right; but it ain't your capital been sunk in it.”      

       “No need for us to sink after our capital,” said Bert, ignoring the point.     

       “I'm not going to be held responsible for that trailer, anyhow. That ain't my affair.”      

       “Nobody arst you to make it your affair. If you like to stick on here, well and good. I'm quitting. I'll see Bank 

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