"A Tale of a Family Tree" (continued 2)

“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 exposé 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.