"And with nothing to show for it in return, either of you. Try another plan, Jacob."
"I'd not be backward—if I could see one to try," said he, after a pause.
"Be here at half-past eight to-morrow evening, and I will go in with you to East's. If you cannot see any better way, you can spend a pleasant evening. But now, Jacob, let me say a word to you, and do you note it. If you find the evening pass agreeably, go the next evening, and the next; go always. You can't tell all that may arise from it in time. I know of one thing that will."
"What's that, sir?"
"Why, that instead of wishing yourself dead, you will grow to think life too short, for the good you find in it."
He went on his way. Jacob Cross, deprived of the umbrella, stood in the rain as before and looked after him, indulging his reflections.
"He is a young man, and things wear their bright side to him. But he has a cordial way with him, and don't look at folks as if they was dirt."
And that had been the origin of the soirées held at Robert East's. By degrees ten or a dozen men took to going there, and—what was more—to like to go, and to find an interest in it. It was a great improvement upon the Horned Ram.