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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40674 ***
+
+Sawn Off
+A Tale of a Family Tree
+By George Manville Fenn
+Published by Henry and Co, London.
+This edition dated 1891.
+
+Sawn Off, by George Manville Fenn.
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+SAWN OFF, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER ONE.
+
+NABOTH AND HIS VINEYARD.
+
+"Well, I'm--"
+
+"Papa!"
+
+"Hi! don't, Very.  Let me breathe," cried Doctor Salado, removing a very
+pretty little hand from over his mouth, and kissing the owner, as pretty
+a little girl as ever stepped; though just then her pretty creamy face
+was puckered into the most lovable of dimples, and there was trouble in
+her great dark eyes, over which were lashes and brows as black as the
+great clusters and waves of luxuriant hair.
+
+"You shall not."
+
+"I was only going to say `blessed.'"
+
+"You were not, papa.  You were going to use that dreadful word again."
+
+"So I was, Very, and enough to make me," said the Doctor, passing his
+hand over his high bold forehead and crown.  "Why, it completely cuts
+off our view of the park and the manor-house at the end of the beautiful
+vista of oaks."
+
+"Never mind, dear; we'll take to the drawing-room, and look out at the
+back at the grand old pines."
+
+"Well, upon my soul," said the Doctor again.  "Of all the malicious bits
+of impudence!  They must have been at it all night."
+
+"Yes, papa; I heard them knocking, and I could not sleep."
+
+"Hang me if I don't take an axe and cut the old thing down," cried the
+Doctor again, as he stood gazing out of his breakfast-room window at
+where--just across the road, and exactly opposite his delightful little
+cottage--half a dozen carpenters and labourers were rapidly completing a
+great range of hoarding fifty feet long and full twenty high.
+
+"You mustn't, papa.  We are not in South America now."
+
+"No.  I wish it was.  But--Well, that beats all!  Well, I _am_--Very, my
+pet, let me swear once.  I shall feel so much better then."
+
+"You shall not, papa.  But what a shame!"
+
+"Worse than that, my darling.  It's all a confounded planned insult, got
+up by my lord and that sneaking scoundrel of an agent," he continued, as
+he watched a bill-sticker busy at work pasting placards on the new raw
+deal boards just nailed on the rough pine poles.  "Selling off, etc.  To
+be sold by auction," read the Doctor, "Guy Bunting's boots."
+
+"Oh! is this a land of liberty, where one is to be insulted like this,
+and not even allowed the British prerogative of a good honest--"
+
+Veronica's lips were pressed upon the speaker's lips, as near as they
+could get for the crisp, grey, shaggy hair of an enormous moustache, and
+said,--
+
+"You shall not say it, papa; and you are too proud and dignified to
+notice such contemptible treatment.  Now come and have your breakfast.
+The cutlets are getting cold."
+
+"Then Teddington Weir him!" said the Doctor.
+
+"What do you mean, dear?"
+
+"Never mind.  Hah!  I am hungry.  But look here, Pussy--more sugar,
+please--and milk.  It's all your fault."
+
+"It is not, papa," said Veronica, colouring a little.  "It was through
+your buying this cottage."
+
+"Well, how was I to know he wanted it?  Suppose the grounds do run like
+a wedge into the estate.  Hang the blackguardly Ahab!  Can't a poor
+miserable Naboth like myself have his own vineyard without his wanting
+it for a garden of herbs?  Bitter herbs I'll make them for him!"
+
+"No, you will not, papa."
+
+"Yes, I will, tyrant.  The next thing will be his confounded Jezebel of
+a wife setting him to--"
+
+"Papa!  I cannot sit here and listen to you," cried Veronica, flushing
+deeply now.  "Lady Pinemount is a sweet, lovable woman."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Everybody says so."
+
+"Including her son?"
+
+"Papa dear!" cried the girl, with her eyes filling with tears.
+
+"There, my dear, I don't want to hurt your feelings; but the old man
+will never consent to it, and I'm going to forbid Mr Rolleston the
+house."
+
+Veronica was silent, but such a look of hopeless misery came into her
+face that the Doctor got up from his chair and went and knelt on one
+knee by his child's chair, drawing her beautiful head down on his
+shoulder and softly stroking her cheek.
+
+"And you--after turning up this pretty little nose at all the gallant
+young Spanish dons and settlers about the Pampas--to come and strike
+your colours like this, Very!  I say, are you so very fond of him?"
+
+"I--I think so, papa; I can't help it."
+
+"Humph!  But he's an Englishman born and bred, and you're half a
+Spaniard, Very."
+
+"But you are an Englishman, papa."
+
+"I suppose so.  But thirty years in South America seem to have altered
+me.  Yah! hammer away.  What a blackguardly trick of his father!"
+
+"Don't talk about it, papa.  Mr Rolleston said Lord Pinemount was
+furious with his steward for not bidding higher and buying this estate."
+
+"More fool he!  I'd have bid his head off.  He'd never have got it."
+
+"And he was very angry, too, because you refused his offer afterwards to
+take it off your hands."
+
+"I don't care for his anger.  I came over to England to end my days in
+peace.  I bought the Sandleighs, and I mean to keep it."
+
+"Papa!"
+
+"There, then--there, don't cry, and I will not make use of bad language
+about that hoarding; but if this is the behaviour of an English
+nobleman, I'm glad I'm plain Doctor Salado.  Now breakfast; and my
+coffee's cold."
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWO.
+
+HIS LORDSHIP IS ANGRY.
+
+"I say it's a shame, father, and a disgrace to you."
+
+"And I say you are a confounded insolent young puppy; and if you dare to
+speak to me again like that--"
+
+"Oh, hush, Edward dear!  Denis, my boy, pray don't!"
+
+"But I shall be ashamed to go about the place, mamma.  It is so mean and
+petty."
+
+"How dare you, sir! how dare you!" cried Lord Pinemount.  "Don't dictate
+to me.  I've put up with too much, and I mean to end it all.  How dare
+he--a confounded Yankee!"
+
+"Doctor Salado is an English gentleman, father."
+
+"Nothing of the sort, sir.  Look at his name.  Comes here from nobody
+knows where."
+
+"Yes, they do, sir.  He comes here from Iquique, and he is one of the
+most famous naturalists of the day."
+
+"I don't care what he is.  Comes here, I say; and just as at last that
+wretched old woman dies, and the Sandleighs is in the market--a place
+that ought by rights to belong to the manor--he must bid over that idiot
+Markby's head, and secure the place.  I told Markby distinctly that I
+wanted that cottage and grounds.  Went at such a price, he said.  Fool!
+And then, when I offered this miserable foreign adventurer five hundred
+pounds to give it up, he must send me an insulting message."
+
+"It was only a quiet letter, my dear," said Lady Pinemount, "to say that
+he had taken a fancy to the place, and preferred to keep it."
+
+"You mind your own business," said his lordship, his florid face growing
+slightly apoplectic of aspect.  "I'm not blind.  But I won't have it.
+You write and ask the Elsgraves here; and you, Denis, recollect that I
+expect you to be civil to Hilda Elsgrave.  The Earl and I quite
+understand each other about that."
+
+"If you expect me to begin paying attentions to a girl whom I dislike,
+and who dislikes me, sir," said the young man firmly, "I'm afraid you
+will be disappointed."
+
+"No, sir: look here--"
+
+"Edward, my love--"
+
+"Hold--your--tongue.  I'm master while I live, and I'll have my way.
+You, Denis, you've got to marry Hilda; and if I hear of your hanging
+about the Sandleighs again, and talking to that half-bred Spanish
+hussy--"
+
+"Look here, father: when you insult Miss Salado, you insult me."
+
+"Silence, sir!" roared his lordship.  "Listen to what I say.  Insult
+you!  Puppy!  How dare you!  The father's an adventurer, and you're mad
+after a big-eyed adventuress."
+
+"She is a lady, sir."
+
+"Silence!  And as for you, Lady Pinemount, you must have been mad to
+call upon them.  That was the beginning of the mischief."
+
+"Miss Salado is a very sweet, refined girl, Edward," said her ladyship
+quietly, "and it was a social duty to call."
+
+"Then you've done your duty, and there's an end of it.  I won't have it,
+and I won't have the fellow staring over into my park.  Coming and
+sticking himself there!  Won't sell the place again, won't he?  Never
+another inch of timber or head of beasts does that auctioneer sell for
+me."
+
+The Honourable Denis Rolleston was about to speak, but a meaning look
+from handsome, dignified Lady Pinemount silenced him, and the angry head
+of the family rose from his half finished lunch and paced the room.
+
+"Taken a fancy to the place, has he?  I'll make him take a fancy to go.
+The sooner he's out of Lescombe the better.  Like to buy the manor,
+perhaps?  But I'll make it too hot for him.  And you, Denis, understand
+me at once.  I can't interfere about the title; but look here, sir, you
+marry as I wish you to,--keep up the dignity of our family tree.  You
+are the head, sir, but if you don't do as I tell you, sir, not a penny
+do you have to support the title, for I'll disinherit you.  Yes, sir,
+you think you're a devilish fine branch, no doubt, but damme, I'll saw
+you off!"
+
+As his lordship spoke, he bounced out of the dining-room, banged the
+door, and directly after mother and son saw him going straight across
+the fields to inspect the hoarding he had ordered to be put up.
+
+"I am very sorry, Denis, my dear," said Lady Pinemount.
+
+"Can't be helped, mother dear," said the young man, passing his arm
+round her and walking up towards the window, where they stood watching
+his lordship's diminishing figure.  "I want to be a good son, and I
+never kick against the dad's eccentricities, except when they are too
+bad.  That is such a petty, ungentlemanly trick--an insult to as fine a
+fellow as ever breathed, and--"
+
+"You do love Veronica, my boy?" said Lady Pinemount, gazing wistfully at
+her son.
+
+"Love her?" said the young man, with his frank, handsome English face
+lighting.  "Mother dear, could I pick out a sweeter wife?"
+
+Lady Pinemount sighed, and kissed her son.
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER THREE.
+
+HOW THE DOCTOR HIT.
+
+"Down again, Very!" cried the Doctor, a week later, as he came in from a
+botanical ramble to breakfast.  "Why, eh?--yes--no: it has been burned."
+
+"Yes, papa: didn't you see the flames?"
+
+"Not I.  Slept like a top, and I went out through the sandpits and among
+the fir trees this morning."
+
+He hurried out of the French window, and out into the road, and looked
+over the hedge into the park and then returned.
+
+"Seems to have been splashed with petroleum or paraffin.  Twice cut
+down, and once burned.  Well, somebody else does not like the hoarding."
+
+"But, papa, you gave orders for it to be destroyed!"
+
+"I?  Hang it all, Very, am I the sort of man to do such a shabby thing?"
+
+"No, papa: I beg your pardon."
+
+"Granted, pet.  Some one in the village thinks it's a paltry thing to
+do, and has constituted himself our champion.  Confound his insolence!
+What did he say in his letter?"
+
+"That if you dared to destroy his property, he would prosecute you,
+papa," said Veronica.
+
+"Yes, and he has sent me a summons."
+
+"Oh, papa!"
+
+"Fact, my dear; and I shall be puzzled as to how to defend myself and
+prove my innocency.  I say, Very, my dear, this looks bad for you."
+
+The girl sighed, and bent over her cup.
+
+"Wouldn't be a pleasant alliance, my dear, even if it could come off,"
+continued the Doctor, watching his child furtively.  "Ah, dear me! how
+strangely things do work!  Who'd have thought, when we landed in
+England, that there was the heir to a baron bold waiting to go down on
+bended knee to my little tyrant, and make her an offer of his heart and
+hand?"
+
+"Oh, papa, how you do delight in teasing me!"
+
+"Teasing you?  Well, isn't it a fact?  You shot him through and through
+first time we were at church, and your victim has been our humble
+servant ever since."
+
+"But, papa, do you think Thomas could have destroyed the hoarding?"
+
+"Well, I don't know, my dear.  He was very indignant about it, and said
+if this was his place he would soon down with the obstruction."
+
+"Then it must have been he.  You ought to scold him well."
+
+"What, for getting rid of a nuisance?"
+
+"No: for getting you into such trouble with Lord Pinemount."
+
+"Hah!" said the Doctor dreamily; "it's a strange world, Very.  Perhaps
+we had better go back to Iquique."
+
+"Oh, papa!" cried the girl in dismay.
+
+"Don't you want to go?"
+
+"What, leave this lovely place, where it is always green, and the
+flowers are everywhere, for that dreadful dry desert place where one is
+parched to death?  Ah, no, no, no!"
+
+"Humph!" said the Doctor--"always green.  Don't seem so, Very:
+something, to my mind, is getting ripe at a tremendous rate."
+
+"I don't know what you mean, dear," said the girl consciously.
+
+"Don't you?  Ah well, never mind.  But you need not be uneasy,--I do not
+mean to go back: this place will just suit me to write my book, and I'm
+not going to stir for all the Lord Pinemounts in England."
+
+"I wonder how you could ever leave so beautiful a country as England,
+papa," said Veronica, as the breakfast went on.
+
+"You wouldn't wonder, if you knew all," said the Doctor thoughtfully.
+
+"All, papa?--all what?"
+
+The Doctor was silent, and his child respected his silence.  The
+breakfast was ended, and the paper was thrown down.
+
+"I don't see why you should not know, my dear.  You are a woman now, and
+thinking about such things."
+
+Veronica looked across at him wonderingly.
+
+"You asked me why I left England, or some such question.  It was because
+of the woman I loved, my dear."
+
+"Mamma?  To join her at Iquique?"
+
+"No," said the Doctor thoughtfully; "it was before I knew of her
+existence."
+
+"Ah, papa!"
+
+"Yes, my dear.  I was desperately in love with a lady before I knew your
+dear mother."
+
+Veronica rose with wondering eyes, and knelt down beside her father,
+resting her elbows on his knees and gazing up in his face.
+
+"Do people--?  You loved mamma very dearly, papa?" she whispered.
+
+"Very, my child; and we were very happy till it pleased Heaven to take
+her away.  She taught a poor, weak, foolish man what a good woman really
+is."
+
+There was a long pause, and then Veronica said,--
+
+"Do people love more than once, papa?"
+
+"I don't know, dear," he said, smiling.  "I loved here in England very
+desperately, and when the lady I worshipped threw me over for another, I
+swore I would never look a woman in the face again with the idea of
+wedding; and in utter disgust left England, and all I knew, to roam for
+a time in the Malay Archipelago; and from thence I went to South
+America, following out my natural history tasks.  Then I found out I had
+been a fool."
+
+"I do not understand you, papa."
+
+"I found, my darling, that I had wasted the strength of a young man's
+first love upon a miserable handsome coquette."
+
+"How did you find that out, papa?"
+
+"By meeting your dear mother, who was everything a true woman should be;
+and instead of my life proving to be a miserable state of exile, it was
+all that joy could give till the day of the great pain."
+
+There was another long pause, and then the Doctor said cheerfully,--
+
+"And that's why Doctor Salado went away from England.  By the way, Very,
+I'm not a regular doctor, though I studied medicine after I left England
+very hard."
+
+"How can you say so, dear, when you know how all the poor people cried
+at your going away?  They said no one would ever cure them of the fever
+again as you did.  Why, they always called you the great doctor."
+
+"Yes, my dear: but people here would call me the great quack.  There,
+I'm going for my walk round.  But--hullo! here's his lordship to see the
+burnt hoarding."
+
+For just at that moment Lord Pinemount's loud, harsh voice floated in at
+the window.
+
+"Disgraceful!" he cried.
+
+Then there was a murmur of another voice, and again of another, as if
+two men were respectfully addressing his lordship.
+
+"An old scoundrel!" came in at the window again.
+
+"He means me!" cried the Doctor excitedly, rising.
+
+"No, no, papa--please, please!" whispered Veronica, clinging to him.
+
+"But I'm sure he does, Very."
+
+"I mean, don't go out, papa dear: you would be so angry."
+
+"Would be?  I am!--furiously angry.  How dare he call me an old
+scoundrel!"
+
+"Pray, pray don't quarrel with him, dear."
+
+"I'm not going to, pet; but I'll knock his head off for him."
+
+"No, no; you shall not go out, dear.  I will not have my dear father
+disgrace himself like that."
+
+"I declare, Very, you are worse than your poor mother used to be.  I
+must go and hit him, or I shall explode."
+
+"Then please explode here, papa dear, at me."
+
+"You're a strange girl, Very, 'pon my soul," cried the Doctor.
+
+"Yes, papa dear," she said quietly, but clinging tightly to his arm.
+
+"How dare he come and damage my property!" floated in through the
+window.
+
+"Buzz-buzz-buzz," from another voice.
+
+"But I will, sir.  How dare he?  I'll lay the horsewhip across the
+scoundrel's back!"
+
+"Buzz-buzz--buzz-buzz."
+
+"Law or no law, he shall have the horsewhip first and the fine or
+imprisonment afterwards.  These foreign rowdy ways shall not be
+tolerated here."
+
+"Let go, Very.  I can't stand it, I tell you," said the Doctor.  But
+Veronica threw her arms now about his neck, and laid her head close to
+his cheek, and clung there.
+
+"Will you let go?"
+
+"No, papa."
+
+"Do you want me to hit you?"
+
+"Yes, papa dear."
+
+"Hang it, Very, it's too bad!  You're a coward.  You know I can't."
+
+"Yes, papa dear; I know you'd sooner cut off your hand."
+
+"A blackguardly old scoundrel!" floated through the window.
+
+"Yes? my lord."
+
+"Ah!  I am, am I?" cried the Doctor.  "Let go, Very."
+
+"No, papa dear: never."
+
+"Out, I suppose?" came, as if shouted for the inmates of the cottage to
+hear.
+
+"I will be directly, you pompous, titled bully," muttered the Doctor.
+
+"Buzz-buzz--buzz-buzz," in two different keys.
+
+"Yes, I suppose so," cried his lordship; "but if he thinks he is going
+to defeat me he is sadly mistaken."
+
+"Yes, my lord."
+
+"Very! will you untie those wretched little arms of yours from about my
+neck?"
+
+"No, papa dear; and I'm not afraid of your hitting me."
+
+"Then, if you don't let go, I'll hit myself."
+
+Veronica raised her head a little, and kissed him.
+
+"No: at home, and dare not show his face!" roared Lord Pinemount.
+
+"There!" cried the Doctor.  "Every word is a stinging blow in the face,
+Very."
+
+"Yes, papa; but I'm kissing the places to make them well," said
+Veronica, suiting the action to the word.
+
+"But I'll let him see."
+
+"Buzz-buzz-buzz,--boozz-boozz-boozz," and the sound of horse's hoofs
+slowly dying away.
+
+"Gone!" cried the Doctor passionately.  "Very, you've made me seem like
+a miserable cowards that man will despise me, and insult us more than
+ever."
+
+"You are angry, papa dear; but when you grow calm you will tell me I've
+done quite right."
+
+"Humph!  I'll tell you so now, my darling," said the Doctor, kissing her
+affectionately; "but my fingers itched to knock him down."
+
+"And when you had done so, you would have been very sorry, papa dear;
+for you would have hurt yourself."
+
+"What, my knuckles?"
+
+"No, papa--your dignity as a gentleman; and you would have hurt me, too,
+very much."
+
+"You're a witch, Very," said the Doctor, drawing a long sigh.  "What an
+overbearing brute it is! and I'll be bound to say that son of his will
+develop into just such another animal."
+
+"Papa!"
+
+"Hallo! what have I said?" cried the Doctor, with his eyes winking.
+
+"Hit me after all," said Very to herself, as she ran sobbing out of the
+room, but only to be caught upon the stairs and tenderly kissed and
+petted till her eyes grew dry, and the hysterical sobs which would rise
+to her lips had cleared.
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+STOP!
+
+About a couple of hours later the Doctor was down in his garden with a
+large note-book in his hand, a pen behind his ear, and an exciseman's
+ink-bottle suspended by a piece of silk ribbon to his button-hole.
+Every now and then, as he walked up and down the gravel walk, he stopped
+to gaze away south at the lovely prospect, his eyes resting longest on a
+magnificent clump of fir trees which grew just beyond the bottom of the
+grounds, and hid from sight some very, shabby sand pits, which had
+something to do with the place being called "Sandleighs."
+
+They were splendid old trees, every one having grown straight and clean,
+for the sandy soil suited them, and a timber merchant would have looked
+at them longingly, and thought what fine sticks of timber they were, and
+what fine broad planks they would make if borne to a saw-mill.
+
+Veronica was busy too, but not too busy to run to her father from time
+to time, as she saw that he took his pen from behind his ear, dipped it,
+and carefully wrote some note for his work.  This note he would read
+aloud to her, and ask her opinion; after which Veronica hurried back to
+her work, pricking her fingers in spite of her thick gloves, as she
+carefully went over her rose trees to free them from the enemies with
+which they swarmed.
+
+Close at hand, upon his knees, which were protected by an old mat, was
+Thomas, the old gardener, who was diligently extracting little tufts of
+weed from the gravel walk, and making observations to his young mistress
+as he went on.
+
+"Make a deal o' fuss at the Manor 'bout her ladyship's roses; but they
+ain't nowt to yourn."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Nowt, miss.  You see that this guaney jooce as I waters 'em with is
+reg'lar hessence, and I saves it up.  Seven gard'ners, 'cloodin' a boy,
+they keeps there; but they can't touch us in roses, miss."
+
+_Chod_!
+
+"What's that?" said Veronica, looking up as a peculiar sound struck her
+ear.
+
+_Chud_!  Then _chad_! and directly after, _chod_!
+
+Thomas was kneeling bolt upright now, and took off his very shabby cap,
+and began from habit to scratch his head with the blunt point of the old
+weed knife.
+
+"Don't you hear, Thomas?" cried Veronica, keeping a rose grub in
+suspense between her finger and thumb; and as she spoke the sounds came
+at regular intervals.
+
+"Ay, miss: sounds like some 'un a choppin' 'ard."
+
+"Ah!" ejaculated Veronica, as she caught sight of a couple of men
+through an opening in the shrubbery at the bottom of the lawn, and she
+ran to where her father was busily writing down a note, speaking aloud
+as he went on.
+
+"In the half-ruined capsule--"
+
+"Papa!"
+
+"One moment, my dear.  `The sun causes the outer covering to contract,
+and assume the form of a shiny and--'"
+
+"Papa, they're cutting down those beautiful old trees."
+
+"What!" cried the Doctor, turning in the direction of the clump.  "Oh
+no; it must be a mistake."
+
+_Chod_!  A tremendous chop.
+
+"By Gladstone!" he roared; and, thrusting his book into his pocket, he
+ran down the lawn, and, leaping the hedge, passed through to the open,
+furzy piece of land, where, full in view now, two men were plying their
+woodmen's axes rapidly, and making the white chips fly as a ghastly
+notch began to appear in the side of one of the outer trees.
+
+"Hi! what are you doing?" roared the Doctor, just as Veronica reached
+the bottom and looked over.
+
+The two men stopped, and rested the heads of their axes on the ground as
+they grinned.
+
+"Cuttin' down the trees, sir," said one of the men.
+
+"What!  By whose orders?"
+
+"Lordship's, sir.  Sent us up, and he's comin' hisself soon."
+
+"Do you mean to say that his lordship gave orders for this beautiful
+clump of trees to be cut down?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"But it will disfigure the estate horribly."
+
+"Well, sir, my mate and the head gardener said as it were a pity."
+
+"Oh, it's a mistake, man.  You are cutting down the wrong trees."
+
+"Nay, sir; these here's right.  Lordship said bottom o' the Sandleighs
+garden.  Can't be no mistake about that."
+
+"Then it's an insult to me," said the Doctor furiously; "and it shall
+not be done.  Here, come away directly."
+
+The men looked at one another, and smiled uneasily.
+
+"Do you hear?  I say it shall not be done."
+
+"But his lordship said--"
+
+"Something his lordship!" roared the Doctor.  "You strike a blow, either
+of you, again on one of those trees, and I'll strike you.  There!"
+
+"Papa!" cried Veronica from the garden; but the Doctor was too angry to
+hear that or anything else.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir, here is his lordship," whispered one of the men; and
+Lord Pinemount came cantering up over the short turf and furze.
+
+"Here, what's the meaning of this?" he cried.  "Why are you not going on
+with your work?  Two of these trees ought to be down by now.  Who is
+this man?"
+
+He had so far ignored the Doctor; and as Veronica saw the impending
+collision she tried to get through the hedge, but stuck fast.
+
+The Doctor flushed, but spoke very quietly, as he raised his hat.
+
+"Lord Pinemount, I believe?" he said.
+
+"Yes," said Lord Pinemount.  "Who the devil are you?  How dare you
+trespass on my grounds and delay my workpeople?"
+
+The Doctor's lips worked under his stiff beard, and he could not speak
+for a moment.
+
+"Do you hear me, sir?  Be off!" cried his lordship, who was pale with
+rage.  "You men get on with your job."
+
+The men touched their hats, spat in their hands, and swung up their
+axes; and Veronica saw things through a mist, but started as much as
+Lord Pinemount did, for the Doctor roared, in a voice of thunder,--
+
+"Stop!"
+
+And the men stopped.
+
+"How dare you!" cried his lordship, white now with fury.  "What the
+devil do you mean?  Of all the insolence!  Go on, men, at once; and as
+for you, sir, I have already instructed the police for your destruction
+of my property.  Now I shall proceed against you for trespass."
+
+"Stop!" roared the Doctor again, as the men swung up their axes; and
+Veronica turned cold, and felt as if her delightful love-dream was at an
+end.
+
+Lord Pinemount dragged his horse's head round, and rode closer to the
+Doctor.
+
+"What do you mean, fellow?" he roared.
+
+"Have the goodness to recollect that you are addressing a gentleman.
+Stop those men.  I will not have my property disfigured by these trees
+being cut down."
+
+"Oh, papa, papa!" sighed Veronica.
+
+"What, you dare!" cried his lordship.  "Your property--disfigured!"
+
+"Then I will not have the Manor disfigured by that timber being taken
+down."
+
+"Are you mad?" yelled his lordship.
+
+"No, sir; but from your display of temper, and your insulting language,
+I presume that you are," said the Doctor, who grew more cool and
+dignified as his lordship became incoherent with passion.  "Have the
+goodness to remember that you hold this estate upon certain conditions,
+and that you have no right to impoverish or destroy.  I say that your
+action now would injure this property as well as mine beyond that hedge.
+Cut down a single tree more, and I'll make you smart for it in a way in
+which you little expect.  Now order your workpeople off home, and--No:
+cut down that disfigured tree now, and grub up the stump.  But if you
+touch another, Lord Pinemount, you will have to reckon with me.  Go on,
+my lads, and be quick and get your hateful job done."
+
+For a few minutes his lordship could not speak.  Then, growing more
+incoherent minute by minute,--
+
+"Where is Mr Rolleston?" he cried.
+
+"Went round with the head-keeper, my lord," said one of the men.
+
+"Blue cap spinney, I think, my lord," ventured the second man.
+
+"Are we to cut down one tree, my lord?" said the first man, touching his
+hat.
+
+Lord Pinemount said something decidedly strong, drove his spurs into his
+horse's side, and went off at a furious gallop; while the two men
+grinned, and, as if moved by one spirit, wiped their noses on their bare
+arms.
+
+"This here's a rum game," whispered one to the other.
+
+"Come, my lads," cried the Doctor, "down with that tree, get the stump
+cut down and the chips cleared away by to-night, and I'll give you five
+shillings for beer."
+
+"Thankye, sir," they cried in duet, and then set to work vigorously;
+while the Doctor, who looked very knowing and severe, went slowly back
+to where Veronica stood, pale and troubled.
+
+"Oh, papa dear!" she whispered, "what have you done?"
+
+"Given Lord Pinemount a lesson that he has needed for a long time, my
+dear.  I thought I could cow him."
+
+"Yes, papa; but how can you ever be friends at the Manor now?"
+
+"Eh?  Denis?  Humph!  I never thought of that," said the Doctor, passing
+his arm round his child, and walking with her slowly up the lawn,
+passing Thomas, who, as soon as the encounter was over, slipped back
+from where he had been watching it, and was now extracting weeds at a
+furious rate, chuckling to himself, and with his opinion of his master
+wonderfully heightened, while he thought of how he would tell them at
+the "Half-Moon" at night about the way in which the Doctor had taken his
+lordship down.
+
+"Humph!" muttered the Doctor, "how can we be friends at the Manor now?
+Very, my dear, have I made a mistake?  No.  I must bring him to his
+senses.  This has been too much to bear."
+
+Veronica looked wonderingly at the stern, commanding face before her;
+but she could not help her own trouble, and the countenance of Denis
+Rolleston creeping in like a dissolving view, which grew plainer and
+plainer, and then died out again, her vision being blurred by tears.
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+DENIS APOLOGISES.
+
+"Eh, Miss 'Ronica, but the master ought to ha' been a lord!" said old
+Thomas some days later, as he was nailing up some loose strands of
+clematis against the house; and he stopped for a moment to take a couple
+of garden nails from his mouth, for they hindered his speech, though he
+had removed a third from his lips when he began.
+
+He was up on the ladder, ten feet from the ground, and kept looking down
+at Veronica for instructions.
+
+"Nonsense, Thomas!" she said, rather pettishly; "and raise that long
+spray higher; I want it to go close up by my window."
+
+"You shall have him just where you like, miss; and I'll give him some
+jooce at the roots to make him run faster.  Hallo! what, have I got you,
+my fine fellow?" he continued, as he pounced upon a great snail which
+was having its day sleep after a heavy night's feed, close up under the
+window-sill.
+
+He descended the ladder slowly with his prize, and was about to crush it
+under his heel on the gravel path, when Veronica interposed.
+
+"No, no!" she cried; "don't do that.  It is so horrid.  I hate to see
+things killed."
+
+"But sneels do so much mischief, miss."
+
+"Never mind; throw it out into the field."
+
+"To be sure," said the Doctor, coming along.  "Do you know what Uncle
+Toby said, Thomas, to the fly?"
+
+"Your Uncle Toby, sir?  Nay."
+
+"Everybody's Uncle Toby.  He told the fly there was room enough for both
+of them in the world."
+
+"Mebbe, sir," said Thomas, scratching his head with the claws of his
+wall-hammer; "and I doan't say nowt again flies; but if Uncle Toby had
+grown lettershes and strorbrys he wouldn't ha' said as there was room
+for sneels and slugs in his garden."
+
+The Doctor laughed, and went on down his favourite path, while, after
+jerking the snail over the hedge, Thomas returned to the ladder.
+
+"Let him eat his lordship's stuff," he said, with a chuckle.  "An' the
+master ought to ha' been a lord, miss.  The way he put down his
+lordship's amazen.  They do nowt but talk about it every night at the
+`Half-Moon.'"
+
+"Now, nail up that long loose strand, Thomas," said Veronica hastily.
+
+"Ay, miss, I'll nail him," said the man, climbing the ladder once more;
+"but would you mind asking the master, miss, to give me something for my
+back?"
+
+"Why don't you ask him yourself?"
+
+"I did, miss, four times over; and he always says the same.  `Go to the
+properly qualified doctor,' he says,--just as if there was any one in
+these parts o' such guid quality as he is.  Nay, miss, you might speak
+to him for me: he did me a wonderful lot o' guid once.  Mint iles is
+nothing to that tincture as he gives me.  I say it, and I'll say it
+agen--Wo ho!"
+
+(This to the ladder, which shifted a little, and had to be rearranged
+against the wall.)
+
+"--Agen anybody," continued Thomas, with a shred in his lips.  "The
+master's a wonderful doctor, and he ought to ha' been a lord."
+
+Just then the Doctor called his child.
+
+"Coming, papa."
+
+"Here's young Master Rolleston coming along the road, miss," continued
+Thomas, hammering away at his bines.  "Not much like his father, he
+ain't.  Wouldn't ha' ketched him sticking shutter-boards up in the very
+front o' people's houses, and wanting to cut down the trees.  Nice young
+gent, he is, as ever stepped, miss.  Very different to my lord, and--
+Hullo, when did she go?" said the gardener, looking round to find that
+his young mistress had gone.
+
+"Ah!  I see.  Gone into the house 'cause Mr Rolleston's coming.  Tck!
+Shouldn't be a bit surprised to hear them two asked in church some day;
+and a very pretty pair they'd make.  Mum! here's the master."
+
+Thomas went on hammering away; for the Doctor, who had been to the gate
+to meet his visitor, had received him coldly, and slowly led him into
+the room where Veronica was seated.
+
+"Well, Mr Rolleston, may I ask the meaning of this visit?" he said,
+after a conscious greeting between the young people.
+
+"Doctor Salado, pray, pray don't take that tone with me!" cried Denis
+appealingly.
+
+"What other tone can you expect, after the treatment I have received?"
+
+"I know, sir.  It has been most painful; but I have come to apologise."
+As he spoke he glanced at Veronica, who was seated, looking pale and
+troubled, with her eyes cast down.
+
+"Oho!  An apology?  That alters the case.  Then his lordship is
+apologetic, and acknowledges that he is in the wrong?"
+
+The young man flushed.
+
+"I--I regret to say, sir, that my father does not know of my visit."
+
+"Then you have came to apologise for him without his leave?"
+
+"No, sir; I have come to apologise for myself, and to ask you not to
+think ill of my father."
+
+"Humph!  Very right of you to defend your father, young man."
+
+"He is a little hasty and irritable, sir.  He has been put out ever
+since you took this place, for he had set his mind upon it for years.
+It was a disappointment to him, sir."
+
+"I had set my mind upon having the place, and it would have been a
+bitter disappointment to me to have missed it.  Let me see, Mr
+Rolleston: with the paddock, garden, and orchard there are about six
+acres."
+
+"So I have heard, sir."
+
+"And your father has thousands of acres?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And he grudges me my little bit.  Hardly fair, eh?"
+
+"I can make no defence, sir.  I only throw myself upon your mercy.  My
+father is too unwell and irritable to see the matter in the light I do."
+
+"Ah! you are a prejudiced observer," said the Doctor drily.
+
+"I hope not, sir: I wish to be just; and I ask you not to think ill of
+us for this affair."
+
+"Humph!  And are you apologising for Lady Pinemount too?"
+
+"For my mother, sir?  There is no need."
+
+"Oh!  Why, I thought when Ahab coveted Naboth's vineyard, the queen--"
+
+"Doctor Salado!" cried Denis, springing from his seat with flashing
+eyes, "how dare you.  It is an insult to my dear mother, who is as
+pained and grieved as I am."
+
+"I beg her ladyship's pardon humbly," said the Doctor, as he saw Denis
+glance again at Veronica, and that she made him an imploring sign.
+
+"I--I beg yours, sir," faltered Denis.
+
+"What for, my lad?  Defending your mother?  It was quite right.  Shake
+hands."
+
+Denis caught the Doctor's hand, and Veronica uttered a sigh of relief.
+
+"There now, sit down, and let's talk sensibly; and next time a man
+insults Lady Pinemount like that, knock him down.  So you have come to
+apologise, eh?"
+
+"Yes, sir.  It is most painful to me.  I have no authority, but I know
+you to be a straightforward English gentleman who sees my position, and
+I ask you to be lenient with my father and forbearing towards him."
+
+"But you see this is all selfishness, Denis Rolleston."
+
+"Yes, sir; but you don't know all."
+
+"All what?  That you have a silly, boyish liking for my child."
+
+"Silly! boyish!" cried the young man, flushing.  "Don't you be hard upon
+me too."
+
+"It's the simple truth," said the Doctor drily; "and very simple too.
+Here are you, son of the nobleman who holds this handsome estate, with a
+right to look very high in a matrimonial alliance, and yet you come
+hanging about here after a young lady, daughter of such a nobody as an
+eccentric old naturalist who has spent the past thirty years abroad.
+You must be very weak-minded, young man."
+
+"Words, sir," cried Denis eagerly.  "You know in your heart you think I
+am as wise as I know I am."
+
+His eyes met Veronica's again, and there was a proud look of happiness
+in his glance.
+
+"Bah--bah--bah!  Heroics, sentiment.  Rubbish!" cried the Doctor.
+"Come, be frank.  Your father knows of your inclinations?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And he flew into a rage when he found it out?"
+
+Denis was silent.
+
+"Of course he did, and threatened to disown you, eh?  There, you need
+not answer: I know it all by heart.  Quite natural.  You expect to be
+Lord Pinemount some day, and must choose a suitable wife."
+
+"You told me not to indulge in heroics, sir, so I will remain silent."
+
+"Quite right.  It will not do.  Your father threatened to disown you,
+disinherit you, and all that sort of thing, eh?"  Denis made no answer.
+
+"There, you see, Veronica, my child.  You have done wrong in encouraging
+this young man so far.  You don't want to blight his prospects?"
+
+"Ah, no, papa," cried Veronica, with the tears slowly welling over from
+her eyes.
+
+"Then you are quite ready to forget what has passed?"  Veronica slowly
+covered her eyes with her hands, and was silent, while Denis stepped to
+her side and took her hand.
+
+"Let me answer for her, sir," he said firmly.  "I have never spoken out
+plainly to her in the happy days I have known your daughter.  It has
+seemed enough to be near her, and to feel that I might hope; but I do
+speak out now, and say--`Veronica, I love you dearly: let me tell your
+father that you care for me, and will never change.'"
+
+"Very pretty and sentimental," said the Doctor coldly, "but I cannot let
+this go on.  I believe your father would disinherit you if you persisted
+in this--this--this _mesalliance_."
+
+"On your child's part, sir?" said Denis, smiling, and then giving her a
+loving look.
+
+"No, the other way, sir.  I'm not going to let my child stoop to enter a
+family where they look down upon her; and I'm not going to let a young
+fellow in your position ruin himself with his father for her sake.  No,
+no: no more--that will do.  Lord and Lady Pinemount must come and ask
+for the alliance; so now you had better go."
+
+"Yes, sir, I'll go," said the young man quietly, as he raised Veronica's
+hands to his lips,--"I'll go, for I don't feel downhearted.  I tell you
+this, though, that I will never give her up.  I'm going to wait."
+
+"Humph!"
+
+"And now, before I go, sir, I want to apologise again for the annoyance
+I have given you."
+
+"You? none at all.  Always were civil enough."
+
+"You don't know, sir, so I will confess.  It was I who destroyed those
+hoardings."
+
+"You!" cried the Doctor; and Veronica started.
+
+"I was so annoyed, sir, that I came twice over and sawed the supports,
+and let them down; and as they were put up again, I came last night,
+deluged the hateful boards with spirits, and set fire to them."
+
+"And a pretty mess you have got me in, sir," cried the Doctor angrily.
+"Do you know I am summoned to appear before the magistrates?"
+
+"That's all over, sir, for I shall tell my father it was my doing.
+Good-bye, Veronica: I shall wait.  You will shake hands, sir?"
+
+"Humph! oughtn't to, after such a scampish trick.  Well, there,
+good-bye, my lad.  Don't come here again till you are asked."
+
+There was a sad and long pressure of two hands directly after; and Denis
+went off back towards the Manor, while Veronica, after kissing her
+father, stole up to her room for the maiden's consolation--salt and
+water, warm, shed copiously into a piece of cambric.
+
+"Can't help liking the young dog," said the Doctor.  "Humph!" he added,
+laughing: "nice son to destroy his father's ungodly works!  So it was
+he?"
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SIX.
+
+SAWN OFF.
+
+Lord Pinemount was seated in his library, biting his nails mentally, as
+he lay back in his easy chair glaring at his steward, who stood before
+him wishing he could get another post, where his master would not be a
+tyrant, and thinking that, if it had not been for the fact that he had a
+large wife and a small family at home, he would resign at once.
+
+"And you are sure?"
+
+"Oh yes, my lord--quite."
+
+"Went straight there?"
+
+"Yes, my lord; and I hope your lordship considers I have done my duty in
+telling you according to your orders."
+
+"I consider, sir, that you have behaved like a miserable, contemptible
+sneak."
+
+"But your lordship told me to--"
+
+"Don't talk to me, sir.  Leave the room."
+
+The steward left the room, and as he closed the door he turned round,
+showing his teeth, and shook his fist.
+
+"Old beast!" he said aloud: "I'll serve you out for this some day."
+
+Then his countenance changed, his jaw dropped, and he drew to one side
+to allow Lady Pinemount to pass, fully conscious that she must have
+heard his words and seen the expression on his face.
+
+"It's all over," he groaned, as her ladyship passed into the library.
+"I'm a ruined man.  She'll tell him, and--oh dear, oh dear!  The
+workhouse stares us all in the face."
+
+But Lady Pinemount did not tell her husband, for she knew that the
+unfortunate steward must have been smarting from one of the injuries his
+lordship knew so well how to inflict.  In fact, if she had felt so
+disposed she would not have had the opportunity, for the moment she had
+closed the door she was addressed.
+
+"Ah, here you are!" cried her lord.  "I hope you are satisfied."
+
+"Satisfied, dear?"
+
+"Dear?  Bah!  You've encouraged and sided with that scoundrel of a boy,
+till he is in open rebellion against me; and then you call me dear."
+
+"I have not encouraged him," said Lady Pinemount.  "I have always tried
+to set you two at one.  What is the matter now?"
+
+"Why, I've found out this morning that Denis himself cut down and burned
+that hoarding."
+
+"Over whose destruction you insulted Doctor Salado."
+
+"I made a mistake," said his lordship.  "I daresay even angels make
+mistakes sometimes."
+
+"I don't know," said her ladyship quietly.  "Of course you will
+apologise to the Doctor?"
+
+"The Doctor?  The quack!  No, madam, I am not going to stoop to that."
+
+Lady Pinemount sighed.
+
+"And that's not the worst of it.  I forbade the young scoundrel to go
+near those people again.  Did I, or did I not?"
+
+"You did, dear, emphatically.  But if Denis really cares for Miss
+Salado--"
+
+"He sha'n't have her--there!  I forbade him to go there; and, not
+content with insulting me by grubbing down and burning the hoarding I
+erected to keep off obnoxious people, he has gone there again and again,
+encouraged by the adventurer of a father."
+
+"I am very sorry, dear."
+
+"Sorry?  What good does that do?  And he's there now."
+
+"No, my dear," said Lady Pinemount; "he is just coming across the park."
+
+"Ah! is he?" cried Lord Pinemount, leaping up and running to the window.
+"Here,--hi!  Denis!  Come here!"
+
+The young man came calmly enough up to the window.
+
+"Ah, mamma!" he said.  "You want me, sir?"
+
+"Yes.  Where the devil have you been?"
+
+"Over to Sandleighs, sir.  And have the goodness to remember, in
+addressing me, that I am not one of the grooms."
+
+"Denis!"
+
+"All right, mamma.  I am not a child now, and if his lordship addresses
+me in that tone I shall resent it."
+
+"Ah, indeed!" said the father sarcastically.  "May I respectfully
+inquire, then, why you have been over to Sandleighs?"
+
+"To apologise to Doctor Salado for causing him so much annoyance."
+
+"Say Don Salado, my dear son," cried his lordship: "and may I ask how
+you have annoyed him?  By making eyes at the adventurer's daughter--bah!
+wench!"
+
+The young man's eyes flashed, but he spoke quite calmly.
+
+"I apologised for causing him to be suspected of destroying that
+hoarding which I cut down and burned."
+
+"Yes, I know you did, sir."
+
+"I am not surprised, father.  I thought one of your spies would be
+watching me."
+
+"Oh, Denis, Denis!" cried Lady Pinemount appealingly.  "Right, mother
+dear.  I'll speak and act quite calmly; but I will not be treated as a
+schoolboy."
+
+"Then you have apologised to Doctor Salado, the Spanish-American
+adventurer, and you are going to espouse his daughter, I presume?"
+
+"Yes, father.  I love her very dearly, and--"
+
+"That will do, thank you," said his lordship quietly, though he was pale
+with suppressed fury.  "I have no time to listen to silly sentiment.
+Good morning: there is the door."
+
+Lady Pinemount ran to her son's side.
+
+"Don't quarrel, Denis, for my sake," she whispered; and he pressed her
+hand.
+
+"Did you hear me, Mr Rolleston?  Have the goodness to go.  Of course
+you will get the title when I die, and the estate.  But not a penny do
+you have from me beside; and the estate will nearly ruin you, without
+money to keep it up.  You say you are a man: act like one, and go."
+
+"You wish me to leave your house finally, sir?"
+
+"Wish?  I order you to go; and until you come over humbly and ask leave
+to pay your addresses to the Lady Jenny, never darken my doors again."
+
+"Very well, sir.  I will see you again, mother, before I go."
+
+"Denis!  Husband, pray, pray do not let this trouble come upon us."
+
+"Mr Rolleston, being angry makes me ill.  I wish to behave politely and
+calmly to you.  Please to go."
+
+Denis caught his mother to his breast, and then hurried out of the room,
+to go and order the valet to pack up his portmanteau and send it across
+to the station; and then he went off across the park, to see the Salados
+and say good-bye.
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+GOOD-BYE.
+
+"Back again so soon, Mr Rolleston?" said the Doctor, as Denis presented
+himself before the father and daughter; Veronica having risen from her
+seat and laid her hand upon her father's shoulder, reading at once in
+their visitor's eyes that something serious was the cause of his visit.
+
+"Yes, sir: I have come to say good-bye to you both."
+
+"For good?" said the Doctor, taking his child's hand and pressing it
+warmly.
+
+"I hope for good," said Denis, smiling encouragingly at Veronica.  "I am
+going abroad."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"The same reason that others go for, sir.  To make my fortune."
+
+"You!  I thought you were Lord Pinemount's heir."
+
+"So I am, sir; but my father may live twenty or thirty years,--I hope he
+may,--and I have nothing now except what I earn."
+
+"Humph! then you have come to an open rupture with him?"
+
+"No, sir; he has come to an open rupture with me."
+
+"Because you come here?"
+
+"Because I refuse to obey him and make matrimonial overtures to a lady I
+dislike."
+
+"Overture to a very bad opera, eh?"
+
+"I could not do it, sir.  It would be base, contemptible, and--There--
+you know."
+
+"Humph!  Then you have beggared yourself because you think you care for
+Veronica?"
+
+"No, sir; I am ordered away till I go and beg pardon and promise to
+marry as my father orders; so there is a breach that will never be
+healed."
+
+"Better go and heal it.  This is all very fresh.  Very will soon forget
+you, and you'll forget her."
+
+"Doctor Salado!"
+
+"Well, I know the world, sir.  Sad thing for a young man like you to
+sacrifice his prospects."
+
+"I don't agree with you, sir.  It is the best thing that could have
+happened, and will make a man of me.  I shall go to Canada or Vancouver,
+I think; and in justice to Miss Salado I have come to say that I bind
+her by no promise,--I only trust in her faith.  Some day I shall return
+to ask her to be my wife.  Till then--"
+
+He could not finish, but stood with his lips compressed.
+
+"Humph!  Well, I think you are quite right, sir.  Come, Very, be a
+woman.  How much capital have you to take with you?"
+
+"None, sir."
+
+"Then you'll want some five hundred or a thousand.  I have the latter
+amount, and no particular use for it.  I'll lend it to you at five per
+cent."
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Denis warmly, "but I must decline.  I'll go and
+fight the battle for myself, and prove to my father that I am not the
+weak boy he thinks."
+
+"Quite right.  Go and fight the battle for yourself."
+
+"Papa!" whispered Veronica, with a look of agony in her eyes.
+
+"Yes, my dear; it's the best thing he can do.  You both feel a bit sore,
+but you will soon forget the trouble.  Good-bye, Denis Rolleston.
+You're more of a man than I thought you.  Write to me now and then, and
+let me hear how you are getting on.  We shall both be very pleased to
+hear of your welfare.  It's a pity your father is so severe; but there--
+all fathers are.  I am.  Good-bye, my lad.  I'd select a good ship, and
+I wouldn't go steerage."
+
+"Why not?" said Denis, through his set teeth.  "Better begin at the
+bottom, sir."
+
+"Well, yes, my lad, perhaps you had.  Now, Very, my dear, say good-bye
+to him like a woman, and wish him well.  Some day in the future you two
+will meet at dinner and laugh at this rosy-posy boy-and-girl love
+business.  And by the way, Rolleston, my lad, keep your eyes open, and
+send me any little natural history specimen you find."
+
+"Good-bye, Veronica," said Denis, who did not seem to hear the Doctor's
+words.
+
+"Good-bye," she said, giving him a wistful look; and her voice was
+almost inaudible, while her eyes looked dull and her cheeks ashy pale.
+
+He took her cold limp hand, held it for a few moments in his, then
+turned and rushed out of the house.
+
+"Papa!  Father!"
+
+Only two words; but their tone was enough for the Doctor, who caught her
+to his heart, then placed her in a chair and turned to the window.
+
+"Hi!  Denis!" he roared; and the young man turned, coming back in
+obedience to the signals the Doctor made, and standing once more in the
+room.
+
+"Look here, sir, you had better have that money: you'll want it over
+yonder."
+
+"Did you call me back for that, sir?" said the young man bitterly--"to
+go through this agony again?  No: I will make the money I want myself."
+
+"Bravo!" cried the Doctor, seizing his hand.  "But you sha'n't go!"
+
+Denis stared.
+
+"Do you think I am going to have my little pet here die of a broken
+heart, for the sake of you, you ugly young scoundrel?  No! you sha'n't
+go.  Here: you stop and comfort Very, and I'll go over to the Manor and
+bring my Lord Pinemount to his knees."
+
+"Doctor Salado!" cried Denis excitedly.  "No, no: it is impossible.  You
+must not go.  You would be insulted."
+
+"Then I'll insult him.  Here, Very, my pretty: I'm not to let this boy
+go, am I?"
+
+For answer the girl flung herself upon Denis' breast, and clung there
+sobbing.
+
+"This--this is too hard, sir!" cried Denis passionately.
+
+"I am only man, after all."
+
+"Well, what do you want to be, boy?  There, I don't like you, and I
+don't like your father; but I'm not going to let that stand in the way.
+I'm going over to the Manor to bring my lord to his knees."
+
+"You don't know what you are saying," cried Denis.  "Veronica, he must
+not go."
+
+"I do know what I'm saying.  Am I not Doctor Salado--a moral magician in
+my way?  Did I not make him give up cutting down the trees?"
+
+"Yes, sir; but you cannot make him retract from driving me off the
+family tree for a time," said Denis, with a sad smile.  "I am only a
+beggar now, and I must go."
+
+"Indeed you will not.  And as for being a beggar, Very here will have
+plenty for you both."
+
+"Which I could not take."
+
+"Then, confound you, sir!" cried the Doctor, with mock fury, "I'll bring
+an action against you for breach of promise of marriage.  There, pet,
+don't cry: you shall have your pretty boy."
+
+"Doctor Salado, you must not go.  You don't know my father."
+
+"Thoroughly, my lad.  There--take heart, both of you.  Denis, my lad,
+you sha'n't be a pensioner on my bounty.  Come, I'll bet you five pounds
+that your father and mother dine here with us to-night, and talk to my
+Very here as if she were their child, as she has to be."
+
+"Doctor Salado, are you mad?"
+
+"Yes, my lad.  I have been all my life, but I'm not at all dangerous.
+God bless you, my lad!  I believe in you, and when I come back you'll
+believe in me."
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+DOCTOR SALADO'S MAGIC.
+
+"Take the good the gods provide you," seemed to be Denis Rolleston's
+motto, for he was very happy with Veronica, while the Doctor made off
+across the park, gave the bell at the open door a tremendous tug, and
+then waited till a serious-looking butler came to the front.
+
+"Tell his lordship I want to see him directly."
+
+"Not at home, sir," said the man stolidly.
+
+"Tell his lordship I want to see him directly," cried the Doctor
+sternly.  "He's in the library: I heard his laugh as I came up to the
+house."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Stand aside, fellow!" cried the Doctor; and he marched in, flung open
+the library door, and shut it sharply, as Lord Pinemount rose from his
+chair pale with rage.
+
+"Morning," said the Doctor.  "Sit down.  I want a chat with you."
+
+He took a seat coolly, and looked critically at the angry man before
+him, who was breathless with passion.
+
+"How dare you!" he said at last--"how dare you force your presence here!
+Go, sir, before I send for the police."
+
+"Don't make a fool of yourself, sir: sit down.  You must know that the
+business is important, or I should not act like this."
+
+"You are a madman, sir!"
+
+"Yes, perhaps: sit down."
+
+There was such a tone of authority in the Doctor's words that his
+lordship dropped back in his chair wondering at his own action.
+
+"That's better.  Now then, Pinemount, let's look the state of affairs in
+the face.  Your boy loves my child."
+
+"I have no son, sir.  I have cut him off."
+
+"Humph!  All talk, sir.  Can't be done.  He loves my girl, and she loves
+him.  He is up at my house now; and after I have talked to you I want
+you to bring her ladyship over to the young people, and make things
+comfortable."
+
+"Yes, you are mad," said his lordship, reassuring himself.  "How dare
+you presume like this!  Leave my house, sir!"
+
+"Don't raise your voice, man, and let all the servants know you are in a
+passion."
+
+"The insolence--the presumption!  Look here, sir: if you are not mad,
+who and what are you, that you dare to come and make such a proposition
+to me?"
+
+"Ah!" said the Doctor, as Lady Pinemount entered, looking anxiously from
+one to the other, while the visitor advanced to meet her, took her hand,
+kissed it with courtly grace, and led her to a chair.
+
+"I repeat, sir, who and what are you, that you presume to come and sow
+dissension in my peaceful village--heartburnings in my home?  Who are
+you?"
+
+"Your cousin Richard, who died abroad."
+
+"What!" roared his lordship.  "Impostor, you lie!"
+
+"No, sir: you are the impostor, or rather usurper.  I grieve to say,
+madam--Mrs Rolleston--that I am Lord Pinemount, and that your husband
+has no right whatever here."
+
+"I--"
+
+"Silence, sir!" said Lord Pinemount, with dignity.  "Accept the
+position, and hear what I have to say."
+
+"Is this true, sir?" faltered the lady.
+
+"You will know if you listen, madam.  Nay, you both must know, by the
+inquiries that were made before your husband succeeded to the title and
+estates.  I saw all the papers with the advertisements; but I was happy,
+was rich, and detested England for an old association, and I preferred
+to remain dead to all who had known me.  When at last I did return to
+England, for my child's sake--a widower--I came down here.  The
+Sandleighs was for sale, and I bought it."
+
+There was something like a groan here, and the lady gazed wildly at her
+husband.
+
+"Of course I thought of claiming the title; but I met you and your son,
+and I said to myself, `Why should I make his family wretched?'  Then, as
+you know, while I was in doubt, Love came and cleared away the
+difficulty and decided me.  If I had claimed the title it would have
+been for Veronica's sake.  Well, Denis loves her; and in due time--a
+long time hence, if your husband will study his health and not cut his
+life short by passion and apoplexy--Denis will be My Lord,--my child My
+Lady.  That is enough for me.  I am contented to be the Doctor and go on
+as the naturalist still."
+
+"But--but--" faltered the lady.  "My husband--Mr Rolleston, if what you
+say is true--"
+
+"He knows it is true.  But not Mr Rolleston,--Lord Pinemount still.
+Madam, I tell you I am very rich, and my wants are very few.  The title
+is nothing to me.  Yes, it is--it is my one secret.  There, Pinemount,
+am I an impostor now?"
+
+"I am stunned," faltered the bearer of the title.
+
+"Bah! that will soon go off.  Lady Pinemount, our esteem, I am sure, is
+mutual, and I believe you like your son's choice."
+
+"Indeed, indeed I do!" cried Lady Pinemount eagerly.
+
+"You would not be a woman if you did not," said the Doctor warmly.
+"There, Pinemount, you may take my word--the more easily that you see I
+want nothing from you but your cousinship.  Still the family lawyers can
+see papers that would convince the greatest sceptic living.  Let bygones
+be forgotten.  Give me your hand."
+
+The said hand was raised doubtingly, but it was seized and warmly
+grasped.
+
+"Now then," said the Doctor, "I promised your son to bring you up to ask
+my child to be your son's wife."
+
+"Is this some dream?" said Lord Pinemount, in a subdued voice.
+
+"No, sir--the broad sunlight of fact.  There, my dear cousin, Lady
+Pinemount, is eager to take my darling in her arms, and you are as eager
+to grasp the hand of as true and brave a young fellow as ever stepped.
+Will you order the carriage, Lady Pinemount?"
+
+"But--but," faltered Lord Pinemount, "do I understand that you will not
+ask me to give up the title--the estate?"
+
+"Only when the great end comes, and your son reigns in your stead--and
+ours, sir.  God bless him! for I love him as if he was my son.  Lady
+Pinemount--cousin, sister--you will come on at once?"
+
+She could not speak, but pressed the hand he gave her and held it to her
+lips.
+
+"But what magic is this?" whispered Denis two hours later, when he had
+felt the warm grasp of his father's hand, and seen him kiss and bless
+Veronica, who was now seated on a couch with Lady Pinemount's arm round
+her waist "Doctor Salado's magic, my dear boy.  Some day I will give you
+the recipe.  There--never mind now.  You will represent the family tree,
+and its finest limb is not sawn off."
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER ONE.
+
+THE GILDED PILL--A HOMELY COMEDY.
+
+DOVE AND DAWS.
+
+"Richard Shingle, Shoemaker.  Repairs neatly executed."
+
+This legend was written in yellow letters, shaded with blue, upon an
+oval red board.  Red, blue, and yellow form a pleasing combination to
+some eyes; but when the yellow is drab, the blue dirty, and the scarlet
+of a brick-dusty tint, the harmony is not pleasing.  Moreover, the
+literary artist could not be complimented upon his skill in writing in
+pigment with a camel-hair brush; for, not content to be staid and
+steadfast in Roman characters, he had indulged in wild flourishes, which
+gave the signboard the appearance of a battle-field, upon which certain
+ordinary letters were staggering about, while three or four tyrannical
+capitals were catching them with lassoes, which twined wildly, round
+their heads and legs.
+
+For instance, the first "d" was in difficulties, the "g" was pulled out
+of place, the "h" and "o" tied tightly together, while just below, the
+"repairs" seemed to be neatly executed indeed, for the "r" had a yellow
+rope round its neck, having been hung by "Richard," beneath which word
+it was suspended, with the rest of the letters kicking frantically
+because that initial was at its last gasp.
+
+But this idea, probably, did not present itself to the inhabitants of
+Crowder's Buildings, a pleasant _cul de sac_ in the neighbourhood of the
+Angel at Islington.  Crowder, once upon a time, bought two houses in a
+front street, between and under which there was an entrance like a
+tunnel, leading to the back gardens and back doors of the said houses;
+and Crowder--now dead and numbered with the just--being a man of frugal
+mind, gazed at the gardens of his freehold messuage and tenements, and
+saw that they were useful as cat walks, to make beds growing oyster and
+other shells, and vegetables of the most melancholy kind.  He let the
+fact dawn upon his understanding that the vegetables grown might be
+bought better for sixpence per annum, and resolved that he would utilise
+the space.
+
+To do this, he built up two rows of staring-eyed, four-roomed tenements,
+sixteen in all, separated by twelve feet of pavement, whitewashed them
+as they stood staring at one another, and turned the two garden deserts
+into a busy, thrifty hive, where some twenty or thirty families
+flourished and grew dirty.
+
+The occupants of the two houses in the street complained, and left; but
+Crowder let the houses at a higher rent without the gardens--let the
+little tenements each at ten shillings a week, and turned out those who
+did not pay; and for the rest of his life collected his own dues, did
+his own painting and whitewashing--even plastered upon occasion; and at
+last, while repairing a chimney-stack and putting on a new pot, at the
+age of seventy-five, like a thrifty soul as he was, he slipped from the
+ladder, rolled off the roof of Number 10, fell into the open paved
+space, with his head in the centre gutter, where the soapsuds ran down,
+and his heels on a scraper--every house had a scraper, to make it
+complete--and was so much injured that Nature gave him notice to quit
+his earthly habitation, evicted him, and, save in name, the buildings
+knew him no more.
+
+For they passed into the hands of Maximilian Shingle, "broker and
+setrer," as his brother said--a most worthy member of society: a
+sticky-fingered man, who, through this last quality, was enabled to lay
+up honey in store.  In fact, he was so well off that, when Crowder's
+Buildings were brought to the hammer by Crowder's heirs, executors,
+administrators and assigns, the hammer that knocked them down knocked
+them into Max Shingle's possession, and they were paid for with Mrs
+Fraser's money--a certain amount in thousands which she bestowed, with
+her two sons Fred and Tom--upon the man who re-won her heart six months
+after Fred Fraser senior's death.
+
+It was a retired spot after passing through the tunnel, and hence it
+became the popular playground of the children of the neighbourhood, who
+chalked the pavement, broke their knees and heads upon its harsher
+corners, and made it the scene of the festive dance when a dark-visaged
+organ-man came down to grind the last new airs of the day.
+
+By a great act of benevolence, Maximilian Shingle, who was a lowly, good
+man, a shining light at his chapel, where he was deacon, had, though
+inundated with applications for Number 4 when it became empty, let it to
+his unlucky brother Richard, who flourished under the sign that heads
+this chapter, made boots and shoes, and neatly executed the repairs in
+the dilapidated Oxonians and strong working-men's bluchers that came to
+his lot.
+
+It was first-floor front-room cleaning-up day at Richard Shingle's; and
+Mrs Shingle--familiarly spoken to as "mother"--was in her glory, having
+what she called "a good rummage."  Had her home possessed a back yard or
+a front garden, every article of furniture would have been turned out;
+but as there was not an inch of back yard, and the front garden was very
+small, being limited to six flowerpots behind a small green fence on the
+upstairs window-sill, Mrs Shingle was debarred from that general
+clearance.
+
+But she did the best she could to get at the floor for a busy scrub
+while her husband and daughter were away; and the consequence was that
+the side-table had its petticoats tucked up round its waist, thereby
+revealing the fact that its legs were not mahogany, but deal; the
+hearthrug was rolled up, and sitting in the big-armed Windsor chair; the
+fender had gone to bed in the back room; and the chairs seemed to be
+playing at being acrobats, and were standing one upon the other; while
+the chimney ornaments--shepherds and shepherdesses for the most part--
+were placed as spectators on the top of the little cupboard to look on.
+
+Mrs Shingle finished her task of cleaning up before descending,
+carrying a pail which had to be emptied and rinsed out before her hands
+were dried.
+
+Mrs Shingle was a pleasant, plump woman, who had run a good deal to
+dimple; in fact, the backs of her hands were full of coy little pits,
+where the water hid when she washed, and her wedding ring lay in a kind
+of furrow, from not having grown with her hands.
+
+She gave a few touches with a duster to the lower room, which was half
+sitting, one-fourth kitchen, and one-fourth workshop, inasmuch as there
+was a low shoemaker's bench, with its tools, under the window, beneath
+which, and secured to the wall by a strap, were lasts, knives, awls,
+pincers, and various other implements of the shoemaker's art.  On a
+stand close by stood a sewing machine, and on the table were patches of
+kid and patent leather, evidently awaiting the needle.
+
+Mrs Shingle had finished her hurried cleaning, and the furniture was
+put back; had been to the glass and arranged her hair, and finished off
+by taking out three pins, which she stuck in her mouth, as if it were a
+cushion, giving herself a shake, which caused her dress, that had been
+round her waist, to fall into its customary folds; and then, sitting
+down she was busy at work binding boot-tops, when the open door was
+darkened, and a fashionably dressed young man, of five-and-twenty,
+tapped on the panel with the end of his stick, entered with a languid
+walk, said, "How do, aunt?" and seated himself on the edge of the table.
+
+The visitor's clothes were very good, but they had a slangy cut, and
+might have been made for some Leviathan of a music-hall, who intended to
+delineate what he termed "a swell."  For the cuffs of the excessively
+short coat nearly hid the young fellow's hands, even as the ends of his
+trousers almost concealed his feet; his shirt front was ornamented with
+large crimson zigzag patterns, and his hat was so arranged on the back
+of his head that it pressed down over his forehead a series of unhappy,
+greasy-looking little curls, which came down to his eyebrows.
+
+Mrs Shingle nodded, and stabbed a boot-top very viciously as the young
+man saluted her.
+
+"Old man out?" he said.
+
+"You know he is," retorted Mrs Shingle, "else you wouldn't have come."
+
+"Don't be hard on a fellow, aunt.  You know I can't help coming.
+Where's Jessie?"
+
+"Out," said Mrs Shingle, sharply.
+
+"She always is out when I come," drawled the young man, tapping his
+teeth with his cane.  "I believe she is upstairs now."
+
+"Then you'd better go up and see," exclaimed Mrs Shingle.  "Look here,
+Fred, I'm sure your father don't approve of your coming here."
+
+"I can't help what the governor likes," was the reply.
+
+"I'm not going to ask him where I'm to go.  Is Jessie out?"
+
+"I told you she was, sir."
+
+"Don't be so jolly cross, aunt.  It's all right, you know.  The old man
+will kick a bit, but he'll soon come round.  Don't you be rusty about
+it.  You ought to be pleased, you know; because she ain't likely to have
+a chance to do half so well.  I shall go and meet her."
+
+As he spoke, the young man--to wit, Frederick Fraser, step-son of
+Maximilian Shingle, Esq, of Oblong Square, Pentonville--slowly descended
+from the table, glanced at himself in the glass, and made for the door.
+
+"She's gone down the Goswell Road, I know," said the young man, turning
+to show his teeth in a grin.
+
+"No, no," exclaimed Mrs Shingle hastily.
+
+"Thank ye, I know," said the young fellow, with a wink, and he passed
+out.
+
+"Bother the boy!" exclaimed Mrs Shingle petulantly.  "Now he'll meet
+her, and she'll be upset, and Dick will be cross, and Tom look hurt.
+Oh, dear, dear, dear, I wish she'd been as ugly as sin!"
+
+There was an interval of angry stitching, as if the needle was at enmity
+with the soft leather, and determined to do it to death, and then Mrs
+Shingle cried, "Here she is!"
+
+"Ah, my precious!" she added, as a trim, neat little figure came
+hurrying in snatched off her hat and hung it behind the door.
+
+She was only in a dark brown stuff dress, but it was the very pattern of
+neatness, as it hung in the most graceful of folds; while over all shone
+as sweet a face as could be seen from east to west, with the bright
+innocence looking out of dark grey eyes.
+
+"Back again, mother," accompanied by a hasty kiss, was the reply to Mrs
+Shingle's salute.
+
+Then, brushing the crisp fair hair back from her white temples, the girl
+popped herself into a chair, opened a packet, drew close to the sewing
+machine, and in response to the pressure of a couple of little feet,
+that would have made anything but cold crystallised iron thrill, the
+wheel revolved, and with a clinking rattle the needle darted up and
+down.
+
+"Have I been long?"
+
+"No, my dear--quick as quick!" said Mrs Shingle, watching her child
+curiously.
+
+"I wanted to get back and finish this, so as to take it in," said the
+girl, making the machine rattle like distant firing.
+
+"Did you meet Mr Fred?"
+
+"Fred?  No, mother," was the reply, as the girl started, coloured, and
+the consequence was a tangle of the threads and a halt.  "Has he been
+here?" she continued, as with busy fingers she tried to set the work
+free once more.
+
+"Yes, just now, and set out to meet you.  I wonder how you could have
+missed him."
+
+There was a busy pause for a few minutes, during which some work was
+hastily finished; and while Mrs Shingle kept watching her child from
+time to time uneasily, the latter rose from the machine, and began to
+double up the jacket upon which she had been at work, and to place it
+with a couple more lying close by on a black cloth.
+
+"I hope you don't encourage him, Jessie," said Mrs Shingle at last.
+
+"Mother!" exclaimed the girl, and her face became like crimson--"how can
+you?"
+
+"Well, there, there, I'll say no more," exclaimed Mrs Shingle--"only it
+worries me.  Now, make haste, there's a dear, or you'll be late.  Don't
+stop about, Jessie; and, whatever you do, don't come back without the
+money.  Your uncle'd sure to come or send to-day, and it's so unpleasant
+not being ready."
+
+"I'll be as quick as I can, mother," said Jessie briskly.
+
+"And you won't stop, dear?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean, mother," said the girl, with a tell-tale
+blush on her cheek.
+
+"How innocent we are, to be sure!" exclaimed Mrs Shingle, tartly.
+Then, smiling, she continued, "There, I'm not cross, but I don't quite
+like it.  Of course, Tom don't know when you go to the warehouse, and
+won't be waiting.  There, I suppose young folks will be young folks."
+
+"I can't help it, mother, if Mr Fraser meets me by accident," said
+Jessie, blushing very rosily, and pouting her lips.
+
+"But he mustn't meet you by accident; and it oughtn't to be.  Uncle Max
+would be furious if he knew of it, and those two boys will be playing at
+Cain and Abel about you, and you mustn't think anything about either of
+them."
+
+"Mother!" exclaimed Jessie.
+
+"I can't help it, my dear; I must speak, and put a stop to it.  Your
+father would be very angry if he knew."
+
+"Oh, don't say so, mother!" pleaded Jessie, with a troubled look.
+
+"But I must say it, my dear, before matters get serious; and I've been
+thinking about it all, and I've come to the conclusion that it must all
+be stopped.  There! what impudence, to be sure!  I believe that's him
+come again."
+
+"May I come in?" said a voice, after a light tap at the door.  And a
+frank, bearded face appeared in the opening.
+
+"Yes, you can come in," said Mrs Shingle sharply.  But, in spite of her
+knitted brows, she could not keep back a smile of welcome as the owner
+of the frank face entered the room, kissed her, and then turned and
+caught Jessie's hands in his, with the result that the parcel she was
+making up slipped off the table to the ground.
+
+"There, how clumsy I am!" he exclaimed, picking up the fallen package,
+and nearly striking his head against Jessie's, as, flushed and agitated,
+she stooped too.  "Well, aunt dear, how are you?"
+
+"Oh, I'm well enough," said Mrs Shingle tartly, as she stretched a
+piece of silk between her fingers and her teeth, and made it twang like
+a guitar string.  "What do you want here?"
+
+"What do I want, aunt?  All right, Jessie--I'll tie the string.  Thought
+I'd come in and carry Jessie's parcel."
+
+"Oh, there!" exclaimed the girl.
+
+"Now, look here, Mr Tom Fraser," said Mrs Shingle, holding up her
+needle as if it were a weapon of offence: "you two have been planning
+this."
+
+"Mother!" cried Jessie.
+
+"Oh no, we did not, aunt," cried the young man; "it was all my doing.
+No, no, Jessie--I'll carry the parcel."
+
+"No, no, Tom; indeed you must not."
+
+"I should think not, indeed!" cried Mrs Shingle, who, as she glanced
+from one to the other, and thought of her own early days, plainly read
+the love that was growing up between the young people; but could not see
+that her first visitor, Fred, had come back, and was standing gazing,
+with a sallow, vicious look upon his face, at what was going on inside,
+before going off with his teeth set and an ugly glare in his eyes.
+
+"Tom Fraser," continued the lady of the house, "I mean Mr Tom--Mr
+Thomas Fraser--you ought to be ashamed of yourself, to behave in this
+way.  You quite the gentleman, and under Government, and coming to poor
+peopled houses, and wanting to carry parcels, and all like a poor
+errand-boy!"
+
+"Stuff and nonsense, aunt!--I'm not a gentleman, and I'm only your
+nephew; and whilst I'm here I'm not going to see Jessie go through the
+street carrying a parcel, when I can do it for her."
+
+"But you must not, indeed, Tom--I mean Mr Fraser," said Jessie,
+half-tearful, half-laughing.  "I'm going to the warehouse, and I must
+carry it myself."
+
+"I know you are going to the warehouse," said Tom, laughing; "but you
+must not carry the parcel yourself."
+
+"But, my dear boy," said Mrs Shingle, who was evidently softening,
+"think of what your father would say."
+
+"I can't help what he would say, aunt," said the young man, earnestly;
+"I only know I can't help coming here, and I don't think you want to be
+cruel and drive me away."
+
+"No--no--no," said Mrs Shingle, "but--"
+
+"Do you, Jessie?"
+
+"No, Tom--Mr Fraser," faltered Jessie.  "But--"
+
+"But--but!" exclaimed the young man impatiently.  "Bother Mr Fraser!
+My dear Jessie, why are you turning so cold here before your mother?
+Are you ashamed of me?"
+
+"No--no, Tom," she cried eagerly.
+
+"And you know how dearly I love you?"
+
+"Yes, Tom," faltered Jessie sadly; "but it must be only as cousins."
+
+"And why?" said the young man sternly.
+
+"Because," said Jessie, laying her hand upon his arm, "I'm only a very
+poor girl, Tom, and half educated."
+
+"What a wicked story, Jessie!" cried Mrs Shingle, who had her apron to
+her eyes, but now spoke up indignantly--"why, you write beautiful!"
+
+"And," continued Jessie, "your father--my father would never consent to
+it; for I'm not a suitable choice for you to make."
+
+"Why, Jessie," cried the young man, "you talk like a persecuted young
+lady in a book.  What nonsense!  Uncle Richard, if he felt sure that I
+should make you a good husband, would consent.  And, as to my
+step-father--"
+
+"Now, look here, you two," said Mrs Shingle, "it's important that
+Jessie should get to the warehouse with those things, and you're
+stopping idling.  It's late as it is."
+
+"Come along, then," cried Tom, seizing the parcel.
+
+"No, no," cried Jessie, who looked pale, and trembled.
+
+"No, indeed; he must not go with you," said Mrs Shingle.
+
+"Don't be cruel, aunt," said Tom appealingly.  "I don't like Jessie to
+go by herself."
+
+"There, then, she's not going by herself; I'm going with her," exclaimed
+Mrs Shingle.
+
+"Then let me go instead."
+
+"No, no," cried Jessie, getting agitated; "you must not."
+
+"You have some reason, Jessie," said Tom, looking at her suspiciously.
+
+"No, no, Tom.  Don't look at me like that," she cried.
+
+"Then tell me why," he said, sternly.
+
+"The man at the warehouse made remarks last time you came," said Jessie,
+hesitating.
+
+"I'll make marks and remarks on him, if he does," cried Tom.  "Aunt," he
+continued angrily, "I can't bear it.  It's not right for Jessie to go
+alone; and I don't believe you were going.  It makes me half mad to
+think that she may be insulted by some puppy or another, and I not be
+there to knock him down."
+
+"But no one will insult her, my boy," said Mrs Shingle, looking at him
+admiringly.
+
+"But people do, and have," cried Tom, grinding his teeth.  "She has told
+me so.  Because she goes with a parcel through the streets, every
+unmanly rascal seems to consider she is fair game for him; and--hang it,
+aunt, I can't help it!--if any scoundrel does it again, I'll half kill
+him!"
+
+"Oh, Tom, Tom!" whispered Jessie, as he strode up and down, with the
+veins in his forehead starting, and then uttered a sob.
+
+"I can't help it," he cried; "it's more than a fellow can bear.  I'm not
+ashamed to own it.  I love Jessie dearly; and if she'll be my little
+wife I don't care what anybody says.  Poor girl, indeed!  Where's the
+lady in our set that can stand before her?"
+
+"Not many, I know," said Mrs Shingle proudly.
+
+"She can't help uncle being poor, and I can't help my step-father being
+rich.  Come, aunt, you'll let me go?"
+
+"I mustn't."
+
+"Then it's because that brother of mine has been here," cried Tom
+angrily.
+
+"No, no, no!" cried Mrs Shingle; "indeed it isn't, my dear boy.  But I
+mustn't allow it--I mustn't indeed.  Your father will never forgive me."
+
+"Jessie dear," cried the young man, taking her hand, "you know I love
+you."
+
+"I know you say you do," she faltered.
+
+"And I think you care for me--a little."
+
+"Oh no, I don't think I do--not a bit," she said, half archly, half with
+the tears in her sweet eyes, as they would look tenderly at him, and
+seemed to say how much she would like him to come and protect her.
+
+"I do not believe you, my darling," he cried impetuously.  "I'm quite
+satisfied about that.  Aunt dear, you'll let me go with her?"
+
+"I don't like it," said Mrs Shingle; "and I'm sure it will lead to
+trouble."
+
+"Not it.  Come, Jessie!"
+
+"No, no, no!" cried Jessie.  "Indeed you ought not to come, Tom."
+
+"Tom!  Well, I must come after that," he cried.
+
+"Oh no: I did not mean it."
+
+"Well, look here," said the young fellow.  "Listen, both of you.  If you
+will not let me walk with you side by side, I'll follow like a shadow."
+
+"Shadows can't carry parcels," said Jessie merrily.
+
+"This one can, and will."
+
+"There, go along, do, both of you," said Mrs Shingle, whose eyes
+twinkled with pleasure as she looked on Tom's eager face.  "You'll be
+dreadfully late."
+
+"All right," cried Tom joyfully; "we'll make haste, and if we are going
+to be late we'll take a cab."
+
+"Because we are ashamed of the parcel," said Jessie demurely.
+
+"Ashamed!" cried Tom.  "Why, if you'll come with me I'll take the parcel
+under one arm and you under the other, and walk all round the quadrangle
+at Somerset House when the clerks are leaving, just to make them all
+envious."
+
+"Go along, do!" cried Mrs Shingle.  And she stood gazing after them as
+there was a playful struggle for the parcel at the door; while, as they
+disappeared, the plump little woman took up her shoe-binding, began
+stitching, and sighed--
+
+"Heigho!  I'm afraid I've done very wrong."
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWO.
+
+HOPPER--SHIP'S HUSBAND.
+
+"Halloa, you sir!" said a snarling voice; "mind where you're running
+to."
+
+"Beg pardon!  Halloa, Mr Hopper, is it you?" exclaimed Tom.
+
+"Eh?  What?  Yes, it is me, you rough, ill-mannered cub.  Tom Fraser, if
+you were my son, hang it, sir, I'd thrash you, sir--trying to knock down
+a respectable wayfarer who is getting old and infirm."
+
+The speaker shook the ugly stick he carried at the young man as he
+spoke, and his great massive head, with its unkempt grizzled hair and
+untended beard and whiskers, looked anything but pleasant; for from
+beneath his shaggy, overhanging brows his eyes seemed to flash again.
+
+"I didn't try to knock you down," shouted Tom, putting his face close to
+that of the old fellow, who looked as if his seventy years had been
+spent in gathering dirt more than in cleaning it off.
+
+"Don't shout.  I'm not so deaf as all that, you ugly ruffian.  Pick up
+those boots."
+
+Tom stooped, and picked up a very old pair of unpolished boots that the
+other had been carrying beneath his arm, and had let fall on the
+pavement in the collision.
+
+"There you are, Mr Hopper, and I beg your pardon, and I'm very sorry,"
+said Tom, smiling pleasantly.  "There you are," he continued, tucking
+the boots under his arm.  "It's all right now."
+
+"What are you halloaing like that for, you ugly young bull-calf?"
+snarled the old fellow, shaking his stick.  "Do you think I want all the
+people in the Buildings to come out and listen?  Don't I tell you I'm
+not so deaf as all that, hang you?  What are you going to do with that
+girl?"
+
+"Only going down into the City," replied Tom.
+
+"Hey?" said the old fellow.
+
+"City!" shouted Tom.
+
+"Oh!  Does your father know you're going with her?" cried the old
+fellow, with a malevolent grin beginning to overspread his countenance.
+
+"No," said Tom, flushing slightly; while Jessie began to look troubled.
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"No!" shouted Tom.
+
+"Does her father know you've come?" said the old fellow, pointing at
+Jessie with his stick.
+
+"No!" said Tom stoutly, and beginning to grow indignant.
+
+"Then," continued the old man, chuckling, and rubbing his hands
+together, and dropping first his stick and then his boots, which Jessie
+hastened to pick up, "I'll go and see Mr Shingle to-night, and tell
+him; and I'll wait here till Richard Shingle comes home, and I'll tell
+him; and there'll be the devilishest devil of a row about it that ever
+was.  You've no business here, and you know it, you scoundrel.  She
+isn't good enough for you.  You're to marry the fair Violante--the
+violent girl.  There'll be a storm for you to-night, young fellow; so
+look out."
+
+"I'll trouble you to mind your own business, Mr Hopper," exclaimed Tom
+hotly.
+
+"Hey?" said the old fellow, holding a boot up to his right ear, like a
+speaking trumpet.
+
+"I say, if you get interfering with my affairs, Mr Hopper," cried Tom
+angrily, and paying no heed to a whispered remonstrance from Jessie,
+"I'll--"
+
+"I can't hear a word you say: try the right side."
+
+As he spoke, he held the other boot to his left ear, and leaned forward
+in an irritating manner, grinning the while at the speaker.
+
+"I say that if you dare to--"
+
+"Tchsh!  I can't hear a word if you mumble like that.  Oh, be off with
+you: I've got no time to waste.  I'm seventy, and if I'm lucky I've got
+ten years to live.  You're five-and-twenty, and got fifty-five, so you
+are wasteful of your time, and spend it in running after girls who don't
+want you--like your beautiful brother Fred.  Bless him! if I had any
+money to leave I'd put him down in my will for it--an artful, designing
+scoundrel!"
+
+"Look here, Mr Hopper," cried Tom hotly, "you can abuse me as much as
+you like, and tell tales as much as you like, and play the sneak; but
+because you've known me from a child I won't stand here and hear my
+brother maligned."
+
+"There, it's no use, I can't hear a word you say," grumbled the old
+fellow; "but it don't matter,--I can see by your manner that you are
+abusing a poor helpless old man, the friend of your mother and that
+girl's father, and you are keeping her back, so that she'll be late with
+her parcel, and make her lose the work, and then you'll be happy."
+
+"Confound--" began Tom.  "Here, come along, Jessie," he cried, snatching
+her arm through his; and the old man stood chuckling to himself as he
+watched them out through the tunnel, before he made for the door with
+the red sign, and giving a sharp rap with his stick entered at once,
+nodding quietly at Mrs Shingle.
+
+"Here, I've brought Dick a job," he said, carrying the old pair of boots
+to the bench.  "He's to do them directly, and they're to be sixpence--I
+won't pay another penny.  Are you listening?"
+
+Mrs Shingle nodded, and went on with her work.
+
+"He's to put a good big corn on the last of the left-hand foot, and then
+cut away the leather, well beat a patch and put it on.  My left foot
+hurts me horrid."
+
+"You ought to have a new pair," said Mrs Shingle.
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"You ought to have a new pair," she continued, a trifle more loudly.
+
+"Have a new pair?"
+
+Mrs Shingle nodded.
+
+"Bah!  How can I afford a new pair?  Times are hard.  Ships' husbands
+don't make money like they used.  New pair, indeed!  They're good enough
+for me.  Tell him to mend 'em well, and they are to be sixpence, d'yer
+hear?"  Mrs Shingle nodded, with her silk in her mouth, gave it a
+twang, and went on.
+
+"You'll break your teeth one of these days," said the old fellow, taking
+off his hat, placing it on his stick, and standing it in a corner.
+Then, going in a slow, bent way to the well waxed and polished Windsor
+chair, he gave the chintz cushion a punch, took a long clay pipe off the
+chimney-piece, made it chirrup, reached an old leaden tobacco-box from
+the same place, set it up on the table, and sat down.
+
+"My teeth are used to it," said Mrs Shingle, smiling pleasantly, as if
+she were quite accustomed to the old fellow's proceedings.
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"I say my teeth are used to it," repeated Mrs Shingle.
+
+"Oh!--Don't shout.--I say, this tobacco's as dry as a chip," he
+continued, filling his pipe.
+
+Mrs Shingle sighed.
+
+"Dick's been going it awfully," grumbled the old fellow; "there was
+nearly half an ounce here last night."
+
+Mrs Shingle rose, took the matches from the chimney-piece, struck a
+light, and held it to the bowl of the pipe; the visitor puffed the
+tobacco into a state of incandescence, and then subsided into his chair
+with a satisfied grunt, and sat staring straight before him, while Mrs
+Shingle sighed and went on with her stitching.
+
+"I met those two," said the old fellow, after a pause.
+
+Mrs Shingle looked up sharply.
+
+"Won't do," said her visitor.
+
+"What won't do?"
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"I say, what won't do?" said Mrs Shingle, colouring, and looking at him
+anxiously.
+
+"I can hear you--don't shout," said the old fellow.  "I say that won't
+do.  Has Tom been here much?"
+
+"No, not much," said Mrs Shingle.
+
+"I don't quite understand Tom," said the old fellow.  "But I think he's
+a scamp."
+
+"Indeed, I'm sure he's not!" cried Mrs Shingle excitedly.  "Sure he's
+not?" chuckled the old fellow.  "Of course.  Just like you women.  You
+take a fancy to a man, and the blacker he is the more you say he's
+white."
+
+"I'm sure Tom is a very good, gentlemanly young fellow."
+
+"Of course.  But it won't do, Polly--it won't do."
+
+"I don't see why it shouldn't do," said Mrs Shingle, tossing her head.
+"They're both young and nice-looking."
+
+"Bah! will that fill their insides?"
+
+"And they're getting very fond of each other."
+
+"More shame for you to let 'em," said the old man composedly.  And his
+eyes twinkled with malicious glee as he saw the little woman begin to
+grow ruffled, like a mother hen, and the colour come into her wattles
+and comb.
+
+"And pray why?" said Mrs Shingle loudly.
+
+"Don't shout," said the old fellow.  "Why, indeed!  What will Max say
+when he knows of it?"
+
+"Ah!" sighed Mrs Shingle, "what indeed!"
+
+"He'll boil over in his confounded sanctified way, and kick Tom out of
+the house without a shilling of his mother's money."
+
+"Oh, dear, dear, dear," said Mrs Shingle, letting her work fall into
+her lap and wringing her hands; "that's what I've been thinking, and
+I've tried all I could to stop it; but the more I try, the fonder they
+get of one another."
+
+"Of course they do.  That's their way--the young fools!" snarled the
+visitor; "and if you let 'em alone, Jessie will marry the young noodle,
+fill his house full of children, and make him a poor man all his life."
+
+"That wouldn't matter much if they were happy," sighed Mrs Shingle.
+
+"Same as you've kept poor old Dicky?"
+
+"Indeed! and we never had but one little one," said Mrs Shingle
+indignantly.
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"I say we never had but one little one--Jessie," said Mrs Shingle
+indignantly.
+
+"Gross piece of extravagance, too.  You couldn't afford children."
+
+"No, indeed," sighed Mrs Shingle.
+
+"And now you're encouraging that pretty young baggage, who coaxes and
+carneys round you, to get herself in the same mess, and then you'll be
+happy."
+
+"Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear me!  I wish I knew what to do," sighed Mrs
+Shingle.
+
+"What to do!" chorused the old fellow.  "No business to have married.  I
+didn't, and I've saved just enough to live on with strict economy; and
+see how happy I am."
+
+"You don't seem to be," said Mrs Shingle tartly; "for you're always
+finding fault."
+
+"Finding fault?"
+
+Mrs Shingle nodded.
+
+"Makes me happy.  Then I come and smoke a pipe here one day, and one at
+Max's another day; and you're both so glad to see me that that makes me
+happy too.  Ha! you've spoiled that girl of yours, or she wouldn't go on
+like she does."
+
+"I'm sure Jessie couldn't |be a better behaved girl!" exclaimed Mrs
+Shingle.
+
+"Stuff!  You never whipped her well, and Max never trained those boys.
+Good thing flogging!  Makes the skin soft and elastic.  Gives room to
+grow.  Where's Dick?"
+
+"Gone to his brother's."
+
+"Gone to his brother's?"
+
+Mrs Shingle nodded.
+
+"What's he gone there for?"
+
+"Take home a pair of new boots."
+
+"What! did Max give Dick an order for a new pair?"  Mrs Shingle nodded.
+
+"Wonderful!  Max is getting more virtuous than ever.  I'll praise him
+next time I go."
+
+"No, don't--please," said Mrs Shingle earnestly.  "Every little does
+help so just now; and we can't afford to offend Max."
+
+"So you make traps, and put Jessie in for a bait, and try to catch his
+wife's two boys, eh?"
+
+"Indeed I did not," cried Mrs Shingle; "it was all Tom's own doing."
+
+"Ah, I dare say it was; but young Fred's always hanging about here too;
+and as soon as-ever Max hears of it, there will be no end of a row.  I
+shall put him on his guard."
+
+"Pray say nothing!" cried Mrs Shingle imploringly.  "Why not?  Best for
+both the young noodles to be brought to their senses."
+
+"No, no; it would make them so unhappy.  Let matters take their course.
+It will be quite time enough for the trouble to come when Maximilian
+finds it out for himself.  Hush! here's Dick."
+
+"Hulloa!  What's that?  The old game.  Woman all over.  Keeping secrets
+from your husband.  Glad I never married!"
+
+Mrs Shingle darted an indignant look at him, and no doubt a sharp
+retort was on her lips; but it was checked by a voice outside, and
+Richard Shingle, the occupier of the house, the mechanic who made boots
+and shoes and neatly executed repairs, entered the room, followed by his
+boy, with "Hallo, Hoppy, old man, how are you?  Glad to see you.  Too
+soon for the B flat yet; but you stop all day, and we'll polish that bit
+off to rights."
+
+"How are you, Dick--how are you?" said the old man quietly.  And then
+refilling his pipe, he lit up, half turned his back, and seemed to
+ignore that which followed, and to be totally ignored, on account of his
+deafness.
+
+Richard Shingle was not an ill-looking man of forty; but he had a rather
+weak, vacillating expression of countenance, over which predominated a
+curious, puzzled look, which was due to something you could not make
+out.  One moment you felt sure it was his eyes, but the next you said
+decidedly it was his mouth, while just as likely you set it down to his
+fair hair or his rather hollow cheeks, or the turn of his chin.  The
+fact was, it was due to all his features, his figure, and his every
+attitude; for Richard Shingle, as he stood before you, seemed as if he
+had just taken you by the button-hole and said in full sincerity, as
+applied to the general scheme of life and man's position on earth: "I
+say, what does it all mean?"
+
+For he was one of those men who had never "got on."  He said he wanted
+to get on, and he worked very hard; but the world was too much for him,
+and he was always left behind.  If he had lived at the equator, where it
+is hot, and man naturally feels inert, while the world races round at
+the rate of a thousand miles an hour, it is only natural to suppose that
+he might have been left behind; but it would have been just the same if
+Richard Shingle's existence had been upon the very Pole itself, north or
+south, where he would only have been called upon to turn once round in
+twenty-four hours.  As he lived in that part of the temperate zone known
+as Islington, where the medium rate of progress is in force, it remained
+then, that not only could poor Dick never get ahead, but was always, in
+spite of his misplaced efforts, getting a little more and a little more
+behind.
+
+And yet he looked a sharp, animated man, full of action, as on this
+occasion, when he turned to his wife with "Well, mother, here we are
+again, boots and all!"
+
+"But you've not brought them back again, Dick?" said Mrs Shingle,
+looking anxiously up from her work.
+
+"What do you call that, then?" said Dick, taking a blue bag from the
+doleful-looking, thin, white-faced boy with very short hair, and turning
+the receptacle upside down, so that the contents fell out on the floor
+with a bang.
+
+"Oh, Dick!"
+
+"He said they were the wussest-made pair of boots he ever see.  After
+all the pains as I took with 'em," said the speaker, gloomily picking up
+the freshly polished leather, and examining it.
+
+"Oh, Dick--how tiresome!"
+
+"And swore he couldn't get his feet into 'em,--leastwise," he added
+correctively, "he didn't swear--Max is too good to swear--he said as he
+couldn't get his feet in 'em."
+
+"Tut--tut--tut!" ejaculated Mrs Shingle, stitching away at her work.
+
+"He blowed me up fine; said I wasn't fit to shoe a horse, let alone a
+Christian man.  When--look at 'em.  Did you ever see a prettier pair--
+eh, Hoppy?" he shouted.
+
+The old man glanced at the boots and grunted, turning away again
+directly.
+
+"Look at 'em, mother--rights and lefts, and the soles polished off
+smooth; and see how prettily they put out their tongues at you, all
+lined with a bit o' scarlet basil.  Called me a cobbler, too, he did;
+and after laying myself out on the artistic tack, so as to get his
+future patronage, and that of Mrs S.'s two boys."
+
+"Oh, Dick, Dick!"
+
+"Yes, it is `Oh, Dick, Dick!'  Bad, too, as we want the money.  Wouldn't
+fit you, I suppose, Hoppy?"
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"I say they wouldn't fit you, would they?  You should have 'em cheap."
+
+"Bah, no!  I couldn't wear boots like these.  Couldn't afford it--
+couldn't afford it.  There's a pair for you to mend."
+
+"All right, old man--all right; I'll do 'em.  Of course they wouldn't do
+for you," he continued; "bad, too, as we want the money.  Said it was
+what always came of employing relatives; but he did it out of charitable
+feeling--so as to give me a lift.  Called me a bungler, too, when, look
+here, mother, how nicely I made a little mountain on that side to hold
+his bunion, and a little Greenwich-hill on that side to accommodate his
+favourite corn.  That's working for relations, that is.  Dressed up a
+bit, too, this morning to take 'em home, so as not to disgrace him by
+looking too shabby, and made Union Jack walk behind to carry the blue
+bag, same as if I was a sooperior kind of tradesman, and his servants
+shouldn't look down on me.  Said I was Mr Richard Shingle, too, when
+the maid opened the door.  But it was all no go.  Another of my
+failures, old gal.  Tell you what it is, mother, it'll be what the
+drapers call a terrific crash if it goes on like this."
+
+"But, Dick dear, you don't mean that he won't have the boots at all?"
+
+"That's just what I do mean.  He's shied 'em on my hands.  'Taint as if
+he'd shied 'em on my feet."
+
+"Oh, dear, dear, dear!" ejaculated Mrs Shingle.  "Dear!" said Dick,
+trying to raise a feeble laugh.  "That's just what they are.  I can't
+afford to wear a pair of handsome boots like them.  Only look at 'em.
+Leather cost me nine shillings before I put in a stitch."
+
+"I declare, it's too bad, Dick," whimpered Mrs Shingle; "and us so
+badly off too.  Brother, indeed!  He's worse than--"
+
+"There, that'll do," said Dick, taking off his coat, "Don't you get
+letting on about him, mother, because he is my brother, you know.  Blood
+_is_ thicker than water."
+
+"I don't see what that's got to do with it, Dick, if it's ten times as
+thick," said Mrs Shingle, stabbing away at her boot-binding as if the
+kid leather were Maximilian Shingle's skin.
+
+"No, you don't," said Dick, rolling up his sleeves, and tying on his
+leather apron, before going to the chimney glass, and putting a piece of
+ribbon round his rather long hair, apparently to embellish his
+countenance, but really to keep the locks out of his eyes when he bent
+down over his work.  "No, mother; that's because you're put out, and
+cross, and won't see it; but blood is thicker than water, ain't it,
+Hoppy?"
+
+"Hey?" said the old fellow, taking his pipe out of his mouth.
+
+"I say blood is thicker than water, ain't it?"
+
+"Ever so much," growled the old fellow, going on with his smoking; while
+Dick, glancing over his shoulder, and seeing that his wife's attention
+was taken up with the binding, slipped a half-ounce packet of tobacco
+into his old friend's hand, with a nod and a wink, to indicate that the
+strictest secrecy must be observed.
+
+"Yes," continued Dick, retiring towards his bench; "that's what I always
+say--brothers is brothers, and blood's thicker than water.  And as to
+Max--well, it's a way he's got, and he can't help it."
+
+"Stuff!" ejaculated Mrs Shingle sharply.
+
+"No, no, mother, it ain't stuff neither; so don't talk like that.  Here,
+you sir," he cried to the boy, who was standing staring from one to the
+other, "get to work, you luxurious young rascal.  That ain't the way to
+improve your shining hours.  Wax up and get ready a pair of fine points
+to mend them old shoes."
+
+"All right, master," said the boy.  And, slipping off his threadbare
+jacket, he sat down on a stool, and began to unwind a ball of hemp.
+
+"I don't believe in such brothers," said Mrs Shingle bitterly.
+"Brothers, indeed!"
+
+"No, that's it, mother; it's because you are a bit put out.  But you'll
+see it in the right light soon."
+
+"Ah!" he continued, rearranging the band round his forehead; and then,
+catching sight of a letter tucked behind the glass, "Now, if old Uncle
+Rounce's money--or present, as he calls it--would drop in now, it would
+be welcome."
+
+As he spoke he opened the often-perused letter, which was written on
+thin paper and bore Australian postmarks, and began to read aloud:
+
+"`Thinking that a little money might be useful, I have sent you a
+present'--and so on.  Now, I wonder when that money's coming."
+
+"Never," said Mrs Shingle tartly.
+
+"Now, there's where you are so wrong, mother," said Dick.  "It's very
+kind of the old fellow, who must have got on famously to be able to send
+us a few pounds--it's sure to be pounds when it does come."
+
+"And it won't never come," said Mrs Shingle; "for you've had that
+letter nine months."
+
+"Well, if it don't, mother, it don't--that's all; but what I say is,
+blood is thicker than water, or else old Uncle Eb--as I never see, only
+heard o--wouldn't have said he'd send me a present--would he, Hoppy?"
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"I say Uncle Rounce wouldn't have said he'd send me a present if blood
+warn't thicker than water."
+
+"No.  Have you got it yet?" said the old fellow.
+
+"No, not yet.  I asked Max about it, and he said he didn't believe it
+would come."
+
+"He said that, did he?"
+
+"Yes, he said that," replied Dick, doubling the letter again, and
+replacing it behind the old looking-glass.  "I dessay it'll come,
+though, some day."
+
+"You had better try and sell those boots at once," said Mrs Shingle
+rather impatiently, and as if she had not much faith in the coming
+money.
+
+"Sell 'em?  Yes; but who's to buy 'em?  There's only two feet in London
+as will fit 'em, and they're Max's."
+
+"I declare it's too bad, Dick dear, and we so pressed for money.  The
+rent's due, you know.  Rolling in riches, as he is, and to behave so to
+his poor brother, who works so hard."
+
+"Gently, mother, gently: it's only a way he's got.  But I do work pretty
+hard, don't I?--only I'm so unlucky."
+
+"Why don't you make a good dash at something, instead of plodding,
+then?" said Hopper suddenly.
+
+"Come, now," cried Dick, with an ill-used look and tone, "don't you turn
+round on me, Hoppy, old man.  We're too good friends for that.  It's
+what Max always says; and I ain't clever, so how can I?"
+
+Hopper relapsed into silence.
+
+"There, there, I shall get over it," continued Dick, working away; "and
+as to rolling in riches, why, Max can't help rolling in riches, any more
+than I can help rolling in nothing.  It's his way.  But I say, mother,
+if we had riches, I think I could roll in 'em with the best."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, Dick," said Mrs Shingle, "when we're so worried
+too.  There," she added, in a whisper, as their visitor rose, "we're
+driving him away."
+
+"Going, Hoppy, old man?" said Dick, as their visitor rose and laid aside
+his pipe.
+
+"Yes, going now," said the old fellow.  "I'll drop in, perhaps, in the
+evening."
+
+"We haven't put you out, have we?" said Dick.
+
+"No, no, my lad; it's all right.  Dick, just lend me sixpence.  My money
+is not due till Monday."
+
+Dick's countenance fell, and he glanced at his wife.
+
+"Have you got a sixpence, Polly?" he said.
+
+"Not one," was the reply.
+
+"I'm very sorry, Hoppy, old man," said Dick, looking more puzzled than
+ever, and as if this time he really could not understand why he should
+be so poor and his brother so rich--"but really I haven't got it."
+
+"Never mind," said the old fellow--"never mind; I dare say I can do
+without."
+
+And, grumbling and muttering, he took up his hat and stick, and went
+off.
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER THREE.
+
+A POOR JUDGE ON THE BENCH.
+
+"Now he's put out," said Dick, looking puzzled at his wife.  "I did not
+mean to upset him; but a man can't lend another man what he hasn't got,
+can he, mother?"  There was no answer--only the clicking of Mrs
+Shingle's needle against her thimble.
+
+"I say a man can't lend what he hasn't got, can he, mother?" said Dick
+again, as he bent over some strange performance that he was achieving
+with an awl and some wax-end.
+
+"I wasn't thinking of that, Dick," said his wife, with a sigh, "but of
+the money for the boots."
+
+"There, you needn't fidget about that," said Dick, throwing out his arms
+so as to draw the hemp tight; "for we shouldn't have had the money if he
+had kept the boots."
+
+"Not had the money?"
+
+"No--he meant to keep it for the rent.  He said so."
+
+"There!" exclaimed Mrs Shingle.  "Well, that comes of having your
+brother for your landlord.  He's as hard again as any one else."
+
+"Well, Max always was a hard one, certainly, my dear.  Ever since we
+were boys together, `Merry, merry boys--since we were boys together,'"
+he sang.  Then, descending once more to everyday-life conversation, he
+went on, "He was a hard one, Max was; and as to money, he'd always have
+a penny or twopence when I had none, even if he borrowed it of me."
+
+"And never paid it again," said his wife contemptuously.  "Well, it was
+a way he had," said Dick.
+
+"I haven't patience with him."
+
+"No, my dear, you never did have patience with Max.  Clever chap too.
+Marries his widow with lots of tin and a pair of boots--boys I mean--
+ready made.  Why didn't I?"
+
+"Ah! why indeed?" said Mrs Shingle sharply.
+
+"Because I was a fool," said Dick, smiling pleasantly.  "Fools are best
+off too, mother.  I say, fancy me with a wife like Max's!"
+
+The idea seemed to please Dick so that he laughed and wiped one eye.
+
+"There are worse women than Mrs Max," said Mrs Shingle.
+
+"Yes, and there's better ones than you, I suppose, mother.  But I'm
+contented, and never wanted a divorce yet."
+
+"Dick, how can you talk so before that boy?"
+
+"All right! but I say, mother--Here, go on with your work, you young
+rascal.  Keeping your ears staring wide open like that!"
+
+"Please, master, I couldn't help hearing," said the boy dolefully.  "I'm
+a-learning my trade, and trying to obey my pastors and masters as hard
+as ever I can."
+
+"Now, lookye here," said Dick, taking up his hammer and gazing
+threateningly at the boy, "I never have given it to you yet, John
+Johnson, or, as I familiarly call you, from where you came and the
+stripes you had on you when you came, Union Jack--"
+
+"No, master," whined the boy, "you've been very kind indeed to me."
+
+"I have, you hungry young alligator," said Dick.  "So look here, I won't
+have it; I'm as bad as Mr Hopper that way,--I hate people to preach and
+sling catechism at me so don't you do it again."
+
+"No, master; please, I'll try very hard indeed, and obey you, as it is
+my dooty to."
+
+"Will you leave off?" roared Dick, striking his bench with the hammer,
+so that the tools and nails jumped almost as much as the boy.  "You're
+at it again, talking in that canting, whining, tread-underfoot,
+workhouse style; and I won't have it.  What did I tell you you was?"
+
+"A free-born Briton, please, master."
+
+"Then why don't you act as such, and say `Yes, sir,' and `No, sir,'
+outright and down straight?--not whine and grovel like a worm without
+any sting in his tail."
+
+"Please, master, I'll try and order myself lowly and reverently to all
+my betters."
+
+"Now, just hark at him!" cried Dick to his wife.
+
+"Please, master, I'm very--"
+
+"Ah!" shouted Dick.
+
+"All right, master," said the boy; and he bent to his work.
+
+"I say, mother;" said Dick, "Max is a bit put out with us."
+
+"So it seems," said Mrs Shingle, biting her silk and stitching away.
+"I think he'd be glad if we starved to death."
+
+"Well, I don't know about that, my girl, because it wouldn't be nice to
+look at, and he never liked unpleasant things; but he's a bit put out
+about our Jess."
+
+"What?" said Mrs Shingle, turning very red.
+
+"About our Jess," said Dick, hammering away very viciously at an
+inoffensive-looking bit of leather.  "He's got to know about those boys
+being so fond of coming here."
+
+"Our Jessie's as good as his boys," said Mrs Shingle sharply, and ready
+to stand her ground, now that the truth was out.
+
+"So she is, my gal--so she is, every bit; but she's only copper, and
+they're silver-gilt in his eyes, if they ain't gold.--Here, you sir,
+you're listening again, instead of working," he shouted to the boy, who
+began to gum his hands liberally with wax and roll the threads on his
+lath-like knees.--"But Max has been on to me about it, and he says he
+won't have it; and I always told them so, 'specially Tom.  `Tom,' I
+says, `your governor won't like your coming here,' I says; `and he'll
+think all sorts of things about it.'"
+
+"Just as if money need make any difference!" exclaimed Mrs Shingle.
+
+"It needn't, my gal," said Dick, grunting over his work; "but it do--it
+makes all the difference; you see if it don't.  For if you don't go off
+with that bit of shoe-binding of yours, and bring back the money, we
+sha'n't get any dinner, and that's very different to having it.  But
+where's Jessie?"
+
+"Gone to the warehouse."
+
+"What, all-alone!  Now, look here, mother--I won't have it.  She's too
+young and pretty to go there all alone, and I won't have her left to be
+followed and annoyed by counter-jumpers, and that fellow as gives out
+the work.  You know she came home crying on Friday.  Why didn't you go
+with her?"
+
+"I had this to finish, Dick."
+
+"You've always got _this_ to finish," said Dick testily.  "Then you
+should have kept her till I came back."
+
+"But it would have been too late, Dick.  Where are you going?" she
+cried, as he rose and began to untie his apron.  "To meet her," he
+exclaimed angrily.
+
+"But she hasn't gone alone, Dick," said the wife softly.
+
+"If you've let her go there with that Fred Fraser, Polly, I'll never
+forgive you," cried Dick.
+
+"She's gone with Tom, dear."
+
+"Tom, dear, indeed!  It isn't `Tom, dear,' and it isn't going to be
+`Tom, dear,'" exclaimed Dick, re-tying his apron viciously.
+
+"But he came, dear, just as she was starting, and he begged so hard that
+I was obliged to let him take her."
+
+"There you go!" cried Dick, hammering again at the piece of unoffending
+leather.  "You'll ruin me before you've done.  Here's Max says only this
+morning, says he, `I won't have that gal of yours hanging about after my
+wife's sons.'  He said `_gal_' and `my wife's sons.'  And I, feeling a
+bit up, says back, `Lookye here, Max, I can't help your _boys_ coming to
+my house.  I'm not going to send my _daughter_ away.'  I think that was
+pretty sharp on him, you know; when, `Damn your impudence,' he says.--
+Look here, Jack," continued Dick, pointing at the boy with his hammer,
+"I promised the workhouse authorities as I'd bring you up moral, so
+don't you go telling anybody as your master swears, because that was
+some one else."
+
+"All right, master," said the boy smartly.
+
+"That's better," cried Dick; "don't whine.  Well, mother, then he gets
+in a towering rage, and showed me what was the matter with the boots.
+They'd got Jessie in 'em; that's where they wouldn't fit.  `How dare you
+speak to me in that familiar way, sir!' he says, sticking himself out
+and looking big, like a poor-law guardian.  `When I employ you, sir, as
+an humble tradesman, I desire you pay me proper respect.'  And now,
+mother, you've been and made worse of it.  Hang me, if I don't turn
+burglar, or something to make money, if things don't mend!  I'm sick of
+being poor."
+
+"No, don't, please, master," said the boy, with a whine.  "Honesty's the
+best policy.  And he who steals comes to a bad end."
+
+"Now, just look here, young fellow," cried Dick, with a serio-comic look
+on his face, as he raised his hammer once more, "burglary's bad enough,
+but killing's worse.  There was a man once who had a boy from a workus,
+just as I've had you, to teach you a trade--"
+
+"Yes, master," said the boy, with eyes and mouth wide open.
+
+"Well, he killed him with ill-usage, that's all.  I shouldn't like to
+kill you, you know, so don't you get chucking any more of your copy-book
+texts at me again."
+
+"All right, master," said the boy, wiping his eyes.
+
+"Now, look here, mother: once for all, I won't have it.  I'm as poor as
+I can be to get along; and though we've swallowed my watch, and the
+sugar-tongs and spoons, I haven't swallowed my little bit of pride; and
+the next time that Tom or that Fred comes here, see if I don't call him
+a son of a purse-proud, stuck-up father, and slam the door in his
+face.--Now, you be off."
+
+"Yes, Dick," said his wife meekly; and she rose and gathered together
+her work.  "But, Dick, you're not very cross with me?"
+
+"Well, perhaps not," he said; and his eyes endorsed his words.
+
+"But, look here, Dick: if Tom comes back with Jessie, you won't say
+anything unkind to him--for her sake?"
+
+"Won't I?" cried Dick sharply.  "I'll shy the lapstone at him!  If he's
+too good for my Jessie, she's too good for him."
+
+"But don't hurt their feelings, Dick," she whispered, so that the boy
+should not hear.
+
+"I don't want to hurt her feelings," said Dick, yielding to his wife's
+influence.  "But there, you're trying to come the soft on me again, as
+you always do, and I won't have it.  Now be off."
+
+"Yes, Dick--I'm going," she said quickly, as she put on her bonnet and
+shawl.  "But I know you won't be unkind."
+
+"Won't I?" said Dick, as the door closed.  "I'll show some of them yet!
+I can be a regular savage when I like--can't I, Jack?"
+
+"Please, what did you say, master?" whined the boy.
+
+"I can be a regular savage when I like--can't I?" shouted Dick.
+
+"Yes, master.--Please, master, I'm so hungry."
+
+"So what?"
+
+"So hungry, please, master."
+
+"Hungry?  Why, the boy's mad!" cried Dick, looking up in mock
+astonishment.  "How dare you, sir?  Hungry, indeed!  There, take that
+wax-out of your mouth.  You're always trying to ruin me by eating the
+wax or chewing leather."
+
+"I can't help it, master," said the boy.  "Please, I'm so hungry."
+
+"Hungry!" exclaimed Dick, with mock heroic diction.  "Brought up, too,
+as you were, at one of the first workhouses in the kingdom!"
+
+"Please, master, I can't help it," said the boy.  "I feel so hollow
+inside."
+
+"Hollow?  Nonsense, sir!  It's bad tendencies, or desire for gluttony
+and wine-bibbing.  And after I've been such a good master to you!"
+
+"Yes, master; and I'll never, never, never--"
+
+"`Never, never, never shall be slaves,'" sang Dick, in his musical tenor
+voice.  "But don't you say that, Jack, my boy; because if you keep on
+running out of your trousers as you do, and looking like something
+growing out of two beans, which is your boots, and then joining in the
+middle and running up to a head, I sha'n't want you, specially if you're
+going to be hollow, and want filling out."
+
+"But I don't want filling out, master, only just a little sometimes.  I
+can't help feeling hollow, and as if something was gnawing me."
+
+"Gnawing?  Yes, that's it," cried Dick.  "I always told you so.  That's
+it.  You will devour your food in such a way that it don't digest; and
+that's what you feel, sir--gnawing pains.  There, fix up them bristles.
+You ain't hungry."
+
+"It feels very much like as I used to feel at the House, master," said
+the boy.  "We all of us used to feel hollow there sometimes on rice
+days.  I can't help it, please."
+
+"Now, look ye here, my fine fellow, it won't do, so I tell you.  I'm
+your master, ain't I?"
+
+"Yes, please," said the boy, making a scoop with his hand.  "Leave off!
+I won't have it!" cried Dick.  "You ain't to bow to me.  I say as your
+master I ought to know best, and I say you ain't hungry; and, look here,
+don't you chew wax and leather any more, because they're my property,
+and you'll be tempted to swallow them, when it will not only be petty
+larceny, but they'll disagree with you.  Now, go on sorting out the best
+o' them bits o' leather."
+
+"Yes, master," said the boy.
+
+Dick rose from his bench, and went to the cupboard to see if there was a
+crust of bread and some butter to give to the boy; but it was quite
+empty, and he began to walk up and down, talking to himself.
+
+"It's very hard," he muttered dolefully; "but the more I try to get on
+the more I don't, and if things don't mend God knows what's to become of
+us.  Poor Polly! she frets a deal, only she hides it; and as for
+Jessie--There, there, there, I can't bear to think of it!" he groaned.
+"I must have been a fool, and so can't get on."
+
+He scuffled back to his seat, for a familiar step was heard in the
+court; and, taking up his work, he began to sing merrily, after adjuring
+the boy to go on ahead.
+
+"Hollo, mother!" he cried, as his wife entered the room: "brought the
+money?"
+
+"No, Dick," said Mrs Shingle sadly; "they don't pay till next week."
+
+"Don't pay for a week!" said Dick, letting his hands drop, but
+recovering himself directly.  "All right!" he cried,--"so much in
+store.--`Cheer up, Sam, and don't let your spirits go down,'" he sang.
+"I say, mother, ain't it time that Jessie was back?"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs Shingle sadly; "she'll be back soon.  It's very hard,
+though, and it seems as if it never rained but it poured."
+
+"Never does," said Dick cheerily; "`So put up your gingham and drive
+away care,'" he sang.  "Hang it, mother, I hope it won't really rain
+before she comes back.  Did she take the big umbrella?"
+
+"No, father."
+
+"Ah! bad job; but never mind--perhaps it won't rain.  Go along, Jack, my
+lad: you don't feel hollow inside now, do you?"
+
+"Yes, please, master--ever so much hollower," said the boy pitifully.
+
+"I never see such a boy," cried Dick.  "Here, open the door, mother,--
+it's Jessie.  Hollo!" he cried, jumping up; "what's the matter?"
+
+"Oh, father, father!" sobbed the girl, running to his arms.
+
+"Why, my precious!" he exclaimed, patting her cheek, "what is it?  Has
+any one dared?  Oh, that's it, is it?" he muttered; for his brother,
+closely followed by his younger step-son, entered the room.
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+A BROTHERS' QUARREL.
+
+Maximilian Shingle was a heavy, broad-faced man, very cleanly shaven,
+and with grey hair very smoothly brushed.  His black suit was as glossy
+as a first-class undertakers, and he always wore an old-style bunch of
+seals beneath his vest, with which he played as he spoke, spinning them
+round, while his other hand flourished a black ebony stick, with a gold
+top and a good deal of tassel.
+
+Metaphorically speaking, there was a good deal of tassel all about
+Maximilian, for he swung and flourished about in his words and deeds,
+and always seemed to be more showy than substantial; and even now, when
+he was very white, and evidently in a towering passion, he flourished
+his seals and stick, and turned threateningly upon his brother; whilst
+the boy, who seemed to see in him a workhouse official or Poor-law
+guardian, softly stole into the back room, and surveyed the proceedings
+through the crack of the door.
+
+In fact, the moment you saw Max Shingle, you said to yourself, "What a
+splendid man for a beadle!"  And so he was: put him in uniform, and he
+would have been simply perfect--from the soft roll of fat under his chin
+to the well-rounded calf of his leg, which showed so prominently through
+his well-cut trousers.  His very appearance aggravated you, and caused
+an itching beneath the nail of your right toe; for he was one of those
+men whom nature out of pure beneficence moulded to be kicked as a relief
+to abnormal irritation.  His appearance at every turn suggested it,
+inasmuch as he was padded with tissue of the most elastic nature, such
+as would yield easily to the foot; and thus the kicker would run no
+risks either of hurting himself or committing homicide, while he
+obtained the satisfaction all the same.
+
+"Now, sir," began Max, fiercely addressing his brother, "what have you
+to say?"
+
+"Well, I don't know yet," said Dick, looking in a puzzled way from one
+to the other.  "What is it?"
+
+"Don't know!" cried Max.  "Didn't I speak to you, sir, an hour or two
+back?"
+
+"Was it an hour or two back?" said Dick, who still held and soothed
+Jessie, as she clung to him.
+
+"Yes, it was, sir!" cried Max, who was surprised that his brother did
+not cower, according to his wont.  "I told you an hour or two ago that I
+would not have these disgraceful proceedings."
+
+"What disgraceful proceedings?" said Dick sullenly.
+
+"These," cried Max, pointing with his stick first at Jessie and then at
+Tom.  "I speak to you, and warn you--"
+
+"Let me say a word," began Tom.
+
+"Hold your tongue, sir!" cried Max, holding up his stick; but the young
+man did not flinch.  "I say, I speak to you and warn you, and directly
+after I find your girl arm-in-arm with this foolish son of mine in the
+open street, sir--in the open street."
+
+"Well, Max, you can't have the streets shut up," said Dick quietly.
+
+"How dare you address me, sir, like that?" cried Max.  "Will you listen,
+Mr Shingle?" cried Tom, who was losing patience--"it was all my fault."
+
+"Silence, sir!  I will not hear a word.  Your conduct is disgraceful,
+and after the Christian example that has been set you--"
+
+"I don't see anything unchristianlike in loving a good, sweet girl,
+sir," said the young man stoutly.  "I cannot stand here and let you
+speak like this."
+
+"Then go, sir, go; and never dare to enter beneath this roof again while
+these people are here," cried Max.  "I suppose you have had baits set to
+coax you into the trap, you silly pigeon?"
+
+"Indeed--"
+
+"But let me tell them all," said Max, looking round with supreme
+disgust, "that if their nefarious scheme had succeeded, you would not
+have received a shilling from me."  Dick broke in here.  He had been
+ready to explode several times, but had been kept back by wife and
+child.  Now he could contain himself no longer.
+
+"Here, let me say a word," he exclaimed.  "He hasn't been coaxed here,
+nor anything of the sort, Mr Max.  We don't want him, and won't have
+him; so there now."
+
+"Oh, father!" exclaimed Jessie.
+
+"You hold your tongue, miss," cried Dick, "and just try and have some
+pride in you."
+
+"How dare you speak to me like that, sir!" cried Max, frowning
+portentously--"how dare you!  You, whom I've tried to raise out of the
+mud, but who always would persist in grovelling!"
+
+"I shouldn't have had to grovel so much if people paid me for the boots
+they ordered," said Dick.
+
+"You contemptible wretch!" cried Max.  "You cloven-hoofed viper, who
+persists in turning and biting the hand that helped you!  And after all
+we meant to do for you to try and raise you!--to endeavour to clothe and
+educate your neglected child, whose conduct as a work-girl is most
+reprehensible."
+
+"Look here," cried Dick, whose face was working with anger.
+
+"Silence, sir!" cried Max, thumping his stick upon the floor.  "You grow
+lower and lower year by year, and now try to reward me by making this
+despicable plan to drag yourself up to my level.  Now, look here.  I've
+warned you, and it has been of no use.  I have let you occupy this
+house, when I might have had a better tenant, and you have got in
+arrears."
+
+"Only two weeks," cried Mrs Shingle indignantly.
+
+"Silence, woman!" cried Max.
+
+"Don't bully her, Max, or there'll be a row," exclaimed Dick fiercely.
+
+"Silence, both of you!  I say I've let you get in arrears of rent for my
+property; and now you shall leave it.  I'll let the house to honest
+people who will pay--"
+
+"Oh, Mr Max!" cried Mrs Shingle imploringly.
+
+"And then I shall see the last of you, and have no more of these
+disgraceful meetings."
+
+"Mr Shingle, this is too bad," cried Tom.
+
+"Silence, boy!" said Max, placing one hand in the breast of his glossy
+frock-coat, and scowling round at all in turn.  "Does any one here think
+I'd disgrace my honourable wife by permitting such an alliance?"
+
+"Nice brotherly behaviour, this!" cried Dick indignantly.
+
+"Brotherly?" cried Max.  "Sir, I disown all relationship with you.
+You've hung on to my skirts too long, and now I'll be free of you.
+Miserable, grovelling beggar!"
+
+"I never begged or borrowed of you," said Dick.
+
+"No; because I checked the impulse, or I should have had to keep you.
+And now you want to disgrace me and mine."
+
+"I'm sure no man could have been more industrious," put in Mrs Shingle.
+
+"Industrious?" cried Max, looking round at the shabby half workshop,
+half sitting-room.  "Industrious?  Yes, always idling in his wretched
+slough, instead of trying to improve his position--to get on.  But I'll
+have no more of it: leave this place you shall at once."
+
+"Oh, Mr Shingle--Uncle Max!" cried Jessie piteously, "it was all my
+fault: I ought to have known better.  Don't turn poor father and mother
+out.  They work and try so hard."
+
+"Bah!" ejaculated Max contemptuously; while Tom made for Jessie, but a
+heavy arm was laid across his chest.
+
+"Don't--pray don't," sobbed Jessie, joining her hands and looking
+piteously up in the smooth, smug face.  "Don't do that, and I'll promise
+never to see--never to see Tom.  No, no: I can't--I can't--I can't!" she
+cried, bursting into an agony of weeping.
+
+"You shall promise no such thing, Jessie--dear cousin," cried Tom, in a
+manly way, as, extricating himself, he stepped up to her side and tried
+to take her hand; but she shrank from him and clung to her mother.
+"Jessie," he exclaimed, "as I'm a man, I'll be true to you in spite of
+everything."
+
+"This is your work," cried Max furiously, as he turned to his brother.
+"Do you see now what you have done?"
+
+"That was well spoke, Tom, and I never thought better of you than I do
+now," said Dick, rousing himself, though his face looked more perplexed
+than ever.  "But I've had enough of this here.  You and your father
+belong to the swells, and I'm a poor working man.  You two are ile, and
+floats on the top--we're only water, and goes to the bottom.  But
+p'r'aps the water's got as much pride in it as the ile; and so's my poor
+girl, when she's got her bit of sorrow over.  You're no match for her."
+
+Max gave a loud, contemptuous laugh, which made Mrs Shingle look up as
+if she would wither him.
+
+"Not," continued Dick, "but what she's the best girl in the whole world,
+though I as her father says it."
+
+Dick took up his hammer in a helpless, meaningless way, and turned it
+over and over, examining the handle and the head, and gazed from one to
+the other, as if asking their opinion about the quality of the tool.
+
+"I don't think I was ever so hard up in my life," continued Dick--"and
+mother here will bear me out if I don't speak what's good as Gorspel;
+but afore I'd stay under your roof I'd try the workus.  You needn't be
+afraid, Mr Maximilian Shingle, as your poor shoemaker of a brother, as
+has been unlucky all his life, a and never see the way to get up the
+ladder without shouldering and pulling some one else down--which wasn't
+his way--will ever trouble you again, nor let your wife's boys come
+hanging about after his poor dear gal.  I never encouraged it, and never
+shall.  Some day, p'r'aps, you'll come yourself and ask for it to be."
+
+"I ask!" cried Max--"a common sempstress, an impudent drab!"
+
+"Mr Shingle!" cried Tom furiously.
+
+"Silence, sir!" shouted Max, who, roused by the opposition he had
+received, struck at his step-son with his tasselled cane.  "I said an
+impudent, bold-faced drab!"
+
+"Stop!" roared Dick, from whose face the puzzled look seemed to have
+departed, to give place to one of angry decision; and he stepped, hammer
+in hand, close up to his brother.  "Look here, Max," he cried, in a low,
+hoarse voice, "I don't want to play Cain, and there ain't much of the
+Abel about you; but my poor gal here,"--he placed his arm round her as
+he spoke, and she hid her hot, indignant face upon his shoulder--"my
+poor gal here, I say, once read to me when she was a little un about a
+blacksmith knocking a man down with his hammer because he insulted his
+daughter.  Now, you've insulted my dear, sweet gal, as the very poorest
+and lowest labourer about here has a respectful word for, and even the
+very costers at the stalls; and you've made my blood bile--poor, and
+thin, and beggarly as it is.  So, now then, this is my house till I
+leaves it.  I ain't Wat Tyler, and you ain't a tax-gatherer, but if you
+ain't gone in half a moment I'll give you what for."
+
+"You scoundrel--you shall repent this!" cried Max.
+
+But Dick made at him so menacingly that he hurried out of the house.
+
+"Uncle," began Tom, who had stopped behind.
+
+"Off with you!" cried Dick sternly.  "I won't hear a word.  No: nor you
+sha'n't touch her.  Jessie, say good-bye to him, and there's an end of
+it.  We'll emigrate."
+
+"Oh, father, what have I done?" cried Jessie.
+
+"Nothing, Jessie, but what is right, my own darling; and here, before
+your father and mother--"
+
+"Tom!" shouted Max from without.
+
+"I swear," continued Tom, "that I'll never give you up."
+
+"That'll do," said Dick, uncompromisingly.  "He's calling you.  Out of
+my house!"
+
+"Uncle," said Tom, "when you are cooler you'll think better of me, I
+hope.  I can't help this.  I do love Jessie dearly."
+
+"I won't hear a word," cried Dick.
+
+"But you'll shake hands with me?"
+
+"No: I'm a poor shoemaker, and you're a gentleman.  Be off!"
+
+"Oh, father! father!" cried Jessie; and she flung her arms round his
+neck.
+
+"No, I won't give way," cried Dick; but he was patting and soothing his
+child as he spoke.
+
+"Shake hands with him, Dick," whispered Mrs Shingle.  "It ain't his
+fault."
+
+"I won't!" cried Dick.  "It _is_ his fault.  He had no business to
+come."
+
+"No, father, it was my fault," sobbed Jessie.  "Shake hands with him--
+please do!"
+
+All this while Tom was standing with extended hand; and at last Dick's
+went out to join it for a moment, and was then snatched away.
+
+"Good-bye, dear Jessie," said Tom then; "but mind, I shall keep to my
+word."
+
+"Is that scoundrel coming?" said Max from without.  Dick made a vicious
+"offer," as if to throw his hammer at the door; but Mrs Shingle took it
+from his hand.
+
+"I'm coming," said Tom loudly; and then, taking Jessie's hand, he kissed
+it tenderly, and, as the poor girl began to sob piteously, he hurried
+out of the house and was gone.
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+FRED IS BUSY.
+
+The offices of Maximilian Shingle were on the first-floor, in a narrow
+turning close to the Royal Exchange; and, though they were dark and
+inconvenient, they were handsomely furnished, as befitted a suite of
+three rooms for which a heavy rent was paid.  The outer room was
+occupied by four clerks, the second room was allotted to his wife's
+elder son, and the inner sanctum was Max's own.
+
+A morning or two after the visit to Crowder's Buildings, Fred was seated
+at his table, with a small open book before him--one which evidently had
+nothing to do with stock-broking; but he was studying it so hard that
+the lines were deeply marked upon his effeminate face.
+
+Twice over he started, and closed it hastily, as he heard a step
+outside; but, after listening for a few moments, he resumed his task,
+and kept on with his study for some time.  Then he closed the little
+memorandum book with a sigh, placed it carefully in his pocket, and
+opening a drawer, took out some doubled blotting paper, between which,
+on opening it, lay a piece of tracing paper and an old bill of exchange.
+
+Placing this convenient to his hand, he also took a large blotter,
+arranged in it a sheet of paper, and wrote in the date and some
+half-dozen lines, before moving blotter and letter into a handy
+position.
+
+This done, he listened for a few moments, and then taking the tracing
+paper and bill, began to go over the signature very carefully, writing
+it again and again, beginning at the top of his tracing paper, and
+forming a column of signatures.
+
+Then there was a knock at the door; and as Fred cried "Come in!" the
+blotter was drawn deftly over the tracing paper, and he went on writing.
+
+A clerk brought in a couple of letters to be signed, and this being done
+he retired; when Fred resumed his task, working away patiently, and
+always going over the writing again.
+
+This went on for half an hour or so, until the young man started, and
+hastily drew the blotter over his work; for the door was being opened
+very slowly and quietly, and in a heavy, noiseless way, old Hopper
+entered the room.
+
+"How do, Fred?" he said, approaching the table slowly.
+
+"How do?" was the short, sharp reply.  "What does he want?" he muttered.
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"I say what hot weather."
+
+"Don't shout: I'm not so deaf as all that," said the old fellow hastily.
+"Father in his room?"
+
+"Yes," said Fred; "he's in there."
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"I say he's in there," roared the young man.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't shout so, my lad," said the old man sourly.  "I
+don't want the drums of my ears split.  I could hear what you said.  And
+how is the dear, good man, eh?"
+
+"Same as usual," replied Fred, with a grin.
+
+"Ah!" said Hopper, "you ought to be a very good young man, having such a
+step-father."
+
+"I am," replied Fred.
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"I say I am," shouted Fred.
+
+"So I suppose," said the old fellow, chuckling, and looking at him with
+a strange expression of countenance.  "Well, tell him I want to see
+him."
+
+_Ting_!
+
+There was the sharp sound of a gong heard in the next room, and Fred
+rose to answer it.  He glanced first at the old man, and then down at
+his letter; but a second stroke on the gong made him hurry to the inner
+door, which he opened, and stood with his head half inside; but a few
+sharp peremptory words were heard, and he went in and closed the door,
+leaving Hopper waiting.
+
+Fred was not gone many minutes; and when he returned it was to find the
+visitor had taken a chair, and was busy over the contents of a bulky
+pocket-book, which he secured as the young man appeared, and returned to
+the pocket in the breast of his ugly, ill-cut dress-coat.
+
+"He says you can go in, but he can only give you ten minutes," said
+Fred.
+
+"Won't see me for ten minutes?" said the old fellow.
+
+"Says you may go in for ten minutes," shouted the young man; and then,
+in a whisper, "Confounded old nuisance!"
+
+Old Hopper turned half round, and gave him a peculiar leer, shaking his
+head and chuckling to himself as he went slowly towards the door of Max
+Shingle's office, putting down his stick heavily in the recurring
+pattern of the floorcloth, closely followed by Fred, who showed him in.
+
+"What the governor has that deaf old beetle hanging about him for, I
+can't make out," said the young man, returning to his seat; and he was
+about to continue his task when a fresh knock at the door made him
+hastily thrust his papers into the drawer of the table, lock it, and
+take out the key.
+
+"Ah, my dear Hopper, how are you?" said Max, smiling amiably, and making
+his eyes beam upon his visitor.
+
+"Hey?  How am I?" snarled the old fellow, giving his stick a thump on
+the floor.  "What's that to you?  I'm not dying yet.  Ain't you sorry?"
+
+"Sorry?  Heaven forbid!" said Max unctuously, as he shook his head
+reproachfully at his visitor, and then, taking hold of his watch-ribbon,
+threw himself back in his chair and began to spin the seals round and
+round.
+
+"Don't!  Be quiet!" cried Hopper, thrusting out the point of his stick,
+so that the seals struck upon it and were arrested in their motion.
+"Think I'm not bilious enough with looking at you, without having that
+thing spun round in my face?"
+
+Max laughed, but looked annoyed; while the old fellow took a seat
+unasked.
+
+"What can I do for you?" said Max at last, smiling blandly.
+
+"Give me a glass of wine.  I'm hot and tired."
+
+"Really, I--" began Max.
+
+"It's in that stand," said the old fellow, chuckling, as he pointed with
+his stick at a handsome mahogany cellarette at one end of the room; when
+Max, whose smile was tempered a good deal with a look of annoyance,
+rose, sighed, secured the door with a little bolt, and then unlocked the
+cellarette and took out a decanter and glass.
+
+"No, thank you--I don't smoke cigars," said the old fellow, as he
+watched the sherry poured into the glass.  "Hey!  You weren't going to
+offer me one?  Ho!  I was afraid you were."
+
+Max had not spoken; but he winced as he heard these words--preserving
+his smile, though, when he turned his face to his visitor and passed the
+wine.
+
+"Not bad, Max--not bad," said the old fellow, tasting the sherry and
+smacking his lips before pouring the rest down his throat.  "How you
+must mug yourself here!  Lucky dog, lucky dog!  Now, if I had taken to
+stock-broking instead of ship's husbanding, I might have been as well
+off as you."
+
+"Oh dear, no; I'm not well off," said Max.
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"I say I'm not well off," said Max, more loudly.
+
+"That's a pity," said the old fellow.  "Never mind, I'll have another
+glass, all the same.  Fill it full this time."
+
+Max shut his teeth with a snap, but he filled the glass brimming full,
+and then restopped the decanter.
+
+"So you're not well off, hey?" said Hopper.
+
+"Very, very short," said Max, with his mouth close to his visitor's ear.
+
+"Humph!  Sorry to hear it, because I want to borrow five pounds of you,"
+said Hopper.  "You've got that, I suppose?"
+
+"Indeed, no.  I'm very sorry," began Max.
+
+"So am I," said the old fellow shortly.  "Hah, Max Shingle, how you'd
+have liked to stick a dose of poison in that wine, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Really, Mr Hopper," began Max indignantly, and he half rose.
+
+But the old man laid his stick upon his shoulder like a sceptre, and
+forced him down.
+
+"Sit still, stupid!" cried the old man.  "I know what you are going to
+say.  Surprised at my making such remarks, and so on.  But you would
+like to, and I believe you'd do it if it was not for the fear of the
+law.  I say, Max," he chuckled, "it would take a strong new rope to hang
+you."
+
+Max laid his hands upon the arms of his handsome, well-stuffed easy
+chair, and turned of a pale dough colour, as he glared at his visitor.
+
+"I don't wonder at it," chuckled Hopper.  "It must be very unpleasant to
+have a man come to see you, and invade the sanctity--sanctity, yes,
+sanctity, that's the word--of your home and private office, who knows
+what a scoundrel you are."
+
+"For Heaven's sake, speak lower!" cried Max, in a hoarse whisper.
+
+"All right," said Hopper, nodding.  "Especially to a man like you, who
+goes in for the religious dodge, and is so looked up to and respected by
+every one.  Ha! ha! ha!" he chuckled--"what a wonderful deal is done in
+this world, Max, by humbug!"
+
+Max began to wipe his wet face with his handkerchief, glaring the while
+helplessly at his tormentor.
+
+"You're such a good man, too, now," said Hopper, laughing, and evidently
+enjoying the other's discomfiture.  "I saw you coming from service last
+Sunday, with the wife, and that dear youth in the next room, Fred, all
+carrying limp hymn-books.  I say, Max, your prayers must be precious
+limp, too."
+
+"Say what you have to say, and then go, for Heaven's sake!" gasped Max.
+
+"Hey! say what I have to say?  How I can read your fat lips, Max!  I
+never feel my deafness when you are speaking.  Well, I am saying what I
+have to say.  I don't often speak out like this."
+
+"Only when you want money," muttered Max.
+
+"Only when I want money?  Right.  There, I told you I could read off
+your lips every word you say, so don't begin to curse me, and wish I was
+dead, because it will only make me want more.  Think it, if you like.  I
+say, you must look sharp after that boy Fred, or he'll go to the bad."
+
+Max frowned.
+
+"If he was half such a lad as Tom!"
+
+"Tom's a scoundrel--a vagabond!" exclaimed Max furiously.
+
+"Yes, yes, of course.  To be sure he is.  Every one is who doesn't do as
+you wish, Max Shingle.  I'm a horrible old scoundrel, and yet you're
+obliged to put up with me.  You can't afford to offend me, and I come to
+your house as often as I like; and I shall keep on doing so, because
+it's good for you.  I'm like a conscience to you, and a devilish ugly
+old conscience, eh?--a deaf conscience--and I keep you from being a
+bigger scoundrel than you are.  I say, Max, you'd give a thousand pounds
+down, now, to hear I was dead, wouldn't you?"
+
+"What is the good of talking like this?" said Max, leaning over to
+whisper to his visitor.
+
+"Hey?  What's the good?  A deal--does you good.  I say, Max, I've often
+thought that you might be tempted to get me killed--by accident, of
+course.  It is tempting, I know.  You'd feel as if the old slate with
+the nasty writing on was wiped clean with a sponge.  But it would be so
+ugly for such a good man to be exposed to such a temptation, and uglier
+still to add the crime of side-blow murder to his other sins.  So do you
+know what I've done to save you from temptation?"
+
+There was a curious malignity of expression in the old man's face as,
+with a chuckling laugh, he asked his question and saw its effect.
+
+"No!  What?" exclaimed Max, in agony.
+
+"Well, I've written it all down neatly on paper--not on a slate; and
+I've deposited it with my will."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Ah, yes, that's another thing.  Where it would be opened and read
+directly I was dead.  Ha! ha! ha!  Max, what an _expose_ that would be!
+But don't be nervous, man, and look so white.  It wouldn't be a hanging
+matter."  Max stretched across the table, and laid his hand upon his
+visitor's lips; but the old man thrust his chair back, gave the hand a
+sharp rap with his stick, and Max shrank back in his chair.
+
+"It isn't, I say, a hanging matter.  But I say, Max, old fellow, I
+should look sharp after that boy Fred.  Don't let him get into
+temptation.  Like father, like son.  Now, Tom--"
+
+"Curse Tom!" cried Max, biting his nails.
+
+"Not I," laughed the old man.  "He isn't so bad; and you curse him quite
+often enough, you know.  Ah, Max, what a blessing and relief it must be
+to you that you have reformed so, and become such a good, pious man!"
+
+Max raised his hands.
+
+"One of those dear, good creatures," chuckled the old fellow, "who go
+through life saying `Have mercy upon us miserable sinners,' and then
+feel so happy.  Not a bit of the Pharisee about you, Max--all humble
+Publican.  I say, why don't you build a church or a chapel?  That's the
+proper thing to do.  `Publican' put me in mind of it.  It's what the
+brewers and distillers do.  Make fortunes out of the vice and misery of
+the people, and then buy a seat in the heavenly Parliament by building a
+church--"
+
+"My dear Hopper," began Max.
+
+"And endowing it."
+
+"Will you listen to me, Hopper?"
+
+"They think they can cheat God with their sham repentance.  Ha! ha!
+ha!--it's a rare joke, 'pon my word.  Now, you know, Max, I'm just such
+a fool in my way, for I get thinking He'd have more respect for an
+honest old reprobate like me.  But we shall see, Max, when we die--when
+we die; when you die, and the gravedigger puts you to bed with a
+shovel."
+
+A spasm seemed to shoot across the other's face at these last words.
+
+"I am an out-and-out bad one, you know, Max.  I never go to chapel and
+hold the plate--never dip a little out of it, Max, in the vestry!"
+
+"Man, are you the Devil?" muttered Max.
+
+"Yes, if you like."
+
+"Then you are not deaf!" cried Max triumphantly.
+
+"Honestly; but I can read your lips as well as your heart, my dear
+friend.  Devil?  Because I know about that ugly bit of forgery for which
+you ought to have served your time."
+
+"Will you be silent?" cried Max, with an agonised look at the door.
+
+"No," said the other coolly.  "Devil because I saw through the Uncle
+Rounce business?  Perhaps I am," he continued, as he saw Max wince, "for
+I never believed in the Excelsior game--to go up higher--because it's so
+cold.  I'm not a pure-minded man, Max, but would rather stay in the
+valley, and lay my head on the nice, pleasant, plump young woman's
+breast--so comfortable and cosy and warm.  Eh, you dog--eh?"
+
+He poked Max with his stick as he spoke, and then chuckled at the
+other's horrified air.
+
+"I'm no cackle-spinner, like you, Max; I never went through the world
+saying it was all vanity and vexation of spirit, and a vale of tears;
+and howled hymns, declaring that I was sick of it, and wanted to die and
+get out of it as soon as I could, because it was such a wicked, wretched
+place.  I never told people I had a call, like you did; and played
+shepherd in a white choker, and went and delivered addresses to the lost
+lambs outside the fold."
+
+"They'll hear you in the outer office," cried Max vainly, for Hopper
+went on:--
+
+"Because I was always a wolf, and liked the world, and thought it very
+beautiful, and loved it; and when I caught a lost lamb I took him and
+ate him right off, because it was my nature.  Not like you, my gentle
+shepherd, who, of course without any vanity or self-interest, coaxed the
+lambs into the fold; and when you killed one, you had him nicely dressed
+with mint sauce.  Eh, Max? mint sauce--the tap out of the barrels that
+they take into the bank."
+
+"Are you mad?" exclaimed Max, at last.
+
+"Mad as a hatter," said the old fellow, grinning; "that's why I chose
+the wrong way.  Not like you.  Ah, Max, when we both die, what a
+beautiful plump cherub you'll make up aloft there, and what an ugly old
+sinner I shall be down below!  How sorry you'll be for me, won't you?"
+
+"Pray, let us bring this interview to an end," gasped Max.
+
+"No hurry," said Hopper.  "I told you I was bilious when you were
+spinning that bunch of seals of yours.  This is all bile.  I'm getting
+rid of it.  I shall be better afterwards.  I have not had a go at you
+for a twelvemonth.  I haven't half done yet.  I'm not a pithy man, like
+you--more pith than heart--but long-winded.  Ah, I'm a wicked old
+wretch, ain't I, and always turned a deaf ear to what was good?"
+
+"But I am busy," pleaded Max.
+
+"So am I," said Hopper, chuckling, and giving a box on the table a poke
+with his stick--"busy giving you a taste of my bile.--What have you got
+there, my pious old saint?  `Donations for the debt fund of St Ursula's
+Church.'  Ah! that's a pretty respectable way of doing things--that is.
+Church in debt.  Built up, I'll be bound, with fal-lals and fancy work
+and stained glass, and a quire inside--twenty-four sheets to wrap up
+singing men and boys.  Now, look here, Max: if I built a place and
+hadn't money to pay for it, you'd call me a rogue."
+
+"Shall we try and transact the bit of business you came about?" said Max
+humbly.
+
+"Presently," said Hopper, who was now wound up, and determined to go on.
+"Ah, Max, you don't know what a wicked old man I've grown," he
+continued, with a sly twinkle in his eye.  "But you see I can preach
+morality--my fashion."
+
+"We shall never agree upon such points," said Max wearily.
+
+"Of course not, till you convert me, Max.  I'm a brand for the burning,
+Max.  Why don't you try and save me?  Teach me to sing some of those
+nice hymns you know by heart--`Fain would I leave this weary world.'
+Bah!  How many would fain?  Who made it weary?  Who filled the beautiful
+world full of diseases and death and wickedness?  Humbugs, sir--humbugs.
+I'm an old worldling, and I was put here in the world, and the longer I
+live the more beautiful I find it; and I don't want to leave it, even to
+carry your secret with me, friend Max Shingle.  I mean to live as long
+as I can, taking my share of the bad as bitter to make the good sweet;
+and when it's time to set sail for the other land, I mean to go like a
+man, and say `Thank God for it all.  Amen!'  There's a wicked old
+reprobate for you, Max.  Why don't you try to convert this old
+scoundrel, eh?  Ah!  I'm a bad one--a regular bad one--hopelessly lost.
+And now I've got rid of all my bile, and feel better, get out your
+cheque-book."
+
+Max rose with a sigh, unlocked the iron safe in the corner, and took out
+a cheque-book and laid it upon a table.
+
+"I can very ill spare this, John Hopper," he said.  "Five pounds are
+five pounds now."
+
+"Always were, stupid!" said the old fellow.  "Dear me, how much better I
+can hear to-day!  Got rid of all that bile," he added, considering.
+"But don't you draw that for five pounds.  Make it ten."
+
+"Ten pounds!" gasped Max.
+
+"Yes.  Five extra for your conscience.  You don't suppose your poor
+conscience is going to preach to you, as it has to-day, for nothing?"
+
+"But--" commenced Max.
+
+"Ten pounds, you goodly saint--you man after Heaven's own heart--you
+halo-promised piece of piety and man of heavenly manna!" cried Hopper.
+"Make it ten pounds directly, O smooth-faced piece of benignity, or I
+shall want twenty in less than a minute."
+
+Max Shingle hastily drew a cheque for ten pounds, blotted it, and passed
+it over; for he knew only too well that his visitor would keep his word,
+and that he should be obliged to obey.
+
+"That'll do--for the present," said Hopper, grinning, as he folded the
+cheque and placed it in his gouty pocket-book.  Then he rose to go.
+
+"Good-bye: God bless you, Max!  What a good thing it is for me that I
+have a wealthy saint who can relieve my necessities!  Thank you, my
+dearest and best friend.  I sha'n't give you any acknowledgment, because
+I know you mean this for a gift.  Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye," said Max, who could hardly contain his rage.
+
+"Good-bye.  And a word more from your conscience.  Good advice, mind.
+Look after Master Fred.  Don't let him go your way."
+
+"You've got your money.  Now be silent!" cried Max, savagely.
+
+"All right," said the old fellow; and he walked out, making his stick
+thump the floor, and nodding at Fred as he passed through to the outer
+office; while Max, as soon as he was alone, ground his teeth with rage,
+as he heaped a series of very unchristianlike curses upon his visitor's
+head.
+
+"Yes," he said in a hoarse whisper, "he must be a devil, or he couldn't
+have known about Uncle Rounce."
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SIX.
+
+THE FLY ON THE WALL.
+
+"Well, mother, it might have been worse," said Richard, sitting down to
+his humble dinner about a week later.  "Here, Jessie, pull my ears."
+
+Jessie, who looked very pale and red-eyed, as if with weeping, went
+behind her father's chair, took hold of his ears playfully, and pulled
+them, while he drew one hand before his face.
+
+"Will that do, dear?" she said, drawing his head back so that she could
+kiss his puzzled forehead.
+
+"Beautiful, my darling!  Nothing like it.  Tightens the skin, and takes
+out all the wrinkles.  Keeps you young-looking, and makes your wife fond
+of you.  Don't it, mother?"
+
+Mrs Shingle sighed, but looked at him affectionately, as she placed a
+spoon in the potatoes.
+
+"That's right," said Dick.  "Smiles is human sunshine, and don't cost
+anything.  You both look as bright again to-day.  Hallo! old fellow," he
+continued, thrusting a spoon into some hash.  "Now, it won't do, you
+know.  You can't deceive me, in spite of your brown gravy.  You're that
+half-shoulder of mutton we had on Sunday."
+
+"Yes, it is, Dick," said Mrs Shingle.
+
+"I knew it.  Didn't he gape wide open as soon as I cut into him, and
+pretend that three people had been helped?  Oh, I knew him again!  Come,
+look bright, both of you: things might be worse.  See how I'm trying to
+shine!  Come on: the best side of the looking-glass, both of you.  The
+glue and wood will do for old Max."
+
+In spite of his endeavours, the dinner was a sorry repast, the only one
+who enjoyed it being the boy; and as soon as it was cleared away, Dick
+and the others resumed their work.
+
+"Do you really mean to go, Dick?" said his wife at last, after making
+three or four efforts to speak.
+
+"Yes, certain!" he said; and he glanced at Jessie, who was just then
+looking at him, when both lowered their eyes directly.
+
+"But how can we leave without paying?"  Mrs Shingle ventured to say at
+last.
+
+"Sell the furniture," said Dick bitterly.  "There--it's no use, mother,
+I won't humble myself to him no more.  I've as good as took a couple of
+rooms off St John Street, and go we will--for many reasons," he added.
+
+"But, Dick dear--"
+
+"Hold your tongue, mother!" he cried sternly.  "I'm going to turn over a
+new leaf.  Other folks make money; I'm going to make some now--somehow.
+But I don't know how," he added to himself.  "Now, you sir, get on--
+we've got to make a fortune yet," he continued, hammering away; while
+Jessie's sewing machine clicked musically, and her little
+white-stockinged feet seemed to twinkle as they played up and down.
+
+Mrs Shingle looked very much in trouble, for every now and then she
+wiped a furtive tear from her eye.
+
+"How much money did you bring from the warehouse this morning, my gal?"
+said Dick suddenly, as he looked up from playing cat's-cradle over a
+boot.
+
+Jessie gazed at him in a frightened manner, and then dropped her head
+lower over her machine, while her hands trembled so that she could
+hardly direct her work.
+
+"I say, Jessie, my gal, how much did you draw this morning?"
+
+"None, father," said Jessie, with a sob.  And then, covering her face
+with her hands, she burst into a passion of weeping.
+
+"Why, Jess, my gal--Jess!" cried Dick, dropping stirrup-leather and
+boot.  "Here, you sir: here's a penny.  Go down to Wilson's and get a
+pen'orth o' wax."
+
+"But here is plenty, master," said the boy.
+
+"Go down to Wilson's and get a pen'orth o' wax," said Dick sternly.
+
+"Hadn't I better go to Singley's, sir? it ain't half so far."
+
+"Go and get a pen'orth o' wax at Wilson's," said Dick angrily.  And he
+saw the boy off the premises before he crossed to Jessie.
+
+"Why, what's the matter, my pretty one?" he said tenderly.
+
+"Oh, father dear, don't be cross with me," she sobbed.  "I couldn't tell
+you before."
+
+"Just as if your poor stoopid old goose of a father could be cross with
+you!" he said, fondling her and drawing her close to his heart.  "At
+least," he added, "I could be cross, but not with anything you'd go and
+do.  Now, then, what's the matter?"
+
+"Oh, father, I can never go to the warehouse again."
+
+"What?" said Dick; "not go--"
+
+"No, father," she sobbed: "that man--"
+
+She stopped short, and Dick, with his face working, patted her tenderly
+on the shoulder, and then rolled up his sleeves.
+
+"It's only father, my precious: tell him all about it," he whispered.
+
+As he spoke he made a sign to Mrs Shingle to be silent.  "That man,
+father," she sobbed hysterically--"several times lately--insulted me--
+dare not say anything--the money--you so poor, dear!"
+
+"Jessie," cried Dick, in a choking voice, "my poor darling,--if I'd
+known!"
+
+"Yes, father dear, I know," she cried, placing her arm round his neck
+and kissing him tenderly; "but you wanted the money so badly, I would
+not speak."
+
+"But it was wrong, my darling," he said angrily.  "But tell me--all."
+
+"This morning--I went," she faltered, "and there was no one in the room,
+and he caught me in his arms--and kissed me," she sobbed, with her face
+like crimson.  Then, indignantly, "I screamed out, and Tom--"
+
+"Was Tom there?" cried Dick reproachfully.
+
+"Yes, father; I could not help his being there.  We had never spoken
+since that dreadful day, when Uncle Max--"
+
+"Yes," said Dick hastily: "go on."
+
+"But he has come and watched me every day, father, at a distance, and
+seen me go to and from the warehouse."
+
+"Bless him!" muttered Dick.
+
+"And when I shrieked out," continued Jessie, with a look of pride
+lighting up her face, "Tom rushed in; and, oh, father, it was very
+dreadful!"
+
+"What was?" said Dick hoarsely, for he was evidently suffering from
+suppressed passion.
+
+"Tom!"
+
+"Mr Thomas Fraser, my gal?"
+
+"Mr Thomas beat him dreadfully," continued Jessie, "till he cried for
+mercy; and dear Tom--"
+
+"Mr Thomas, my gal," said Dick, correcting.
+
+"Made him go down upon his knees and beg my pardon, and then he brought
+me away."
+
+"God bless him!" said Dick fervently, "But it's Mr Thomas Fraser, my
+dear; and he's nothing to you but a brave, true young fellow, who acted
+like a man.  But, that it should come to this!" he groaned, striding up
+and down the room.  "This is being a poor man, and having to eat other
+people's bread.  Oh, it's dreadful, dreadful!  If she'd been rich Max's
+daughter, mother, no one would have dared to insult her; and as for this
+blackguard, I'll--"
+
+He caught up the hammer, and had reached the door, when Jessie and her
+mother ran and clung to him, Mrs Shingle locking the door till he
+promised to be content with the castigation the fellow had received.
+
+"Mr Tom would be sure to beat him well, father," said Mrs Shingle.
+
+"Well, that is one comfort," said Dick, cooling a little.  "I should
+have nearly killed any blackguard who had touched you.  Well, mother,"
+he continued, "when things comes to the worst they mends; but it don't
+seem to be so with us any more than with shoes, unless some one mends
+'em, I mean to mend ours somehow.  `Why don't you try?' every one says.
+Well, I do try."
+
+Just then the boy came back, and making a sign to Jessie and his wife
+not to let him see their trouble, all tried to resume their work, but in
+a despairing, half-hearted manner, in the midst of which, in a doleful,
+choking voice, Dick began to sing over his sewing, while the boy seemed
+to keep time with the hammer with which he was driving in nails.
+
+  "For we always are so jolly, oh--
+  So jolly, oh--so jolly, oh--so jolly--"
+
+sang Dick; but he had soon done, and his voice trailed off into a dismal
+wail, as, unable to contain themselves, Jessie's face went down over her
+sewing machine and Mrs Shingle hid hers in her apron.
+
+"My God! what can I do?" the poor fellow moaned, as, with a catching in
+his breath, he glanced at those most dear to him.  "I hav'n't a shilling
+in the world, and the more I try--the more I try--"
+
+He caught up a hammer savagely, and began to beat vigorously at the
+leather, forcing himself to sing again, as if he had not seen the
+trouble of his wife and child--
+
+  "To get his fill, the poor boy did stoop,
+  And, awful to state, he was biled in the soup."
+
+"Oh, master, please, master, don't sing that dreadful song," cried Union
+Jack, with a dismal howl.  "I can't bear it: please, master, I can't
+bear it, indeed."
+
+"Hold your tongue, you young ruffian," cried Dick, with a pitiful
+attempt at being comic.  "It's a good job we've got you in stock; for if
+things do come to the worst, you'll make a meal for many a day to come."
+
+"Oh, please, don't talk like that, master," cried the boy.
+
+"Dick, dear," whispered his wife, "don't tease the poor lad: he half
+believes you."
+
+"I'm not teasing of him, mother," said Dick aloud; "only it's a pity to
+have to boil him all at once, instead of by degrees.  Here, get out the
+cold tea, mother, and let's take to drinking--have a miserable day, and
+enjoy ourselves.  Jessie, my gal, you'll rust that machine raining on it
+like that.  Come, mother, rouse up; it'll all come right in the end."
+
+"I was not crying, Dick," said Mrs Shingle,--"not much."
+
+"Yes, you were," he cried, with a rollicking air of gaiety.  "I saw two
+drips go on your apron and one in that child's shoe.  Come, cheer up."
+
+There was a pause then, during which all again tried hard to work; but
+the knowledge that they were about to turn out of the little home, and
+that their prospects were so bitter, combined with sorrow for their
+child, made a sob or two burst from Mrs Shingle's breast, while even
+the boy kept on sniffing.
+
+"Here, I can't stand this," groaned Dick at last, getting up and walking
+about the room.  "I don't spend no money, mother--only a half-ounce or
+two of tobacco for myself, and one now and then for poor old Hopper, who
+seems to be cutting us now we are so down.  You don't spend much,
+mother: and it's as true as gorspel about shoemakers' wives being the
+worst shod; while as for me, I haven't had a real new pair this ten
+years."
+
+"Don't take on about it, Dick," said Mrs Shingle, making a brave effort
+to smile.  And she took and patted her husband's hand affectionately.
+
+"I wouldn't care, mother, if things were better for you two; and I can't
+see as it's my extravagance as does it."
+
+"Oh, no, no, Dick dear."
+
+"One half-pint of beer this month, and it's the beer as is the ruin of
+such as me," he said, with a comical look--"and one screw of tobacco
+this week, and the paper as was round it, for thickness, why, it was
+like leather."
+
+"Don't, don't mind, Dick," whispered Mrs Shingle.  "We'll sell the
+things, and clear ourselves, and start free again."
+
+"It's all right, mother," he cried, with a kind of gulp.  "It's got to
+the worst pitch now--see if it ain't.  Don't make it rain indoors," he
+added, in a remonstrating tone; "'specially when we've only one umbrella
+in the house, and it's broke.  Here, Jessie, my gal, what's that song
+you sing about the rain?"
+
+"`There's sunshine after rain,' father," said Jessie, looking up in so
+piteous a way that Dick had hard work to keep back a sob; but with
+another struggle to drive off his cares, he cried--
+
+"To be sure.  `There's sunshine after rain, my boys; there's sunshine
+after rain,'" he sang, making up words, and a peculiar doleful tune of
+his own, as he set-to again and hammered vigorously at a piece of
+leather.  "Work away, Union Jack, and sing, you dog--`There's sunshine
+af--aft--after--'"
+
+The hammer fell at his feet, and he rose once more.
+
+"Go away, Jack, my boy," he said, in a different tone of voice.
+
+"No, no, master: don't send me back," cried the boy passionately.  "I'm
+very sorry; and I'll try so--so very hard not to be hungry."
+
+"Hush, my boy, hush!" said Dick softly.
+
+"And when I am, master, I'll never--never say I am.  Don't send me
+away."
+
+"Tell him--tell him, mother," whispered Dick, who had been so near
+breaking down before that the boy's passionate appeal completely
+unmanned him.
+
+"There's nobody to care for there, master, and it's all whitewash.  Miss
+Jessie, please ask him not to send me away."
+
+"Come here, Jack," said Mrs Shingle.
+
+"No, no, missus; I'll stop here on bread and water--I will, missus.
+Please let me stay!"
+
+"I--I only want you to go outside for a bit, Jack," said Dick, with his
+lips quivering.  "Go out and play, my boy."
+
+"But," said the boy suspiciously, "you won't cut off, master, and leave
+me.  Fain larks, you know."
+
+"No, no, no, my lad.  Go and stop out in the court."  The boy gazed
+keenly in his face, and then, with a suspicious look in his eyes, went
+outside.
+
+"It seems to me as the poorer people is the fonder they get of you,
+mother," said Dick pitifully.  "Oh, my gal, what have we done, that we
+should be so poor?  Here have I worked early and late for the few pence
+we drag together, and can't get on.  It's because I'm a wretched
+bungler, and it would have been better if I'd never been born."
+
+"Dick, dear Dick," whispered his wife, as he sat down despairingly, and
+leaned his head upon his hand, while she bent over him.  "Don't give
+way.  I can bear anything but that."
+
+"I do try, my gal, harder than you think," he groaned; "and when I'm
+making most of a fool of myself, and laughing and singing, it's because
+I've got such a gnawing here."
+
+He raised his hand to strike his chest, but it was caught by Jessie, who
+drew it round her neck as she knelt at his feet.
+
+"And I've been so much trouble instead of a comfort, father; and it's
+all my fault," she sobbed.
+
+"Your fault, my precious!" he cried, as he took her piteous face in his
+hands and kissed it a dozen times over--"your fault!  Why, you've been
+like sunshine in the place ever since you used to sit on your little
+stool there, and play with the bits of leather, and build houses with
+mother's cotton-reels.  Your fault, my darling!  There--there--there!
+It's all over, mother, and the sun's coming out again.  It won't rain
+any more to-day."
+
+There was a pause here, and the little place was very silent as the
+cries of the children at play floated in.
+
+"There, we'll have Jack in again.  And, look here: it's cowardly and
+mean of me to give up like that; but it's the last time.  So there,
+mother," he said, smiling, as he rose and stood between them, "as a
+respectable tradesman I object to swearing, as is only allowable when
+you want to take an oath.  I'm going to take an oath now, when I says
+I'll be cussed if I give way again, and--"
+
+"Here's a letter, master!" cried the boy, rushing in.
+
+"A letter?" said Dick, taking it with his apron.  "Who's been a-writing
+to me?  Perhaps it's about that money, mother, and we shall--Here, my
+eyes are all of a swim.  Did the postman give it to you, Jack?"
+
+"Yes, master, at the door," said the boy eagerly.
+
+Mrs Shingle took the letter, and opened it, to find a clean, new
+ten-pound note inside, which she spread out and held to her husband.
+
+Dick took it, turned it upside down, over, round and round, and held it
+up to the light.
+
+"It's--it's a duffer, mother," he said at last, with his voice
+trembling; "it's a flash note, like--like they are at the races.  Bank
+of Elegance."
+
+"`For the Governor and Company of the Bank of England,'" read Jessie
+slowly.
+
+"No!  Does it say so?" cried Dick excitedly.  "Then it's a good one, and
+it's a mistake.  It isn't for me.  Give me the envelope."
+
+He took it hastily, and read aloud, "Mr Richard Shingle, Shoemaker,
+Crowder's Buildings, Lower Street, Islington."
+
+"That's me, mother," he said, looking from wife to daughter, "ain't it?"
+
+"Yes, Dick, it is for you."
+
+"Let's look inside.  What does it say in the letter?"
+
+"Nothing!  There, we've only the blank sheet of paper in which the note
+was wrapped.  Yes, on one corner, the words--`For you, Richard
+Shingle.'"
+
+"Then, it's from that Tom Fraser," cried Dick, plucking up; "and I won't
+take it."
+
+"No, father," cried Jessie eagerly; and she trembled, too, as she took
+the paper.  "It is not his writing; and he would have said `_Mr_.
+Richard Shingle.'"
+
+"So he would, my gal," said Dick, nodding.  "Then it's from Max; and
+he's sorry he's been so hard on me--dear old Max!  And he wants to be
+friends again.  Blood is thicker than water, after all, mother; and I
+always said it was.  There, I'm as pleased as if it was a hundred from
+any other man."
+
+The tears stood in his eyes, as he looked from one to the other; but to
+read no sympathy in the countenance of wife and child.
+
+"That's five times, you know, the money's come like that," said Dick,
+"and always when we've been in great trouble.  It is from Max, mother;
+and his roughness is only the way he's got."
+
+A faint flush of hope illumined Jessie's face as she tried to believe
+her father's words; but it died out directly.
+
+"Why, mother," cried Dick joyously, "we can clear all off, and have some
+money to go on with; and- But, I say, if Max sent this, he wouldn't like
+us to go."
+
+"Max did not send it," said Mrs Shingle decidedly.  "Eh?"
+
+"I am sure of it," she said.
+
+"Then you know who did?"
+
+"If I knew who sent it, Dick," said the poor woman, laying her hand upon
+his arm, "you'd have known too."
+
+"So I should, mother--so I should," he said quietly, as he nodded his
+head.  "Who could it be, then?"
+
+"Some good, true friend, who don't want to be known," said Mrs Shingle.
+
+"It would be a bitter pill to swallow," said Dick thoughtfully, "if it
+was done in charity--a gilded pill, mother, wrapped up in that bit of
+paper.  Oh, mother, mother!" he cried, stamping up and down the room,
+"I'm only a poor, miserable fellow, but I've got my pride, like better
+men.  I don't like this beggarly dependence on other people--this taking
+money in charity.  If I could only hit a bright--invent some new thing
+that all the world would buy!"
+
+"Watts was an inventor, and made the steam engine," said the boy softly.
+
+"Hang Watts!" cried Dick impatiently.  "Here, you be quiet.  I don't
+want your union-school copy-books here."
+
+"All right, master," said the boy, with a sniff.
+
+Dick walked up and down the room in an excited way, with the bank-note
+in his left hand, while a bluebottle fly came in at the window and
+buzzed round the room, now up, now down, its loud hum rising and
+falling, as, apparently taken off from his previous thoughts, the man
+followed it, and as it settled he twice made ineffectual efforts to
+catch it.
+
+"_Buzz_--_uzz_--_buzz_!  _Um_--_um_--_um_!" went the fly; while Jack
+stood with open mouth and an old slipper, ready to hit at the insect if
+it came his way; Mrs Shingle and Jessie glancing at one another, and
+then following Dick in a troubled fashion with their eyes, as he still
+pursued the great bluebottle.
+
+"You've a fine time of it, you have," he said, "you great, lazy
+wind-flitter!"
+
+"_Buzz_--_buzz_!--_um_--_um_--_um_!" went the fly, round and round.
+
+"Ah," said Dick, "some men hit bright ideas, and make fortunes, but I
+don't; and it seems (ah!  I nearly had you that time)--seems, mother, as
+if we go on as we are that we may toil on (well, he is a sharp one, but
+I'll have him yet)--toil on till we get to the workhouse!"
+
+"Oh, don't, please, master--don't go there," cried the boy.  "Now,
+master--quick, quick.  He's settled on the edge of the last shelf."
+
+"I see him," said Dick, going cautiously up, with hand ready to catch
+the fly.
+
+But, before he reached it, away it went round and round the room again.
+
+"_Buzz_--_uzz_!--_um_--_um_--_um_!"
+
+"There's nothing done without trying, mother," continued Dick, who was
+excited now over his chase.  "Try again, try again till you succeed's
+the way.  Now, you know, if I was to--was to--(Ah, gone again; but I'll
+have you yet)--you see, I might--"
+
+"Now, master, there he is," whispered Jack; "you'll have it now."
+
+"Yes," said Dick, "I shall get it now.  You see, mother, shoemaking and
+cobbling's all very well, but it means starvation to us, though it's a
+thing in common demand.  If I could invent--(Ah!  I shall have you
+directly)."
+
+He went cautiously across the room.
+
+"Invent a pair o' boots as won't never wear out, master," whispered the
+boy.  "Now look, master--there, on the wall!"
+
+The buzzing had ceased, and all was very still in the low, shabby room,
+as the bluebottle settled on the centre of a figure in the common
+wall-paper; and Dick went forward, on tiptoe, while, somehow drawn into
+a keen interest in the pursuit, they knew not why, Mrs Shingle and
+Jessie still looked on.
+
+Slowly and cautiously, as if determined to make up this time for his
+many failures, Richard Shingle advanced closer and closer, just as a ray
+of sunshine fell on the wall, making the fly, which was cleaning and
+brushing itself, stand out plainly before them all.
+
+It was as if the capture of that fly had something to do with their
+future in life, and the activity that Dick threw into the pursuit was
+shared by all present.
+
+Would he catch it?  Would he fail?
+
+That was the mental question asked, as he made a scoop of his hand, drew
+just within the required distance, paused for a moment, and then--
+
+There was a rapid dash of a hand across the sunlit patch, and Dick stood
+up, with outstretched arm and closed fist.
+
+"_Bizz_--_izz_--_izz_" went the captured fly, within the tightened hand,
+as Jack gave his knee a delighted slap.
+
+"At last--at last!" shouted Dick.  "I've got it, mother, now.  Do you
+hear, Jessie?  I've got it."
+
+"Got what?" they cried.
+
+He paused for a moment or two, turned to them with a curious look upon
+his face, and then said quietly--
+
+"The fly on the wall."
+
+"Jessie, my darling--he's mad," whispered Mrs Shingle, running to him.
+"Oh, Dick, Dick!"
+
+"No, mother," he cried, "I'm not mad; and I've made my fortune."
+
+As he spoke he held his hand to the window, unclosed it, and the fly
+darted into the sunshine--free.
+
+"At last!" said Dick softly.  "`Hit a bright,'" Max said, "and--I've let
+it go."
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+WHO WAS THAT?
+
+"Got your Australian money yet, Dick?" said Hopper the next day, when he
+dropped in as usual.
+
+"No," said Dick; "but I've got this," and he flourished the ten-pound
+note before his old friend.
+
+"Hey?  Got that," said Hopper, putting on a pair of tortoiseshell-rimmed
+spectacles, and taking the note in his fingers.  "Why, it's--it's a
+ten-pound note.  It's a bad one."
+
+"No," said Dick triumphantly; "it's a good one.  I asked our grocer."
+
+"Hey?  A good one!  Come by it honestly, Dick?"
+
+"Of course he did," cried Mrs Shingle indignantly.
+
+"Ah!  I don't know--I don't know," said the old fellow.  "There's a deal
+of trickery in the world.  If it's a good one, then, Dick, and you did
+come by it honestly, you'll lend me a few shillings, Dick, eh?  Say
+ten."
+
+"Hopper, old man," said Dick, "you shall have a pound if you like.  And,
+look here, I've hit a bright idea at last."
+
+"No--have you?" said Hopper, whose hearing seemed wonderfully good.
+
+"Yes, old chap; and a fortune will come of it.  And, look here: we've
+been best friends when it was hard times,--there's an easy chair in the
+corner for you when it's soft times.  None of your turning proud, you
+know."
+
+"Hey?  Turn proud?  No; I sha'n't turn proud.  You will.  Won't he,
+Jessie?"
+
+"No," said Jessie, speaking up.  "Father will never alter--never."
+
+"Well, I don't know about that," said Dick, with a peculiar smile, which
+he seemed to wipe off directly by passing his hand across his mouth.
+"Perhaps I may alter, you know, and a good deal too.  But, look here,
+old Hopper, you stop to-day, and we'll have a holiday--the first I've
+had for years."
+
+"Hey?  Holiday?  What, go out?"
+
+"No," said Dick, "stay at home.  We'll have a bit of supper together,
+and drink the health of him as sent me that money--bless him.  I can't
+work to-day.  I'm ripening up something, and I can do it best over the
+old fiddle.  We haven't had a scrape for weeks."
+
+"Scrape?  No," said the old fellow, "we haven't;" and, getting up, he
+toddled to the corner cupboard, from which he drew out a violoncello in
+its faded green baize bag, and, patting it affectionately, brought it
+out into the middle of the room.  "I was going to take it away to-day,"
+he said.  "It's too valuable to be lost."
+
+"Thought we were going to be sold up, eh, Hopper, old man?" said Dick,
+taking down a violin that hung by the eight-day clock.
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"Thought we were going to be sold up, eh?  I should have taken care of
+your old bass," said Dick, with a nod and a smile.  "It should not have
+come to harm, Hopper, anyhow.  Now, missus, and you, Jessie, give us a
+cup of tea, with srimps and creases, and a nice bit of supper about
+eight.  We'll have a happy day in the old house for the last one."
+
+"Last one, Dick!"
+
+"Yes, mother, the last one.  I shall move into better premises
+to-morrow."
+
+"Dick dear," cried Mrs Shingle imploringly--while Hopper seemed to be
+busying himself over the strings of the 'cello--"what does all this
+mean?  What are you going to do?"
+
+"Do!" said Dick, making his violin chirrup: "throw away wax-end and
+leather.  They say, let the shoemaker stick to his last; but I've stuck
+to it too long.  Mother, I'm going to make a fortune."
+
+"But how, Dick--how?"
+
+"Wait and see."
+
+"You'll tell me what you are going to do?" said Mrs Shingle, half
+angrily.
+
+"I sha'n't tell a soul," replied Dick firmly; and then, seeing the
+effect his words had upon his wife, he kissed her, tuned up his violin,
+and began to turn over the leaves of some very old music with the bow.
+"Here's the note, mother; and don't spare expense--as far as five
+shillings go.  Get a drop of whiskey, too."
+
+"Hey! whiskey?  Who said whiskey?" exclaimed Hopper.  "Going to have a
+drop of whiskey to-night, Dick?"
+
+Dick nodded.
+
+"That's good," said the old fellow, laughing and nodding his head.
+"We'll drink success to the new venture, Dick."
+
+"We will.  Now, then, what's it to be, eh?  Here we go: `Life's a
+bumper!'  That'll do, for it is; and many a bump and bruise it has given
+me."
+
+Hopper's head went down over his 'cello, Dick's cheek on his violin; and
+the oddly assorted couple began to solemnly scrape away, sometimes
+melodiously, sometimes getting into terrible tangles over the score,
+consequent upon its being set for three voices or instruments, and Dick
+having to dodge up and down, from the treble to the tenor and back;
+while Hopper, with half-closed eyes, and his head moving to and fro like
+a snag on an American river, kept on sawing away, regardless of
+everything but the deep tones he evolved from the strings.
+
+From "Life's a Bumper" they went on to "Vital Spark," and from "Vital
+Spark" to the "Hallelujah Chorus," and from the "Hallelujah Chorus" to
+"Forgive, blest Shade;" and then Dick tried a solo known as "The
+Cuckoo."  But it was a failure; for though he managed the first note of
+the bird, the second would not come--all owing to want of practice,--so
+he gave way to Hopper, who, with knitted brows, played his solo, "Adeste
+fideles," with variations; the effect upon the boy being absolutely
+painful, causing him to thrust his legs up under the stool, and head
+down, with his arms crossed over his person.  His face, too, was drawn;
+and had it not been for the variations, it seemed probable that he would
+have had a fit of sobbing.  These latter, being more lively, saved him;
+though he had a painful relapse during the third variation, which was
+_largo_, and in A minor, his face during the performance being a study.
+However, he became convalescent during the _allegro finale_, and all
+ended well.
+
+Tea being declared ready, the musicians ceased their toils for the time
+being, and feasted on watercress and shrimps; and though the "creases,"
+as Dick called them, were a little yellow, and the shrimps dull in hue,
+and too crumby and soft for crustaceans, the meal was a great success,
+and Hopper actually made a joke.
+
+Like giants refreshed, Dick and he returned to their instruments, and
+sawed away until supper, which was luxurious, consisting, as it did, of
+a highly savoured rump-steak pudding, with so much pepper in it, in
+fact, that both took off their coats, and perspired in peace.
+
+"Ha!" said Hopper suddenly--"I like this; it's better than eating curry
+in company at your brother's, where you can't scratch your head."
+
+"Yes, nice pudding," said Dick, with his mouth full.  "You've put a good
+lot of salt in it, Jessie."
+
+"Lot!" chuckled Hopper.  "I had one bit that tasted as if Jessie had put
+in Lot's wife as well--the whole pillar.  But, never mind, my dear;
+that's the best pudding I ever ate in my life.  I could taste your
+fingers in the crust."
+
+The table being cleared, half a bottle of whiskey and the pipes were
+placed, with hot water, on the table by Jessie, whose eyes were always
+wandering nervously towards the door, as if expecting to see some one
+come in.
+
+Hopper was the first to help himself to whiskey, which he did liberally,
+apparently not being able to judge the quantity on account of the
+foreshortening effect of the tumbler.
+
+"That boy Fred been about here lately?" he said, taking his pipe from
+his mouth, and poking at the lump of sugar in his glass with a spoon, as
+if he were offended with it, or looked upon it as Fred's head.
+
+"Not for some days," said Dick, puffing out a cloud of smoke, while he
+glanced at Jessie, whose forehead contracted, and she turned slightly
+away.
+
+"Don't have him here: he's a bad one," said Hopper.  "I don't like him.
+Look at his moustaches."
+
+"Ain't here."
+
+"Hey?  Ain't here?  Who said he was?  Just look at his moustaches,
+stretching straight out on both sides, and worked into a point with
+wax."
+
+"Well, they ain't pretty, certainly."
+
+"Pretty?  Did you say pretty?"
+
+Dick nodded.
+
+"Look as if they were fixed there as handles to open his mouth with, or
+to steer him.  I don't like that boy.  You, Jessie, if you let that chap
+make love to you--Heyday, what's the matter now?"
+
+The matter was that Jessie had darted an indignant look at him and gone
+upstairs to her bedroom.
+
+"Look at that now!" said Hopper.
+
+"Well, you shouldn't speak to her like that," said Mrs Shingle
+indignantly.
+
+"Oh, if it's coming to pride, I'm off," said Hopper.
+
+"This is getting on in the world."  And, laying down his pipe, he
+prepared to go.
+
+"No, no, no--what nonsense!" cried Dick and his wife.  And together they
+forced the old fellow back into his chair, where, becoming somewhat
+mollified after another glass of whiskey and water, he began to talk.
+
+"She oughtn't to have huffed off like that," he said.  "But I like
+Jessie: she's a sensible girl, wears her own hair, and doesn't turn her
+boot-heels into stilts and walk like a hen going to peck the ground with
+her beak; though how she expects to get on without being more
+fashionable I don't know.  Ah! it's a strange world, but it's a great
+nuisance that we shall all have to die some day.  Max won't mind it a
+bit," he chuckled, "he's such a good man."
+
+"You leave Max alone," said Dick gruffly.
+
+"Hey? what say?"
+
+"I say you leave Max alone.  He's my brother; and blood is thicker than
+water after all--ain't it, mother?"
+
+"Hush!" said Hopper, suddenly removing his pipe and making signs with
+the stem.
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"There's some one outside, under the window," he said, in a whisper.
+
+"Why, you can't hear," said Dick, in the same low voice.
+
+"Can't hear?  No; but I can feel some one there."
+
+"It's the boy," said Dick.
+
+"No; he's gone to bed this hour," said Mrs Shingle nervously.
+
+"Let's go and see," whispered Hopper.
+
+"Stop a moment," said Dick, frowning; and, getting up, he opened the
+door that led upstairs, when a low whispering was plainly heard from
+above.
+
+Dick shut the door quickly, and turned to his wife.
+
+"Mother," he said huskily, "I wouldn't have believed this if I'd been
+told.  Did you know of it?"
+
+"No, dear--no," she cried agitatedly.  "But pray--stop.  What are you
+going to do?"
+
+"Put an end to it!" he cried fiercely.  "My gal's going to be a lady;
+and do you think I'm going to let her be the talk of the town?"
+
+"Don't do anything rash, Dick, old chap," said Hopper, laying his hand
+upon the other's arm.
+
+"Rash!" cried Dick, bitterly.  "I've been waiting for prosperity to come
+all my life; but, curse it, give me poverty again, if riches are to be
+like this."
+
+A complete change seemed to have come over the man, as he darted to the
+door and swung it open, just as there was the rush of rapid footsteps
+along the paved court, and he ran off in pursuit; while Mrs Shingle and
+Hopper followed.
+
+They met Dick at the entrance, coming back panting; and he motioned them
+into the house, and closed the door.
+
+"Mother," he panted, in a voice that trembled with grief and passion,
+"I've left it to you to train our girl while I earned--no, tried to
+earn--the bread; and it's been my pride through it all to hold up my
+head and point to our Jessie, and say to folks, `Look at her--she's not
+like the rest as go to the warehouse for work.'"
+
+"But, Dick--dear Dick, don't, pray don't judge hastily," cried Mrs
+Shingle.
+
+"I won't," said Dick hoarsely.  "All I say is there was a man out there,
+and she was talking to him on the sly.  Is that right, Hopper?  I say,
+is that right?"
+
+The old man looked at him vacantly, and seemed not to hear.
+
+"Curse him! whoever he was," cried Dick hoarsely; "he was ashamed to
+meet me.  It was Tom Fraser, I'll swear; and he's not the man I thought
+him.  Here," he cried, swinging open the door that led upstairs,
+"Jessie--Jessie, come down!  Hopper, old man, you're like one of us--you
+needn't go."
+
+The visitor, with a sorrowful look upon his face, had already reached
+the door, where he stood, leaning upon his stick, as Jessie slowly
+descended, looking very pale, and glancing anxiously from one to the
+other.
+
+Mrs Shingle was crossing--mother-like--to her child's side; but Dick
+motioned her back.
+
+"Stop there!" he said fiercely; and then, taking a step
+forward--"Jessie, you were talking to some one outer window just now?"
+
+She did not answer for a moment, but gazed at him in a frightened way.
+
+"I say you were talking to some one outer window?"
+
+"Yes, father," she faltered.
+
+"It was to Tom Fraser," he said, in a low, angry voice.  "And he's a
+sneak."
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"I say it was--to Tom Fraser."
+
+"No, father, it was not," said Jessie, in a low clear voice.
+
+"Who was it, then?" cried Dick.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"I say, who was it, then?"
+
+"It was to his brother Fred, father," said Jessie, almost in a whisper.
+
+But all the same Tom Fraser had stood at the entrance to the court, and
+been a witness of the scene.
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+AFTER A LAPSE.
+
+Max Shingle lived in the unfashionable district of Pentonville; but he
+had a goodly house there, and well furnished, at the head of a square of
+little residences that some ingenious builder had erected to look like a
+plantation of young Wesleyan chapels, growing up ready for transplanting
+at such times as they were needed to supply a want.
+
+Mrs Max, relict of the late Mr Fraser, was a tall, bony, washed-out
+woman, with a false look about her hair, teeth, and figure; large ears,
+in each of which, fitting close to the lobe, was a large pearl, looking
+like a button, to hold it back against her head.  She was seated in her
+drawing-room, but not alone; for opposite to her, in a studied, graceful
+attitude, sat Max's ward, Violante, daughter of a late deacon of his
+chapel--a rather good-looking girl in profile, but terribly disfigured,
+on looking her full in the face, by a weakness in one eye, the effect of
+which was that it never worked with its twin sister, but was always left
+behind.  Thus, whereas her right eye turned sharply upon you, and looked
+you through and through, the left did not come up to its work until the
+right had about finished and gone off to do duty on something else.  The
+consequence was that when talking to her you found you had her attention
+for a few moments; and then, just as you seemed to have lost it, eye
+Number 2 came up to the charge, and generally puzzled and confused a
+stranger to a remarkable extent.
+
+"Dear me!  Hark at the wind!" said Mrs Max; "and look at it.  Give me
+my smelling bottle, Violante.  I'm always giddy when the wind gets under
+the carpet like that."
+
+The smelling bottle was duly sniffed; and then, changing her position so
+that her fair hair and white eyebrows and lashes were full in the light,
+Mrs Max looked more than ever as if there had been too much soda used
+in the water ever since she was born; and she sighed, and took up her
+work, which was a large illuminated text on perforated cardboard.
+
+In fact, Max Shingle's house shone in brightly coloured cards and
+many-tinted silken pieces of tapestry, formed to improve the sinful
+mind.  Moral aphorisms about honesty and contentment looked at you from
+over the hat-pegs in the hall; pious precepts peeped at you between the
+balusters as you went upstairs, and furnished the drawing-room to the
+displacement of pictures.  Many of them lost their point, from being
+illuminated to such an extent that the brilliancy and wondrous windings
+of the letters dazzled the eye, and carried the mind into a mental maze,
+as you tried to decipher what they meant; but there they were, and Mrs
+Max and the ward spent their days in constantly adding to the number.
+
+The hall mat, instead of "Cave canem," bore the legend "Friend, do not
+swear; it is a sinful habit," and always exasperated visitors; while, if
+you put your feet upon a stool, you withdrew them directly, feeling that
+you had been guilty of an irreverent act; for there would be a line
+worked in white beads, with a reference to "Romans xii." or "2
+Corinthians ii."  If you opened a book there was a marker within bidding
+you "flee," or "cease," or "turn," or "stand fast."  If you dined there,
+and sat near the fire, a screen was hung on your chair, which was so
+covered with quotations that it made you feel as if you were turning
+your back on the Christian religion.  But still, look which way you
+would, you felt as if you were in the house of a good man.
+
+Pictures there were, of course.  There was a large engraving of Ruth and
+Boaz, to which Mrs Max always drew your attention with--
+
+"Would not you suppose that Mr Shingle had sat for Boaz?"
+
+And when you agreed that he might, Violante always joined in, directing
+one eye at you, and saying--
+
+"People always think, too, that the Ruth is so like Mrs Maximilian."
+Then the other eye came slowly up to finish the first one's task, and
+seemed to say, "Now, then, what do you think of that?"
+
+The place was well furnished, but, from the pictures to the carpets,
+everything was of an ecclesiastical pattern; and when Max came in, with
+a white cravat, you felt that you were in the presence of a substantial
+rector, if he were not a canon, or a dean.
+
+In a wicked fit, Dick had once dubbed his brother and sister-in-law
+"Sage and Onions"--the one from his solid, learned look; the other from
+her being always strangely scented, and her weakness for bursting into
+tears.
+
+Upon the present occasion, she sat for a few minutes, and then, taking
+out her handkerchief, began to weep silently.
+
+"Your guardian is always late for dinner, my dear; and everything will
+be spoilt.  Where is Tom?"
+
+"Gone hanging about after Miss Jessie, I suppose," said Violante, with a
+roll of one eye.  "And Fred as well," she added, with the other.
+
+"It is a strange infatuation on the part of my two sons.  Your dear
+guardian's Esau and Jacob," said Mrs Max, wiping her eyes.  "I wonder
+how it is that poor creature, Richard Shingle, makes his money."
+
+"I don't know," said Violante.  "They've set up a very handsome
+carriage."
+
+"Dear me!  It is a mystery," said Mrs Max, still weeping.  "Two years
+ago Richard was our poor tenant; now he must be worth thousands.  I hope
+he is honest."
+
+"Perhaps we had better work him some texts," said Violante, maliciously.
+Then, raising her other eye, "They might do him good."
+
+"I don't know," sighed Mrs Max; "we never see them now they have grown
+so rich.  It is very shocking."
+
+Violante did not seem to see that it was shocking, for she only tossed
+her head.
+
+"Has Tom been any more attentive to you lately, my dear?"
+
+"No, not a bit," said the girl spitefully, and one eye flashed at Mrs
+Max; "nor Fred neither," she continued, bestowing a milder ray with the
+other.
+
+"The infatuation will wear off," said Mrs Max, wringing her hands, but
+seeming as if wringing her pocket-handkerchief, "and then one of them
+will come to his senses."
+
+"I shall never marry Tom," cried the girl decidedly.  "Don't speak so,
+my child," said Mrs Max.  "You know your guardian has so arranged it;
+and he can withhold your money if you are disobedient."
+
+"Yes," cried Violante, "money, money, money--always money.  That's why I
+am kept for the pleasure of those two scapegraces, and mocked at by that
+saucy hussy of a Jessie.  I wish I hadn't a penny."
+
+"Hush, hush!" cried Mrs Max, "here is your guardian."  As she spoke she
+hastily wiped her eyes--pretty dry this time--and put away her
+handkerchief, for voices were heard below.
+
+In fact, half an hour before, Max Shingle had been rolling grandly along
+from the City, looking the full-blown perfection of a thick-lipped,
+self-inflated, sensual man, when he encountered Hopper, who hooked him
+at once with his stick.
+
+"Hullo, Max Shingle!" he cried: "been doing good, as usual?  Here: I'll
+come home to dinner with you," he continued, taking his arm.
+
+Max swore a very ugly oath to himself; but he was obliged to put up with
+the annoyance--a feeling modified, however, by his curiosity being
+excited.
+
+"I've just come from your brother Dick's," said Hopper, winking to
+himself.
+
+Max was mollified directly, for reasons of his own; for, though over two
+years had passed, Dick had kept his own counsel so well that not a soul,
+even in his own family, knew the full secret of his success.  Hopper was
+as ignorant as the rest; but he assumed a knowledge in Max's presence
+that he did not possess.
+
+"Is--is he doing well?" said Max, in an indifferent tone.  "Hey?"
+
+"I say, is he doing well?" shouted Max.
+
+"Wonderfully!  Keeps his brougham, and a carriage besides, for his wife
+and daughter."
+
+"Ah!" said Max.  "Is he civil to you?  No music now, I suppose?"
+
+"Only three nights a week," said Hopper, winking to himself.  "Fine
+princely fellow, Dick.  Ah! here we are.  Very glad--I'm hungry.  He
+wanted me to stay, but I would not."
+
+Max opened the front door with his latchkey, and drew back for Hopper to
+enter which that worthy did, and began to wipe his feat upon the mat,
+which said in scarlet letters, "Friend, do not swear," etc.
+
+"Damn that mat!" exclaimed Hopper loudly, as he caught one toe in the
+long pile, and nearly fell headlong, while Max gazed at him in horror.
+
+"Couldn't help it," said Hopper apologetically.  "Didn't swear, did I?"
+
+"Indeed, sir, you did."
+
+"Hey?  What say?"
+
+"You did, sir," shouted Max.
+
+"Did what?"
+
+"Swore--at the mat."
+
+"Hey?" said Hopper, who had grown wonderfully deaf since he had been in
+the hall.
+
+"I say you--swore--at--the--mat."
+
+"I swore at the mat?  Did I?  Tut, tut, tut!  How hard it is to break
+oneself of bad habits!  Now, I'll be bound to say you never did such a
+thing as that, Max?"
+
+Max shook his head.
+
+"No, of course you would not.  Ah, Max, I wish I was as good a man as
+you.  It's wonderful how some men's minds are constituted."
+
+Hopper took off an unpleasant-looking respirator that he had been
+wearing more or less--more when he was speaking, less when he was not;
+and when it was in its place it seemed to have the effect of sticking
+his grey moustache up into his nostrils, like a fierce _chevaux de
+frise_.  Then he put his hat on his hooked stick, and his great-coat on
+a chair, so as not to confront the moral aphorisms that were waiting to
+catch his eye, and followed Max up into the drawing-room, where the
+ladies looked horror-stricken at the sight of the guest.
+
+But there was no help for it; and Mrs Max, at a sign from her lord, put
+on her most agreeable air, though Violante gave him, uncompromisingly,
+an ugly look with one eye, which seemed to pierce him, while she
+clinched the shaft with the other, Hopper replying with his lowest bow.
+
+The brothers Tom and Fred came in directly after,--Tom to offer his
+hand, while Fred gave a supercilious nod and went up to his mother.
+
+Hopper nodded, and as soon as the dinner was announced, offered his arm
+to Mrs Max, and they went down to the dining-room.
+
+A well-ordered house had Max Shingle, and his dinners were nicely
+served; and since he was obliged to receive the visits of Hopper, he
+made a virtue of necessity, trying all the dinner-time to lay little
+traps for him to fall into about his brother Richard.  But as Hopper saw
+Tom lean eagerly forward, and Fred turn sharply to listen to his
+answers, while a frown passed between the two brothers, he misunderstood
+every word said to him as the dinner went on.
+
+"So Richard is doing uncommonly well, is he?" said Max.
+
+"Hey?  You're not doing uncommonly well?  So I heard in the City.  Some
+one told me your house was quite shaky."
+
+"Who told you that?" cried Fred fiercely.
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"I say who told you that?" cried Fred, more loudly.
+
+"I can't hear a word you say, young man," replied Hopper; "you must come
+round.  This, is a bad room of yours for sound, Maximilian--I'd have it
+altered."
+
+There were several little encounters of this kind during the repast; for
+Hopper, as soon as he saw the object of his host, strove religiously to
+frustrate his efforts, and with such success that Max gave up in
+disgust, and tried another tack, after making up his mind to call on his
+brother and become reconciled.  This he was the more eager for, since it
+was a fact that he had lost very heavily of late, and his house was
+tottering to its fall.
+
+"Ah!" said Max at last, as the dinner progressed slowly, "it's a pity,
+Hopper, that you have no money to invest."
+
+"Hey?  Money to invest?  No, thank you.  But don't talk shop, man.  I
+wonder so good a creature thinks so much of money.  But you keep a
+carriage?"
+
+"Oh yes," said Max, smiling good-humouredly at his wife, as if to say,
+"You see, he will have his joke!"
+
+"And horses?"
+
+"Of course," said Max, smiling.
+
+"There, don't put on that imbecile smile," cried Hopper.  "There's only
+been one decent dish on the table yet, and I've got some of it now.  You
+don't send your horses out to work in their nosebags? so don't make me
+work when I've got on mine.  I'm hard of hearing, but I'm fond of my
+digestion.  Don't treat your guest worse than your horses."
+
+"You always did like a joke, Hopper," said Max.
+
+"Joke!--it's no joke," cried Hopper, pointing at a pie before him.
+"Look at that--there's a thing to eat!  Look at the crust: just like the
+top of a brown skull, with all the sutures marked, ready to thrust a
+knife in and open it,--only it's apple inside instead of brains."
+
+Mrs Max gave a horrified glance at Violante.
+
+At last the dessert was placed on the table, and in due time the ladies
+rose, Tom following them shortly, and Fred, with a sneering look at his
+brother, rising, and saying he should go and have a cigar.
+
+"You don't smoke, I suppose, old Hopper?"
+
+"Hey?  Not smoke?  Yes, I do; but I shall have a pipe."  Left alone, the
+visitor condescended to talk about Richard, and gave Max a full account
+of his handsomely furnished house; growing so confidential that, when he
+took his cup of coffee, he drew nearer and nearer, gesticulating as he
+described the rich Turkey carpets.
+
+"He must be very rich," said Max at last, as he tapped the mahogany
+table with his fingers.
+
+"Not saved much, I should say," replied Hopper; "but he's making money
+fast.  So are you."
+
+"Um--no.  I'm very heavily insured, though."
+
+"Not in the Oldwives' Friendly?" said Hopper, with a curious look,
+though he knew the fact well.
+
+"Well--er--er--yes, I am," said Max.
+
+"They'll go to smash," said Hopper eagerly.  "Haven't you heard the
+rumours?"
+
+"Ye-es," faltered Max.
+
+"The scoundrels!  And you such a good man, too, who has saved up and
+toiled for his family.  I tell you what I'd do," he said earnestly.
+
+"What?" cried Max, turning to him with the eagerness of one in peril.
+
+"They must last another twelvemonth, and pay up liabilities till then."
+
+"Yes, they must do that, I should say," said Max.
+
+"Then die at once, and let your people draw the money!" cried Hopper,
+slapping him in the breast, and gazing at him with the most serious of
+aspects.  "So good and self-denying!  You all over."
+
+Max started back, with horror in his countenance, and glared at Hopper,
+whose countenance, however, never for a moment changed; and he hastily
+poured himself out a glass of port and tossed it off.
+
+"Very hard upon you, Max.  I wish I was rich, and could help you.  For
+you have been hit hard, of course.  Never mind: you've that violent
+girl's money in hand--six thousand.  Make one of your boys marry her,
+and that'll be all right."
+
+Max winced visibly.
+
+"Haven't spent it, have you?" continued Hopper, watching him from the
+corners of his eyes.  "No, you're too good a man for that? and it would
+be ugly."
+
+"Shall we go up to the drawing-room?" said Max, rising.
+
+"Hey?  Go upstairs?  No, not to-night, thankye.  Say good-bye to the
+ladies.  I'll be off now.  Thankye for a bad dinner.  More wine?  No,
+I'm going to my lodging, for a quiet pipe and a glass of toddy before
+bed.  Wretched weather, ain't it?  All right: I can get my coat on.
+Thankye, Max, thankye.  I sha'n't die yet, you know; your secret's all
+right.  Stop till I put on my respirator, so as to keep my lungs all
+right for your sake.  Now my hat and stick.  Thankye."
+
+He buttoned his coat tightly, looped the elastic of his respirator over
+his ears, and then stumbled to the door, gave the mat an ugly stab with
+his stick, nodded, did not shake hands, and went stumping down the
+street, talking to himself the while.
+
+"I wonder whether that Tom is a trump at bottom?" he said.  "I don't
+know yet, but there's a bit of a mystery over it all; and about Fred and
+that girl Jessie.  She's a puzzle, too.  I wouldn't have thought it of
+her; but I never did understand women.  And so old Max is hit hard.
+Well, it's the old saying, `Money got over old What's-his-name's back's
+spent under his chest;' and I'm sure of it.  I'd swear it.  He's spent
+every penny of that violent girl's fortune, as sure as my name's Hopper,
+which it really is."
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER NINE.
+
+A GREAT CHANGE.
+
+Richard Shingle was seated in his study--his own special room, tabooed,
+as he said, to every one but the specials--the specials being those whom
+he admitted.  The place had a gay bachelor look about it, with a
+smoking-cap putting out a fiery bronze Amazon, and the green shade of a
+gas globe perched on one side, giving it a rakish air, as if it had been
+out all night.  Cigars were in a box on a table, a handsome soda-water
+and spirit stand was on a sideboard, ready for use.
+
+The furniture of the room was handsome, and in excellent taste; but it
+seemed as if finishing touches had been put by the owner himself, the
+said touches not being in keeping with the rest of the arrangements.
+There was an absence of books, too, in the place, which certainly had
+not a studious air.  There were, however, plenty of newspapers and
+reviews; and it was observable that while the _Saturday_ and _Spectator_
+were in an uncut state, _Reynold's_ and _Lloyd's_ were crumpled with
+much reading.
+
+Richard Shingle, Esquire, was lolling idly back in a comfortable easy
+chair, in a rather loud-patterned shawl dressing-gown; one leg was
+thrown negligently over the chair-arm, a good cigar was in his lips, and
+as he smoked he diligently read the _Times_.
+
+There was an appearance about Richard Shingle of having been dressed and
+had his hair brushed by somebody else, with the result that he was not
+quite comfortable; and every now and then he looked at the stubby
+fingers of his right hand, and had a bite at the hard skin at the sides,
+as if to help them to grow soft and genteel; for though as clean as if
+he had boiled them every day, to get them rid of old stains, they looked
+as thorough a pair of workman's hands as it was possible to encounter in
+friendly grasp or clenched in warfare unpleasantly near your nose.
+
+"Phew! this is hard work," said Dick, pulling out a crimson silk
+handkerchief and wiping his forehead.
+
+Then, laying down the paper, he rose, crossed the room, and poured
+himself out a little brandy from a decanter, before taking up a bottle
+of soda-water.
+
+There was a sharp explosion: the cork struck a gas globe with a loud
+ring, and before Dick could pour out the contents of the bottle, half of
+it was on the Turkey carpet, drenching his hands and the front of his
+dressing-gown.
+
+"If it was only genteel to swear," he thought, "I'd have such a good
+one.  Yah, it's as gassy as brother Max.  Wonder he has never found me
+out.  Here's a pretty mess!  Ah! that's better, though," he continued,
+as he poured out and drank the refreshing draught before returning to
+his seat, wiping his hands upon his crimson silk handkerchief.  "It's
+very good sort of stuff, brandy and soda, specially the brandy; but I
+don't know that I like it so well as half a pint of beer just drawn up
+cool out of a cellar, with plenty of head.  Ah, those were days after
+all!" he said, sorrowfully.  "One can't go and have half-pints now.
+Hold hard, my lad!  Taboo! taboo!  That's all taboo, you know.
+
+"Well, I was always grumbling then, and wanting to be well off; but,
+somehow, we was very happy," he continued, reseating himself in his easy
+chair.  "Now I'm well off, I'm always feeling as if I wanted something
+else.  But I don't know: if Jessie would only look all right again, and
+matters be square, I don't think I should grumble much.  Well, here goes
+once more."
+
+He gave the paper a fierce shake, got his leg well over the arm of the
+chair, and went on reading aloud.
+
+"`The Chancellor of the Ex-exchequer ap-peal-ed to the 'Ouse to give doo
+con-sid-e-ra-tion to the wote--vote--and said--plead--' Blow the paper!
+it's awfully dry work going through all this 'Ouse of Commons business
+every morning.  Not half so interesting as the little bits about the
+accidents and murders and 'saults down at the bottom of the weekly
+papers.--One never knows where one is; and the way I get the two sides
+of the 'Ouse mixed up together makes me thankful I ain't in Parlymint,
+or I should be doing some mischief.  I wish Jessie would come.  The
+members don't seem to talk quite so much stuff when she reads.  Poor
+lass!  I'd give a thousand pounds down--and I could give it, too," he
+added, with a fierce slap on his knee--"to see her looking as well and
+happy as she used to."
+
+He stopped, thinking for a few minutes.
+
+"No," he said aloud, "I haven't done wrong.  I've said it a dozen times,
+and I says it again.  `No, my lass, I ask no questions about it,' I
+says; `but that was an unpleasant piece of business about Fred Fraser,
+as is a reg'lar scamp; and if you loved Tom you didn't do right.  You
+says he came and threw up something at the window, and you opened it,
+thinking it was Tom.  Well, my gal, you didn't do right then, after what
+had happened.'  But there, it's all over now--they belong to another
+set, unless they find out as we're well off now, and Max wants to be
+friends.  Ha! ha! ha!  I shouldn't wonder if he did some day.  Ah, well!
+let's have some more paper."
+
+He went on reading for five minutes, and then threw the sheet
+impatiently away.
+
+"If it wasn't for seeming so ignorant, I wouldn't read a blessed line of
+it," he cried.  "Talk, talk, talk!  Why, they might say it all in half
+an hour; only one seems so out of everything if one can't talk about
+politics.  No one ever says a word about the interesting paragraphs.
+I'm getting very tired of it all, and if ever I go into Parlymint I
+shall try for a comfortable seat below the gangway, or a hammock in the
+cabin."
+
+He pulled out a handsome self-winding gold watch, looked at the time
+with a sigh, and turned it over in his hand.
+
+"Yes, you're very pretty, and very valuable; but now I've had you six
+months I don't care tuppence about you, 'specially as I don't want to
+serve you as we used the old thirty-shilling silver vertical.  `Make it
+ten shillings this time, Mr Dobree--do, please,' I says, one night,
+`and I've got tuppence in my pocket for the ticket.'  `No,' he says;
+`seven shillings--the old price; take it or leave it,' he says.  `Take
+it,' I says.  And so it went on till we lost it.  Taboo--taboo!"
+exclaimed Richard, giving himself a tap on the mouth and putting away
+his timekeeper.  "But I often wonder what's become of the old watch.  It
+was a rum one.  You never knowed what it meant to do.  One week it was
+all gain, and another all lose; and the way in which it would shake
+hands with itself, as if it enjoyed having such a lark, was fine, only
+it forgot to leave go, and the two hands went round together.  Ah,
+well!--the cases was worth the seven shillings; so Uncle D. didn't lose
+very much by the last transaction."
+
+The door opened, and Mrs Shingle entered, looking plump and well; and,
+having been very tastefully dressed by a good _modiste_, she was a fair
+example of what money will do.
+
+It must be certainly owned that if she were to be calculated by the
+standard of refinement, it would have been necessary for her to hold her
+peace, as at the first words a considerable amount would have had to be
+taken from her value; but, all the same, there was very little trace
+left of the homely mechanic's wife.
+
+"Well, mother," said Dick, smiling, as she entered, "what's the best
+news?"
+
+"Bad."
+
+"Isn't Jessie any better?" he exclaimed anxiously.
+
+Mrs Shingle shook her head.
+
+"What does she say?"
+
+"Nothing," said Mrs Shingle sharply: "she's like her father--has her
+secrets, and keeps them."
+
+"Don't--don't, mother! don't go on like that!" cried Dick imploringly.
+"I've only got one secret from you."
+
+"One, indeed!" said Mrs Shingle, growing red in the face; "but it's
+such a big one that it's greater than all the things you've told me all
+your life."
+
+"Well, it is a big one, certainly," said Dick, caressing his chin and
+smiling blandly.  "But it's been the making of us."
+
+"And you keep it from your own wife, who's been married to you over
+twenty years."
+
+"Over twenty years!" said Dick, smiling at her--"is it, now?  Well, I
+suppose it is.  But lor', who'd have thought it?  Why, mother, you grow
+younger and handsomer every day!"
+
+"Do I?" said Mrs Shingle, evidently feeling flattered, but angry all
+the same.  "If I do, father, it's not from ease of mind."
+
+"Come, come, mother," he said, getting up and putting his arm round her,
+"don't turn cross about it.  I made a sort of promise like, when I
+thought of the idea that I've worked out into this house and this style
+of grounds for you, and your watch and chain and joolery, that I'd keep
+it all a secret."
+
+"Then it isn't honest, father."
+
+"That's what you've often said, mother, when you've been a bit waxy with
+me, and that's what I felt you might say when I first thought it out and
+promised to keep it a secret."
+
+"Who did you promise?"
+
+"Him," said Dick, taking up an envelope and pointing to it with pride.
+"See--
+
+"`_Richard Shingle_, _Esq_., _The Ivy House_, _Haverstock Hill_,'" he
+went on, reading the address.  "That's the man I promised."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs Shingle, trying to escape from his arm, but very
+feebly; "and kept it from your own wife."
+
+"Well, yes," said Dick, with the puzzled look very strong in his face.
+"I have kept it from you; but it's a sort of religious oath--like
+freemasonry."
+
+"Like free stuffery!" cried Mrs Shingle.  "When we were poor you never
+had any secrets from me."
+
+"No, my dear," said Dick, kissing her--"never had one worth keeping; and
+see how badly it worked--how poor we were!  Now I have got a secret from
+you--see how nicely it works, and how well off we are!"
+
+"I'd rather be poor again, then."
+
+"Well, they was happy times," said Dick; "but there was a very rough
+wrong side.  It was like wearing a good pair of boots with the nails
+sticking up inside."
+
+"If I've asked you to tell me that secret night and day--I say, if I've
+asked you once," cried Mrs Shingle, excitedly, "I've asked you--"
+
+"Two thousand times at least," said Dick, interrupting her: "you have,
+mother, you have--'specially at night."
+
+"Then I'll make a vow too," cried Mrs Shingle, throwing herself into a
+chair.  "Never more--no, not even when I'm lying on my dying bed, will I
+ask you again."
+
+She leaned back, and looked at him angrily, as if she expected that this
+fearful vow would bring him on his knees at her feet.  And certainly
+Dick did come over to her; but it was with a look of relief on his
+countenance as he bent down and kissed her.
+
+"Thankye, mother," he said--"thankye.  You see, it's a very strange
+secret, and mightn't agree with you."
+
+"It's agreed with you."
+
+"Well, yes, pretty well," he said, smiling complacently; "but there,
+I've never told a soul--not even old Hopper; and fine and wild he's been
+sometimes about it."
+
+"I should think not, indeed!"
+
+"There, there, don't look like that, mother," cried Dick; "you have got
+such a sweet, comfortable sort of face when it's not cross; and--there--
+it's all right, isn't it?"
+
+It seemed to be, for Mrs Shingle smiled once more, and Dick drew a
+chair close to her.
+
+"Now, look here," he said: "I want to talk to you about Jessie."
+
+Mrs Shingle sighed, and laid her head upon his shoulder.
+
+"Poor Jessie!" she said.
+
+"Now, what's to be done about--"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know."
+
+"Do you think she cares about Tom now?  Because, if she does, I'll
+swallow all the old pride and hold out the 'and of good fellowship to
+him--that is, if he's a honest, true sorter fellow; if he ain't, things
+had better stop as they are."
+
+"But that's what I don't know," said Mrs Shingle; "she won't talk about
+it.  You know as well as I do that it's all come on since that night at
+the old home."
+
+"Taboo! taboo!" muttered Dick.
+
+"That letter was the worst part of it."
+
+"What, the one that come from Tom next day?"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs Shingle; "it must have been very bitter and angry, for
+she turned red, and then white, and ended by crumpling it up and
+throwing it into the fire."
+
+"And Tom's never tried to come nigh her since?" said Dick, musing.
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, p'r'aps that's pride," said Dick.  "He's waiting to be asked.  I
+don't think the less of him for that."
+
+"No," said Mrs Shingle, "Jessie won't talk about it; but it's my belief
+that Tom must have seen Fred come to see her that night, and he told her
+so, and threw her off, and she's been fretting and wearing away ever
+since."
+
+"Fred's often hanging about, though.  Does she see him, do you think?"
+
+"Oh no," said Mrs Shingle, "I don't think she does.  Heigho!  I don't
+know how it's to end.  She's getting as thin as thin, and hardly eats a
+bit; and she's always watching and listening in a weary, wretched way,
+that makes me wish she was married."
+
+"Well, that's it," cried Dick; "let's get her married."
+
+"Are you in such a hurry to part with her, then?" said Mrs Shingle
+bitterly.
+
+"Part with her?  Not I!  I'm not going to part with her.  Whoever it is
+as has her will have to come and live here."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense.  Nice thing, for a young couple to be always
+having their father and mother in the house!  Suppose whoever it is
+should want to bring his too?"
+
+"Well, that would be awkward," said Dick, rubbing his nose.  "Hush! here
+she is."
+
+For Jessie came in just then, very gently, and her aspect justified Mrs
+Shingle's words.  She looked thin and wasted, while a sad, weary smile
+played about her lips, as if she were in constant pain and trying to
+hide it from those around.  "Why, Jessie, my gal," said Dick, "where
+have you been all this long time?  Come along.  I've got to leave soon--
+11:20 sharp," he continued, glancing at his watch, and shutting it with
+a loud snap as Mrs Shingle rose and left the room.
+
+Jessie went to his side, and kissed him, staying leaning upon his
+shoulder; but soon after walked away to the window and looked out.
+
+"That's what she's always doing," muttered Dick--"always looking for
+some one as never comes.  It must be about one of those two fellows.
+Jessie!" he cried.
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"I met Fred Fraser yesterday."
+
+She started round, and looked at him with dilated eyes.
+
+"And Tom Fraser, his brother, the day before."
+
+Her face flushed, and an angry look darted from her eyes as he spoke,
+but she turned away.
+
+"It must be Fred," he muttered.  "I don't like it," he continued; "I
+never did see such things as gals--girls.  If she wants such and such a
+fellow, why don't she say so? and if money'll get him, why, he's hers;
+but I'm not going to see her die before my eyes.  I'd sooner she married
+a scamp--if she loves him.  But he don't have the playing with any money
+I may give her.  Now, if Max would only make the first advances, we
+might be friendly again.  I can afford to be, and I will; but I don't
+like to make the first step.  Jessie, my girl, if--I say if--if I was to
+become friends with your uncle again--"
+
+"Friends with Uncle Max?" cried Jessie, starting.
+
+"I've been thinking of it, you know; and I was going to say he did give
+you--us, I mean--the rough side of his tongue once."
+
+"That's--that's all forgotten now, father," faltered Jessie softly.
+
+"You forgive him, my gal, for what he said to you?"
+
+"Yes, father, yes," she cried, with a sob.
+
+"And you wouldn't mind meeting him again?"
+
+"N-no, father, I think not," she faltered.
+
+"And you wouldn't mind meeting your cousin Fred, eh?"
+
+"I--I don't think so, father; I would try not to mind."
+
+"I wouldn't press you, my dear," he said; "but you know Uncle Max is my
+brother, and blood is thicker than water, eh?  I say blood is thicker
+than water; and some day I must die, and I should like to be friends
+first."
+
+"Die, father!" said Jessie, with a weary look.  "Would it be very hard
+to die?"
+
+"Here, I say, Jessie, my pet, don't talk in that way.  How should I
+know?  I never tried.  What makes you say that?"
+
+"Because--because, father--"
+
+She stopped short.
+
+"Oh, there, my gal, no one's going to die yet; but I say, Jessie, your
+cousin Tom--you wouldn't mind meeting him, too?"
+
+She turned upon him a mingled look of joy and dread; and then, shaking
+her head--
+
+"No, no, father," she exclaimed, closing her eyes, and with the veins in
+her forehead standing out--"I could not bear to meet him."
+
+"It's Fred!  I said it was," exclaimed Dick to himself.  "Well, I'm
+sorry; but it can't be helped.  I'll talk to him like a father, and
+bring him round.  Now, if--What do you want, John?"
+
+He turned sharply round, for the door opened, and a page in a neat
+livery, hardly recognisable as the 'prentice of the shoemaker's
+workshop, entered the room.
+
+"Please, sir, here's a gentleman to see you."
+
+"Who is it?" cried Dick; "and what are you grinning at?"
+
+"Please, sir, it's Mr Maximilian Shingle; and 'ere's his card."
+
+Max Shingle had made up his mind, without any allusion to blood being
+thicker than water, to make the first advance to his brother.  For it
+was very evident that Dick had hit upon some means of making money
+rapidly, whilst of late matters had been turning out very badly in his
+own business arrangements.  No matter what he tried, or how he
+speculated, everything went wrong; until, in a kind of reckless gambling
+fit, to try and recoup himself for past losses, he had plunged himself
+more deeply in the mire.
+
+He had broached his intentions to his wife and ward at breakfast time,
+and Mrs Max had shed tears.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know what to say, Max," she whimpered, "unless it
+be--_oh_!"
+
+She uttered a loud shriek.
+
+"My poor darling! what is it?" cried Max.  "Another of your little fits?
+There, go to her, Violante.  She will be better soon."
+
+"Yes, yes--it is nothing," faltered the unhappy woman.  "I shall be
+better directly."
+
+She looked in a frightened way at her smooth, smiling lord, as she
+ground her teeth and pressed her lips together, to keep from moaning
+aloud.
+
+Violante, who did not know what was the matter, jumped up and went to
+Mrs Max's assistance; while the cat, who did know, having felt Max
+Shingle's boot whisk by her ears as it struck Mrs Max, crept out of
+harm's way, and curled up on the mat.
+
+Tom Fraser and his brother Fred had risen and left the table, the one
+for Somerset House, the other for the office, before this incident
+occurred, or probably it would not have taken place; but Max had his
+reasons for not speaking sooner--one being that he fully intended Tom to
+marry his ward, and the other that he wished to pay his visit before the
+young men were aware of the fact.
+
+On reaching his brother's house, it was with a feeling of annoyance that
+he was ushered by the boy into the handsome dining-room, opening upon a
+conservatory, where, amongst other pictures, that of Dick and his wife
+occupied conspicuous places.
+
+"So you say your master is at home, my man?" said Max, with his most
+urbane smile, as the boy came back from the study.
+
+"Yes, sir; he don't go out till nearly midday on Toosdays.  He says will
+you wait five minutes, sir?"
+
+"You didn't know me again," said Max, smiling in an ingratiating manner.
+
+"Oh, don't I just know you again, sir!" cried the boy.  "You're master's
+brother, as used to come to the old place."
+
+"Quite right, my man, quite right; I am your master's brother."
+
+"You didn't know me again, sir?"
+
+"No, my man, no," said Max, putting up his glass and gazing at the boy
+with great interest; "you have improved so wonderfully.  Ah! you look
+better than you did in those old days."
+
+"I should think I did, sir.  Things is altered now.  Master never talks
+about the shoemaking; he always calls it taboo."
+
+"Does he really?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and everything's different.  Never feel hollow now--nothing
+never gnaws inside; and master says it's all because my 'gestion's
+better.  He knows."
+
+"Stop a moment, my man," said Max insinuatingly; "here's a shilling."
+
+"Thankye, sir: shall I go now?"
+
+"In a moment.  So he's in his study, is he?  Making patent boots and
+shoes?"
+
+"Bless your 'art, no, sir; it's patent, but he don't make no boots and
+shoes now.  He buys all the very best.  Look at that," said the boy,
+holding out a foot.
+
+As he spoke, Dick made his appearance behind them at the conservatory
+door, when, on seeing Max talking to the boy, he drew back.
+
+"Ah, yes," said Max, "that's a handsome boot; and you've got a good
+foot, my lad."
+
+"Them's the best boots in the trade, sir," said the boy proudly.
+
+"He's going to pump him," muttered Dick.  "Well, if he plays those
+games, I shall do the artful too."
+
+"So you never feel hungry and hollow now, my man?" said Max.
+
+"I should think not, sir.  Master gave orders that I was always to have
+as much as I liked to eat.  And I do," he added unctuously.
+
+"He don't know much," muttered Dick; "but if he gets putting old Max on
+the scent, I'll smother him."
+
+"So you eat and drink as much as you like, do you, my man?" continued
+Max.
+
+"Don't I?" said the boy, laughing.  "I should just think I do.  Why,
+I've growed out of two suits of livery since we've been here."
+
+"And how long's that?"
+
+"Twelve months, sir; and these is getting too tight."
+
+"You were not in quite such a fine house as this before were you?"
+
+"Oh no, sir, nothing like; but we've been doing very well lately."
+
+"You young villain!" muttered Dick; "if you get telling tales I'll never
+forgive you."
+
+"So I suppose," said Max.  "And so you are very happy and comfortable?"
+
+"It's lovely, sir."
+
+"Master and mistress very kind, I suppose?"
+
+"They jest are, sir.  Missus and miss seems like two angels, sir."
+
+"And your master--does he ever give you the stirrup-leather now?" said
+Max, laughing.
+
+"Give me the sterrup-leather!" said the boy, looking pugnacious; "no, he
+jest don't.  I should like to ketch him at it.  Sterrup-leather! why, he
+treats me just like a son."
+
+"But of course you are not his son?" said Max, with a peculiar smile.
+
+"There's impudence!" muttered Dick, from behind a great camellia.  "Nice
+brotherly attack on me.  Why, the young ruffian's going to say he is,
+just out of pride and vanity!"
+
+"No, sir; I was a workusser."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A workusser, and was sent out to one o' the whitewashy schools.  That's
+where master got me.  I'll go and see if he's ready."
+
+"Wait a moment, my lad," said Max; "there's another shilling, for being
+such a good boy and stopping in your place."
+
+"Stop, sir!" said John, grinning, as he bit the edge of the coin and
+then slipped it in his pocket--"I should think I do stop: master
+couldn't afford to part with me."
+
+"If that boy tells all he knows, I'll about half kill him," muttered
+Dick, who, playing the eavesdropper, stood a fair chance of suffering
+the listener's fate.
+
+"I suppose not; you're so useful to him in his business, I suppose?"
+
+"Pooty well, sir."
+
+Max tried another tack.
+
+"Master look well, John?"
+
+"Lovely, sir!" cried the boy.  "He's a regular swell now."
+
+"Is he, though?"
+
+"Tip-top, sir; never puts on a shirt twice, and wears three pairs o'
+boots every day--shiny leather ones."
+
+"Does he, though?" said Max, drawing nearer to the boy.  "And so he
+wouldn't like to part with you?"
+
+"Oh no, sir.  I goes to the City with him every day--on the broom
+sometimes."
+
+"He keeps a brougham, then?"
+
+"My master could keep anything he liked," said the boy proudly; and Dick
+took a two-shilling piece out of his trousers pocket and placed it handy
+in his vest.  "He's going to have a yatched."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A little ship of his own, to go sailing about in."
+
+"Then he must be very rich?"
+
+"Rich?" said the boy.  "I should think he is."
+
+"And what did you say his business was, my lad?"
+
+"Master's business is master's business, and nobody else's," said the
+boy sharply.  "Here he is, sir."
+
+For just then Dick's cough was heard, and his step in the conservatory.
+And then, in the whitest of vests and the glossiest of frock-coats, he
+came into the room as the boy backed out.
+
+"My dear Richard!" cried Max, with effusion--and the tears stood in his
+eyes as he stretched out his hands--"I am delighted to see you again."
+
+"Are you?" said Dick coolly, and without taking any notice of the
+suggested embrace.
+
+"So glad, I cannot tell you," cried Max, taking out and unfolding a
+cambric handkerchief, which he held to one eye, looked at it afterwards
+to see if there was a moist spot for result, and, as there was not,
+tried the other eye with rather better success.  "You'll shake hands?"
+
+"Oh yes," said Dick.  "How are you, Max?"
+
+"Quite well, my dear brother: but why haven't you been to see me all
+these long months?"
+
+"Long months, eh?  I never found 'em long.  I began to think I was being
+took advantage of now that I was well off, and getting short measure."
+
+"Then you are very well off?"
+
+"Tol-lol, tol-lol; nothing much to grumble about.  But sit down."
+
+He placed an easy chair for his brother, seating himself afterwards on
+the edge of the table and watching his visitor sharply.
+
+"I'm very glad of it, Richard," cried Max, after a glance round.  "You
+know, I always thought that a man with your brains was throwing himself
+away on trade, and wasting his energies."
+
+"Oh! you did, did you?"
+
+"Always, my dear brother; and that's why I used to speak so sharply to
+you--to rouse you--to awaken you."
+
+"Well, you did that, and no mistake!" said Dick, laughing.
+
+"And look at the result.  You set-to and hit up some bright idea; and
+now, before two years have elapsed, I come and find you a millionaire."
+
+"Well, not quite that, Max: a million's a stiff sum, Max--a very stiff
+sum."
+
+"Hah! it's refreshing to come and hear you call me again by that
+familiar name, Richard: it reminds me of when we were boys."  And Max
+again raised his handkerchief to his eyes.
+
+"Well, old fellow, I wouldn't cry about it if I was you.  It's all right
+now.  You always was pretty well down upon me when I was a poor man; but
+as you've come and showed, as I said to Polly, that blood's thicker than
+water, why, we'll forget all about the past."
+
+"We will," cried Max, taking his brother's hand and beginning to pump it
+up and down, clinging to it the while as if he were afraid of being
+parted, and ending by trying to embrace him.
+
+"I say, don't do that!" cried Dick sharply.  "I'm pretty well off, but I
+can only afford one clean shirt a day."
+
+"Jocular as ever," said Max, holding his head on one side, and looking
+at him admiringly.  "Humour flourishes in a golden soil.  And so, my
+dear Richard, you make your twenty per cent, out of your profession?"
+
+"Twenty per cent!" said Dick contemptuously.  "Why, you don't think this
+sort of thing's done on twenty per cent, do you?"
+
+"How much, then?"
+
+"Well, I don't know.  I'm not particular.  I take a hundred per cent,
+when I can't get a hundred and fifty."
+
+"A hundred and fifty per cent!  My dear Richard, you must put me on to
+this.  We must be partners, Dick--Shingle Brothers, eh?  But, my dear
+boy, what business are you in?"
+
+"Oh, yes--that's it!" said Dick, closing one eye slowly, and keeping it
+shut while he fixed the other on the ceiling.  "But here are the
+ladies."
+
+As he spoke, Mrs Shingle and Jessie entered the room.
+
+"Never!" exclaimed Max, with an air of wonderment.  "My dear sister, my
+dear niece--years younger on the one side, years more beautiful on the
+other.  What a change since I saw you last!"
+
+"There's better light in this room than in the old one, Max; and it
+flatters, perhaps," said Dick.
+
+"Yes, so there is, Richard.  That was a cruel cold place.  But why speak
+of the past?  My dear niece, you have really grown beautiful.  Fred
+would be charmed to see you."
+
+Jessie's eyes contracted as she gazed full at him, and then, bending her
+head slightly, turned away.
+
+"Haven't you married him to a lady of fortune yet?" said Dick.
+
+"Oh no!" cried Max hastily.  "He is not engaged.  Tom is--to my ward,
+Violante--a charming girl."
+
+Jessie stood as if turned to stone, but no sound escaped her.  Dick,
+however, saw that she was suffering, and he said, sharply--
+
+"Ah! fine young fellow, Tom; but deuced low in his tastes.  Wanted to
+marry a poor shoemaker's gal--girl, I mean.  But there, come into my
+study, and I'll give you a glass of genuine port.  Mother, tell them to
+bring in the comic port."
+
+"Comet port," she whispered.  "I told you before."
+
+"All right--only meant to get him away.  Look at Jessie."
+
+"I shall be delighted," said Max.  "Ladies, good-bye for the present."
+
+His bow was perfection; and then Dick led the way through the
+well-filled conservatory, while Mrs Shingle caught her child's clammy
+hand in her own, for Jessie seemed about to faint.
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TEN.
+
+A LUNATIC.
+
+"Jessie, are you ill?" cried Mrs Shingle.
+
+"No, mother, no," said Jessie, making a brave effort to recover herself.
+"It is all past now."
+
+"It was them talking in that heartless manner about those two fellows,"
+cried Mrs Shingle indignantly.  "What is it, John?"
+
+"Here's another gentleman to see you, mum," said the boy.
+
+As he spoke, Mr Fred Fraser, elaborately dressed, walked into the room,
+a pull at the bell sounding through the house as he made his
+salutations, and, in a light and airy way, began to converse as if they
+had been the greatest intimates all along.
+
+"Mr Thomas Fraser," said John, in a loud voice.  And, in a hasty,
+excited manner, Mrs Max Shingle's elder son entered the room, to look
+angrily at his brother, as he saw him seated there.
+
+"You here?" he cried sharply.
+
+"Ya-as, I'm here, Tom," was the cool reply.
+
+"Aunt--Jessie!" exclaimed Tom, advancing.  "I by chance heard that my
+step-father had come here; and, taking this as an augury that we were to
+be friends once more, I followed him; but I did not expect to find my
+brother here, and that I should be--"
+
+"_De trop_," said Fred, with an irritating smile; "but you are."
+
+Tom turned upon him sharply, but, mastering his passion, he crossed to
+where Jessie was seated, and held out his hand.
+
+"Jessie," he said, in a low, earnest voice, "you will shake hands with
+me?  I forgive all the past now, and wish you every happiness."
+
+At his first words a glad light had leaped into the poor girl's eyes,
+and she half raised her hand to take his; but, as he finished his
+sentence, a stony rigidity stole over her, and she shrank back, letting
+her hand fall upon her lap.
+
+It was too hard to bear, and she would have given worlds to have been
+able to rush from the room--anywhere, so as to be alone--and sob and
+wail aloud, to relieve her bursting heart.  But it was impossible.  She
+could not stir--only look up at Tom, as with knitted brows he stood
+there, resenting her coldness.
+
+Never once had her thoughts strayed from him; and yet he had misjudged
+her so cruelly, believing that she trifled with him, that she played
+with his heart, while she coquetted--behaved lightly--with his brother.
+And now, after these long, weary months--after what would soon be two
+years of misery--now that he had come, her heart had whispered, to tell
+her that he had been wrong, and misjudged her, while he asked her pardon
+for the past--a pardon that she would joy in according--she had to hear,
+first that he was engaged to another, and then read in his face that his
+doubts and misgivings were stronger than ever.
+
+Jessie's heart, that had been expanding fast, like the petals of a
+flower, to drink in the sunshine of hope and love and joy, seemed to
+contract and shrivel up, blighted and seared, as, cold and trembling,
+she sat there, while, with a look of contempt, Tom turned away.
+
+"As you will, my fair cousin," he said, in a low, bitter voice.  "I
+suppose I am to call you sister some day.  How the world changes?
+Better poverty and truth than this."  When a word would have set all
+right.
+
+He turned abruptly, and began speaking to Mrs Shingle; while Fred,
+seizing the opportunity, took a seat beside Jessie on the couch, and
+began to talk to her rapidly about the various trifles of the day--
+chattering on, while she seemed to be listening to him, for she replied
+in monosyllables, though she was striving, with every nerve strained, to
+hear what was said by his brother.
+
+Before many words had passed, though, voices were heard from without,
+increasing in loudness; and Mrs Shingle started up, for it was plain
+that her husband was in a towering rage.
+
+In fact, as he came through the conservatory, he struck a handsome
+jardiniere a heavy blow with his open hand, shivering it upon the
+tesselated tiles of the floor.
+
+"Hallo!" cried Dick angrily, as he entered, followed by Max, "you are
+all here, are you!  Why didn't you bring the wife and the servants, and
+take possession?  It's all right--there's plenty of room.  Here, you
+sir, get off that sofa!"  The young men rose as he entered--Fred very
+slowly, and evidently amused; while Tom's face flushed with rage.
+
+"Oh, father!" cried Jessie, whose face had become suffused from shame
+and annoyance.
+
+"There, I know what I'm doing," he said.  "Hold your tongue.  You and
+your mother had better be off.  You'll stop?  Well, then, stay."
+
+"Is your husband subject to a little--er--er--?  You know, Mrs
+Richard," said Max, tapping his forehead.
+
+"No," said Dick sharply, "he isn't.  And now, may I ask, young fellows,
+how it is you condescend to be here?  If it's to order boots and chuck
+'em on my hands for misfits, you've not come to the right shop."
+
+"They came unknown to me," said Max hotly.
+
+"I dessay they did," cried Dick; "but whether they did or not, they've
+come to the wrong place, and, once for all, I forbid them my house."
+
+"Come, father," said Tom sternly; while Fred took a step to Jessie's
+side, and whispered--
+
+"Dear Jessie, for heaven's sake let this make no difference to us."
+
+She turned her eyes upon him for a moment, and Tom saw the glance; and
+then, as she gazed at him, directed a look upon her of withering
+contempt, beneath which she shivered.
+
+"Don't be in too great a hurry," said Dick.  "As you are here, we may as
+well have it out.  We don't often meet.  Now, Max, my most affectionate
+brother, have the goodness to say that again, and let your wife's sons
+hear what sort of a man you are."
+
+"No," said Max, "I leave now.  I shall take my own steps about it."
+
+"You will?" said Dick, looking startled.
+
+"I shall, sir--I shall.  I don't consider you are fit to be trusted.
+There are such cases as inquiries in lunacy."
+
+"Bah!" said Dick, who looked startled all the same.  "Well, if you don't
+say what you said to me, here out loud before them all, I shall say it
+myself."
+
+"Then I will say it!" cried Max desperately.  "What I said was this: As
+your uncle has hit upon some scheme for making a fortune, I have a
+right, as his own brother--"
+
+"Very own, indeed," said Dick quietly.
+
+"To share with him in the secret."
+
+"And what I say to it is," cried Dick--"and you can all hear me--that
+what I invented with my own brains is my own property, and I won't be
+bullied out of it by all the brothers in Christendom."
+
+"Then I shall follow out my own course."
+
+"Follow it, then," said Dick scornfully, "and let your boys come after
+you."
+
+Tom turned upon him resentfully, but merely ground his teeth; while Fred
+winked, and tapped his teeth with his cane.
+
+"I have not been idle during my interview with my poor afflicted
+brother," continued Max; "and I have seen enough from his wild behaviour
+and language to know that the mental disease that has been threatening
+for years has now obtained such a hold that he is no longer fit to
+manage his own affairs."
+
+"I say, hold hard there!" cried Dick, looking at him in a puzzled way.
+
+"I shall, of course, make due arrangements for the proper carrying out
+of his business, and for protecting the interests of his wife and
+child."
+
+"Mr Shingle!" cried Tom, stepping forward, "this is atrocious: there
+are no grounds for what you say."
+
+"Silence, sir!" roared Max; while Dick's countenance underwent a
+complete change.
+
+"There!" cried Dick angrily, as he appealed in turn to all present;
+"what did I always say?  Max, you always were, and always will be, a
+'umbug!"
+
+"What?" cried Max.
+
+"A 'umbug, sir.  U-m, um--b-u-double-g, bug, 'umbug!  That for you!"
+cried Dick, snapping his fingers in his brother's face.
+
+"Ah!" said Max, with a heavy sigh--"all proof of what I say--the
+violence, the excitement, these strange outbursts.  My poor brother!"
+
+He took out his handkerchief, and applied it to his eyes.
+
+Dick looked at him for a moment, then at his wife and child, and then
+his face grew longer and his hand played nervously about his face.
+
+"But, I say, Max," he cried, "you don't mean this.  I'm as right in the
+upper story as you are."
+
+Max shook his head.
+
+"My dear Richard," he said, "I'd give my right hand to know you were.
+This is dreadful."
+
+"Dreadful?  It's worse than dreadful," cried Mrs Shingle, catching her
+husband's arm.  "Dick, make him leave the house."
+
+"My dear Mrs Shingle," said Max deprecatingly, "this is folly.  You
+only excite him terribly."
+
+"Excite him?"
+
+"Yes, my dear," said Dick, wiping the perspiration from his face, "it do
+excite me a deal.  I don't know that Max ain't right; but he won't be
+hard on me--Max won't.  I have felt a little--little confused and upset,
+you know, about my business sometimes."
+
+"Father, it is not true," cried Jessie, running to his side, "your mind
+is perfectly clear."
+
+"I'm afraid it ain't, my dear," he said.  "But your Uncle Max won't be
+hard on me.  No sending to asylums or that sort of thing.  Just a
+friendly visit from a doctor or two, and I should be soon put right."
+
+"Whatever the cleverest medical man I could procure--a specialist on
+your particular ailment--said, I should go by," replied Max sadly.
+
+"There, mother--there, Jessie, what did I tell you?" cried Dick,
+brightening up.  "Blood is thicker than water.  I always said it was.
+He'll do what's right."
+
+"With Heaven's help I will," said Max solemnly; while, unable to contain
+his disgust, Tom walked to the window.
+
+"Of course he will," cried Dick; "it'll be all made up now, and we shall
+be the best of friends--eh?"
+
+"Yes, dear Richard--the best of friends," said Max, glancing at Mrs
+Shingle, and then shrugging his shoulders and raising his eyes.
+
+"But about my business," said Dick uneasily.  And he began to bite the
+bits of tough skin at the sides of his fingers.
+
+"Richard, are you mad?" cried Mrs Shingle excitedly.  "You shall not
+talk about it.  You have kept it secret so long, even from your own wife
+and child, and you shall not talk about it to him."
+
+Dick smiled at her rather vacantly.
+
+"Well, it do seem hard, mother, certainly; but it was sure to come out
+some day, and it's best for one's own brother to know of it--better than
+anybody else, because he'll do what's right and best for every one--you
+and Jessie too, of course; for if I get worse (as I may, you know) it
+would be sad, of course, for it all to go to ruin for want of a
+master-mind, and no one left to take care of you--and--you come to ruin,
+and not even your poor husband to make boots and shoes for you again."
+
+He laughed hysterically, and Mrs Shingle threw her arms round his neck.
+
+"Oh, Dick! dear Dick! what has come to you?" she cried.  Then, rousing
+herself, she turned angrily upon Max.  "This is your doing," she cried.
+"He was quite well till you came."
+
+Max shook his head sadly, and wiped his eyes, while Fred tried to take
+Jessie's hand; but she motioned him away, and stood by her father,
+keenly watching all present.
+
+"Don't talk like that, my dear," said Dick, patting his wife's shoulder;
+"it hurts me, and makes me worse.  Max means well, and he'll see to
+things being carried out right for all of us, won't you, Max?"
+
+"Indeed I will," said Max piously; and Tom still gazed from the window.
+
+"But--but--but do you think, Max," said Dick, drawing his hands from his
+wife and child, and speaking in a desultory, wandering way, as if trying
+to collect his thoughts, "do you think that if you came in with me as
+you proposed, and saw to the management of the business, so as to
+relieve me and let me rest, it would be necessary for me to go anywhere
+away from home?"
+
+"We would take advice over that," said Max; "the best to be had--
+medical."
+
+"N-no," said Dick shrewdly, "I shouldn't quite like that, Max; those
+very clever doctors are too clever sometimes, and they might want to
+lock me up.  I should be better at home with mother here and Jessie.  It
+would make me worse to go away."
+
+"Oh, that could be managed, perhaps," said Max; "but you must have your
+business arrangements seen to--they are so important."
+
+"Yes, yes, of course," said Dick, who shuddered and looked horrified at
+the thought of having to go away; "but you'd make time for that.  You
+could go halves, Max, and manage for me; and the business is growing
+fast--and you'd see, even if I got worse, that Jessie and mother here
+always had enough."
+
+"I cannot bear this any longer!" cried Mrs Shingle; while Jessie stood
+aghast.
+
+"It's all right, mother--it's all right, mother.  Max is a good fellow.
+When he used to row me it was to do me good.  And you'll take all in
+hand, won't you, Max?"
+
+"Dick, you shall not make any such arrangements," cried Mrs Shingle.
+"Will no one take our side?"
+
+"I will, aunt," cried Tom fiercely; "for I will never stand by and see
+such a blackguardly wrong committed.  Jessie," he cried, "you have
+treated me badly, and behaved with cruel treachery to the man who loved
+you very dearly; but that's all past now--and while I've hand to lift or
+voice to raise, I'll never see you or yours wronged by father--or
+brother," he added, fiercely turning on Fred, while Jessie uttered a
+sigh of relief, and buried her face on her mother's shoulder.
+
+"Tom," whispered Max, catching him by the shoulder, "if you are not
+silent, I'll strike you down."
+
+"Look here, if you dare to touch me," roared Tom, "I shall forget that
+you are my poor weak mother's husband.  I will not stand by and see my
+uncle wronged.  If he is unfit to attend to his affairs, aunt, see some
+trustworthy lawyer; but you shall not be, imposed upon like this."
+
+"Fred, stop him," cried Max furiously.  "Turn him out of the room.  He's
+as mad as his uncle."
+
+Fred hesitated for a moment, and then, stepping forward, he caught Tom
+by the arm.
+
+"Here, come out!" he cried.
+
+"Stand back!" cried Tom huskily.
+
+"No--out you go," cried Fred, who gathered courage on finding his
+brother did not resent his attack.
+
+"Stand back, I say!"
+
+"Out you go," repeated Fred--"you fool!"
+
+Tom drew back for a moment; and, as Jessie looked up, roused by a
+movement on her father's, part and a cry from her mother, she saw Tom's
+fist dart out from his shoulder, and then there was a dull sound, and
+Fred staggered back, tripped over a mat by the open window, and fell
+with a crash amongst the plants in the conservatory, bringing down an
+avalanche in his fall.
+
+As Tom turned, it was to see that a complete change had come over Dick,
+who had leaped at his brother's throat, catching him by shirt front and
+white cravat, bringing him upon his knees, and shaking him with all his
+might.
+
+"You cursed scoundrel--you sanctified, hypocritical cheat!" shouted
+Dick, as he shook Max till he began to turn purple, and something white
+fell on the floor between his knees.  "Mad, am I?  Send me to an asylum,
+would you?  Let me off if I give you half my income?"
+
+"Help, help!" moaned Max, whose dark, smooth hair glided from his head
+on to the floor as Dick shook away.
+
+"Didn't I--say--you were--a 'umbug?" cried Dick, panting, and throwing
+all his energies into a kick.  "Yes, and a fool.  This is my clever
+brother, who let himself be taken in by the weakest, transparentest do
+that ever a man tried to invent.  Softening of the brain, have I!  That
+was a pretty hard kick for a man with that complaint!" he roared, as he
+stood over his brother, threatening with his foot as if about to punish
+him again.  "There!  Get up, and out of my house, and never darken the
+doors again.  You ain't a brother to me, and never were.  Being born of
+the same mother only half makes brothers.  I'll never own you as mine.
+Eh?  Oh, I've done, Tom, now."
+
+Dick made no resistance as Tom dragged him away from his brother; and
+Max got up, looking very strange about the head, as he hastily picked up
+and dragged on his wig.
+
+"You--you--shall smart for this," he mumbled.  "As for you, sir, never
+enter my house--"
+
+"Be off!" roared Dick; and he made at his brother again.  "Be off, you
+artificial sham!"
+
+But Tom, with a look of bitter mortification in his face, restrained
+him; and Max, clinging to Fred, hurried out of the door, leaving Mrs
+Shingle trembling in a chair, where she had sunk; while Jessie knelt
+beside her, white as ashes, and holding her hand.
+
+It was an ignoble plight, made more absurd by Dick, who suddenly ran to
+the fireplace and took the tongs, with which he picked up a
+handkerchief, and ran to the door.
+
+"Here, Saint Maximilian!" he shouted, "you've left your weeper;" and he
+threw the tongs out with a crash into the hall.
+
+"Take care!" cried a familiar voice; "_I_ haven't done anything."
+
+"What, Hopper, old man!" cried Dick, "you there?"
+
+"Yes, I am, and heard it all--all I could," he added, stumping into the
+room.
+
+Dick threw himself laughing into an easy chair, as he heard the door
+bang; but started up directly, as he saw Tom standing silent and
+mortified in the middle of the room.
+
+"Thankye, Tom," he cried, as he held out his hand, which the young man
+took for a moment and then dropped.  "Ah! you're put out, of course; and
+I don't wonder.  It's enough to rile any young fellow with stuff in him;
+and you've got that, and acted like a man."
+
+Tom gazed at him in silence, but did not try to speak.
+
+"He's ordered you out of his house, my lad," continued Dick.  "Not
+pleasant between father and son.  There, I ain't going to abuse him," he
+hastened to add, as Tom made a deprecating gesture; "but don't you mind
+that,--you acted like a man, and your conscience will set you right.
+Now, good-bye, my lad; and mind this: if you ever want a hundred pounds,
+or two hundred, or five hundred pounds, you've only got to say so to
+your uncle, Richard Shingle, and there it is."
+
+"I thank you, sir," said Tom sadly; "but I shall not ask.  Good-bye!"
+
+"Good-bye?"
+
+"Yes.  I shall go abroad, and we may never meet again.  I cannot stay
+here now.  Good-bye, aunt.  Good-bye, Jessie," he cried passionately.
+
+But she did not hear him; for, as Tom hurried to the door, she sank,
+fainting, at her mother's knee, while he passed out, closely followed by
+the last-comer on the scene.
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+HOPPER ON SUICIDE.
+
+"Here! hold hard, you sir--hold hard!" cried Hopper, hooking Tom at last
+by the arm with his great stick.
+
+Tom turned upon him savagely; but the old man did not move a muscle.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To the devil!" said Tom bitterly.  "To drown myself, I think."
+
+"Hey?  Drown yourself?  Well, don't go to do it on an empty stomach.  I
+knew a man once who tried it, and he did nothing but float.  Come home
+with me, and have a bit of dinner first."
+
+Tom Fraser was just in the humour to be led, and he could not help
+smiling at the old man's words.  The next moment Hopper seized his arm,
+and began signalling wildly with his stick to a passing hansom cab, into
+which he thrust him.
+
+"Get over farther," he cried, poking at him with his stick; and then,
+following, he shouted to the man, "Clement's Inn."
+
+Nothing was said during the journey; and, on reaching the gateway,
+Hopper got out first, and, literally taking Tom into custody, led him to
+a black-looking house, and up a dingy old staircase, to a door at the
+top covered with iron bands and clamps.  This he unlocked, and pushed
+his companion into a very old-fashioned-looking room, cumbered with
+pictures, curiosities, and odds and ends piled up amongst the antique
+furniture.
+
+"There!" said Hopper, stopping to caress a cat that came rubbing itself
+up against his left leg, and another that purred against his right,
+while a third and fourth leaped upon his back when he stooped, "this is
+my kennel--cat's kennel, if you like: I've got eight.  That's their
+garden," he continued, throwing open a sliding window that looked upon a
+parapet; "they can run far enough along the roofs of the houses here.
+Good view this, Tom Fraser.  Ah! the very thing," he added, catching the
+young man's sleeve; "look down there--eighty feet, and good firm stones
+at the bottom.  You say you want to go to the devil: jump down--I won't
+stop you."
+
+Tom glanced below, and turned away with a shudder.  "Well, it would make
+a nasty mess on the pavement, certainly," said Hopper, looking at him
+curiously, while the cats rubbed and purred about them; "but they'd soon
+sweep that away; and the dead-house is close by, in the Strand.  I'll go
+as witness."
+
+"For God's sake, hold your tongue!"
+
+"Hey?  Hold my tongue?  Why?  Better and quicker than jumping into the
+river, and struggling up and down, and wanting to get out; besides
+running the risk of floating to and fro with the tide, and looking like
+swollen bagpipes."
+
+"Be silent!" shouted Tom, gazing at him in horror.
+
+"What for?" chuckled the old man.  "You'd look so ugly, too, with your
+nose rubbed off.  Tide always rubs their noses off against the barges,
+and ships, and piers of bridges.  Lots of people wouldn't drown
+themselves if they knew how nasty they'd look when they were dead.  I've
+seen 'em--dozens of times."
+
+"Do you find any pleasure in tormenting me?" cried Tom furiously.
+
+"Torment you, hey?  Not I," chuckled Hopper.  "You said you were going
+to drown yourself--that takes nearly five minutes; and they may fish you
+out with a boat-hook and bring you to, which they say isn't pleasant.  I
+only, as the oldest friend of your family, suggested a quicker way."
+
+Tom turned from the window, and threw himself into a chair.
+
+"Ah! you're better," said Hopper, poking the fire up to make it blaze.
+
+"Better!" groaned Tom.
+
+"Yes, ever so much.  You're not fretting about your step-father, but
+about Jessie: you're in love."
+
+Tom was starting up, but the old man forced him back into his chair.
+
+"Sit still, you young fool.  You are in love, arn't you?"
+
+"I suppose so," said Tom bitterly.
+
+"I'll give you a dose for the complaint," chuckled the old fellow.
+
+Then there was a knock at the door, which he opened, and a neat-looking
+servant bustled in and spread the table with the snowiest of cloths and
+brightest of old-fashioned glass and silver, ending by placing the first
+portion of a capitally cooked dinner on the table, and sending all the
+cats out of the window into the gutter, where they sat down patiently in
+a row, to gaze solemnly through the panes of glass till the repast was
+at an end.
+
+"Why, I thought you were very poor!" said Tom, gazing curiously at his
+shabbily dressed host, as he opened a massive carved oak cellaret, and
+took out a wine bottle that looked as old as the receptacle.
+
+"Hey?  Thought I was poor?  More fool you!--you're always thinking
+stupid things.  You've gone about nearly two years thinking Jessie don't
+care for you."
+
+Tom started as if he had been stung; but he sank back in his chair,
+gazing wonderingly at the quaint old fellow, as he opened the bottle to
+pour out a couple of large glasses of generous fluid; and began
+wondering how much he knew.
+
+"There, you handsome young long-eared donkey!" cried Hopper, placing one
+glass in the young man's fingers--"that's the finest Burgundy to be got
+for love or money.  That'll give you strength of mind, and blood to
+sustain, and make you take a less bilious view of things than you do
+now.  Catch hold!  I'm an old-fashioned one, I am.  Here's a toast.  Are
+you ready?"
+
+Tom took the glass, and nodded.
+
+"Here's my darling little Jessie.  God bless her! and may she soon be
+happy with the man of her choice."
+
+He looked maliciously at the young man as he spoke; but Tom set down his
+glass untasted.
+
+"I can't drink that," he said sternly.
+
+"Hey?  Not drink it!  Why not?"
+
+"Because, if she marries my brother, she will never be a happy woman."
+
+"Bah!  Idiot!  Young fool!" chuckled Hopper.  "She won't marry Fred.
+I'd sooner poison her.  Drink!  You care for her, don't you?"
+
+"I do," said Tom fervently.
+
+"Then drink to her happiness, and don't be a selfish ass.  If you can't
+have her, don't grudge the pretty little sweet bit of fruit to some one
+else.  Drink."
+
+"Jessie!" said Tom, softly and reverently; and he drained his glass.
+
+"You're getting better," chuckled Hopper; "and I shall make you well
+before I've done."
+
+Certainly a great change did come over Tom Fraser as he partook of the
+excellent dinner brought in nice and hot by the neat servant; the old
+fellow seeming to be far less hard of hearing than usual, and chuckling
+and laughing as he took his wine freely, opened a fresh bottle, and
+finally brought out pipes and cigars, as the dinner was replaced by
+dessert.
+
+"Thought I was poor, did you, Tom, my boy?" he cried, slapping the other
+on the shoulder.  "I'm not, you see; but that's my secret.  Your
+step-father's got his; your Uncle Dick his; so I don't see why I
+shouldn't have mine.  I never bring anybody here hardly.  Your father
+has never been, nor your Uncle Dick neither.  Lucky dog!  He's made lots
+of money, and goes on making it too, a fox--and hang me if I know how."
+
+"The same way as you, perhaps."
+
+"No, that he don't I do a bit in the City, and speculate in a few bills
+occasionally.  I've got paper with names on that would startle you, I'll
+be bound."
+
+"I daresay," said Tom sadly.
+
+"There, there, man! take another glass of your medicine.  You're coming
+out bad with your old complaint again--lovesickness."
+
+"Ah!" cried Tom, who had, like his host, got into the confidential
+stage.  "You don't know what it means."
+
+"I don't know what it means?" cried the old fellow, rising, and leaning
+his hands on the table as he laid down his pipe.  "Look there, Tom
+Fraser--look there!" he cried, crossing to a drawer, unlocking it
+hastily, and taking out an old-fashioned miniature of a very beautiful
+woman.
+
+"My grandmother!" said Tom, starting, as he held the portrait to the
+light.
+
+"And my love," said the old fellow, in a softened, changed voice.  "Yes,
+Tom, I loved her very dearly--as dearly as I hated the man who took her
+from me.  Not that she ever cared for me.  Hah! she was an angel.  Your
+grandfather was a scoundrel, and the blood of the two has run its
+different courses.  Women somehow like scoundrels," he said, as he
+reverently put away the miniature.
+
+"They do," groaned Tom.
+
+"But not all, Tom--not all.  There, man, fill up and drink.  Here's my
+little darling Jessie--your darling, if you're the man I take you for."
+
+"If you talk like that, I must go," said Tom.
+
+"Hey?  What! go?  Stuff, man!  Have a little faith.  I don't say
+Jessie's perfect; but she's a better girl than you believe her.  Try her
+again, man."
+
+Tom shook his head.
+
+"Fred is always there in my light."
+
+"Turn him out of it, then.  Bah!  You weak idiot!  You imagine twice as
+much as you have any grounds for.  Take my advice, or leave it--I don't
+care which.  I only give you the hint for your own sake.  Puss, puss,
+puss!"
+
+He got up, opened the window, and the cats came trooping in, to leap
+upon him and show their delight, while he petted first one and then
+another as they thrust their heads into his hands, Tom sitting back and
+watching him the while.
+
+"Curious, isn't it?" said Hopper, chuckling.  "But a man must have
+friends.  I've got very few, so I take to cats, and they are as faithful
+as truth.  Capital things to keep, Tom, my lad.  Only behave well to
+them, and it don't matter how great a scoundrel you are, they never find
+you out, nor believe what the world says--they stick to you to the end."
+
+Tom took another glance round the quaint room, to see dozens of fresh
+objects at every look--old china, ancient weapons, curious watches,
+besides articles of vertu that must have been of great value; and the
+old fellow chuckled as he saw the direction of his glances.
+
+"Queer place to live in, Tom, and queer things about Look at this, my
+lad: here's my will.  I keep it in this old canister, just where it can
+be found--ready for my executors.  What!  Hey?  Going?  Well, good-bye.
+Come again--often--I shall be glad to see you."
+
+"Do you mean this?" said Tom, returning the old man's warm pressure of
+the hand.
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"I say, do you mean it?"
+
+"Oh yes!  I heard.  Mean it?  Of course I do, man, or I shouldn't ask
+you.  Only come in a sensible way, not in a ghostly form.  None of your
+drowned ghosts, without their noses.  I mean you in the flesh, not in
+the spirit."
+
+"You need have no fear," said Tom sadly.  "My mad fit is past.  I should
+not be guilty of such folly."
+
+"I should think not!" said Hopper, laughing.  "We make nearly all our
+own troubles, my boy; and then men are such cowards that they run away
+from them.  Have another cigar?  That's right--light up.  Good-bye, lad.
+I say, why don't you go round by your uncle's house, and have a peep at
+some one's window?  There, be off; you're a poor coward of a lover,
+after all!"
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+PRIVATE INQUIRY.
+
+Several weeks passed.  Jessie seemed to have received a serious shock
+from the encounter that had taken place at her father's house; and for
+days together she would be depressed, silent, and stand at the window
+watching, as if in expectation of some one coming.  Then an interval of
+feverish gaiety would set in, during which, with brightened eye, she
+would chat and play and sing, showing so much excitement that Dick would
+shake his head to his wife and declare it was a bad sign.
+
+"It's all fretting, mother," he would say.  "She's thinking of that
+scamp Fred."
+
+Whereupon Mrs Shingle would shake her head in turn, and declare tartly
+that he knew nothing at all about it, for she was sure it was Tom.
+
+"You are very clever, no doubt, Dick, at keeping secrets and hiding
+things away from your wife--"
+
+"That's right," said Dick.  "Go it!  I wish I was poor again."
+
+"But you know no more about that poor girl's feelings than you do of
+Chinese."
+
+"Well, I don't know much about Chinese, mother, certainly, but I'm sure
+it ain't Tom.  How can it be?"
+
+"I don't know how it can be," said Mrs Shingle tartly, "or how it can't
+be; but fretting after Tom Shingle she is, and it's my belief he's very
+fond of her."
+
+"There you go," said Dick, who was warming himself, with his back to the
+fire, waiting for the object of their solicitude to come down to
+dinner--for she had been lying down the greater part of the day--"there
+you go, mother, a-showing yourself up and contradicting common-sense.  I
+say it's after Fred she's fretting."
+
+"I know you do," said Mrs Shingle, tightening her lips and giving her
+head a shake, which plainly said--"I'll die before I'll give in."
+
+"Let me have one word in, mother, if it's only edgewise," cried Dick.
+
+"There, go on--I know what you are about to say."
+
+"No, you don't, mother; so don't aggravate.  I say it's Fred."
+
+"I know you do."
+
+"For this reason.  He's forbid the house, and I won't have it; for I
+hear nothing but what's bad spoken of him.  I won't have him here.  He
+ain't worthy of her.  So he can't come, and she, poor girl, frets about
+it; and if she don't get better I shall have to give in.  Now, you say
+it's Tom."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs Shingle, nodding her head.
+
+"Well, then, why don't he come? or why don't she send for him and make
+it right?  Can't you see that if it were as you say, all would be right
+directly?"
+
+Mrs Shingle shook her head.
+
+"That's right; be obstinate, mother, when you know there's nothing to
+prevent his coming."
+
+Jessie came in directly, looking very pale and sweet in her sadness: her
+eyes were sunken with wakefulness, but she had a smile for both, and an
+affectionate kiss before taking her place at the table; where, after
+kicking himself in his misery, Dick set-to, pretending not to notice his
+child's depression, though he felt a bitter pang at his heart as he was
+guilty of every bit of clowning in his efforts to bring a smile from the
+suffering girl's eyes.
+
+At times, though, he was very absent, and his tongue went on talking at
+random--of the last thing, perhaps, that he had seen--while his mind was
+far away.  In fact, had his brother been present, with witnesses, he
+would have had strong grounds for saying that Dick's brain was softening
+at the very least.
+
+He began with grace, standing up, and very reverently said the customary
+formula, ending "truly thankful.  Amen.  Pure pickles, sauces, and
+jams," he continued, for his eye had lighted upon the label of a bottle
+in the silver stand.
+
+He started the next moment, and looked round, with one hand in his
+breast, to see if the string of his front was all right, for he
+occasionally put on one of those delusive articles of linen attire when
+he dressed for dinner, and always went in torture for the rest of the
+evening, on account of the treacherous nature of the garment--one which
+invariably seeks to betray the weakness of a man's linen-closet by
+bursting off strings or creeping insidiously round under his arm.  In
+fact, one of Richard Shingle's, on a certain evening, deposited the
+bottom of the well-starched plaits in his soup, by making a dive out
+from within his vest as he leaned forward.
+
+"Glass of wine, Jessie?" said Dick, as the dinner went on; and to oblige
+him the poor girl took a little, just as Mrs Shingle exclaimed--
+
+"Bless me!  I have no handkerchief.  Did you take my handkerchief,
+Jessie?"
+
+"Lor'! mother, don't talk of your handkerchief as if it was a pill.  You
+do roll 'em up pretty tight, but not quite so bad as that."
+
+The boy, who was waiting at table, exploded in a burst of laughter,
+which he tried to hide by rattling the glasses on the sideboard, and
+then turning uncomfortable as his master gave him a severe frown.
+
+"What's the pudden, my dear?" said Dick at last.
+
+"It's a new kind," said Mrs Shingle.  "You'll have some?  I told the
+cook how to make it."
+
+"That I will, and so will Jessie.  I always like your puddens, mother,
+they make one feel so good while one's eating them--they're so
+innocent."
+
+"You've not seen any more of your brother, I suppose?" said Mrs Shingle
+just then, inadvertently.
+
+"Well, I have seen him," said Dick,--"twice.  He's up to some little
+game."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, that he's got a man always watching me.  He follows me like my
+shadow.  He wants to find out my business, or else he's going to try on
+his little dodge again.  But I'm not afraid.  Jessie, my gal, what is
+it?"
+
+"Nothing, father--nothing," she said, trying to smile as she rose from
+the table.  "The room is too hot.  I think I'll go upstairs."
+
+"I'll go with you, my darling," exclaimed Mrs Shingle; but Jessie
+insisted on her staying, and she had her own way, going up to sit at her
+window, as was her wont, to watch wistfully along the darkened road for
+the relief that seemed as if it would never come.
+
+She had been there about an hour, when suddenly she started up, and
+gazed down excitedly into the garden, where she could plainly make out
+the figure of a man; and as she looked he raised his hands to her and
+sharply beckoned her to come down.
+
+"At last!" she cried, with a look of joy flashing from her eyes; and,
+going to the door, she listened for a few moments, hesitated, and then
+went below to the breakfast-room, which opened with French casements on
+to the garden, unfastened one, and in the dim light a figure passed in
+rapidly and closed the window.
+
+There were two men standing in the shadow of a gate on the other side,
+one of whom scribbled something quickly on a page of a note-book, and
+gave it to the other, with the words--
+
+"Run--first cab!  Don't lose a moment."
+
+A quarter of an hour later, just as Dick and his wife were about to
+leave the dining-room, there was a sharp knock at the door, followed by
+the trampling of feet in the hall, and Union Jack's voice heard in
+protestation--
+
+"I tell you he's at dinner, and won't be disturbed.  Master always gives
+strict orders that--"
+
+"Tell your master that Mr Maximilian Shingle insists upon seeing him on
+business."
+
+"Does he?" said Dick sharply.  And he stood at the door, looking at his
+brother, and flourishing a dinner napkin about, as his eyes lighted upon
+his two companions; while a nervous feeling akin to alarm came upon him,
+for he saw that they were two well-dressed, keen-looking men.
+
+"They're mad doctors--both of 'em," thought Dick, "and they're going to
+listen to what I say, sign certificates, and have me dragged away.
+They'll have a tough job of it if they do, though," he muttered.  "Yes,
+and there's the carriage just come up that's to take me off," he
+continued, as there was the noise of wheels stopping at the door.
+"Don't open that door, John," he cried aloud.
+
+But he was too late; for the boy had opened the door on the instant, and
+before he could shut it, Hopper, closely followed by Tom, entered the
+hall.
+
+"Oh, it's you, is it?" said Dick, nodding, and feeling relieved.
+
+"Hey?  Yes, it's me," said Hopper quietly.  "We thought we'd just drop
+in."
+
+"Well, then, Mr Max Shingle, perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me
+what you want, disturbing me at my dinner?" said Dick sharply.
+
+"Well, the fact is," said Max, smiling maliciously, but rubbing his
+hands and trying to look smooth the while, "these gentlemen and I--"
+
+"Let's see," said Dick coolly; for he felt now that he was well backed
+up.  "But, stop a moment.  John, my lad, fetch a policeman."
+
+"By all means," said Max eagerly.  "Get one, my boy."  The lad, who had
+been staring with open eyes, unfastened the door, to find one close at
+hand, beating his gloves together, probably attracted by the scent of
+something going on.
+
+"Here's one outside, sir," cried the boy eagerly.
+
+"That's right," said Dick.  "Here, you Number something, come in.
+You're to see fair over this, my man."
+
+He nodded to Tom and Hopper, who were both singularly silent, and then
+turned to Max, as the front door was closed; and Mrs Shingle stood half
+in the dining-room, a wondering spectator of the proceedings.
+
+"Now, Mr Max, if you please," said Dick quietly, "proceed.  You say
+these gentlemen--who I know again: they've been watching me, I suppose,
+to make up a case, ever since that little brotherly quarrel of ours; and
+now, I suppose, they've found it all out."
+
+"You shall hear what they've found out directly," said Max, rubbing his
+hands.
+
+"My secret, I suppose," said Dick, laughing.  "Well, I don't mind that."
+
+"It will be a lesson to a disobedient son, too," said Max, turning and
+darting a withering look at Tom.  "One who fortunately happens to be
+here."
+
+"Well, when you've got through the introductory matter, or described the
+symptoms," said Dick, laughing, "perhaps you'll administer the pill.
+Your friends are mad doctors, I suppose?"
+
+Max laughed derisively; and the taller of the two men--a curious-looking
+fellow, whose ears stood out at either side of his head so that you
+could look into them--in a sharp, businesslike way took out his
+pocket-book, and presented a card.
+
+"That is my name and address, sir," he said--"E.  Gilderoy, private
+inquiry agent.  This is one of my assistants."
+
+"Thankye," said Dick, smiling.  "There now, let's have an inquiry in
+private."
+
+Max hesitated for a moment, and then went on.
+
+"The fact is, Mr Richard Shingle, I have employed these gentlemen to--"
+
+"I know--watch me," said Dick sharply.  "There, you needn't shrink, Max;
+I was quite satisfied with the thrashing I gave you before, and if I
+want you turned out I shall set X Number something to work."
+
+"I am accustomed to your insults," said Max, "so say what you like.  I
+say, I employed these gentlemen in the interest of your wife and child
+as much as in that of the family, since you are so imbecile that you
+cannot take care of yourself."
+
+"All right: go on," said Dick, coolly picking his teeth.
+
+"I don't care; say what you like--I deserve something for that kicking I
+gave you."
+
+"And these gentlemen have reported to me that for many nights past your
+house has had a man lurking about it, evidently for no good purpose."
+
+"One of these two, I suppose?" said Dick contemptuously.
+
+"Your interruptions are most uncalled for," said Max.
+
+"Besides us, sir," said Mr Gilderoy, nodding at his assistant.
+
+"Yes, sir, besides us," said that worthy.
+
+"This evening the matter culminated in the man gaining entrance to your
+house," said Max, with a malignant look in his eyes.
+
+"Nonsense!" cried Dick.
+
+"Oh no," said Max, with a sneer, "it's truth."
+
+"I don't believe it," cried Dick.  "I'll question the servants."
+
+"There is no need," said Max maliciously; "you had better search the
+house, for he is here still."
+
+"It's a lie--an invention!" cried Dick indignantly.
+
+"You'd better ask Miss Jessie if it is," said Max, laughing.  "Ask--ask
+Jessie?" cried Dick, looking from one to the other.  "What do you mean?
+To--Oh, I won't have it.  Who dares to say anything of the kind?"
+
+"Fact, sir," said the private inquirer sharply.  "Young lady, sitting at
+window on first-floor, sits there every evening watching along the
+road."
+
+"Yes," said Dick, in a bewildered way; "she does--but--"
+
+"To-night, at seven fifty-six, tall gent in dark coat came up, jumped
+the railing, crossed the flower-bed, and made signs."
+
+There was a pause, and Tom sighed.
+
+"Dark gent, with big beard--something like this gent, sir," said the
+private inquirer, pointing to Tom.
+
+"Was it you, Tom?" said Dick, with his old puzzled look growing more
+distinct upon his lined brow.
+
+"No, uncle," said Tom hoarsely; and then to himself--"Would to God it
+had been!"
+
+"Oh no, sir, not this gent," said the private inquirer, referring to his
+note-book--"something like him, but not him.  He signals to the lady at
+the window.  Lady comes down.  Lady opens breakfast-room window."
+
+"How the devil do you know which is the breakfast-room?" cried Dick
+savagely.
+
+"My duty to know, sir," said the man, in the most unruffled way.
+"That's the breakfast-room door, sir.  Gent goes in through window--
+shuts it after him; and he didn't come out."
+
+"How do you know?" cried Dick.
+
+"Men watching back and front, sir," said the private inquirer
+imperturbably.
+
+"Well, Max, and if some one did, what then?" said Dick.  "Suppose a
+policeman or some one comes to see one of the maids?"
+
+"You had better turn him out," said Max.  "I should search the room."
+
+"That's soon done," said Dick, throwing open the door.  "Here, John--a
+lighter."
+
+The boy took a taper to the hall lamp, and a couple of the burners in
+the breakfast-room being lit, they entered, to discover nothing.
+
+"There," said Dick, wiping the perspiration from his face, "you see
+there is no one here.  I won't have any more of your poll-prying about.
+You pay men to see things, Max, and they see them."
+
+"That's an aspersion on my word, sir," said the private inquirer
+sharply.
+
+"Serve you right!" cried Dick fiercely.  "What do you come watching for?
+No one else saw, I'll swear.  You saw nobody come in, did you,
+Hopper?--nor you, Tom?"
+
+Neither answered, and Dick grew more and more excited.
+
+"I won't have it!" he cried.  "I'll have the house cleared."
+
+"Without clearing your daughter's name?" said Max, with a sneer.
+
+"Clear my daughter's name?  It wants no clearing," cried Dick angrily;
+and now his nervous, weak manner was thrown off, and he stood up proud
+and defiant.  "Here, stop!  You, Tom Fraser, and you, Hopper!  I won't
+have you go, if it comes to that."
+
+"I would rather go," said Tom sadly, from the hall.
+
+"But I say you shall not go."
+
+"Uncle," said Tom--and he spoke in a low whisper--"let me go, for
+Heaven's sake: I cannot bear it."
+
+"No," said Dick sternly; "you shall not go till this has been set right.
+Do you, too, believe ill of my girl?"
+
+"God forbid, uncle!  I only wanted to know that my case was hopeless;
+and I have heard."
+
+"Heard what?" whispered Dick.
+
+"What these men told you," said Tom bitterly.
+
+"Do you dare to say--"
+
+"I say nothing, uncle--only that what those men have said is true."
+
+"Here!" cried Dick furiously, "mother, quick!--tell Jessie to come here.
+Oh, you are there," he cried, as, hearing a door close on the landing,
+he looked up and saw Jessie.
+
+"Uncle, for Heaven's sake think of what you are doing," cried Tom,
+catching his arm.
+
+"I am thinking, sir, of clearing her name.  My girl would not be guilty
+of--"
+
+He stopped short; for he recalled the little incident in the old home.
+
+"I don't care," he cried passionately.  "I'm driven to it, and it shall
+be sifted to the bottom."
+
+As he spoke, he ran up the stairs, closely followed by Max and his
+private inquirers.
+
+"Mr Hopper," cried Tom passionately, "this is your doing, to bring me
+in here.  Come away.  It is too cruel to her."
+
+"Hey? cruel?--I don't care," said Hopper sturdily.  "I'll see it out;
+for look here, Tom, and you too, Mrs Richard,--I say, as I've said
+before, she'll come out of it clear as day.  Now, come up."
+
+He stumped hastily upstairs, Tom feeling compelled to follow, but hating
+himself for the part he was playing, the result of hanging about the
+house time after time, for the sake of catching a glimpse of Jessie, and
+then telling Hopper that evening what he had seen.
+
+The old man had been astounded when, half-frantic, Tom had met him on
+his way to Richard Shingle's; and then insisted upon his coming to have
+the matter cleared up, vowing that there was a mistake.
+
+As the party reached the large landing, Jessie stood in front of the
+door of her room, the policeman being the last to complete the
+half-circle that surrounded her; and then Dick spoke.
+
+"Jessie, my darling," he said, tenderly, "I know this will upset you;
+but, my girl, when cruel conspiracies are hatched against us by
+scoundrels, we must meet them boldly."
+
+"Yes, father," said Jessie, who did not shrink, but darted a reproachful
+look at Tom that went to his heart.
+
+"Your uncle, to stab your fair fame, my dear, has brought these men to
+swear that they saw you let in some one to-night by the breakfast-room
+window; and they say he has not gone out.  Speak out, my dear, and tell
+them it's a lie."
+
+There was no reply, and Mrs Shingle caught at her husband's arm; but he
+flushed up with passion and shook her off.
+
+"Jessie," he cried in a choking voice, "speak out quick!--is any one in
+that room of yours?"
+
+Jessie looked wildly from face to face, her glance resting longest on
+those of Max and Tom.
+
+"I say, is any one in that room?" thundered Dick, catching her by the
+wrist, which she snatched away, and, spreading her hands from side to
+side, as she stood back against the door, she cried out, wildly--
+
+"No, father, no!"
+
+As she spoke there was a sharp creaking noise from within, as of a sash
+being thrown up; and Dick once more caught her by the wrist.
+
+"No, no!" she cried, struggling with him frantically.  "Tom, dear Tom,
+for pity's sake save me from this disgrace!"
+
+Tom dashed forward, and caught her in his arms, more in sorrow than in
+anger; for Dick had swung her round with a savage oath, throwing open
+the door, and dashing in with the private inquiry men, to return
+dragging out a man with a strong resemblance to Tom, till Gilderoy gave
+his beard a twitch, and pulled it off, revealing the sallow, frightened
+countenance of Fred.
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+AFTER THE DISCOVERY.
+
+"Fred!" cried Max, in alarm.
+
+"Yes," said that gentleman savagely--"if you must blab it out."
+
+"Tom, Tom," whispered Jessie, "for your own sake save him,--he is your
+brother."
+
+He turned from her with a sigh, as he freed himself from her grasp and
+placed her hands in those of her mother.
+
+"And this is my child!" groaned Dick.
+
+"Oh, father!" cried Jessie, "don't condemn me unheard.  Frederick, speak
+out."
+
+"Not I," he said cynically.  "Why should I?"
+
+"And this is my son!" exclaimed Max, who was completely taken aback.
+
+"There, don't cant, old man," cried Fred, brutally.  "I don't suppose
+you have always been so very particular."
+
+"Fred!" exclaimed Tom savagely, "it is enough that you have brought this
+disgrace upon your uncle, without insulting the poor girl you have
+injured."
+
+"Bosh!  I shall be off," said Fred, flippantly; and, as he spoke, he
+made for the head of the staircase, not noticing that a movement had bee
+made in that direction by the private detectives, the principal speaking
+to the policeman, who nodded sapiently.
+
+"Stop!" cried Max.  "You shall not go without hearing a few words from
+me.  You shall listen, as you are present, to advice that may--"
+
+"Do him good," cried Dick, turning upon him savagely.  "Give it him,
+then, in your own place, and not in mine.  You coward--you pitiful
+miscreant!  To revenge yourself on me you stoop to this low, beggarly
+watching; and when your tools warn you of your opportunity, you are such
+a high-toned moral man that you come with your scoundrels to degrade and
+disgrace that poor child before her father.  I don't defend her--she did
+wrong; but I'm not a high-toned moral man, I'm not.  I know what she has
+suffered; and I say to her, `Come here, my poor darling--I'm only a weak
+fool, and I forgive you.'"
+
+"Father!" cried Jessie, and she sprang to his breast.
+
+"Yes--lie there, my darling," cried Dick, glancing round at all in turn.
+"Now let's see who dare say a word against you--or touch you!  You're
+my gal, and always will be, come what may.  I can't cast you off and say
+I have no child; but--but, my darling, I'd sooner have been back, a poor
+man again, in Crowder's Buildings, and bullied for my bit of rent, than
+this should have happened."
+
+"Oh, hush, father--hush!" whispered Jessie--"wait till they're gone--
+wait till they're gone."
+
+"No, I've nothing to be ashamed of," cried Dick, "without it is of my
+brother and his sons.  All the world may know that I was a poor man who
+made his fortune, but never lost his ignorant ways.  So I forgive you,
+my gal."
+
+"Uncle," cried Tom, "I have given you no cause to speak to me as you
+do."
+
+"Well, perhaps not, my lad--perhaps not.  I'd take it kindly of you and
+Hopper, then, if you'd clear the house and then go."
+
+"I'll soon rid you of my company," said Fred.  "Ta-ta, uncle.  Good-bye,
+little Jess."
+
+Dick's fist clenched as the young man approached him; and Tom saw that
+Jessie shrank from him as if with loathing, though she watched his
+movements with a strange, keen interest.
+
+He laughed lightly as he passed, and then started back, for the
+policeman placed his hands across from the balustrade to the wall.
+
+"One moment, please, Sir.  This is your photograph, I think?"
+
+He held up a card, but Fred struck it down and tried to leap past; but
+the policeman caught him in his arms and forced him back.
+
+"Oh no, you don't, sir," said the constable, laughing.  "E.  Gilderoy,
+send your men down to keep the door.  The fact is, Frederick Fraser,
+_alias_ Captain Leroux, _alias_ the Hon.  Algernon Bracy, there's a
+warrant out against you, and two-fifty reward.  We only knew this
+afternoon that you were F.  Fraser, and you were to have been took this
+evening; but the job has fallen to us."
+
+"Man, you are mad, or drunk."
+
+"I dare say I am," said the constable, laughing; "but Mr Gilderoy and
+me means to have that two-fifty."
+
+"Father--uncle--Tom! this is a lie--an imposition!" cried Fred, wildly
+glancing round for a means of escape, but seeing none.
+
+"No, sir," said the constable; "it was them forged bills was lies and
+impositions."
+
+"Constable, this is all nonsense--some trumped-up case!" cried Max.  "An
+invention, perhaps, of the poor boy's uncle," he added malignantly.
+
+"Oh no, it is not, sir; the game's been going on for close upon two
+years, only my gentleman here has been too clever to be caught.  There's
+over two thou, been discounted.  It's all tight."
+
+"Fred," cried Max, "why don't you knock this lying scoundrel down?"
+
+"Don't want to bruise my knuckles," said Fred carelessly.  "There, the
+game's up, and I'm sick of it."
+
+"What?" cried Max.
+
+"It's all right," said Fred callously.  "I had the cake, so I must pay
+for it."
+
+"Reprobate!" cried Max furiously: "do you dare to own to my face that
+this is true?"
+
+"True enough," said Fred, taking out his cigar-case.  "I can smoke, I
+suppose, constable?"
+
+"Oh yes, sir, and make much of it," said the man, grinning.  "I don't
+suppose you'll get another--not just yet."
+
+"Good heavens, that it should come to this!" cried Max, raising his
+hands toward the ceiling.  "Lost, depraved, reckless boy! you bring down
+your father's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave."
+
+"What!" shrieked Fred, with a sneering laugh.
+
+"After the Christian home in which you have been brought up!"
+
+"Look here!" cried Fred.  "Slang me, if you like, for being an unlucky
+scoundrel; but, curse it, give me none of your sickly cant."
+
+"Away with him, constable.  Out of my sight, wretch!  I disown and curse
+you!" cried Max.
+
+"Take your curse back," shrieked Fred savagely.  "Example!--Christian
+home!  What of the office?  What has been done there?  Where is
+Violante's money?"
+
+Max stepped back with his jaw fallen.
+
+"Where is the hundred pounds the old man in Australia sent for Uncle
+Dick?  Example, indeed!"
+
+"What?" shouted Dick, starting forward.  "Say that again."
+
+"Say it again!" shrieked Fred, who was now mad with rage: "I say two two
+hundreds were sent by an old relative in Australia for you and him, and
+he kept them both."
+
+"It's a lie--a base lie!" cried Max, foaming at the mouth.
+
+"Oh, Max, Max, Max," said Dick sadly, "and when I was close to
+starving!"
+
+"It's a lie, I say!"
+
+"It's the truth, you pitiful scoundrel!" said old Hopper.  "But I made
+you disgorge some of it again, and sent it into the right channel."
+
+"What, you turn against me, too!" said Max, with a groan.  "I say it's a
+lie--a conspiracy.  No money was sent: there was no uncle to send it."
+
+"No?" said Hopper quietly.  "Well, I can prove it all; for I sent the
+money, for the sake of Dick here, and to try you both."
+
+"I tell you it's a lie!" stammered Max, foaming at the mouth.
+
+"You've got to prove it one," said Fred carelessly.  "Come along,
+constable--let's be off.  Here's my last half-crown.  I'll go in a cab."
+
+"Stop!" cried Dick excitedly.  "I won't have it.  I forgive Max.  I
+forgive Fred here.  I've plenty of money, constable.  Can't it be
+squared?  I'll--I'll pay the reward.  Cash down."
+
+"No, sir," said the constable; "not if you doubled it."
+
+"But I will double it," cried Dick.
+
+"Hold hard, uncle," said Fred, smiling.  "It's no go.  But you always
+were a trump--always.  Thank you for it!  Sorry I've disgraced you.
+Tom, old man, it's all right.  Uncle, it's all right about your little
+girl here.  I came to-night, and she admitted me, thinking it was Tom;
+and as soon as I was inside I told her the police were after me, unless
+she could help me to escape.  There's the bag inside, with her purse and
+the jewels she gave me to sell, watch and chain, and the rest of it; for
+I was off across the herring-pond if I could get away.  Fetch it out."
+
+Tom ran into Jessie's room, and brought out a little travelling bag
+which lay beneath the open window.
+
+"I didn't like to jump it," said Fred, laughing.  "It was too high: but
+I should try if I had another chance."
+
+"Fred--brother!" cried Tom passionately, as he held out his hand; and
+Fred seized it for a moment, and then flung it away.
+
+"No, Tom; let me be: I've always been a bad one.  As for you, Jessie--
+God bless you! you were a little trump.  I told her it would disgrace
+you all, and poor Tom, if I was taken; and she told a lie to save me.
+Good-bye, little woman!" he said, holding out his hand.
+
+Jessie ran forward and took it, and he tried to speak in a light,
+cavalier manner; but his voice faltered, and he had to make an effort to
+keep from breaking down.
+
+"Good-bye, Fred," said Tom, stepping before him, as if to shake hands.
+Then, forcing the little bag into his grasp, he whispered, "Run for it,
+lad--the window.  I'll cover you--run."
+
+As he spoke, he gave his brother a push into the bedroom, and then faced
+round with clenched fists.
+
+For a moment the men were paralysed, but the next they flung themselves
+on Tom.
+
+Gilderoy was nearest, and a blow sent him rolling over; but the
+constable evaded a second blow, and closed in a fierce struggle, which,
+taking place at the doorway, prevented the next man from forcing his way
+through.
+
+Mrs Shingle shrieked; but Jessie stood firm, gazing with dilating eyes
+at her lover, as he wrestled bravely with the policeman, whom he kept
+between himself and the second man, still covering his brother's flight.
+
+They were well matched, and victory might have been on Tom's side but
+for the action of Dick, who, seeing the second man about to leap on him,
+thrust out his foot and laid him sprawling.
+
+It was unfortunate for Tom, though.  The man was so near that he tripped
+over him, and lay for the moment half-stunned; while now all three
+rushed into the room and to the open window.
+
+"Below there!" cried Gilderoy--"have you seen him?"
+
+"No," was the reply.  "He came down with a crash, though, into the
+shrubs here, and I think he's hurt--he hasn't moved since.  Come down,
+and bring a light."
+
+Jessie's window looked down upon a great clump of lilacs, into which it
+seemed that Fred must have jumped; and, running back to the landing, the
+three men dashed downstairs, through Dick's study, into the
+conservatory, and thence to the enclosed back garden.
+
+As they did so, Fred glided out from behind the window curtains, placed
+his hand to his lips, and bounded down the staircase, almost into his
+brother's arms.
+
+Tom saw the ruse, seized a coat and hat from the stand, and opened the
+front door.
+
+"Cabstand at the corner," he whispered.  "Walk--don't run."
+
+Fred went leisurely out, and as Tom closed the door the private inquiry
+man came back, and placed himself as sentinel to guard the door.
+
+The search went on for a few moments outside, and then there was a
+shout.
+
+"They've got him," cried the sentry eagerly.  "Got him?" he shouted.
+
+"No," cried the constable, running into the hall, hot and panting.  "He
+threw a great ottoman out of the window, and didn't jump.  Keep that
+door; we must search the house."
+
+The search began, and it was not until every nook and corner had been
+hunted over that the men stood looking at one another in the hall.
+
+"A pretty mess you've made of this, Mr Gilderoy!" cried the constable,
+at last.
+
+"Two-fifty thrown into the gutter by your bad management," groaned the
+other.
+
+"P'r'aps you'd better go and search all London now," said Hopper, with a
+sneer, "for he can't be far off."
+
+The men turned upon him angrily.
+
+"We haven't done yet," said the constable.  "We must have some one for
+this.  The law can't be resisted for nothing."
+
+"I'm ready to give up," said Tom quietly.
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind," cried Hopper, hastily pushing him away.
+"Here, you there! don't be fools.  Come in here.  The man's gone--off
+by the front door.  What have you got to say to that?"
+
+"I must have some one," said the constable surlily.
+
+"Hey?  Have some one?" cried Hopper.  "Then have me."
+
+They followed the old fellow into the dining-room, where a little
+private inquiry went on; and the result was that soon after they left
+the house, evidently having forgotten to call Tom's behaviour into
+question; while, as for Max, he had not been seen to go, which Dick said
+was a blessing in disguise, as the encounter might have been painful.
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+JESSIE'S MALADY.
+
+"`I cannot forgive myself,'" wrote Tom to Richard Shingle--and the
+latter read the note aloud--"`I feel, uncle, that I have wronged her
+twice in thought most cruelly, and that I dare not hope for her
+forgiveness till time has enabled me to prove myself more worthy of
+her--'"
+
+"Read more loudly, and don't mumble," said Hopper, who was present.
+
+"`Tell her, uncle, that I love her dearly--more dearly than ever; and
+some day, if she has not made another choice, I may come and ask you
+all, humbly, if you can forget the past, ignore the misfortunes of my
+family, and give me room to hope that there is a happy future where at
+present all looks black.'"
+
+"I've read that ten times over," said Dick, "and hang me if I know what
+it means.  It's too fine and sentimental for me.  Why, if he was half
+the man I took him for, he'd come down here and say, `Uncle, blood's
+thicker than water: shall we cry "wiped out" to all that's gone by?--
+because, if so, 'ere's my 'art and 'ere's my 'and.'"
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"'Ere's my 'art and 'ere's my 'and," roared Dick.
+
+"And what should you say to that?" chuckled Hopper.
+
+"I should say, `Tom, my lad, I don't want your 'art, and I don't want
+your 'and, for I've got a 'art as is, I hope, a warm one, and I've got a
+'and to offer to the man I can believe in and trust.  Take yours
+somewheres else, and offer 'em where they may be taken.'"
+
+Dick winked at his friend, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder,
+where, seen dimly in the farther room, were Jessie and Mrs Shingle--
+Dick having taken a house at Hastings, and gone down for change, he
+said, but really on account of the weak state of Jessie's health; and
+now he and his friend were having a pipe together in the inner room.
+
+"He's too cocky," said Hopper: "he's as proud as Lucifer.  He won't come
+and ask till he's made money, and can be independent."
+
+"That's where he's such a fool," said Dick.  "Of course I'm not going to
+say `Come down and marry my gal,' who's dying to have him; but he can
+have her when he likes; and as to money, why, there's enough for all."
+
+"Tom won't want for money," said Hopper, blowing out a great cloud.
+
+"Oh, won't he?" said Dick.  "Well, a good job too.  What's become of
+Fred?"
+
+"Married that violent girl, who was dead on him, and went and joined him
+as soon as she knew he was in trouble."
+
+"Did she, though?" said Dick.  "Well, 'ang me if I ever liked her, with
+her twissened eyes, till now; but that was a good one.  Hopper, Max
+spent all that poor gal's money, which was hard on her.  Could you get
+to let her have a hundred pounds if I give you a cheque?  You can come
+those dodges of sending money on the sly most artfully."
+
+Hopper chuckled as Dick poked him in the side with his pipe-stem.  "No,
+no, no, Dick, they are in America by now; and Fred will be better
+without money.  Make him work."
+
+He began to refill his pipe as he spoke.
+
+"I never could make out how it was he got off so easily to America.  The
+police wasn't half sharp; but it was a good job.  How about the extra
+tradition, as they called it?"
+
+"Hey?  Extradition?" said Hopper.  "Ha! there was a reason for that."
+
+He opened his pocket-book, took out a slip of blue paper, folded it,
+and, striking a match, lit the paper and held it to his pipe.
+
+"I say," said Dick, "what's that you're burning?"
+
+"An old bill," was the reply--"I'm using 'em up by degrees."
+
+"An old bill?" said Dick; for Hopper looked at him curiously.
+
+"Yes," said Hopper, "I've done a deal in bills.  This is one of ten--of
+Fred's: I bought 'em--for his grandmother's sake," he added softly.
+
+Dick stretched out his hand, grasped the other's, and then turned his
+chair to have a look at a ship in the offing, which seemed quite
+blurred.
+
+"Pick!  Dick!" screamed Mrs Shingle.
+
+"Yes, yes--what?" he cried, starting up and running in, to find Jessie
+lying white as ashes in her mother's arms.
+
+"Quick!" cried Mrs Shingle; "tell--tell the doctor--this is the second
+time to-day!  Dick--Dick!" she cried passionately, "she's dying!"
+
+Old Hopper was the most active of the party; and long before the doctor
+could be brought Jessie had revived, but only to lie back listlessly,
+gazing out to sea; while, when the medical man left, it was with a
+solemn shake of the head, which sent a chill to the hearts of Dick and
+his spouse.
+
+They had been sitting by their child for about an hour, when old Hopper
+came in, and stood looking down at her in a quiet, unsympathising way.
+
+"I've come to say good-bye," he said roughly.
+
+"Good-bye?" said Dick.  "Why, you only came yesterday!"
+
+"I know, but I'm no good here.  Good-bye, my girl.  I wish you better."
+
+She half raised her head to kiss him, and the old man bent down and
+pressed his lips to hers very tenderly, before leaving the room, closely
+followed by Dick.
+
+"I know it's a dreary place to come to, Hopper," he said; "and we've
+only had one tune-up together; but when she's--better--Hopper, old man,
+if I wrote and asked Tom to come, would it be wrong?"
+
+"Hey?  Wrong?  Yes.  Don't do anything of the sort.  Hey?  What's that?"
+
+"Only a letter for Max.  I hear he's laid up.  Don't let him know who
+sent it--that's all."
+
+The old man nodded, and held out his hand.
+
+"Do you know why I'm going in such a hurry?" he whispered.
+
+"No," was the reply.
+
+"I'll tell you," said Hopper.  "If your girl's left like that, she'll
+die.  I'm going to send her the best doctor in town."  Ten minutes after
+Hopper was at the station, where he telegraphed one short message,
+climbed slowly into his seat, reached the terminus in due time, and on
+being driven to his chambers found some one waiting for him.
+
+"How is she?" cried Tom eagerly, as the cats crowded round their master.
+
+"Dying!" said Hopper briefly.
+
+"Dying?"
+
+"Yes.  I've come for the best doctor in London."
+
+"And you sit still there!" cried Tom.  "Have you sent him?"
+
+"No," said Hopper coolly.  "Wait a minute.  Tom, my lad, do you think
+you can throw away your pride to save her?"
+
+"I'd throw away my life," he cried passionately.
+
+"That wouldn't save hers.  Here, take this.  Quick--there's a hundred
+pounds.  Take it, you young fool!  Go down at once to her, and throw
+away all nonsense.  Tell her you love her; ask her to forgive you;
+and--"
+
+"Yes--yes," cried Tom.  "Go on."
+
+"And marry her, you young idiot!"
+
+"But a train?" cried Tom despairingly.  "It will be too late to-night."
+
+"You have the money: if necessary, take a special," said the old man.
+"What's fifty or a hundred pounds to happiness, or life?"
+
+Tom caught the old fellow's hand in his, and it was retained.
+
+"Stop one moment, my lad," he said.  "You feel some shrinking about your
+brother's disgrace.  I was burning these by degrees.  See--the last of
+the forged bills."
+
+He took six from his pocket-book, and burned them.
+
+"There," he said, "that business is dead, and you can go with a lighter
+heart.  Perhaps I shall come down next week.  Be off."
+
+Tom bounded down the stairs, leaped into the first cab, and bade the man
+gallop to London Bridge station.
+
+"All right, sir."
+
+The little door in the roof was slammed down, there was a flick of the
+long whip, and for about half a minute the horse broke into a short
+canter, one which subsided into a trot a few minutes later.
+
+A loud rattling at the top of the cab spurred the driver to fresh
+exertions, and once more the wretched horse cantered, but dropped again
+into a trot, and there was an end of it.  Tom had to sit and fume, as at
+every turn he seemed to be hemmed in by other vehicles; and, no matter
+how the driver tried, there was always a huge, heavily-laden van in
+front, blocking up the way.
+
+"I think I'll take a short cut round, sir," said the cabman.  "The
+streets is werry full to-night."
+
+"Anything to get there quickly."  So the driver turned out of the main
+thoroughfare, and began to dodge in and out of wretched streets, all of
+which seemed ill lighted, and so strongly resembled the one the other,
+that Tom soon grew bewildered, and sat back thinking, and trying to
+arrange his thoughts.
+
+His brain was in such a tumult that he could do nothing, however--
+nothing but upbraid himself for his folly and madness, "What have I
+done?--what have I done?" he moaned, as he thought of the anguish that
+he must have inflicted upon the poor girl, who had slowly pined away,
+and was now dying--dying through his wretched blindness and want of
+faith.
+
+He tried to excuse himself--pleaded his term of bitter suffering, but
+could get no absolution from his own stern judgment.  He had doubted one
+who was all that was purity and truth, and here was his punishment--a
+bitter one indeed!
+
+He prayed mentally that she might be spared, that he might ask her
+forgiveness--forgiveness that he knew he should receive--and then
+covered his face with his hands, as a feeling of hope came upon him that
+he might still be able to save her.  He might, he thought, bring joy to
+her heart even yet.
+
+A sudden stoppage nearly threw him out of the cab; and, looking up
+hastily, it was to find that a barrier was across the street, from which
+hung a red lantern.
+
+The street was narrow, and he could see beyond, while the driver was
+sulkily backing and turning his horse, that the paving-stones were all
+up, and the inevitable long fosse and hill of earth lay by the side.
+
+He sank back shuddering, for it looked as if a grave were yawning in the
+path; and, with a low moan of despair, he covered his face once more,
+and tried to reason with himself that this was merely a superstitious
+fancy.
+
+But all in vain.  There was the long, dark cutting fixed upon the retina
+of his eye; and he could see nothing else as the cab slowly went back
+over much of the ground already traversed.  What was more, his
+distempered fancy magnified and added to it, so that he could see trains
+of mourners, the clergyman, hear the solemn words of the burial service;
+and these the revolving wheels and the rattling cab kept repeating, till
+at last it settled itself down into a constant reiteration of the words,
+"In the midst of life we are in death,"--"In the midst of life we are in
+death," till he grew almost frantic, and stopped his ears in vain
+against the weird, funereal sound.
+
+At last, after wearying himself by trying to bring reason to bear, the
+cab reached the comparative freedom of London Bridge; and then he began
+to think of the hour, and wondered whether there would be a train.
+
+"Perhaps I shall be in time," he thought, as he sprang out of the cab,
+and, paying the fare, ran up to the doors, where a porter was standing.
+
+"You should have gone to the other gate, sir," said the man sharply.
+
+"No, no," he replied hastily.  "Main line.  I want Hastings."
+
+"Last train for there was at 8:45, sir."
+
+"What time is it now?" he gasped.
+
+"Ten fifty-five, sir."
+
+"But--but is there nothing more to-night--say, to take me part of the
+way?" he exclaimed, for he was mad with the desire to be moving.
+
+"No main line train to-night, sir.  Nothing till six in the morning."
+
+"How long would it take to get a special ready?"
+
+"Oh, not very long, sir.  I dessay they'd get you off in half an hour.
+Costs a deal, sir--'bout a pound a mile."
+
+"Where is the superintendent?"
+
+"This way, sir," said the man; and, following him, he was taken to the
+official's house, just in time to catch him before he retired for the
+night.
+
+"I want a special train--engine and carriage--down to Hastings
+immediately," said Tom, hardly able to speak for agitation.
+
+The superintendent looked at him curiously, as if he doubted his sanity.
+
+"It's only excitement--trouble.  It is a case of life and death.  A dear
+young friend."
+
+"All right, sir," the superintendent said quickly.  "I see," and there
+was a look of sympathy in his eyes.  "But I am only a servant of the
+company.  The charge for a special train is high."
+
+"If it is a thousand pounds, man," cried Tom, "I must have it."
+
+"It won't be that, sir," was the reply; "nor yet a hundred."  Then
+naming a sum, it was hastily placed in his hand, and the superintendent
+left.
+
+He was back directly, and Tom accompanied him then to the telegraph
+office, where he gave certain instructions, and the clerk began clicking
+the instruments in his cabinet very forcibly.
+
+"Sending word on for a clear line," said the superintendent.  "Warning
+for the special."
+
+"How long will they be?" asked Tom.
+
+"What, with the special?  Oh, not long.  There was an engine with steam
+nearly up.  But you had better take some refreshment before you go.  The
+place is closed, but come to my room."
+
+"I could not touch anything."
+
+"But you have no wrapper or rug," said the superintendent.
+
+"No, I came in a great hurry."
+
+"You must let me lend them to you," continued the superintendent; "and,
+excuse me, you have given me all your money.  You had better keep the
+gold; you are sure to want some change."
+
+He handed him back the cash, and Tom took it mechanically.
+
+"I cannot thank you now," he said, in a choking voice.  "Some day I
+may."
+
+"I hope so, sir," said the superintendent cheerily; "and that the young
+lady will come and thank me too."
+
+"Heaven grant she may!"  Tom said, with quivering lip; and he turned
+away to hide his emotion, while the superintendent turned back to his
+office, leaving Tom walking up and down the platform, where the lamps
+quivered in the night breeze, and the whole place looked ghostly, dim,
+and cold.
+
+Away to the side the station was bright and busy, for from there started
+the local traffic; and trains, with people from the theatres and places
+of amusement, left from time to time for the various suburban villages
+of the south-east of London; but where he stood all was shadowy, and in
+keeping with his terrible journey.
+
+"There, sir--slip that on," said the superintendent.  "Here's a rug,
+too, and my flask, with some brandy and biscuits in one of the pockets
+of the ulster.  You'll find it cold, and you'll turn faint when you get
+on your journey.  Here she comes."
+
+There was a sharp whistle, and Tom could see the lights of an engine
+passing out of a shed, to run a little distance down the line, then back
+on to another, and come smoothly along to where they stood--hissing,
+glowing, and bright.
+
+Tom saw at a glance that there was only an engine, tender, one carriage,
+and the guard's break; and, turning to the superintendent, "Can I ride
+on the engine with the driver?" he asked.
+
+"No.  In with you."
+
+The superintendent opened the door of the saloon carriage, and shut him
+in.  Then Tom heard him give a few quick, decisive orders to the guard,
+there was another sharp whistle, he waved his hand from the window, and
+the superintendent leaped on to the step:
+
+"Tell them to go as fast as possible," shouted Tom, as the train was
+gliding past the platform.
+
+"I have," the superintendent said quickly.  "Hope she'll be better.
+Good night."
+
+As he spoke he leaped off at the end of the platform, and, shrieking and
+snorting, the little special went rather slowly along, past hissing
+goods engines and long black-looking trains, such as might be the
+funeral processions of an army.  Lights flashed here and there, and far
+to right and left shone the glow of great London; while the big
+illuminated clock of the Parliament Houses loomed out of the darkness
+like a dull, fog-dimmed moon.
+
+"They are crawling!"  Tom exclaimed, as he started up to look out from
+the window.  But, as he did so, the wind was already beginning to
+whistle more quickly by his ears: they were clear of obstructions, and
+speed was getting up rapidly.  There was the quick, throbbing beat, a
+crash as they passed under bridge after bridge, and soon after, as the
+engine gave a weird scream, they seemed to skim through a long station,
+whose row of pendant lights ran together like closely strung golden
+beads; and then, as Tom sank back in his seat, he felt the carriage
+begin to vibrate from side to side, and he knew that the telegraph had
+flashed its message, that the line was clear, and that, ever increasing
+in speed, they were off and away through the black darkness of the
+night--the best doctor in London speeding to the patient dying to hear
+his words.
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+A RIDE BY NIGHT.
+
+With the speed of the special train the excitement seemed to increase;
+but, for a time, Tom's attention was taken up by the stations they
+passed, and he tried hard to recall their names, referring at the same
+moment that they passed through to his watch, so as to endeavour to
+calculate the speed at which they ran.
+
+But soon they were going so fast that he ceased to hold his watch up to
+the thick glass lamp in the roof, and he missed count of the places,
+unable to tell one from the other, seeing merely a streak of light
+directly after the warning shriek of the engine had told of their
+coming.  And now, as he threw himself back and began to think once more
+of his trouble, the roar and beat of the engine resolved itself into the
+words that had troubled him before; and, with feelings of anguish that
+he could not express, he sat listening to the reiteration--"In the midst
+of life we are in death,"--"In the midst of life we are in death!"--and,
+with a groan of anguish, he bent down and wept like a child.
+
+But for the relief those tears afforded his throbbing brain, he would
+soon have been suffering from fever.  The relief was but short, though,
+and he rose to gaze out of the window at the thick gloom.  Then,
+removing his hat, he lowered the glass and leaned out, letting the cold
+night air blow upon his heated face as the train rushed on.
+
+All was black darkness, save the glow shed by the rushing train; and he
+could make out nothing but that they were dashing on at a frightful
+pace, seeming to tear up the very earth as they thundered along.  Once
+or twice speed was slackened, with the engine whistle sounding loudly;
+and, looking out, he could see far ahead a red point of light, which, as
+they neared it, changed into a green, when, with a triumphant shriek,
+the special glided on once more, and they swept by a station and a
+hissing engine attached to some long goods train, whose guard stood by
+with a lantern in his hand, fresh from the operation of shunting to
+allow them to pass.
+
+"Faster, faster!"  Tom began repeating to himself, as, in spite of his
+efforts to master the fancy, he kept hearing the words into which the
+noise of the train resolved itself; though, as he leaned out again, he
+felt a sensation of joy, for he was being borne nearer and nearer to
+where his darling lay.
+
+Then he would walk to and fro in the narrow space that formed the saloon
+carriage, the difficulty of preserving his balance taking up some of his
+attention, and relieving his mind from its dreadful strain.  But it
+always came back to his throwing himself back on a seat, to listen to
+those dreadful words; and at such times he was for ever seeing the open
+grave and the funeral procession, and in a despair that was almost
+maddening he, told himself that by his folly he had dashed away the cup
+of happiness from his lips, and that if Jessie died he would be little
+better than a murderer.
+
+"My poor darling! my poor darling!" he moaned; and then her sweet,
+pensive eyes seemed to look up in his, and he was once again with her in
+the days of their early love, "And are those times never to come back
+again?" he asked aloud; to get back for answer the constant dull
+repetition, "In the midst of life we are in death,"--"In the midst of
+life we are in death," till he groaned in the anguish of his heart.
+
+Onward still, with a rush and a roar, through tunnels, with a quick,
+sharp crash as if wood and brickwork had come into contact; and then on
+again.  Over bridges, with a strange quivering vibration, and a dull
+metallic roar, and on again through the black darkness, till the engine
+began to shriek once more, the speed slackened, grew slower and slower,
+and ended by the little train pulling up alongside a platform.
+
+The guard was at the door as Tom let down the window, and met his
+question with--
+
+"Tunbridge, sir.  Take in water.  Engine's been detached.  Back
+directly."
+
+"Don't lose a moment."
+
+"No, sir.  Like to get out, sir?"
+
+"No."
+
+Tom threw himself back in his seat, and waited impatiently what seemed
+an hour, but was really only five minutes; when, just as he was rising
+to thrust his head out of the window, there was a slight concussion, the
+rattle of chains, and he knew the engine was once more attached.
+
+"Right away!"  A whistle from the guard, an answering shriek from the
+engine, and they glided along the platform, while the night porter on
+duty looked curiously at the carriage where the young man sat, after
+giving the signal to start; and in a few minutes, always gathering
+speed, away they went once more, faster and faster, into the darkness of
+the night.
+
+It was refreshing to feel the wind blowing against his cheeks, even
+though at times he could hardly get his breath; but as he gazed forward
+it was almost with a feeling of wonder that they had had no accident, so
+black was all ahead.
+
+From time to time a goods train dashed by them in the opposite
+direction, while as often they rushed by carriages which stood in
+sidings until those on their urgent way had passed.  At last, after
+trying all he could to contain himself, and grow calm and fit to see the
+poor sufferer whom he feared to encounter, he sat in despair listening
+to the dreadful fancied utterances of the train.
+
+With a prayer on his lips that it might not be too late, he lowered the
+window on the other side, and gazed out through the darkness in the
+direction that he believed to be the one where Jessie lay.  "We must be
+near now," he felt; and he began to look out eagerly for the town, which
+once reached, his journey would soon be ended.
+
+They seemed to be going at a tremendous speed; and, once more returning
+to his seat, he was in the act of taking out his watch, when the whistle
+began to pierce the black night air; and directly after, there was a
+sharp crash, a stunning blow, the end of the saloon carriage seemed to
+come suddenly upon him, and he knew no more.
+
+Tom's next recollection was of feeling drowsy, and being troubled by
+some one holding a lantern close to his face.  There was a buzzing of
+voices about him, and, close by, the glare of a fire, which flared and
+crackled loudly.  Men were moving about, and they would not leave him
+alone, so it seemed to him; ending by lifting him up and placing him
+carefully upon cushions, which cushions they had laid upon a gate; and
+then he was carried some distance to a well-lighted room, where he
+seemed to go to sleep.
+
+He must have lain some hours quite insensible, for it was broad daylight
+when he came thoroughly to himself, and found he was upon a mattress in
+the waiting-room of a station.
+
+"Where am I?" he said wonderingly, for it seemed that the troubled
+journey must have been all a dream.
+
+"At Broxton," was the reply; and a gentleman, whom he immediately set
+down to be a doctor, came forward.
+
+"But how--what is it?  I remember now!" he exclaimed, with a dull,
+aching pain in his head and arm--"there was an accident to the train."
+
+"Yes," was the reply.  "A couple of goods trucks that were being shunted
+ran back down the incline, met the special train you were in, and
+wrecked it.  You had a narrow escape, sir."
+
+"The driver--stoker--guard?" he said eagerly.
+
+"A bit cut and shaken; but you are the great sufferer."  Tom lay still
+for a few minutes, trying to collect himself; and then all came clear
+once more.
+
+"I see," he cried.  "Left arm broken--head contused--cut or two.  Much
+loss of blood, doctor?"
+
+"Not much," he said.  "A fortnight's quiet.  Well, I think--My dear sir,
+are you mad?"
+
+"I hope not," said the injured man, sitting up.  "There, don't touch me,
+doctor.  I can judge by my feelings that my case is not serious.  When
+is the next down train?"
+
+"In half an hour, sir," said a fresh voice, and a man he had not seen
+came from behind the extemporised couch.
+
+"Here, help me to put on my coat and waistcoat.  Doctor, I'm much
+obliged for what you've done; but I was travelling special to a case of
+emergency.  I must go on, if it kills me."
+
+"I will not be answerable for the consequences if you do," the doctor
+said tartly.  "Fever is almost certain to supervene if you exert
+yourself, and then I would not give _that_ for your life."
+
+_That_ was a snap of the fingers, evidently given to get rid of some
+snuff.
+
+"Make me a sling for this arm," said Tom; and one being extemporised
+with a handkerchief, he had to fight hard to master the faintness that
+kept attacking him; but he persevered--had the bandages on his head
+replaced by strapping where his hair had been cut away on account of a
+couple of ghastly cuts; and finally had himself led to the platform,
+where he sat down waiting.
+
+Twice over the doctor tried to persuade him not to go; but he felt that
+he must, even at the risk of life; and at last, on the morning train
+coming up, he stepped in, feeling deathly sick and faint, and leaning
+back, reached Hastings at last, hardly able to crawl.
+
+It was with a sense of dizziness that he could hardly counteract that he
+reached Richard Shingle's house; and then once more he appeared to sink
+into a dreamy state, in which he was always hearing the words--"In the
+midst of life we are in death," and then came a long blank.
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+THE GILDED PILL.
+
+One morning, when the sun was making the sea shimmer and glisten like so
+much frosted silver in constant motion, Tom Fraser awoke, calm and
+placid, after a long, burning time of fever, to find the soft, pleasant
+face of Mrs Shingle bending over him; and, on seeing him awake, she
+stole gently away, and, while he lay wondering and trying to make out
+what it all meant, and whether it was a dream, the door once more
+opened, and he knew he was awake, for Jessie appeared, to creep to his
+bedside and clasp him in her arms.
+
+Invalids recover fast under such circumstances.  In his character of the
+best doctor in London, sick and injured as he was, Tom's coming had
+instantaneously effected Jessie's cure; and now, in turn, she nursed him
+back to health, ready to become his wife when he should ask her to crown
+his joy.
+
+It was not long first; for at a meeting one day, old Hopper had proposed
+to Dick that they should put down so much apiece for the young folks,
+and this was done without their consent, the donors almost quarrelling
+as to who should give most.
+
+Old Hopper won.
+
+It was some little time after, when Richard Shingle and his wife had
+returned to town, that the former called upon his old friend in his
+chambers, where there was a long chat about the young people, and also
+about Max Shingle.
+
+"Don't you make yourself uncomfortable about him," said Hopper gruffly.
+"He won't starve as long as there's any one to swindle.  As for his
+wife, young Tom will see that she don't want, and so will I, for the
+sake of the past."
+
+"Why, hallo!" cried Dick suddenly, after the conversation had turned
+upon music, and they had arranged for what was called "a good
+scrape,"--"what have you got here?"
+
+As he spoke he took a small bill from the chimney-piece, and began
+looking at it with a grim smile of contempt on his face.
+
+"Can't you read?" said Hopper roughly.  "Plain enough, isn't it?  `The
+Gilded Pill for every ill.'"
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"`Yes, but,'--I haven't been well lately.  And I'm going to take a few:
+they say they're good for nearly everything."
+
+"Oh, but I wouldn't do that," said Dick dubiously.
+
+"Hey? not do it? why not?  Speak up: this traffic makes such a noise."
+
+"Oh, take them if you like," said Dick, smiling.  "They won't hurt you."
+
+"How do you know?" cried Hopper testily.  "Everybody says they're good.
+Hey?  How do you know?"
+
+"That's my secret," said Dick, laughing.
+
+"Your what?  Look here: what do you mean?"
+
+"I say, take 'em if you like--hundreds of thousands do.  Small boxes one
+and three-halfpence, large boxes two-and-nine, with the Government
+stamp."
+
+"Bah!  I know all about that," said Hopper, rattling a box close to his
+ear, and then opening it, to show a dozen boluses covered with gold
+foil.  "Have one?"
+
+"No, thanks," said Dick, smiling.  "I know 'em by heart--compound
+rhubarb and a little new bread.  That's my secret, my fortune, old lad."
+
+"What!" cried Hopper.  "Hey? what!  You made your fortune with these?"
+
+"Yes," said Dick; "the murder's out now.  My bright idea was--_The
+Gilded Pill_.  But I was not at all proud of it, so I kept it dark."
+
+"Well, I am blessed," said Hopper.
+
+"Glad of it.  So am I, old man.  It's paid me well, but there was always
+a skeleton in the cupboard."
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"Skeleton, old man.  I've paid thousands to Government for stamps, but
+they wouldn't have let me off if anything had gone wrong."
+
+"But these pills couldn't go wrong, could they?"
+
+"I don't think so, Hopper; but I never meet a doctor without feeling
+queer,--the faculty is like a cloud to me, and behind it I always seem
+to see an inquest coming off through somebody taking too much of my
+stuff."
+
+"The idea of your keeping it all to yourself!  You might have told me."
+
+"You never told me you were a wealthy man, and Uncle Rounce in
+Australia."
+
+"Humph!"
+
+"I say, Hopper, would you give up the pills now?"
+
+Hopper's answer was emphatically--"No."
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sawn Off, by George Manville Fenn
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40674 ***