On the bed sat Mr. Eagles, a spare,
large-headed, ugly, but very thoughtful-looking man; he and Sidney
Kirkwood had been acquaintances and fellow-workmen for some years,
but no close intimacy had arisen between them, owing to the
difference of their tastes and views. Eagles was absorbed in the
study of a certain branch of political statistics; the enthusiasm of
his life was Financial Reform. Every budget presented to Parliament
he criticised with extraordinary thoroughness, and, in fact, with an
acumen which would have made him no inefficient auxiliary of the
Chancellor himself. Of course he took the view that the nation's
resources were iniquitously wasted, and of course had little
difficulty in illustrating a truth so obvious; what distinguished
him from the ordinary malcontent of Clerkenwell Green was his
logical faculty and the surprising extent of the information with
which he had furnished himself. Long before there existed a
'Financial Reform Almanack,' Eagles practically represented that
work in his own person. Disinterested, ardent, with thoughts for but
one subject in the scope of human inquiry, he lived contentedly on
his two pounds a week, and was for ever engaged in the theoretic
manipulation of millions.
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