him. His single mind, always torn to some extent between an ingrained
loyalty to his employers and those politics of his which differed from
his paper's, had vented itself twice since coming on his stand; once in
these words to the seller of "Pell Mells": "I stupulated with you not to
come beyond the lamp-post. Don't you never speak to me again--a-crowdin'
of me off my stand"; and once to the younger vendors of the less
expensive journals, thus: "Oh, you boys! I'll make you regret of
it--a-snappin' up my customers under my very nose! Wait until ye're
old!" To which the boys had answered: "All right, daddy; don't you have
a fit. You'll be a deader soon enough without that, y'know!"

It was now his time for tea, but "Pell Mell" having gone to partake of
this refreshment, he waited on, hoping against hope to get a customer or
two of that low fellow's. And while in black insulation he stood there a
timid voice said at his elbow--

"Mr. Creed!"

The aged butler turned, and saw the little model.

"Oh," he said dryly, "it's you, is it?" His mind, with its incessant
love of rank, knowing that she earned her living as a handmaid to that
disorderly establishment, the House of Art, had from the first classed
her as lower than a lady's-maid. Recent events had made him think of
her unkindly. Her new clothes, which he had not been privileged to see
before, while giving him a sense of Sunday, deepened his moral doubts.

"And where are you living now?" he said in tones incorporating these
feelings.