T a vegetarian restaurant, in a room set apart for those who took the sixpenny dinner (two courses and dessert), a pair of friends sat shoulder to shoulder consuming lentil soup. With rare omissions they had sat thus every day for two years; a previous twelvemonth of vis-à-vis proximity having led them gently from the nod and the casual remark, by cautious grades of acquaintance, to cordial brotherhood. They were young men, and of means as slender as their persons; clerks by calling, not unimpeachable in the article of grammar, and alike in the fervour of their devotion to abstinent ideals. Each wore a blue ribbon in the button-hole; each had closely-cropped hair and a meagre moustache; on taking a seat, they invariably hitched up their trousers at the knee.
Their names were Simon Mooney and Samuel Figg. Rugged features, a severe eye, and a trenchant mode of speech proclaimed the character which gave Figg an ascendancy over his companion. He criticised the world with sarcasm, and even in friendship was prone to righteous admonition. Mooney had a mild and pleasing countenance, a frequent smile, a soft conciliatory; his good-nature and lack of readiness in retort made him something of a martyr among his fellow-clerks, who called him Simple Simon.
Like the majority of their table-associates, they were thin-faced and colourless; plainly suffering from poverty of diet. But Simon was the less unhealthy of the two. He ate with appetite, and talked cheerfully; whilst his friend, who for a long time had been losing flesh and accumulating bile, struggled with the unpalatable dish, and kept a morose silence.
"I feel bad," whispered Samuel, presently; and thereupon left the room.
For some days he was unable to go to business, Simon called to see him each evening, rich in sympathy and eager to aid. Yet at this moment Simon had grave trouble of his own, and felt as sick in spirit as his friend in body. For a year the difficulty had been the subject of discussion between them. Simon was in love, and, alas, with the daughter of a licensed victualler—an eater of flesh, a drinker of ale, a female Gallio in regard to her lover's enthusiasms. Yet a good girl, for all that, and not indisposed to favour Simon's suit would he but waive the conditions on which he had hitherto insisted. They had long known each other, and regularly every week Simon ran down to St. Albans, where Barbara, an only child, abode with her well-to-do parents and assisted in their nefarious traffic. The publican thought well of Mr. Mooney, and had no objection to teetotalism (in this instance), but held for roast-beef. Barbara would renounce neither beef nor ale. So matters stood, and, as the girl's suitors were numerous, poor Simon lived in dread of learning some dark day that his hopes had vanished.
Samuel Figg, even on his bed of sickness, held fiercely to the ideal.
"Now, mind what I tell you, Simon You're in danger—I can see it. The devil's tempting you to sell your soul. Break it off! Have done with her! If you fall, I'll never speak to you again."
Simon felt the menace keenly.
"I hope I shall never so disgrace myself," he murmured, with downcast eyes and twitching lips. "I've been reading the Temperance Herald, and I find strength in it. But—oh, Figg!"
And the poor fellow turned away to groan.
When Samuel Figg returned to business, he had an air of mystery. The friends met once more at the vegetarian table, but they no longer conversed as of old. Figg had become strangely reticent on the great matters of their common interest; he preferred to talk of things indifferent; chiefly of international politics. Of Barbara he made no mention; and Simon, his native spirits direfully overcast, found it difficult to speak of anything at all, for he interpreted his friend's manner as a dignified rebuke.
"I'm holding firm," he whispered one day, as they left the restaurant. Figg rewarded him with a smile of unusual brightness.
"It's your duty to mankind, Simon."
Now as the despairing lover sank from depth to depth, his friend exhibited a wondrous improvement in slate of body and mind. Samuel began to pick up flesh; his eye grew bright and clear; he walked with a lighter step; occasionally, he even laughed. Simon, absorbed in his miseries, hardly observed this change; but, one day, when Figg positively clapped him on the shoulder, and bade him "Cheer up, old boy!" he stared through his "Thank you, Figg. You're doing your best to keep me up. I'm grateful to you, but—oh, Figg!"