Being thrown upon his own resources, Felix employed his time in looking about him--not in the most industrious fashion, it must be confessed, but after the manner of one who was entirely independent of the world, and who had merely to make up his mind which of the many good things by which he was surrounded would be most suitable to a young gentleman in his position. The weapons with which he was armed to fight the battle into which he had thrown himself were trustfulness, simplicity, and faith in human nature. These weapons are good enough, in all conscience, in themselves; but we are not content, nowadays, as we were of old, to fight a fair fight, man to man. Torpedoes and other infernal weapons have come into fashion; and a man, unless he be crafty, has but a small chance of victory when he throws down his glove.

One of the first things Felix did when he came into London to conquer it was to make himself comfortable. He established himself in a capital hotel not half a mile from Soho, so as to be near his friends; for it may be truly said that the only friends he had in London lived in the little house in Soho inhabited by the Podmores, and the Gribbles, and Lily and her grandfather. He found plenty of excuses for going there often: Gribble junior was an umbrella maker, and Felix's umbrella was so continually out of repair, that it became quite a source of revenue to the bustling frame mender.

"What! another rib gone!" Gribble junior would say, with a look of astonishment, not suspecting that Felix had broken it purposely, so that he might have an excuse for calling at the house in the middle of the day; "it'd be cheaper to buy a new one, sir."

But Felix protested that he would on no account part with so old a friend; and the repairs continued to be made, until not a particle of the original structure was left. There was no necessity for these small subterfuges on Felix's part, for after a time he was always welcome in that house, and his happiest hours were spent there. They all liked him; and as for Pollypod, her mother declared, in the pleasantest of voices, that she was as jealous as jealous could be, her little girl was that fond of him! All this was very agreeable, and Felix decided that his new career had commenced in the most satisfactory manner. His training had not been of such a nature as to cause him to value money, or to be careful of it; and while he had it in his purse, he spent it freely. He did not do so from recklessness, but from a largeness of nature (although he himself would have disputed it warmly and with a quaint logic), in the light of which small matters of feeling were ridiculously magnified, and the world's goods dwindled down to insignificant proportions. Therefore, while he had he spent; and it was fortunate for him that his tastes and desires were simple and easily satisfied, for he grudged himself nothing. The present being amply provided for, he had no fears and no anxiety for to-morrow. His nature was one which it was easy to impose upon, and he did not escape the snares set in the public thoroughfares for liberal hearts. The piteous eyes and faces of beggars that were raised to his appealingly were never raised in vain. When he was told that these were part of a trade, he refused to believe. Arrows tipped with doubts of human goodness glanced from off his generous nature, and left no wound behind. And yet, as will be seen, he was keen enough in some matters concerning which men who knew infinitely more of the world than he (priding themselves upon it) were blind. Speaking upon the subject to Lily's grandfather, the old man said,

"If you thought a man who begged of you was an impostor, you would not give."

"I don't know that," replied Felix. "I am selfish enough to think I should."

The old man smiled at this reference to one of Felix's pet theories.

"It does not so much concern them as me," continued Felix, with sly gleams. "I give to please myself. Is not that a selfish motive? Not to give would be to deprive myself of a gratification. I say to myself sometimes, almost unconsciously (but the sentiment which prompts it belongs to my nature, or I should not have the thought), 'Bravo, Felix! that was a good thing to do. You are not a bad fellow.'"

The old man was amused at this.

"The thought comes afterwards," he said.

"But it comes," insisted Felix, as if determined to deprive the kind promptings of his nature of grace--"it comes, and that is enough. It is an investment. I give away a penny, and receive the best of interest. Pure selfishness, upon my word, as is every other action of our lives. But apart from this, I don't believe that these men and women are not in want."

"Ah, well," said the old man, looking in admiration at the animated face of Felix; "it is better to trust than doubt. Suspicion ages the heart, and robs life of bright colour."

Satisfied that he was spending his time profitably, Felix found life very enjoyable. He did not trouble himself about the past; the world was before him, and he was observing, and studying, and preparing himself to open his oyster. His hotel was in the Strand, and he soon became well acquainted with the phases of life presented in that locality. The streets were so full of life, and there was so much to see. The shops; the theatres; the conveyances the streams of people flowing this way and that, a few smiling as they walked, some idling, some talking eagerly to themselves, unconscious of the surging life through which they make their way--each man perfectly engrossed in his own personality, each a world, the secret ways of which were known only to himself. He was soon quite familiar also with the singular variety of street-shows which can there be seen daily. With the broad-shouldered, frizzly-haired Italian with his monkeys, residents of Short's-gardens, where probably the dumb brutes are not so tenderly treated as strangers, who see them hugged to their master's breast as he walks along, might suppose them to be. With another monkey also, a poor little creature, who, being pulled this way and that by a chain attached to its master's wrist, capers on the pavement (generally at night) to the dismal moaning of an organ, upon whose grinder's face a ghastly smile for ever sits, suggesting the idea that it must have been carved upon his features in infancy. With the melancholy-looking, straight-haired young man who plays operatic selections upon the spout of a coffee-pot and through the nozzle of a bellows, and who selects the widest of the side thoroughfares for his entertainment, seldom commencing until a perfect ring of admirers and curiosity-mongers is formed, and who, while his island is being made, stands with an air of proud humility, as who should say, "I am the only and original player upon the spout and nozzle in the kingdom; all others are counterfeit." With the inconceivably-maniacal Swiss quartette, who shout and caper, and produce hideous sounds from throat and windbag. With the Mongolian impostor who sits upon a doorstep, uttering never a word, with a look upon his face as of one suddenly stricken with fatal disease. With the poor miserable woman, whose thought may soar upwards, but whose eyes never see the sun, for her body is literally bent in two, who creeps almost daily along the Strand; and with many other forms of beggary, even less attractive than these.

What Felix saw in the streets were not his only studies; he read the newspapers carefully, and not seldom was he amazed at the inequality of things. He found it difficult to understand how, in one shape, a certain thing was held up for public censure and condemnation, while in another shape precisely the same thing (in a worse form perhaps) was quietly tolerated, and even admired. As thus: He read in the papers from time to time accounts of proceedings taken against the publishers and venders of a weekly illustrated sheet, against which it was charged that it contained objectionable pictures. When he saw the illustrations he at once acquiesced in the justice of the proceedings, and decided in his own mind that they pandered to the worst taste, and were calculated to do much harm. But looking in many of the shop windows in the locality of the Strand, he saw pictures infinitely worse in the effect they would be likely to produce than those which were published in the objectionable paper. The portraits and full-length pictures of nearly naked women, taken in every attitude that the lascivious imagination could suggest, and paraded conspicuously in these windows for public admiration, were worse, in their insidious badness, than anything that Holywell Street ever produced. There was no disguise of what are called "female charms" in the pictures; they were displayed to their fullest extent to feed the sensual taste, and neither art nor any useful purpose was served by these degrading exhibitions. On the contrary; they tended to mislead, in their incongruous mixture of worth and shamelessness. For here was an actor deservedly popular; here was a courtesan, deservedly notorious; here was a statesman and a poet, whose names add lustre to the history of the times in which they live; between them a shameless woman, bold and lewd, and almost naked; above her, a princess, worthily loved, with her baby on her back, clasping the mother round her neck--a picture which the poorest wife in England feels the happier for looking at, so much of homely love and wifely virtue and sisterly kinship does it suggest; while below was paraded the painted face of a wanton, whose name is shame. In one window of a semi-religious kind, in which the frequenters of the May meetings at Exeter Hall might be supposed to gaze without fear of contamination, the very worst of these lewd pictures were displayed in the company of Bibles, and Prayer Books, and Church Services; an association which, by any sophistry, could not have been proved to be a good one.

In the study of these and other matters Felix found the time pass rapidly away. Something else passed rapidly away also--his money. Calling for his hotel-bill one day, he found that, after paying it, he would have scarcely twenty pounds left. This set him thinking. If he continued to live in the hotel, he might not be able to pay his next bill, and the dishonour attaching to such a contingency caused him to resolve to adopt a more modest mode of living. The gravity of the position made him serious, but not for long. His idle days were gone--well, he was glad of it; he was tired of idleness, and longed to be up and doing. "If I were a rich man," he thought, "and could not get work without paying for it, I'd pay for it willingly, rather than be idle." Yes, it was time for him to set to work. He would first take lodgings in some cheap neighbourhood, and there he would look things straight in the face. It is amazing what comfort is found in metaphor, until the time for action arrives. In making this resolution Felix worked himself into such a state of excitement that he really believed he had already commenced life in earnest. At first he thought of Soho, but very slight reflection induced him to forego the temptation of living in the neighbourhood of Lily. "Whatever struggles I have," he thought, "I will keep to myself." Chance directing his steps to Vauxhall, he saw there numbers of bills in the windows announcing rooms to let. Seeing a decent-looking woman with a baby in her arms standing at the door of a house in which there was a first-floor to let, he spoke to her, and asked for particulars. The rent for sitting-room and bedroom was very moderate, he found. Upon inquiry he learned that there were other lodgers in the house, that indeed it was filled with lodgers. The landlady and her husband lived in the basement; a married couple occupied the parlours; and four or five persons, perfectly independent of each other, lived on the second and third floors. "You'll find us very quiet, sir," the landlady said, looking with an eye of favour upon Felix, and wondering why so smart a young gentleman as he should desire to live in that poor neighbourhood, "and you'll have no call to complain of the attendance." Felix, perfectly satisfied, pinched the baby's cheek, paid the first week's rent in advance, and received his latch-key. It was characteristic of him that when he left the hotel he was as liberal to the attendants as if he had been a gentleman of independent property.

When he was settled in his new lodgings, he bethought himself of his promise to Martha Day, his father's housekeeper, to let her know his address in London. He had written to her from his hotel, and had heard from her there. As he wrote now, he thought, "If Martha knew how poor this neighbourhood is, she would guess the reason of my moving; but she cannot know much of London, and will not be able to learn anything from the address." He wrote his letter, and went out in the afternoon with the intention of posting it. But wandering about in idle humour he forgot it, and at about nine o'clock in the evening he found himself at his street-door with the letter still in his pocket. He was about to put his latch-key into the lock when he remembered the letter, and he was turning away, thinking how stupid he was to be so forgetful, when the door opened from within, and the very woman in his thoughts passed swiftly into the street. Martha Day! To see her in London, away from his father's house, with whose gloom her own joyless gloomy manner was so thoroughly in unison that they might have been deemed inseparable, would have been surprise enough in itself; but to see her there, in that house, so suddenly and strangely, was so great a surprise that for a moment he thought he had seen an apparition. When the first shock of the surprise was over, he looked after the woman, and saw her turn the corner of the street. Then he knew that he was not mistaken--it was Martha Day he had seen. He hurried after her, intending to speak to her; but when he turned the corner, he could not see her, and although he ran hither and thither, he could find no trace of her. Strangely perplexed, he walked slowly back to the house. Perhaps she had come there to see him--but how could she know he lived in that house, having been in it only a few hours? He questioned the landlady, but she could not enlighten him. She had seen no particular woman pass in or out of the house. There were so many lodgers, you see, sir, that all sorts of strange people come in and out. Had any inquiry been made for him? he asked. No; how could there be, was the reply, when the landlady didn't know his name? That was true enough; he had not given his name when he paid the week's rent in advance. Then he described Martha Day--her face with no trace of colour in it, her eyes nearly always cast down, her hands nearly always hidden, her black dress and bonnet--and asked if the landlady knew her. No, the landlady never remembered to have seen her; and when Felix went up-stairs to his room, the landlady thought it was singular that he should be so anxious about the woman--and not a young woman either, according to his description, she added mentally.

Felix in his room re-opened the letter he had written to Martha, read it carefully, and put on his considering-cap. But the more he thought the more he was perplexed. "She cannot have come here for me," he thought; "and she cannot have come here without a purpose. If I write to her from this address, it may disturb her, or cause her annoyance in some way." He tore up the letter, and wrote another, giving his address at a post-office in the locality. As he went down-stairs in the dark to post the letter, he brushed somewhat roughly against a lodger who had just entered the house, and something which the man carried in his hand dropped to the ground. It sounded like a bottle. "I beg your pardon, I'm sure," said Felix, groping in the dark for what had fallen; "I hope it is not broken. No; here it is." He handed a flat bottle to his fellow-lodger, who received it eagerly, and feeling with trembling fingers for the cork to assure himself that the liquor had not escaped, muttered humbly, "No offence, sir; no offence," and passed to his room.

Felix was in the humour to be irritated by trifles, and this small incident vexed him unreasonably. He was annoyed with himself for being vexed, but he could not shake himself into good-humour, and as, in his present mood, sleep was impossible, he walked along the Embankment and over Westminster Bridge towards Soho, and thence to the Royal White Rose Music-hall. It was in the full swing of prosperity, and the usual audience was present. Composed of pale-faced young men without whiskers, of fuller-fleshed and older men with much whisker, of boys sharply featured and men richly lipped, of young men naturally old, and old men artificially young; of work-girls and servant-girls, and other girls and other women. There were many hats of the kind called Alpine, with peacocks' feathers in them, of course; there were many overcoats with sham fur collars and cuffs; there was much cigar-smoking and whisky-drinking; and there was generally a large amount of low swelldom in a state of assertive rampancy. In a certain respect the audience resembled the audience which was assembled in Noah's Ark--there was a great deal of pairing. As Felix entered the music-hall, there came upon the stage a very stout and very short female vocalist, between thirty-five and fifty years of age, dressed in a gown which appeared to have been made out of faded bed-hangings. She was by no means attractive, having bad teeth and a peculiar habit of squeezing the corners of her eyelids, as if she had some nice things there which she wanted to keep all to herself. She sang a song, and there was no applause. Whereupon, the Chairman struck on his bell, and said she would oblige again. She obliged again. The audience did not seem to mind her, one way or another. She obliged a third time, and the refrain to her third song catching the sympathy of her hearers, she finally retired in triumph, and then the audience wanted to see her again, and she didn't come. Felix did not like to think of Lily in association with these things, and he walked away from the place in nowise soothed by his visit. Naturally light-hearted as he was, a strange sadness was upon him to-night, and whether it was by chance, or because his gloomier mood induced him to observe them more closely and take them to heart, the darker shadows of life forced themselves upon his attention; turn which way he would, he could not escape from them. He had just passed a throng of night-birds, dressed in gay plumage, when sounds of mirth arrested his attention, and he saw before him a child-girl, perhaps fifteen years of age, with blue ribbons in her hair, with mocking flowers in her brown hat, with a white cloud round her throat, with a green dress, and with a petticoat marvellously fashioned and coloured, staggering along drunk, swaying her body, waving her arms, and protesting with feeble imploring, even in the midst of her helpless degradation, against the gibes and laughter of a grinning mob. The men and women composing the mob laughed, and nudged each other in the ribs with a fine sense of humour, and made witty remarks, and winked and flashed their fingers at the girl, and pointed her out to chance acquaintances, and indulged in other expressions of delight at the piteous spectacle. An omnibus conductor jumped down to have a look, and jumped up again, refreshed; a man with waxed moustaches followed the girl with undisguised delight and admiration; a cab-driver stopped his horse, and laughingly pointed at the girl with his whip; a beggar stamped his curiously-clothed toes in approval as the mob scrambled past him; and a fair-haired girl smiled pleasantly to herself, and hugged her furs as she walked through the crowd. Not one stopped to pity; not one among them stepped forward to save the miserable drunken child-girl from the taunts and word-stings which were flung at her from all sides, until a policeman came, and, with a merciful harshness, seized the girl's arm, and pushed her before him to the police-station.

O! London's Heart! Laden with the sorrow of such lifeblood as this! What purifying influences can be brought to bear to lessen the pain that beats in every sob? In this great land, filled as it is with preachers social and political--in which every hour children are born to suffer, to grow up to shame and sorrow--can no medicine be found to cool your fevered blood, and no physicians, unselfish, wise, and merciful enough, and sufficiently regardless of the pomp of power, capable of administering it? Some few healers there are, who toil not in the light, and whose earnest lives are devoted to their work. Blessings on them, and on every heart that dictates benevolent remedy, even although it can only reach a few out of the many suffering! Blessings on the head that devises it, on the hand that administers it! You who walk through life wrapped in the cruel mantle of selfishness, heedless of the wails of your helpless brothers and sisters, stand aside; you who only heed your own comfort, your own ease, your own well-doing, who have no ointment for your neighbour's wounds, stand aside; let the gloom of night encompass you and hide your faces! But you whose hearts bleed at the sight of suffering, whose nerves quiver at the sound of it, whose hands are eager to relieve it, come into heaven's light, and let it shine upon you and the aureola which crowns you, in which every kind impulse that finds life in action gleams like a blessed star!

It was past midnight when Felix made his way to his lodgings. The humble streets through which he walked as he neared his home were not quite deserted. Night-birds were there also, but of a low degree; night-birds with soiled plumage and ragged feathers; night-birds whose voices grated upon the ear, like the harsh cawing of crows. High up, from dingy garret windows, glimmered pale gleams of light. What mysteries were being wrought within those chambers? How beat the pulse of London's Heart? What links in the greatness of the mighty city were there being woven? Perchance within sat some poor seamstress stitching for bread sleepily through the night, wearing--O, dreadful paradox!--wearing her life away so that she might live. Not fables, not legends of the past, are such life struggles--they are of to-day. Perchance within was hatching some crime, the execution of which would quicken for a day the pulse of the great City's Heart. Who knew or who could tell? Crime and patient endurance, purity and vice, are but divided by a narrow strip of wall, and none can see the mysteries that lie beneath a single roof but the sleepless Eye which shines above them all!