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He went back into the shop and looked at the crucifix. Yes, it was lovely. He hoped fervently that that fellow would not find the money.

He called up the staircase: 'Maria! Come down and see what I've got!'

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Michael Furze, when he had taken some strides into the thin evening mist, remembered that he had not asked Klitch where brother Stephen's house was. But that did not matter. He had the name of the house—The Scarf—and there must be plenty who knew it.

He was greatly pleased with himself, as, in fact, he very often was. To call him conceited would be to call him mature: he had the vanity of a child, of an animal, of anything not old enough to make mature comparisons. His own idea of himself was that he was a wonderful fellow for bringing things off. His boastfulness—he was a tremendous boaster—did not come from the nervousness of self-suspicion nor from the blindness of a fanatic. He was like a boy who thinks his school the whole world. He forgot instantly his mistakes, follies, ignorances, exposures. A varied and adventurous life had taught him nothing. In the same way he lied continually, because as soon as he said a thing it became at once for him a truth; because of his physical size, his voice, his laugh and something attractively naïf in his personality people laughed at him indulgently. He was not mean nor revengeful; desire for revenge might be stirred in him and it would have then all the determined purpose of a limited nature; as yet, in his life he had been treated on the whole well.