By and by a sallow-faced man mounted a table to show the company how to perform a remarkable trick with three hats. He got his hats from the company, and having looked at them thoughtfully for some minutes, said that he had forgotten the way.
'That,' said Simms, mentioning a well-known journalist, 'is K——. He can never work unless his pockets are empty, and he would not be looking so doleful at present if he was not pretty well off. He goes from room to room in the house he lodges in, according to the state of his finances, and when you call on him you have to ask at the door which floor he is on to-day. One week you find him in the drawing-room, the next in the garret.'
A stouter and brighter man followed the hat entertainment with a song, which he said was considered by some of his friends a recitation.
'There was a time,' said Simms, who was held a terrible person by those who took him literally, 'when that was the saddest man I knew. He was so sad that the doctors feared he would die of it. It all came of his writing for Punch.'
'How did they treat him?' Rob asked.
'Oh, they quite gave him up, and he was wasting away visibly, when a second-rate provincial journal appointed him its London correspondent, and saved his life.'
'Then he was sad,' asked Rob, 'because he was out of work?'
'On the contrary,' said Simms gravely, 'he was always one of the successful men, but he could not laugh.'
'And he laughed when he became a London correspondent?'
'Yes; that restored his sense of humour. But listen to this song; he is a countryman of yours who sings it.'