the chaps is a tailor's assistant—he's the flautist—and the other works in the abattoir."
"Gee!" exclaimed Finch. "Do you mean to say he kills things?"
"I didn't ask him," returned George testily. "The point is that he can play the mandolin."
"So you've met them!"
"Yes. At the noon hour. They're awfully decent chaps, and they're quite old, too. The one I first met is twenty-three, and other looks about twenty-six or so. They're awfully anxious to meet you."
Finch began to shake with excitement. He took out a box in which were two cigarettes, and offered it to George. "Have a fag?"
They lighted up.
Finch was too excited to look at George. He fixed his eyes on the stovepipe-hole in the floor, through which sufficient heat was supposed to penetrate to warm George's room. He began to wonder whether their voices could be heard in the kitchen below.
"What about the pipe-hole? Is the servant down there?"
"She couldn't possibly hear. Besides, she's got her steady with her."
"Who is he?"
"Jack Sims. From Vaughans'."
Murmuring voices came from below. The boys moved softly near the pipe-hole and peered down. In the light from a feeble electric bulb they saw two arms lying along the dresser. The hands were clasped. One hand, projecting from a blue cotton sleeve, was plump, a rawish pink from much washing of clothes; the other, the hairy wrist of which protruded from coarse cloth, was the gnarled hand of a middle-aged farm labourer. The voices had ceased and the only sound was the ticking of the kitchen clock.
The two intertwined hands fascinated Finch. They became for him symbolic of the mystery, the reaching out, the groping for support of life. He felt the tenderness, the fire, that each hand drew from the
