LIBfWf?Y 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS
 
 IN THE SAME SERIES 
 
 THE OLD DOMINION. 
 
 THE PROFESSIONAL AUNT. 
 
 IN THE QUARTER. 
 
 BY ORDER OF THE COMPANY. 
 
 THE CORNER OF HARLEY STREET. 
 
 QUEED. 
 
 SIR MORTIMER. 
 
 THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF 
 
 HENRY RYECROFT, 
 AUDREY. 
 
 SELECTED POEMS. 
 GHOSTS OF PICCADILLY. 
 LEWIS RAND. 
 AN UNSOCIAL SOCIALIST. 
 BACHELOR HETTY. 
 THE IRRATIONAL KNOT. 
 LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME. 
 LOVE AMONG THE ARTISTS. 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS. 
 CASHEL BYRON'S PROFESSION. 
 NEW WORLDS FOR OLD. 
 
 Mary Johnston. 
 
 Mrs. Gborge Wbmvss, 
 
 R. W. Chamrsks. 
 
 Mary Johnston. 
 
 Pbter Harding, M.D. 
 
 Henky Sydnor Harrison. 
 
 Mary Johnston. 
 
 George Gissing. 
 
 Mary Johnston. 
 
 George Meredith. 
 
 G. S. Street. 
 
 Mary Johnston. 
 
 Bernard Shaw. 
 
 Winifred Jambs. 
 
 Bernard Shaw. 
 
 John Fox, Jun. 
 
 Bernard Shaw. 
 
 George Gissing. 
 
 Bernard Shaw. 
 
 H. G. Whlls
 
 THE 
 
 HOUSE OF COBWEBS 
 
 BY 
 
 george"^ gissing 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'the PRIVATE PAPERS OF HENRY RYECROFT,' ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD.
 
 
 Published May jgo6 
 
 Reprinted June igo6, December /god 
 
 Reprinted i<p/^
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 PAGK 
 
 THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING . , 
 
 . • vii-liv 
 
 A CHRONOLOGICAL RECORD , , 
 
 Iv 
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS , , 
 
 1 
 
 A CAPITALIST . , , , 
 
 28 
 
 CHRISTOPHERSON ... 
 
 47 
 
 HUMPLEBEE .... 
 
 68 
 
 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER • , 
 
 88 
 
 A POOR GENTLEMAN . . , 
 
 . 106 
 
 MISS Rodney's leisure. , , 
 
 124 
 
 A CHARMING FAMILY . , , 
 
 . 148 
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE . . 
 
 . 175 
 
 THE RIDING-WHIP . . . 
 
 192 
 
 FATE AND THE APOTHECARY . , 
 
 215 
 
 TOPHAM's CHANCE . , , 
 
 . 227 
 
 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 
 
 241 
 
 THE SALT OF THE EARTH . , 
 
 . 265 
 
 THE PIG AND WHISTLE . 
 
 278 
 
 A
 
 THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 
 
 ' Les gens tout k fait heureux, forts et bien portants, sont-ils pre- 
 pares comme il faut pour comprendre, p^netrer, exprimer la vie, 
 notre vie si tourment^e et si courte ? ' Maupassant. 
 
 In England during the sixties and seventies of last century 
 the world of books was dominated by one Gargantuan type 
 of fiction. The terms book and novel became almost 
 synonymous in houses which were not Puritan, yet where 
 books and reading, in the era of few and unfree libraries, 
 were strictly circumscribed. George Gissing was no excep- 
 tion to this rule. The English novel was at the summit of 
 its reputation during his boyish days. As a lad of eight or 
 nine he remembered the parts of Our Mutual Friend coming 
 to the house, and could recall the smile of welcome with which 
 they were infallibly received. In the dining-room at home 
 was a handsomely framed picture which he regarded with an 
 almost idolatrous veneration. It was an engraved portrait of 
 Charles Dickens. Some of the best work of George Eliot, 
 Reade, and Trollope was yet to make its appearance ; 
 Meredith and Hardy were still the treasured possession of 
 the few; the reigning models during the period of Gissing's 
 adolescence were probably Dickens and Trollope, and the 
 numerous satellites of these great stars, prominent among 
 them Wilkie Collins, William Black, and Besant and Rice. 
 
 Of the cluster of novelists who emerged from this school 
 of ideas, the two who will attract most attention in the 
 
 vii
 
 viii THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 future were clouded and obscured for the greater period of 
 their working lives. Unobserved, they received, and made 
 their own preparations for utilising, the legacy of the mid- 
 Victorian novel — moral thesis, plot, underplot, set characters, 
 descriptive machinery, landscape colouring, copious phrase- 
 ology, Herculean proportions, and the rest of the cumbrous 
 and grandiose paraphernalia of Chuzzlewit, Pendnwis, and 
 Middlemarch. But they received the legacy in a totally differ- 
 ent spirit. Mark Rutherford, after a very brief experiment, 
 put all these elaborate properties and conventions reverently 
 aside. Cleverer and more docile, George Gissing for the 
 most part accepted them; he put his slender frame into the 
 ponderous collar of tlie author of the Mill on the Floss, and 
 nearly collapsed in wind and limb in the heart-breaking 
 attemj)t to adjust himself to such an heroic type of harness. 
 The distinctive qualities of Gissing at the time of his 
 setting forth were a scholarly style, rather fastidious and 
 academic in its restraint, and the personal discontent, 
 slightly morbid, of a self-conscious student who finds him- 
 self in the position of a sensitive woman in a crowd. His 
 attitude through life was that of a man who, having set out 
 on his career with the understanding: that a second-class 
 ticket is to be provided, allows himself to be unceremoniously 
 hustled into the rough and tumble of a noisy third. 
 Circumstances made him revolt against an anonymous 
 start in life for a refined and educated man under such 
 conditions. They also made him j)rolific. He shrank from 
 the restraints and humiliations to which the poor and 
 shabbily dressed private tutor is exposed — revealed to us 
 with a persuasive terseness in the pages of The Unclassed, 
 New Criih Street, Ri/ecrofl, and the story of Topham's Chance. 
 Writing fiction in a garret for a sum sufficient to keep body 
 and soul together for the six months following payment was 
 at any rate better than this. The result was a long series 
 of highly finished novels, written in a style and from a
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY ix 
 
 point of view which will always render them dear to the 
 studious and the book-centred. Upon the larger external 
 rings of the book-reading multitude it is not probable that 
 Gissing will ever succeed in impressing himself. There is 
 an absence of transcendental quality about his vrork, a 
 failure in humour, a remoteness from actual life, a defi- 
 ciency in awe and mystery, a shortcoming in emotional 
 power, finally, a lack of the dramatic faculty, not indeed 
 indispensable to a novelist, but almost indispensable as an 
 ingredient in great novels of this particular genre.^ In 
 temperament and vitality he is palpably inferior to the 
 masters (Dickens, Thackeray, Hugo, Balzac) whom he rever- 
 enced with such a cordial admiration and envy. A 'low 
 vitality' may account for what has been referred to as the 
 'nervous exhaustion ' of his style. It were useless to pretend 
 that Gissing belongs of right to the 'first series ' of English 
 Men of Letters. But if debarred by his limitations from a 
 resounding or popular success, he will remain exceptionally 
 dear to the heart of the recluse, who thinks that the scholar 
 does well to cherish a grievance against the vulgar world 
 beyond the cloister; and dearer still, perhaps, to a certain 
 number of enthusiasts who began reading George Gissing as 
 a college night-course; who closed Thyrza and Demos as dawn 
 was breaking through the elms in some Oxford quadrangle, 
 and who have pursued his work patiently ever since in a 
 somewhat toilsome and broken ascent, secure always of suave 
 writing and conscientious workmanship, of an individual 
 prose cadence and a genuine vein of Penseroso : — 
 
 'Thus, Ni^ht, oft see me in thy pale career . . . 
 Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, 
 And the night-raven sings. ' 
 
 ^ The same kind of limitations would have to be postulated in estimating 
 the brothers De Goncourt, who, falling short of the first magnitude, have yet 
 a fully recognised position upon the stellar atlas.
 
 X THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 Yet by the larger, or, at any rate, the intermediate 
 public, it is a fact that Gissiug has never been quite fairly 
 estimated. He loses immensely if you estimate him either 
 by a single book, as is commonly done, or by his work as a 
 whole, in the j)erspective of which, owing to the lack of 
 critical instruction, one or two books of rather inferior 
 quality have obtruded themselves unduly. This brief survey 
 of the Gissing country is designed to enable the reader to 
 judge the novelist by eight or nine of his best books. If we 
 can select these aright, we feel sure that he will end by 
 placing the work of George Gissing upon a considerably 
 higher level than he has hitherto done. 
 
 The time has not yet come to write the history of his 
 career — fuliginous in not a few of its earlier phases, gather- 
 ing serenity towards its close, — finding a soul of goodness 
 in things evil. This only pretends to be a chronological 
 and, quite incidentally, a critical survey of George Gissing's 
 chief works. And comparatively short as his working life 
 proved to be — hampered for ten years by the sternest 
 poverty, and for nearly ten more by the sad, illusive optimism 
 of the poitrinaire — the task of the mere surveyor is no light 
 or perfunctory one. Artistic as his temperament undoubtedly 
 was, and conscientious as his writing appears down to its 
 minutest detail. Gissing yet managed to turn out rather more 
 than a novel per annum. The desire to excel acted as a 
 spur which conquered his congenital inclination to dreamy 
 historical reverie. The reward which he propounded to 
 himself remained steadfast from boyhood ; it was a kind 
 of Childe Harold pilgrimage to the lands of antique story — 
 
 ' Whither Albano's scarce divided waves 
 Shine from a sister valley ; — and afar 
 Tlie Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves 
 The Latian coast where sprang the Epic War.' 
 
 Twenty-six years have elapsed since the appearance of his
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xi 
 
 first book in 1880^ and in that time just twenty-six books have 
 been issued bearing his signature. His industry was worthy 
 of an Anthony Trollope, and cost his employers barely a tithe 
 of the amount claimed by the writer of The Last Chronicle of 
 Barset. He was not much over twenty-two when his first 
 novel appeared. 1 It was entitled Workers in the Dawn, and 
 is distinguished by the fact that the author writes himself 
 George Robert Gissing ; afterwards he saw fit to follow the 
 example of George Robert Borrow, and in all subsequent pro- 
 ductions assumes the style of ' George Gissing.' The book 
 begins in this fashion : ' Walk with me, reader, into Whitecross 
 Street. It is Saturday night' ; and it is what it here seems, 
 a decidedly crude and immature performance. Gissing was 
 encumbered at every step by the giant's robe of mid- 
 Victorian fiction. Intellectual giants, Dickens and Thackeray, 
 were equally gigantic spendthrifts. They worked in a state 
 of fervid heat above a glowing furnace, into which they 
 flung lavish masses of unshaped metal, caring little for 
 immediate effect or minute dexterity of stroke, but knowing 
 full well that the emotional energy of their temperaments 
 was capable of fusing the most intractable material, and that 
 in the end they would produce their great, downright effect. 
 Their spirits rose and fell, but the case was desperate, copy 
 had to be despatched for the current serial Good and bad 
 had to make up the tale against time, and revelling in the 
 very exuberance and excess of their humour, the novelists 
 invariably triumphed. 
 
 To the Ercles vein of these Titans of fiction, Gissing was 
 a complete stranger. To the pale and fastidious recluse and 
 
 1 Three vols. 8vo, 1880 (Remington). It was noticed at some length in 
 the AthencEum of June I2th, in which the author's philosophic outlook is 
 condemned as a dangerous compound of Schopenhauer, Comte, and Shelley. 
 It is somewhat doubtful if he ever made more for a book than the £250 he 
 got for New Grub Street. £200, we believe, was advanced on The Nether 
 World, but this proved anything but a prosperous speculation from the 
 publisher's point of view, and £150 was refused for Born in Exile.
 
 rii THE \VOKK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 anchorite, their tone of genial remonstrance with the world 
 and its ways was totally alien. He knew nothin<r of the 
 world to start with beyond the den of the student. His 
 second book, as he himself described it in the preface to a 
 second edition, was the work of a very young man who dealt 
 in a romantic spirit with the gloomier facts of life. Its title. 
 The Unclasscd,^ excited a little curiosity, but the author was 
 careful to explain that he had not in view the deckisses but 
 rather those persons who live in a limbo external to society, 
 and refuse the statistic badge. The central figure Osmond 
 Waymark is of course Gissing himself. Like his creator, 
 raving at intervals under the vile restraints of Philistine 
 surroundings and with no money for dissipation, Osmond 
 gives up teaching to pursue the literary vocation. A girl 
 named Ida Starr idealises him, and is helped thereby 
 to a purer life. In the four years' interval between this 
 somewhat hurried work and his still earlier attempt the 
 yitung author seems to have gone through a bewildering 
 change of employments. We hear of a clerkship in Liver- 
 pool, a searing experience in America (described with but 
 little deviation in New Grub Street), a gas-fitting episode in 
 Boston, private tutorships, and cramming engagements in 
 'the poisonous air of working London.' Internal evidence 
 alone is quite sufficient to indicate that the man out 
 of whose brain such bitter experiences of the educated 
 poor were wrung had learnt in suffering what he taught 
 — in his novels. His start in literature was made under 
 cojiditions that might h.ive appalled the bravest, and for 
 years his stefis were dogged by hunger and many-shaped 
 hardships. He lived in cellars and garrets. ' Many a time,' 
 he writes, 'seated in just such a garret (as that in the 
 frontispiece to Little Dorrit) I saw the sunshine flood the 
 tal)le in front of me, and the thought of that book rose up 
 
 ' Three volfl., 1884, dedicated to M. C. R. In one volume 'revised.' 1895 
 (l>reface dated October 1895).
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xiii 
 
 before me.' He ate his meals in places that would have 
 offered a way-wearied tramp occasion for criticism. ' His 
 breakfast consisted often of a slice of bread and a drink of 
 water. Four and sixpence a week paid for his lodging. A 
 meal that cost more than sixpence was a feast.' Once he 
 tells us with a thrill of reminiscent ecstasy how he found 
 sixpence in the street ! The ordinary comforts of modern 
 life were unattainable luxuries. Once when a newly posted 
 notice in the lavatory at the British Museum warned readers 
 that the basins were to be used (in official phrase) ' for casual 
 ablutions only,' he was abashed at the thought of his own 
 complete dependence upon the facilities of the place. Justly 
 might the author call this a ti*agi-comical incident. Often 
 in happier times he had brooding memories of the familiar 
 old horrors — the foggy and gas-lit labyrinth of Soho — shop 
 windows containing puddings and pies kept hot by steam 
 rising through perforated metal — a young novelist of ' two- 
 and-twenty or thereabouts ' standing before the display, 
 raging with hunger, unable to purchase even one pennyworth 
 of food. And this is no fancy picture,^ but a true story of what 
 Gissing had sufficient elasticity of humour to call 'a pretty 
 stern apprenticeship.' The sense of it enables us to under 
 stand to the full that semi-ironical and bitter, yet not 
 wholly unamused passage, in Ryecroft : — 
 
 'Is there at this moment any boy of twenty, fairly educated, 
 but without means, without help, with nothing but the glow in 
 his brain and steadfast courage in his heart, who sits in a London 
 garret and writes for dear life } There must be, I suppose ; yet all 
 that I have read and heard of late years about young writers, 
 shows them in a very different aspect. No garretteers, these 
 novelists and journalists awaiting their promotion. They eat — 
 and entertain their critics — at fashionable restaurants, they are 
 seen in expensive seats at the theatre ; they inhabit handsome 
 
 1 Who but Gissing could describe a heroine as exhibiting in her counte- 
 nance ' habitual nourishment on good and plenteous food' ?
 
 xiv THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 flats— pliotographed for an illustrated paper on the first excuse. 
 At the worst, they belong to a reputable club, and have garments 
 which permit them to attend a garden party or an evening "at 
 home" without attracting unpleasant notice. Many biographical 
 sketches have I read during the last decade, making personal 
 introduction of young Mr. This or young Miss That, whose book 
 was— as the sweet language of the day will have it — "booming" ; 
 but never one in which there was a hint of stern struggles, of the 
 pinched stomach and frozen fingers.' 
 
 In his later years it was customary for him to inquire of a 
 
 new author ' Has he starved ' .^ He need have been under 
 
 no apprehension. There is still a God's plenty of attics in 
 
 Grub Street, tenanted by genuine artists, idealists and 
 
 poets, amply sufficient to justify the lamentable conclusion 
 
 of old Anthony a Wood in his life of George Peele. ' For so 
 
 it is and always hath been, that most poets die poor, and 
 
 consequently obscurely, and a hard matter it is to trace 
 
 them to their graves.' Amid all these miseries, Gissing 
 
 u))held his ideal. During 1886-7 he began really to write 
 
 and the first great advance is shown in Isabel Clarendon.'^ 
 
 No book, perhai)s, that he ever wrote is so rich as this 
 
 in autobiographical indices. In the melancholy Kingcote 
 
 we get more than a passing phase or a momentary 
 
 glimpse at one side of the young author. A long succession 
 
 of Kingcote's traits are obvious self-revelations. At the 
 
 beginning he symbolically prefers the old road with the 
 
 crumljling sign-post, to the new. Kingcote is a literary 
 
 sensitive. The most ordinary transaction with uneducated 
 
 ('that is uncivilised') people made him uncomfortable. 
 
 Mean and hateful people by their suggestions made life 
 
 hidfons. He lacks the courage of the ordinary man 
 
 Though under thirty he is abaslied by youth. He is stnti. 
 
 > /ioAri Clarendon. By George Gissing. In two volumes, 1886 (Chap- 
 man and Hall). In reviewing this work the Academy expressed astonishment 
 at the mature style of the writer— of whom it admitted it had not vet come 
 across the name.
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xv 
 
 mental and liungry for feminine sympathy, yet he realises 
 that the woman who may with safety be taken in marriage 
 by a poor man, given to intellectual pursuits, is extremely 
 difficult of discovery. Consequently he lives in solitude ; he 
 is tyrannised by moods, dominated by temperament. His 
 intellect is in abeyance. He shuns the present — the 
 historical past seems alone to concern him. Yet he abjures 
 his own past. The ghost of his former self affected him 
 with horror. Identity even he denies. ' How can one be 
 responsible for the thoughts and acts of the being who bore 
 his name years ago ? ' He has no consciousness of his youth 
 — no sympathy with children. In him is to be discerned 
 Hiis father's intellectual and emotional qualities, together 
 with a certain stiffness of moral attitude derived from his 
 mother.' He reveals already a wonderful palate for pure 
 literary flavour. His prejudices are intense, their character 
 being determined by the refinement and idealism of his 
 nature. All this is profoundly significant, knowing as we do 
 that this was px'oduced when Gissing's worldly prosperity 
 was at its nadir. He was living at the time, like his own 
 Harold BifFen, in absolute solitude, a frequenter of pawn- 
 broker's shops and a stern connoisseur of pure dripping, 
 pease pudding (' magnificent pennyworths at a shop in 
 Cleveland Street, of a very rich quality indeed '), faggots and 
 saveloys. The stamp of affluence in those days was the 
 possession of a basin. The rich man thus secured the 
 gravy which the poor man, who relied on a paper wrapper 
 for his pease pudding, had to give away. The image 
 recurred to his mind when, in later days, he discussed 
 champagne vintages with his publisher, or was consulted 
 as to the management of butlers by the wife of a popular 
 prelate. With what a sincere recollection of this time he 
 enjoins his readers (after Dr. Johnson) to abstain from 
 Poverty. ' Poverty is the great secluder.' ' London is a 
 wilderness abounding in anchorites.' Gissing was sustained
 
 xvi THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 amid all these miseries by two passionate idealisms, one of 
 the intellect, the other of the emotions. The first was 
 ancient Greece and Rome — and he incarnated this passion 
 in the picturesque figure of Julian Casti (in The Unclassed), 
 toiling hard to purchase a Gibbon, savouring its grand epic 
 roll, converting its driest detail into poetry by means of his 
 enthusiasm, and selecting Stilicho as a hero of drama or 
 romance (a premonition here of Veranildci). The second or 
 heart's idol was Charles Dickens — Dickens as writer, Dickens 
 as the hero of a past England, Dickens as humorist, Dickens 
 as leader of men, above all, Dickens as friend of the poor, 
 the outcast, the pale little sempstress and the downtrodden 
 Smike. 
 
 In the summer of 1870, Gissing remembered with a pious 
 fidelity of detail the famous drawing of the 'Empty Chair' 
 being framed and hung up 'in the school-room, at home ' ^ 
 (Wakefield). 
 
 'Not without awe did I see the picture of the room which was 
 now tenantless : I remember too, a curiosity which led me to look 
 closely at the writing-table and the objects upon it, at the comfort- 
 able round-backed chair, at the book-shelves behind. I began to 
 
 1 Of Gissing's early impresaions, the best connected account, I think, is to 
 be gleaned from the concluding chapters of I'he Whirlpool ; but this may 
 be reinforced (and to some extent corrected, or, here and there cancelled) 
 by passages in Bon\ in Exile (vol. i.) and in Ryecroft. The material there 
 supplied is confirmatory in the best sense of the detail contributed by 
 Mr Wells to the cancelled preface of Vcninilda, touching the 'schoolboy, 
 obsessed by a consuming passion for lear.ung, at the Quaker's boarding- 
 school at Aklerley. He had come thither from "Wakefield at the age of 
 thirteen — after the death of his father, who was, in a double sense, the 
 cardinal form.itive influence in his life. The tones of his father's voice, his 
 father's gestures, never departed from him ; when he read aloud, particularly 
 if it was poetry he read, hi.H father returned in him. He could draw in 
 those days with great skill and vigour — it will seem significant to many that 
 he was particularly fascinated by Hogarth's work, and that he copied and 
 imitated it ; and his f.-ither's well-stocked library, and his father's encourage- 
 ment, had quickened his imagination and given it its enduring bias for literary 
 activity.' Like Defoe, Smollett, Sterne, Borrow, Dickens, Eliot, 'G. G.' is, 
 half involuntarily, almost unconsciously autobiogra[)hic.
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xvii 
 
 ask myself how books were written and how the men lived who 
 wrote them. It is my last glimpse of childhood. Six months 
 later there was an empty chair in my own home, and the tenor of 
 my life was broken. 
 
 ' Seven years after this I found myself amid the streets of London 
 and had to find the means of keeping myself alive. What I chiefly 
 thought of was that now at length I could go hither or thither in 
 London's immensity seeking for the places which had been made 
 known to me by Dickens. 
 
 ' One day in the city I found myself at the entrance to Bevis 
 Marks! I had just been making an application in reply to some 
 advertisement — of course, fruitlessly; but what was that disappoint- 
 ment compared with the discovery of Bevis Marks ! Here dwelt 
 Mr. Brass and Sally and the Marchioness. Up and down the 
 little street, this side and that, I went gazing and dreaming. No 
 press of busy folk disturbed me ; the place was quiet ; it looked 
 no doubt much the same as when Dickens knew it. I am not 
 sure that I had any dinner that day ; but, if not, I daresay I did 
 not mind it very much.' 
 
 The broad flood under Thames bridges spoke to him in 
 the very tones of ' the master.' He breathed Guppy's 
 London particular, the wind was the black easter that 
 pierced the diaphragm of Scrooge's clerk. 
 
 ' We bookish people have our connotations for the life we do 
 not live. In time I came to see London with my own eyes, but 
 how much better when I saw it with those of Dickens ! ' 
 
 Tired and discouraged, badly nourished, badly housed — 
 working under conditions little favourable to play of the 
 fancy or intentness of the mind — ^then was the time, 
 Gissing found, to take down Forster and i*ead — read about 
 Charles Dickens. 
 
 ' Merely as the narrative of a wonderfully active, zealous, and 
 successful life, this book scarce has its equal ; almost any reader 
 must find it exhilarating ; but to me it yielded such special 
 sustenance as in those days I could not have found elsewhere, and 
 lacking which I should, perhaps, have failed by the way. I am
 
 xviii THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 not referrina: to Dickens's swift triumph, to his resoundinjf fame 
 aiiil hi^^h prosperity ; these thini^s are cheery to read about, 
 especially when shown in a light so human, with the accompani- 
 ment of so much geniality and mirth. Xo ; the pages which 
 invigorated me are those where we see Dickens at work, alone 
 at his writing-table, absorbed in the task of the story-teller. 
 Constantly he makes known to Forster how his story is getting 
 on, speaks in detail of difficulties, rejoices over spells of happy 
 labour ; and what splendid sincerity in it all ! If this work of 
 his was not worth doing, why, nothing was. A troublesome letter 
 has arrived by the morning's post and threatens to spoil the day ; 
 but he takes a few turns up and down the room, shakes off the 
 worry, and sits down to write for hours and hours. He is at the 
 sea-side, his desk at a sunny bay window overlooking the shore, 
 and there all the morning he writes with gusto, ever and again 
 bursting into laughter at his own thoughts.' ^ 
 
 The influence of Dickens clearly predominated when 
 Gissing wi'ote his next novel and first really notable and 
 artistic book, Thi/r.za.'^ The figure which irradiates this 
 story is evidently designed in the school of Dickens : it 
 might almost be a pastel after some more highly finished 
 work by Daudet. liut Dandet is a more relentless observer 
 than Gissing, and to find a parallel to this particular effect 
 1 think we must go back a little farther to the heroic 
 age of the griscUe and the tearful Mnuchon de Francine 
 of Menri Murger. T/iyrsa, at any rate, is a most exquisite 
 
 ' See a deeply interesting paper on Dickens by 'G. G.' in the New York 
 Critic, Jan. l'Ji)-i. Much of this is avowed autobiograpliy. 
 
 > Thyrza: A Novel (3 vols., 1887). In later life we are told that GisBing 
 aflFecte<i todesjiiso thisbookas 'a pieceof boyiah idealism.' But he was always 
 greatly pleased by any praise of this 'study of two sisters, where poverty 
 for once is rainbow-tinted by love.' My impression is that it was. written 
 before Demos, but was longer in finding a publisher; it had to wait until tlie 
 way was prepared by its coarser and more vigorous workfellow. A friend 
 writes : ' I well remember the a])pearance of the MS. Gissing wrote then on 
 thill foreign paper in a small, thin handwriting, without correction. It was 
 before the days of typewriting, and the MS. of a three-volume novel was 
 so compressed that one could literally put it in one's pocket without the 
 slightest inconvenience.' The name is from Byron's Eleyy on Thyrza.
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xix 
 
 picture in half-tones of grey and purple of a little Madonna 
 of the slums; she is in reality the belle fleiir d'un fumier 
 of which he speaks in the epigraph of the Nether M^07-ld. 
 The fumier in question is Lambeth Walk, of which we 
 have a Saturday night scene, worthy of the author of 
 L' Asso7nmoir and Le Ventre de Paris in his most per- 
 ceptive mood. In this inferno, amongst the pungent 
 odours, mustv smells and * acrid exhalations from the 
 shops where fried fish and potatoes hissed in boiling grease/ 
 blossomed a pure white lily, as I'adiant amid mean sur- 
 roundings as Gemma in the poor Frankfort confectioner's, 
 shop of Turgenev's Eaux Printanieres. The pale and rather 
 languid charm of her face and figure are sufficiently por- 
 trayed without any set description. What could be more 
 delicate than the intimation of the foregone 'good-night' 
 between the sisters, or the scene of Lyddy plaiting Thyrza's 
 hair } The delineation of the upper middle class culture by 
 which this exquisite flower of maidenhood is first caressed 
 and transplanted, then slighted and left to wither, is not 
 so satisfactory. Of the upper middle class, indeed, at that 
 time, Gissing had very few means of observation. But this 
 defect, common to all his early novels, is more than com- 
 pensated by the intensely pathetic figure of Gilbert Grail, 
 the teiider-souled, book-worshipping factory hand raised for 
 a moment to the prospect of intellectual life and then 
 hurled down by the caprice of circumstance to the unrelent- 
 ing round of manual toil at the soap and candle factory. 
 Dickens would have given a touch of the grotesque to Grail's 
 gentle but ungainly character ; but at the end he would 
 infallibly have rewarded him as Tom Pinch and Dominie 
 Sampson were rewarded. Not so George Gissing. His 
 sympathy is fully as real as that of Dickens. But his 
 fidelity to fact is greater. Of the Christmas charity pre- 
 scribed by Dickens, and of the untainted pathos to which 
 he too rarely attained, there is an abundance in Thrjrza.
 
 zz 
 
 THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 But what amazes the chronological student of Gissinn's 
 work is the magnificent quality of some of the writing, 
 a quality of which he had as yet given no very definite 
 promise. Take the following passage, for example : — 
 
 ' A street orjran be^an to play in front of a public-house close 
 by. Grail drew near; there were children forming a dance, and 
 he stood to watch them. 
 
 Do you know that music of the obscure ways, to which children 
 dance ? Not if you have only heard it ground to your ears' 
 affliction beneath your windows in the square. To hear it aright 
 you must stand in the darkness of such a by-street as this, and for 
 the moment be at one with those who dwell around, in the blear- 
 eyed houses, in the dim burrows of poverty, in the unmapped 
 haunts of the semi-human. Then you will know the significance 
 of that vulgar clane^ing of melody ; a pathos of which you did 
 not dream will touch you, and therein the secret of hidden London 
 will be half revealed. The life of men who toil without hope, yet 
 with the hunger of an unshaped desire; of women in whom the 
 sweetness of their sex is perishing under labour and misery ; the 
 lauirh, the song of the girl who strives to enjoy her year or two 
 of youthful vigour, knowing the darkness of the years to come ; 
 the careless defiance of the youth who feels his blood and revolts 
 against the lot which would tame it; all that is purely human in 
 these darkened multitudes speaks to you as you listen. It is the 
 half-conscious striving of a nature which knows not what it 
 would attain, which deforms a true thought by gross expression, 
 which clutches at the beautiful and soils it with foul hands. 
 
 The children were dirty and ragged, several of them bare- 
 footed, nearly all bare-headed, but they danced with noisy 
 merriment. One there was, a little girl, on crutches; incapable 
 of taking a partner, she stumped round and round, circling 
 upon the pavement, till triddiness came upon her and she had 
 to fall back and lean against the \.<ill, laughing aloud at her 
 weakness. Gilbert stepped up to her, and put a penny into her 
 hand ; then, before she had recovered from her surprise, passed 
 onwards.' — (p. Ill,) 
 
 This superb piece of imaginative prose, of which Short-
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xxi 
 
 house himself might have been proud,^ is recalled by an 
 answering note in Ryecroft, in which he says, * I owe many 
 a page to the street-organs.' 
 
 And, where the pathos has to be distilled from dialogue, 
 I doubt if the author of Jack himself could have written 
 anything more restrainedly touching or in a finer taste than 
 this : — 
 
 ' Laughing with kindly mirth, the old man drew on his woollen 
 gloves and took up his hat and the violin-bag. Then he offered 
 to say good-bye. 
 
 " But you 're forgetting your top-coat, grandad," said Lydia. 
 
 " I didn't come in it, my dear." 
 
 "What's that, then.'' I'm sure ivc don't wear such things." 
 
 She pointed to a chair, on which Thyrza had just artfully 
 spread the gift. Mr. Boddy looked in a puzzled way ; had he 
 really come in his coat and forgotten it.'' He drew nearer. 
 
 "That's no coat o' mine, Lyddy," he said. 
 
 Thyrza broke into a laugh, 
 
 " Why, whose is it, then .''" she exclaimed. " Don't play tricks, 
 grandad ; put it on at once ! " 
 
 "Now come, come ; you're keeping Mary waiting," said Lydia, 
 catching up the coat and holding it ready. 
 
 Then Mr. Boddy understood. He looked from Lydia to 
 Thyrza with dimmed eyes. 
 
 " I 've a good mind never to speak to either of you again," he 
 said in a tremulous voice. " As if you hadn't need enough of your 
 money ! Lyddy, Lyddy ! And you're as bad, Thyrza, a grown- 
 up woman like you ; you ought to teach your sister better. Why, 
 there ; it 's no good ; I don't know what to say to you. Now 
 what do you think of this, Mary?" 
 
 Lydia still held up the coat, and at length persuaded the old 
 man to don it. The effect upon his appearance was remarkable ; 
 conscious of it, he held himself more upright and stumped to the 
 little square of looking-glass to try and regard himself. Here he 
 furtively brushed a hand over his eyes. 
 
 ^ I am thinking, in particular, of the old vielle-player's conversation in 
 chap, xxiii. of John Inglesant ; of the exquisite passage on old dance music 
 — its inexpressible pathos — in chap. xxv.
 
 rsii THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 " I 'm ready, Mary, my dear ; 1 'm ready ! It's no good saying 
 anything to girls like these. Good-bye, Lyddy ; good-bye, Tbyrza. 
 May you have a happv Christmas, cliildren ! This isn't the first 
 as you've made a happy one for me.'" — (p. 117.) 
 
 The anonymously published Demos (1886) can hardly be 
 described as a typical product of George Gissing's mind and 
 art. In it he subdued himself rather to the level of such 
 popular producers as Besant and Rice, and went out of his 
 way to procure melodramatic suspense, an ingredient far 
 from congenial to his normal artistic temper. But the end 
 justified the means. The novel found favour in the eyes of 
 the author of The Lost -Sir Massmgherd, and Gissing for the 
 first time in his life found himself the possessor of a full 
 purse, with fifty 'jingling, tingling, golden, minted quid' 
 in it. Its possession brought with it the realisation of a 
 paramount desire, the desire for Greece and Italy which had 
 become for him, as it had once been with Goethe, a scarce 
 endurable suffering. The sickness of longing had wellnigh 
 given way to despair, when 'there came into my hands a 
 sum of money (such a poor little sum) for a book I had 
 written. It was early autumn. I chanced to hear some 
 one speak of Naples — and only death would have held me 
 back.' 1 
 
 The main plot of Demos is concerned with Richard 
 Mutimer, a young socialist whose vital force, both mental 
 and physical, is well above the average, corrupted by acces- 
 
 ' See Emancipated, chaps, iv.-xii. ; New Orub Street, chap, xxvii. ; 
 Ryecroft, Autumn xix. ; the tihort, not 8Uj)erior, novel called Sleeping Fires, 
 1895, cha]). i. 'An encounter on the Keraineikos ' ; The Albany, Christmas 
 1904, p. 27 ; an<l MontfUy Review, vol. xvi. ' He went straight by sea to the 
 laud of his dreams— Italy. It was still happily before the enterpri.se of 
 touring ajjencies had robhed the idea of Italian travel of its last vestiges of 
 magic. He (ipent as much time as he could afford about the Bay of Naples, 
 and then came on with a rejoicing heart to llome — Rome, whose topography 
 had been with him since bo\'hood, beside wliose stately history the confused 
 tumult of the contemporary newspajiers seemed to him no more than a noisy, 
 unmeaning |>cr8ccution of the mind. Afterwards he went to Athens.'
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xxiii 
 
 sion to a fortune, marrying a refined wife^ losing his money 
 in consequence of the discovery of an unsuspected will, 
 and dragginsf his wife down with him, — down to la misere 
 in its most brutal and humiliating shape. Happy endings 
 and the Gissing of this period are so ill-assorted, that the 
 'reconciliations' at the close of both this novel and the 
 next are to be regarded with considerable suspicion. The 
 ' gentlefolk ' in the book are the merest marionettes, but 
 there are descriptive passages of first-rate vigour, and the 
 voice of wisdom is heard from the lips of an early Greek 
 choregus in the figure of an old parson called Mr. Wyvern. 
 As the mouthpiece of his creator's pet hobbies parson Wyvern 
 rolls out long homilies conceived in the spirit of Emerson's 
 ' compensation,' and denounces the cruelty of educating 
 the poor and making no aftei'-provision for their intellectual 
 needs with a sombre enthusiasm and a periodicity of style 
 almost worthy of Dr. Johnson. ^ 
 
 After Demos, Gissing returned in 1888 to the more senti- 
 mental and idealistic palette which he had employed for 
 Thyrza. Renewed recollections of Tibullus and of Theocritus 
 may have served to give his work a more idyllic tinge. But 
 there were much nearer sources of inspiration for A Life's 
 Moniing. There must be many novels inspired by a youthful 
 enthusiasm for Richard Feverel, and this I should take to be 
 one of them. Apart from the idyllic purity of its tone, and 
 its sincere idolatry of youthful love, the caressing grace of 
 the language which describes the spiritualised beauty of 
 Emily Hood and the exquisite charm of her slender hands, 
 
 1 An impressive specimen of his eloquence was cited by me in an article 
 in the Daily Mail Year Book (1906, p. 2). A riper study of a somewhat 
 similar character is given in old Mr. Lashmar in Our Friend the Charlatan. 
 (See his sermon on the blasphemy which would have us pretend that our 
 civilisation obeys the spirit of Christianity, in chap, xviii.). For a criticism 
 of Demos and Thyrza in juxtaposition with Besant's Children of Gibeon, see 
 Miss Sichel on 'Philanthropic Novelists' {Murray's Magazine, iii. 506-518). 
 Gissing saw deeper than to ' cease his music on a merry chord.'
 
 xxiv THE WOllK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 ind the silvery radiance imparted to the whole scene of the 
 proposal in the summer-house (in chapter iii., ' Lyrical '), 
 give to this most unequal and imperfect book a certain 
 crepuscular fascination of its own. Passages in it, certainly, 
 are not undeserving that fine description of a style si tendre 
 (ju'il pousse le bonheur a pleurer. Emily's father, Mr. Hood, 
 is an essentially pathetic figure, almost grotesquely true 
 to life. ' I should like to see London before 1 die/ he 
 says to his daughter. 'Somehow I have never managed to 
 get so far. . . . Tliere 's one thing that I wish especially to 
 see, and that is Holborn Viaduct. It must be a wonderful 
 piece of engineering; I remember thinking it out at the 
 time it was constructed. Of course you have seen it .^ ' 
 The vulgar but not wholly inhuman Cartwright interior, 
 where the parlour is resolved into a perpetual matrimonial 
 committee, would seem to be the outcome of genuine 
 observation. Dagworthy is obviously padded with the 
 author's substitute for melodrama, while the rich and 
 cultivated Mr. Athel is palpably imitated from Meredith. 
 The following tirade (spoken by the young man to his 
 mistress) is Gissing pure. 'Think of the sunny spaces 
 in the world's history, in each of which one could linger 
 for ever. Athens at her fairest, Rome at her grandest, 
 the glorious savagery of Merovingian Courts, the kingdom 
 of Frederick ii., the Moors in Spain, the magic of Renais- 
 sance Italy — to become a citizen of any one age means a 
 lifetime of endeavour. It is easy to fill one's head with 
 names and years, but that only sharpens my hunger.' In 
 one form or another it recurs in practically every novel. ^ 
 Certain of the later portions of this book, especially the 
 
 ' Sometimes, however, as in The Whirlpool (1897) with a veiy significant 
 change of intonation :— ' And that Historj' which he loved to read -wliat was 
 it but the lurid record of woes unutterable ! How couM lie find pleasure in 
 keeping his eyes fixed on century after century of ever-repeated torment — 
 war, pestilence, tyranny ; the stake, the dungeon ; tortures of infinite device, 
 cruelties inconceivable?' — (p. 326.)
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xxv 
 
 chapter entitled ' Her Path in Shadow ' are delineated 
 through a kind of mystical haze, suggestive of some of 
 the work of Puvis de Chavannes. The concluding chapters, 
 taken as a whole, indicate with tolerable accuracy Gissing's 
 affinities as a writer, and the pedigree of the type of 
 novel bv which he is best known. It derives from Xavier 
 de Maistre and St. Pierre to La Noiiveile Heloise,— nay, 
 might one not almost say from the pai/s du tendre of La 
 Priticesse de Cleves itself. Semi-sentimental theories as to 
 the relations of the sexes, the dangers of indiscriminate 
 education, the corruptions of wretchedness and poverty in 
 large towns, the neglect of literature and classical leax*ning, 
 and the grievances of scholarly refinement in a world in 
 which Greek iambic and Latin hexameter count for nothing, 
 — such form the staple of his theses and tirades ! His 
 approximation at times to the confines of French realistic 
 art is of the most accidental or incidental kind. For 
 Gissing is at heart, in his bones as the vulgar say, a thorough 
 moralist and sentimentalist, an honest, true-born, downright 
 ineradicable Englishman. Intellectually his own life was, 
 and continued to the last to be, romantic to an extent that 
 few lives are. Pessimistic he may at times appear, but this 
 is almost entirely on the surface. For he was never in the 
 least blase or ennuye. He had the pathetic treasure of the 
 humble and downcast and unkindly entreated — unquench- 
 able hope. He has no objectivity. His point of view is 
 almost entirely personal. It is not the lacrimae rerum, 
 but the lacrimae dierum suorum, that makes his pages often 
 so forlorn. His laments are all uttered by the waters of 
 Babylon in a strange land. His nostalgia in the land of exile, 
 estranged from every refinement, was greatly enhanced by the 
 fact that he could not get on with ordinary men, but exhibited 
 almost to the last a practical incapacity, a curious inability to 
 do the sane and secure thing. As Mr. Wells puts it ; — 
 * It is not that he was a careless man, he was a most careful one ;
 
 xxvi THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 it is uot that he was a morally lax man, he was almost morbidly 
 the reverse. Neither was he morose or eccentric in his motives 
 or bearing; he was genial, conversational, and well-meaninff. 
 But he had some sort of blindness towards his fellow-men, so that 
 lie never entirely :;rasped the spirit of everyday life, so that he, 
 who was so copiously intelligent in the thine:s of the study, mis- 
 understood, blundered, was nervously diffident, and wilful and 
 spasmodic in common affairs, in employment and buj'ing- and 
 selling, and the normal conflicts of intercourse. He did not 
 know what would otfeud, and he did not know what would please. 
 He irritated others and thwarted himself. He had no social 
 nerve.' 
 
 Does not Gissing himself sum it up admirably, upon the 
 lips of Mr. Widdowson in The Odd Women : ' Life has always 
 been full of worrying problems for me. I can't take things 
 in the simple way that comes natural to otiier men.' 'Not 
 as other men are': more intellectual than most, fully as 
 responsive to kind and genial instincts, yet bound at every 
 turn to pinch and screw — an involuntary ascetic. Such is 
 the essential burden of (hissing's long-drawn lament. Only 
 accidentally can it be described as his mission to preach 
 'the desolation of modern life,' or in the gracious phrase of 
 De Goncourt,yo?«7/er les entrailles de la vie Of the confident, 
 self-supporting realism of Esther Waters, for instance, how 
 little is there in any of his work, even in that most gloomily 
 photographic portion of it which we are now to describe .'' 
 
 During the next four years, 1889-1892, Gissing produced 
 four novels, and three of these perhaps are his best efforts 
 in prose fiction. The Nether World of 1889 is certainly in 
 some respects his strongest work, lit lelra con sangre, in which 
 the ruddy drops of anguish remembered in a state of com- 
 parative tranquillity are most powerfully expressed. The 
 Emancipated, of 1 890, is with equal certainty, a rechauffe and 
 the least successful of various attempts to give utterance to 
 his enthusiasm for the valor anlica — 'the glory that was 
 Greece and the randeur that was Rome.' New Grub Street,
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xxvii 
 
 (1891) is the most constructive and perhaps the most success- 
 ful of all his works ; while Born in Exile (1892) is a key-book 
 as regards the development of the author's character, a clavis 
 of primary value to his future biographer, whoever he may 
 be. The Nether World contains Gissinjj's most convincin"; 
 indictment of Poverty ; and it also expresses his sense of 
 revolt against the ugliness and cruelty which is propagated 
 like a foul weed by the barbarous life of our reeking slums. 
 Hunger and Want show Religion and Virtue the door with 
 scant politeness in this terrible took. The material had 
 been in his possession for some time, and in part it had been 
 used before in earlier work. It was now utilised with a 
 masterly hand, and the result goes some way, perhaps, to 
 justify the well-meant but erratic comparisons that have been 
 made between Gissing and such writers as Zola, Maupassant 
 and the projector of the Comedie Humaine. The savage luck 
 which dogs Kirkwood and Jane, and the Avorse than savage 
 — the inhuman — cruelty of Clem Peckover, who has been 
 compared to the Madame Cibot of Balzac's Le Cousin Pons^ 
 render the book an intensely gloomy one ; it ends on a note 
 of poignant misery, which gives a certain colour for once to 
 the oft-repeated charge of morbidity and pessimism. Gissing 
 understood the theory of compensation, but was unable to 
 exhibit it in action. He elevates the cult of refinement to 
 such a pitch that the consolations of temperament, of habit, 
 and of humdrum ideals which are common to the coarsest of 
 mankind, appear to elude his observation. He does not 
 represent men as worse than they are ; but he represents 
 them less brave. No social stratum is probably quite so 
 dull as he colours it. There is usually a streak of illusion or 
 a flash of hope somewhere on the horizon. Hence a some- 
 what one-sided view of life, perfectly true as representing 
 the grievance of the poet Cinna in the hands of the mob, 
 but too severely monochrome for a serious indictment of a 
 huge stratum of our common humanity. As in Thyrsa, the
 
 xxviii THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 soinbreness of the ground generates some magnificent pieces 
 of descriptive writing. 
 
 ' Hours yet before the fireworks beg-in. Never mind ; here by 
 ffood luck we find seats where we can watch the thron-,' passing 
 and repassing. It is a great review of the people. On the whole, 
 how respet-tahle they are, how sober, how deadly dull I See how 
 worn-out tlie poor girls are becoming, how they trape, what listless 
 eyes most of them have ! The stoop in the shoulders so universal 
 among them merely means over-toil in the workroom. Not one in a 
 thousand shows the elements of taste in dress ; vulgarity and worse 
 glares in all but every costume. Observe the middle-aged women ; 
 it would be small surprise that their good looks had vanished, but 
 whence comes it they are animal, repulsive, absolutely vicious in 
 ugliness.'' Mark the men in tlieir turn; four in every six have 
 visages so deformed by ill-health that they excite disgust ; their 
 hair is cut down to within half an inch of the scalp ; their legs are 
 twisted out of shape by evil conditions of life from birth upwards. 
 \\'henever a youth and a girl come along arm-in-arm, how flag- 
 rantly shows the man's coarseness ! They are pretty, so many of 
 these girls, delicate of feature, graceful did but their slavery allow 
 them natural development ; and the heart sinks as one sees them 
 side by side with the men who are to be their husl)ands. . . . 
 
 On the terraces dancing has commenced ; the players of violins, 
 concertinas, and penny whistles do a brisk trade among the groups 
 eager for a rough-and-tumble valse ; so do the pickpockets. 
 Vigorous and varied is the jollity that occupies the external 
 galleries, filling now in exjactation of the fireworks ; indescrib- 
 able tlie mingled tuuiult that roars heavenwards. Girls linked 
 by the half-dozen arm-in-arm leap along with shrieks like grotesque 
 ma?nads ; a rougher horseplay finds favour among the youths, occa- 
 sionally leading to fisticuffs. Thick voices bellow in fragmentary 
 chorus; from every side comes the yell, the cat-call, the ear- 
 rendin:: whistle ; and as the bass, the never-ceasing accom])aninieiit. 
 sound- the myriad-footed tramp, tramp along the wooden flooring^ 
 A fight, a scene of bestial drunkenness, a tender whispering between 
 two lovers, proceed concurrently in a space of five square yards. 
 .\bove them glimmers the dawn of starlight.'— (pp. 101i-]l.) 
 
 From the delineation of this profoundly depressing milieu.
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xxix 
 
 by the aid of which, if the fate of London and Liverpool 
 were to-morrow as that of Herciilaneum and Pompeii, we 
 should be able to reconstruct the gutters of our Imperial 
 cities (little changed in essentials since the days of Domitian), 
 Gissing turned his sketch-book to the scenery of rural 
 England. He makes no attempt at the rich colouring of 
 Kingsley or Blackmore, but, as page after page of Rijecroft 
 testifies twelve years later, he is a perfect master of the 
 aquarelle. 
 
 ' The distance is about five miles, and, until Danbury Hill is 
 reached, the countryside has no point of interest to distinguish it 
 from any other representative bit of rural Essex. It is merely one 
 of those quiet corners of flat, homely England, where man and 
 beast seem on good terms with each other, where all green things 
 grow in abundance, where from of old tilth and pasture-land are 
 humbly observant of seasons and alternations, where the brown 
 roads are familiar only with the tread of the labourer, with the 
 light wheel of the farmer's gig, or the rumbling of the solid wain. 
 By the roadside you pass occasionally a mantled pool, where 
 perchance ducks or geese are enjoying themselves ; and at times 
 there is a pleasant glimpse of farmyard, with stacks and barns and 
 stables. All things as simple as could be, but beautiful on this 
 summer afternoon, and priceless when one has come forth from 
 the streets of Clerkenwell. 
 
 • • • • • • 
 
 ' Danbury Hill, rising thick-wooded to the village church, which 
 is visible for miles around, with stretches of heath about its lower 
 slopes, with its far prospects over the sunny country, was the pleas- 
 ant end of a pleasant drive.' — {The Nether World, pp. 164-165.) 
 
 The first part of this description is quite masterly— worthy, 
 I am inclined to say, of Flaubert. But unless you are 
 familiar with thequiet, undemonstrative nature of the scenery 
 described, you can hardly estimate the perfect justice of the 
 sentiment and phrasing with which Gissing succeeds in 
 enveloping it. 
 
 Gissing now turned to the submerged tenth of literature, 
 and in describing it he managed to combine a problem or
 
 XXX THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 thesis with just the amount of characterisation and plotting 
 sanctioned by tlie novel convention of the day. The con- 
 vention may have been better than we think, for Ne?v Gnib 
 Street is certainly its author's most effective work. The 
 characters are numerous, actual, and alive. The plot is 
 moderately good, and lingers in the memory with some 
 obstinacy. The problem is more open to criticism, and it 
 has indeed been criticised from more points of view than 
 one. 
 
 *In Neio Grub Street,' says one of his critics,^ ' Mr. Gissinp has 
 endeavoured to depict the shady side of literary life in an age 
 dominated by the commercial spirit. On the wliole, it is in its 
 realism perhaps the least convincing of his novels, whilst being 
 undeniably the most depressing. It is not that Gissing's picture 
 of poverty in the literary profession is wanting in the elements of 
 truth, althouofh even in that profession there is even more eccen- 
 tricity than the author leads us to suppose in the social position 
 and evil plight of such men as Edwin Reardon and Harold Biffen. 
 But the contrast between f^dwin Reardon, the conscientious artist 
 loving his art and working for its sake, and Jasper Milvain, the 
 man of letters, who prospers simply because he is also a man of 
 business, which is the main feature of the book and the principal 
 support of its theme, strikes one throuj^hout as strained to the 
 point of unreality. In the first place, it seems almost impossible 
 that a man of .Milvain's mind and instincts should have deliberately 
 chosen literature as the occupation of his life ; with money and 
 succe.ss as his only aim he would surely have become a stockbroker 
 or a moneylender. In the second place, Edwin Reardon's dire 
 failure, with his rapid descent into extreme poverty, is clearly 
 traceable not so much to a truly artistic temperament in conflict 
 with the commercial spirit, as to mental and moral weakness, which 
 could not but have a baneful influence upon his work.' 
 
 This critici.sm does not seem to me a just one at all, and 
 
 I dissent from it completely. In the first place, the book 
 
 is not nearly so depressing as The Nether World, and is much 
 
 farther removed from the strain of French and Russian 
 
 1 F. Dolman in National Review, vol. xxx. ; cf. ibid., vol. iliv.
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xxxi 
 
 pessimism which had begun to engage the author's study 
 when he was writing Thyrza. There are dozens of examples 
 to prove that Milvain's success is a perfectly normal process, 
 and the reason for his selecting the journalistic career is the 
 obvious one that he has no money to begin stock-broking, 
 still less money-lending. In the third place, the mental and 
 moral shortcomings of Reardon are by no means dissembled 
 by the author. He is, as the careful student of the novels 
 will perceive, a greatly strengthened and improved rifaci- 
 mento of Kingcote, while Amy Reardon is a better observed 
 Isabel, regarded from a slightly different point of view. 
 Jasper Milvain is, to my thinking, a perfectly fair portrait 
 of an ambitious publicist or journalist of the day — destined 
 by determination, skill, energy, and social ambition to be- 
 come an editor of a successful journal or review, and to lead 
 the life of central London. Possessing a keen and active 
 mind, expression on paper is his handle ; he has no love of 
 letters as letters at all. But his outlook upon the situation 
 is just enough. Reardon has barely any outlook at all. He 
 is a man with a delicate but shallow vein of literary capacity, 
 who never did more than tremble upon the verge of success, 
 and hardly, if at all, went beyond promise. He was unlucky 
 in marrying Amy, a rather heartless woman, whose ambition 
 was far in excess of her insight, for economic position 
 Reardon had none. He writes books to please a small 
 group. The books fail to please. Jasper in the main is 
 right — there is only a precarious place for any creative 
 litterateur between the genius and the swarm of ephemera 
 or journalists. A man writes either to please the hour or to 
 produce something to last, relatively a long time, several 
 generations — what we call ' permanent.' The intermediate 
 position is necessarily insecure. It is not really wanted. 
 What is lost by society when one of these mediocre master- 
 pieces is overlooked ? A sensation, a single ray in a sunset, 
 missed by a small literary coterie ! The circle is perhaps
 
 xxxii THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 eclectic. It may seem hard that fjood work is overwhelmed 
 in the cataract of production, while relatively bad, garish 
 work is rewarded. But so it must be. 'The growing 
 flood of literature swamps every thing but works of primary 
 genius.' Good taste is valuable, especially when it takes 
 the form of good criticism. The best critics of contem- 
 jx>rarv books (and these are by no means identical with the 
 best critics of the past and its work) are those who settle 
 intuitively upon the writing that is going to appeal more 
 largely to a future generation, when the attraction of novelty 
 and topicality has subsided. The same work is done by great 
 men. They anticipate lines of action ; philosophers generally 
 follow (Machiavelli's theories the practice of Louis xi., 
 Nietzsche's that of Napoleon i.). The critic recognises the 
 tentative steps of genius in letters. The work of fine 
 delicacy and reserve, the work that follows, lacking the real 
 originality, is liable to neglect, and maif become the victim 
 of ill-luck, unfair inHiience, or other extraneous factors. Yet 
 on the whole, so numerous are the publics of to-day, there 
 never, perhaps, was a time when supreme genius or even 
 supreme talent was so sure of recognition. Those who rail 
 against these conditions, as Gissing seems here to have done, 
 are actuated consciously or unconsciously by a personal or 
 sectional disappointment. It is akin to the crocodile lament 
 of the publisher that good modern literature is neglected by 
 the public, or the impressionist's lament about the great 
 unpaid greatness of the great unknown — the exclusively 
 literary view of literary rewards. Literature must be 
 governed by over-mastering impulse or directed at profit. 
 
 But Ac;r Grub Street is rich in memorable characters and 
 situations to an extent unusual in Gissing ; Biff'en in his 
 garret — a piece of genre almost worthy of Dickens; Reardon 
 the sterile plotter, listening in despair to the neighbouring 
 workhouse clock of St. Mary-le-bone ; the matutinal interview 
 between Alfred Yule and the threadbare surgeon, a vignette
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xxxiii 
 
 worthy of Smollett. Alfred Yule, the worn-out veteran, 
 whose literary ideals are those of the eighteenth century, is 
 a most extraordinary study of an arriere — certainly one of 
 the most crusted and individual personalities Gissing ever 
 portrayed. He never wrote with such a virile pen : phrase 
 after phrase bites and snaps with a singular crispness and 
 energy ; material used before is now brought to a finer 
 literary issue. It is by far the most tenacious of Gissing's 
 novels. It shows that on the more conventional lines of 
 fictitious intrigue, acting as cement, and in the interplay 
 of emphasised characters, Gissing could, if he liked, excel. 
 (It recalls Anatole France's he Lys Rouge, showing that he, 
 too, the scholar and intellectual par excellence, could an he 
 would produce patterns in plain and fancy adultery with 
 the best.) Whelpdale's adventures in Troy, U.S.A., where 
 he lived for five days on pea-nuts, are evidently semi-auto- 
 biographical. It is in his narrative that we first made tlie 
 jicquaintance of the American phrase now so familiar about 
 literary productions going off like hot cakes. The reminis- 
 cences of Athens are typical of a lifelong obsession — to find 
 an outlet later on in Veranilda. On literary reclame, he 
 says much that is true — if not the whole truth, in the 
 apophthegm for instance, ' You have to become famous before 
 you can secure the attention which would give fame.' 
 BifFen, it is true, is a somewhat fantastic figure of an idealist, 
 but Gissing cherished this grotesque exfoliation from a 
 headline by Dickens — and later in his career we shall find 
 him reproducing one of Biffen's ideals with a singular 
 fidelity. 
 
 ' Picture a woman of middle age, wrapped at all times in dn-ty 
 rags (not to be called clothing), obese, grimy, with dishevelled 
 black hair, and hands so scarred, so deformed by labour aud 
 ueglect, as to be scarcely human. She had the darkest and 
 iiercest eyes I ever saw. Between her and her mistress went on 
 an unceasing quarrel ; they quarrelled in my room, in the corridor.
 
 xxxiv THE ^VORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 and, a*! I knew by their shrill voices, iu places remote ; yet I am 
 sure they did not dislike each other, and probably neither of them 
 ever thought of parting. Unexpectedly, one evening, this woman 
 entered, stood by the bedside, and began to talk with such fierce 
 energy, with such fl;i>hing of her black eyes, and such distortion 
 of her features, that I could only suppose that she was attacking 
 me for the trouble I caused her. A minute or two passed before I 
 could even hit the drift of her furious speech ; she was always the 
 most difficult of the natives to understand, and in rage she became 
 quite unintelligible. Little by little, by dint of questioning, 1 got 
 at what she meant. There had been guai, worse than usual ; the 
 mistress had reviled her unendurably for some fault or other, and 
 was it not hard that she should be used like this after having 
 tajito, tanto lacorato! In fact, she was appealing for my sympathy, 
 not abusing me at all. ^V'hen she went on to say that she was 
 alone in the world, that all her kith and kin were freddi morti 
 (stone dead), a pathos in her aspect and her words took hold upon 
 me ; it was much as if some heavy-laden beast of burden had 
 suddenly found tongue and protested in the rude beginnings of 
 articulate utterance against its hard lot. If only we could have 
 learnt in intimate detail the life of this domestic serf!' How 
 interesting and how sordidly picturesque against the background 
 of romantic landscape, of scenic history ! I looked long into her 
 sallow, wrinkled face, trying to imagine the thoughts that ruled 
 its expression. In some measure my efforts at kindly speech 
 succeeded, and her " Ah, Cristo ! " as she turned to go away, was 
 nctt without a touch of solace.' 
 
 In I892 Gissing was already beginning to try and discard 
 his down look, his lugubrious self-pity, his lamentable 
 cadence. He found some alleviation from self-torment in 
 David Copper/le/d, and he determined to borrow a feather 
 from ' the master's ' pinion — in other words, to place an auto- 
 biographical novel to his credit. The result was Bom in Exile 
 (1892), one of the last of the three-volume novels, — by no 
 means one of the worst. A Hedonist of academic type, repelled 
 
 * Here is a more fully prepnred expression of the very essence of Biffen's 
 artistio ideal.— /?y the Ionian Sea, chap. x.
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xxxv 
 
 by a vulgar intonation, Gissing himself is manifestly the man 
 in exile. Travel, fair women and college life^ the Savile club, 
 and Great Malvern or the Cornish coast, music in Paris or 
 Vienna — this of course was the natural milieu for such a 
 man. Instead of which our poor scholar (with Homer and 
 Shakespeare and Pausanias piled upon his one small deal table) 
 had to encounter the life of the shabby recluse in London 
 lodgings — synonymous for him, as passage after passage in 
 his books recounts, with incompetence and vulgarity in 
 every form, at best 'an ailing lachrymose slut incapable of 
 effort,' more often sheer foulness and dishonesty, ' by lying, 
 slandering, quarrelling, by drunkenness, by brutal vice, by 
 all abominations that distinguish the lodging-letter of the 
 metropolis.' No book exhibits more naively the extravagant 
 value which Gissing put upon the mere externals of refine- 
 ment. The following scathing vignette of his unrefined 
 younger brother by the hero, Godfrey Peak, shows the 
 ferocity with which this feeling could manifest itself against 
 a human being who lacked the elements of scholastic learn- 
 ing (the brother in question had failed to give the date of the 
 Norman Conquest) : — 
 
 'He saw much company and all of low intellectual order; he 
 had purchased a bicycle and regarded it as a source of distinction, 
 or means of displaying himself before shopkeepers' daughters ; he 
 believed himself a moderate tenor and sang verses of sentimental 
 imbecility ; he took in several weekly papers of unpromising title 
 for the chief purpose of deciphering cryptograms, in which pursuit 
 he had singular success. Add to these characteristics a penchant 
 for cheap jewellery, and Oliver Peak stands confessed.' 
 
 The story of the book is revealed in Peak's laconic ambition, 
 ' A plebeian, I aim at marrying a lady.' It is a little curious, 
 some may think, that this motive so skilfully used by so 
 many novelists to whose work Gissing's has affinity, from 
 Rousseau and Stendhal (Jlouge et Noire) to Cherbuliez (Secret 
 du Precepteur) and Bourget (Le Disciple), had not alreadv
 
 xxxvi THE WORK OF GEOKGE GISSING 
 
 attracted him, but tlie explanation is perhaps in part indi- 
 cated in a finely written story towards the close of this present 
 volume.' The white, maidenish and silk-haired fairness of 
 Sidwell,and Peak's irresistible passion for the type of beauty 
 iu«ji;ested, is revealed to us with all Gissinjj's wonderful skill 
 in siiadowing forth feminine types of lovelihood. Suf;<jeslive 
 too of his oncoming passion for Devonshire and Western 
 England are strains of exquisite landscape music scattered at 
 random through these pages. More significant still, however, 
 is the developing faculty for personal satire, pointing to a 
 vastly riper human exj)erience. Peak was uncertain, says 
 the author, with that faint ironical touch which became 
 almost habitual to him, ' as to the limits of modern 
 latitudinarianism until he met Chilvers,' the sleek, clerical 
 advocate of ' Less St. Paul and more Darwin, less of Luther 
 and more of Herbert Spencer ' : — 
 
 * The discovery of such fantastic liberality in a man whom he 
 could not hut dislike and contemn gave him no pleasure, but at 
 least it disposed him to amusement rather than antaj^onism. 
 C'hilvers's pronunciation and pliraseology were distinguisliod by 
 such oriifinal affectation that it was impossible not to find entcr- 
 txiinnent in listening to hitii. Thougli liis voice was naturally 
 <hrill and piping, he manageil to speak in liead notes whicli had a 
 ring of robust utterance. The sound of his words was intended to 
 correspond with their virile warmth of meaning. In the same way 
 he liad cultivated a habit of the muscles which conveyed an ini])res- 
 sion that he was devoted to athletic sports. His arms occasionally 
 swung as if brandishing dumb bells, his chest now and then 
 spread itself to the uttermost, and his head was often thrown back 
 in an attitude suggesting self-defence.' 
 
 Of Gissing's first year or so at Owens, after leaving Lindow 
 Grove School at Alderlev,- we get a few hints in these pages. 
 Like his 'lonely cerebrate' hero, Gissing himself, at school and 
 
 > Se.' pjige 260. 
 
 ' With an exhibition gained when he was not yet fifteen.
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xxxvii 
 
 collet^e, ' worked insanely.' Walked much alone, shunned 
 companionship rather than sought it, worked as he walked, 
 and was marked down as a 'pot-hunter.' He ' worked while 
 he ate, he cut down his sleep, and for him the penalty came, 
 not in a palpable, definable illness, but in an abrupt, incon- 
 gruous reaction and collapse.' Witli rage he looked back on 
 these insensate years of study which had weakened him 
 just when he should have been carefully fortifying his con 
 stitution. 
 
 The year of this autobiographical record ^ marked the 
 commencement of Gissing's i*eclamation from that worst 
 form of literary slavery — the chain-gang. For he had 
 been virtually chained to the desk, perpetually working, 
 imprisoned in a London lodging, owing to the literal lack 
 of the means of locomotion. ^ His most strenuous work, 
 wrung from him in dismal darkness and wrestling of spirit, 
 was now achieved. Yet it seems to me both ungrateful 
 and unfair to say, as has frequently been done, that his 
 subsequent work was consistently inferior. In his earlier 
 years, like Reardon, he had destroyed whole books — books 
 he had to sit down to when his imagination was tired and 
 his fancy suffering from deadly fatigue. His corrections 
 in the days of A't'«' Grub Street provoked not infrequent, 
 though anxiously deprecated, remonstrance from his pub- 
 lisher's reader. Now he wrote with more assurance and 
 less exhaustive care, but also with a perfected experience. 
 
 1 Followed in 1897 by The Whirlpool (see p. xvi), and in 1899 and 1903 by 
 two books containing a like infusion of autobiographical experience, The 
 Crown of Life, technicall}' admirable in chosen passages, but sadly lacking 
 in the freshness of first-hand, and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, 
 one of the rightest and ripest of all his productions. 
 
 2 'I hardly knew what it was to travel by omnibus. I have walked 
 London streets for twelve and fifteen hours together without even a thought 
 of saving my legs or my time, by ptaying for waftage. Being poor as poor 
 can be, there were certain things I had to renounce, and this was one of 
 them.' — Ryecroft. For earlier scenes see Monthly Review, xvi., and Owena 
 College Union Mar/., Jan. 1904, pp. 80-81.
 
 xxxviii THE WORK OF GEOllGE GISSING 
 
 A portion of his material, it is true, had been fairly 
 used up, and he had henceforth to turn to analyse the 
 sufferings of well-to-do lower middle-class families, people 
 who had ' neither inherited refinement nor acquired it, 
 neither proletarian nor gentlefolk, consumed with a disease 
 of vulgar pretentiousness, inflated with the miasma of demo- 
 cracy.' Of these classes it is possible that he knew less, 
 and consequently lacked the sureness of touch and the 
 fresh draiij^htsnianship which comes from ample knowledge. 
 and that he had, consequently, to have increasing resort to 
 books and to invention, to hypothesis and theory.^ On the 
 other hand, his power of satirical writing was continually 
 e.xp.iuding and developing, and some of his verv best jirose 
 is contained in four of these later books: In the Year of 
 Jubilee (IS.Qi), Charles Dickens (1898), By the Ionian Sea 
 (1901), and The Private Papers of Henri/ Ri/ecrofl (190.S); 
 not far below any of which must be rated four others. The 
 Odd Women (1893), Eves Ransom (1895), The Whirlpool 
 (1897), and Will Warburton (1903), to wliich may be added 
 the two collections of short stories. 
 
 Few, if any, of Gissing's books exhibit m^re mental vigour 
 than In the Year of Jubilee. This is shown less, it may be, 
 in his attempted solution of the marriage problem (is marriage 
 a failure?) by means of the suggestion that middle class 
 married people should imitate the rich and see as little of 
 each other as j)ossible, than in the terse and amusing charac- 
 
 1 'He knew the nsvrrowh- religious, the mental barrenness of the poor 
 dissenters, the peoi)le of the shun.s that he observed so carefully, and maii- 
 of those on the borders of the Bohemia of which he at least was an initiat 
 and he was 8oake<l and stained, as he might himself have said, with the duli 
 drabs of the lower middle class that he hated. But of those above he knew 
 little. . . . Ho did not know the upper middle classes, which are as diliicult 
 every whit as those beneath them, and take as much time and labour and 
 experience and observation to learn.'— 'The Plxile of George G'Mismg,' Allarii/, 
 ChriHtinaHlOOl. Inlater life he lost .sympathy with the 'netherworld.' Asked 
 to write n mag.azine article on a typical 'workman's budget,' he wrote that 
 bo no longer took an interest in the 'condition of the poor question.'
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xxxix 
 
 terisations and the powerfully thought-out descriptions. 
 The precision which his pen had acquired is well illustrated 
 by the following description^ not unworthy of Thomas Hardy^ 
 of a new neighbourhood. 
 
 'Great elms, the pride of generations passed away, fell before 
 the speculative axe, or were left standing in mournful isolation to 
 please a speculative architect ; bits of wayside hedge still shivered 
 in fog and wind, amid hoardings variegated with placards and 
 scaffoldings black against the sky. The very earth had lost its 
 wholesome odour ; trampled into mire, fouled with builders' refuse 
 and the noisome drift from adjacent streets, it sent forth, under 
 the sooty rain, a smell of corruption, of all the town's uncleauliness. 
 On this rising locality had been bestowed the title of ''Park." 
 Mrs. Morgan was decided in her choice of a dwelling here by the 
 euphonious address, Merton Avenue, ISomething-or-other Park.' 
 
 Zola's wonderful skill in the animation of crowds has often 
 been commented upon, but it is more than doubtful if he 
 ever achieved anything superior to Gissing's marvellous 
 incarnation of the jubilee night mob in chapter seven. More 
 formidable, as illustrating the venom which the author's 
 whole nature had secreted against a perfectly recognisable 
 type of modern woman, is the acrid description of Ada, 
 Beatrice, and Fanny French. 
 
 'They spoke a peculiar tongue, the product of sham education 
 and a mock refinement grafted upon a stock of robust vulgarity. 
 One and all would have been moved to indignant surprise if 
 accused of ignorance or defective breeding. Ada had frequented 
 an "establishment for young ladies " up to the close of her seven- 
 teenth year : the other two had pursued culture at a still more 
 pretentious institute until they were eighteen. All could "play 
 the piano" ; all declared — and believed — that they "knew French." 
 Beatrice had " done " Political Economy ; Fanny had " been 
 through " Inorganic Chemistry and Botany. The truth was, of 
 course, that their minds, characters, propensities, had remained 
 absolutely proof against such educational influence as had been 
 brought to bear upon them. That they used a finer accent than
 
 xl THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 tiieir servants, sjcriiified only that they had ^rown up amid falsities, 
 and were enabled, by the help of money, to dwell above-stairs, 
 nstead of with their spiritual kindred below.' 
 
 The evils of indiscriminate education and the follies of 
 our grotesque examination system were one of Gissing's 
 favourite topics of denunciation in later years, as evidenced 
 •'n this characteristic passage in his later manner in this snme 
 book : — 
 
 'She talked only of the "exam," of her chances in tliis or that 
 "paper," of the likelihood that this or that question would be "set. " 
 Her brain was becoming a mere receptacle for dates and definitions, 
 vocabularies and rules syntactic, for thrice-boiled essence of history, 
 ragged scraps of science, quotations at fifth hand, and all the 
 heterogeneous rubbish of a "crammer's" shop. ^V'hen away from 
 her books, she carried scraps of paper, with jottings to be committed 
 to memory. Beside lier plate at meals lay formulae and tabulations. 
 She went to bed with a manual, and got up with a compendium." 
 
 The conclusion of this book and its predecessor, The (Jdd 
 Wovien^ marks the conclusion of these elaborated problem 
 studies. The inferno of London poverty, social analysis and 
 autobiographical reminiscence, had now alike been pretty 
 extensively drawn upon by Gissing. With different degrees 
 of success he had succeeded in providing every one of his 
 
 ' The Odd Womai (1893, new edition, 1894) is a rather sordid and depressing 
 survey of the life-histories of certain orphaned daughters of a typical Gi.«siiig 
 doctor — grave, benign, amiably diffident, terribly afraid of life. 'From the 
 c<iiit:\ct of coarse actualities his nature shrank.' After his death one 
 daighter, a fancy -goods shop assistant (no wages), is carried off by con- 
 8umi)tiou ; a second drowns herself iu a bath at a charitable institution ; 
 another takes to drink ; and the portraits of the survivors, their petty, 
 incurable maladies, their utter uselessness, their round shoulders and 'very 
 short legs,' pimples, and scraggy necks— are as imi)lacable and unsparing as a 
 Maujiabsanl could wish. From the deplorable insigiit with which he describes 
 the nerveless, underfed, compulsory optimism of these poor in spirit and 
 poor in hope Gissiug might almost have been an 'odd woman' himself. In 
 this book and The Paying Gnat (1895) he seemed to take a savage delight 
 in depiclin;^ the small, stiff, isolated, costly, unsatisfied pretentiousness 
 and plentiful lack of imagination which cripples suburbia so cruelly.— See 
 Saturday Jievicw, 13 Apr. 1S'J6 ; and see also ib., 19 Jan 1895.
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xli 
 
 theses with something in the nature of a jack-in-the-box 
 plot which the public loved and he despised. There re- 
 mained to him three alternatives : to experiment beyond the 
 limits of the novel ; to essay a lighter vein of fiction ; or 
 thirdly, to repeat himself and refashion old material within 
 its limits. Necessity left him very little option. He 
 adopted all three alternatives. His best success in the 
 third department was achieved in Fa^c's Ransom (1895). 
 Burrowing back into a projection of himself in relation 
 with a not impossible she, Gissing here creates a false, 
 fair, and fleeting beauty of a very palpable charm. A grow- 
 ing sense of her power to fascinate steadily raises Eve's 
 standard of the minimum of luxury to which she is entitled. 
 And in the course of this evolution, in the vain attempt to 
 win beauty by gratitude and humility, the timid Hilliard, 
 who seeks to propitiate his charmer by ransoming her from a 
 base liaison and supporting her in luxury for a season in 
 Paris, is thrown off like an old glove when a richer parti 
 declares himself. The subtlety of the portraiture and the 
 economy of the author's sympathy for his hero impart a 
 subacid flavour of peculiar delicacy to the book, which would 
 occupy a high place in the repertoire of any lesser artist. It 
 well exhibits the conflict between an exaggerated contempt 
 for, and an extreme susceptibility to, the charm of women 
 which has cried havoc and let loose the dogs of strife upon 
 so manv able men. In The IVhirlpool of 1897, in which he 
 shows us a number of human floats spinning round the vortex 
 of social London,^ Gissing brings a melodramatic plot of a 
 
 1 The whirlpool in which people just nod or shout to each other as they 
 spin round and round. The heroine tries to escape, but is drawn back again 
 and again, and nearly submerges her whole environment by her wild clutches. 
 Satire is lavished upon misdirected education (28), the sluttishness of London 
 landladies, self-adoring Art on a pedestal (256), the delegation of children to 
 underlings, sham religiosity (229), the pampered conscience of a diffident 
 student, and the mensonge of modern woman (300), typified by the ruddled 
 cast-off of Redgrave, who plays first, in her shrivelled paint, as procuress, 
 and then, in her naked hideouaiiess, as blackmailer.
 
 slii THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 kind disused since the days of Demos to. bear upon the 
 exhausting lives and ilhisive ])leasures of the rich and 
 cultured middle class. There is some admirable writing 
 in the book, and symptoms of a change of tone (the old 
 inclination to whine, for instance, is scarcely perceptible) 
 suggestive of a new era in the work of the novelist — 
 relatively mature in many respects as he now manifestly 
 was. Further progress in one of two directions seemed 
 indicated : the first leading towards the career of a successful 
 society novelist 'of circulating fame, spirally crescent,' the 
 second towards the frame of mind that created Ri/ccrofl. 
 The second fortunately prevailed. In the meantime, in 
 accordance with a supreme law of his being, his spirit craved 
 that refreshment which Gissing found in revisiting Italy. 
 • I want,' he cried, 'to see the ruins of Rome: I want to see 
 the Tiber, the Clitumnus, the Aufidus, the Alban Hills, 
 Lake Trasimenus! It is strange how these old times have 
 taken hold of me. The mere names in Roman history make 
 my blood warm.' Of him the saying of Michelet was per- 
 petually true: 'J'ai passe a cote du monde, et j'ai pris 
 I'histoire pour la vie.' His guide-books in Italy, through 
 which he journeyed in 1897 {en prince as compared with his 
 former visit, now that his revenue had risen steadily to 
 between three and four hundred a year), were Gibbon, his 
 semper eadem, Lenormant {la Grande-Grece), and Cassiodorus, 
 of whose epiitles, the foundation of the material of Veranilda, 
 he now began to make a special study. The dirt, the poverty, 
 the rancid oil, and the inequable climate of Calabria must 
 have been a trial and something of a disajipointment to him. 
 But physical discomfort and even sickness was whelmed by 
 the old and overmastering enthusiasm, which combined with 
 his hatred of modernity and consumed Gissiiig as by fire. 
 The sensuous and the emotional sides of his experience 
 are blended with the most subtle artistry in his i>// the 
 Ionian Sea, a short volume of impressions, unsurpassable in
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xliii 
 
 its kind, from which we cannot refrain two characteristic 
 extracts: — 
 
 ' At Cotrone the tone of the dining-room was decidedly morose. 
 One man — he seemed to be a sort of clerk — came only to quarrel. 
 1 am convinced that he ordered things which he knew that the 
 people could not cook, just for the sake of reviling- their handiwork 
 when it was presented. Therewith he spent incredibly small sums; 
 after growling and remonstrating and eating for more than an 
 hour, his bill would amount to seventy or eighty centesimi, wine 
 included. Every day he threatened to withdraw his custom ; every 
 day he sent for the landlady, pointed out tu her how vilely he was 
 treated, and asked how she could expect him to recommend the 
 Concordia to his acquaintances. On one occasion I saw him push 
 away a plate of something, plant his elbows on the table, and hide 
 his face in his hands ; thus he sat for ten minutes, an image of 
 indignant misery, and when at length his countenance was again 
 visible, it showed traces of tears.' — (pp. 102-3.) 
 
 The unconscious paganism that lingered in tradition, the 
 half-obscured names of the sites celebrated in classic story, 
 and the spectacle of the white oxen drawing the rustic carts 
 of Virgil's time — these things roused in him such an echo as 
 Chevy Chase roused in the noble Sidney, and made him shout 
 with joy. A pensive vein of contemporary reflection enriches 
 the book with passages such as this : — 
 
 'All the faults of the Italian people are whelmed in forgiveness 
 as soon as their music sounds under the Italian sky. One 
 remembers all they have suffered, all they liave achieved in spite 
 of wrong. Brute races have flung themselves, one after another, 
 upon this sweet and glorious land ; conquest and slavery, from age 
 to age, have been the people's lot. Tread where one will, the soil 
 has been drenched with blood. An immemorial woe sounds even 
 through the lilting notes of Italian gaiety. It is a country, wearied 
 and regretful, looking ever backward to the things of old.' — (p. ISO.) 
 
 The Ionian Sea did not make its appearance until 1901, 
 but v.'hile he was actually in Italy, at Siena, he wrote
 
 xliv THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 the jjreater part of one of his very finest performances^ the 
 -tudy of Charles Dickens, of which he corrected the proofs 
 'at a little town in Calabria.' It is an insufficient tribute to 
 Gissing to say that his study of Dickens is bv far the best 
 extant. I have even heard it maintained that it is better 
 in its way than any single volume in the ' Man of Letters' ; 
 and Mr. Chesterton, who speaks from ample knowledge on 
 this point, speaks of the best of all Dickens's critics, ' a man 
 of genius, Mr. George Gissing.' While fully and fra?)kly 
 recognising the master's defects in view of the artistic 
 conscience of a later generation, the writer recoirnises to 
 the full those transcendent qualities which place him next 
 to Sir Walter Scott as the second greatest figure in a century 
 of great fiction. In defiance of the terrible, and to some 
 critics damning, fact that Dickens entirely changed the plan 
 of Martin Chuzzlewit in deference to the popular critici^-m 
 expressed by the sudden fall in the circulation of that serial, 
 he shows in what a fundamental sense the author was ' a 
 literary artist if ever there was one,' and lie triumphantly 
 refutes the rash daul) of unapplied criticism represented by 
 the parrot cry of ' caricature ' as levelled against Dickens's 
 humorous portraits. Among the many notable features of 
 this veritable clief-d' aiivre of under 250 pages is the sense 
 it conveys of the superb gusto of Dickens's actual living 
 and breathing and being, the vindication achieved of two 
 ordinarilv rather maligned novels. The Old Curiusilif Shop 
 and Little Dorrit, and the insight shown into Dickens's 
 portraiture of women, more particularly those of the shrill- 
 voiced and nagging or whining variety, the 'better halves' 
 of Weller, Varden, Snagsby and Joe Gargery, not to sjjeak 
 of the Miggs, the Gummidge, and the M'Stinger. Like 
 Mr. Swinburne and other true men, he regards Mrs. Gamp 
 as rej)resenting the quintessence of literarv art wielded by 
 genius. Try (he urges with a fine curiositv) ' to imagine 
 Sarah Gamp as a young girl ' ! But it is unfair to separate a
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xlv 
 
 j^hrase from a context in which every syllable is precious^ 
 reasonable, thrice distilled and sweet to the palate as Hybla 
 honey. ^ 
 
 Henceforth Gissing spent an increasing portion of his 
 time abroad, and it was from St. Honore en Morvan, for 
 instance, that he dated the preface of Our Friend the Charlatan 
 in 1901. As with Denzil Quarrier (1892) and The Tonm 
 Traveller (1 SPS) this was one of the books which Gissing 
 sometimes went the length of asking the admirers of his 
 earlier romances ' not to read.' With its prefatoi-y note, 
 indeed, its cheap illustrations, and its rather mechanical 
 intrigue, it seems as far removed from such a book as A Life's 
 Morning as it is possible for a novel by the same author 
 to be. It was in the South of France, in the neighljourhood 
 of Biarritz, amid scenes such as that described in the thirty- 
 seventh chapter of Will Warburton, or still further south, that 
 he wrote the greater part of his last three books, the novel 
 just mentioned, which is probably his best essay in the 
 lighter ironical vein to which his later vears inclined .^ 
 Veranilda, a romance of the time of Theodoric the Goth, 
 written in solemn fulfilment of a vow of his youth, and 
 The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, which to my mind 
 remains a legacy for Time to take account of as the faithful 
 tribute of one of the truest artists of the generation he 
 served. 
 
 1 A revised edition (the date of Dickens's birth is wrongly given in the first) 
 was issued in 1902, with topographical illustrations by F. G. Kitton. Gissing's 
 introduction to Nicklebp for the Rochester edition appeared in 1900, and his 
 abridgement of Forster's Life (an excellent piece of work) in 1903 [1902]. 
 The first collection of short stories, twenty-nine in number, entitled Hitman 
 Odds and Ends, was published in 1898. It is justly described by the writer 
 of the most interesting 'Recollections of George Gissing' in the Gentleman's 
 Magazine, February 1906, as 'that very remarkable collection.' 
 
 2 It also contains one of the most beautiful descriptions ever penned of the 
 visit of a tired town-dweller to a modest rural home, with all its suggestion 
 of trim gardening, fresh country scents, indigenous food, and homely sim- 
 plicity. — Will Warburton, chap. ix.
 
 xlvi THE ^VOUK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 In yeianilda (1904) are combined conscientious workman- 
 ship, a pure style of finest quality, and archaeology, for all 1 
 know to the contrary, worthy of Becker or Boni. Sir Walter 
 himself could never in reason have dared to aspire to such a 
 fortunate conjuncture of talent, grace, and historic accuracy. 
 He possessed only that profound knowledge of human nature, 
 that moulding humour and quick sense of dialogue, that 
 live, human, and local interest in matters antiquarian, that 
 statesmanlike insight into the pith and marrow of the 
 historic past, which makes one of Scott's historical novels 
 what it is — the envy of artists, the delight of young and old, 
 the despair of formal historians. Veranildn is without a 
 doubt a splendid piece of work ; Gissing wrote it with every 
 bit of the care that his old friend Biffen expended upon 
 Mr. Bailey, grocer. He worked slowly, patiently, affection- 
 ately, scrupulously. Each sentence was as good as he could 
 make it, harmonious to the ear, with words of precious 
 meaning skilfully set ; and he believed in it with the illusion 
 so indispensable to an artist's wellbeing and continuance in 
 good work. It represented for him what Salnnwibu did to 
 Flaubert. But he could not allow himself six years to write 
 a book as Flaubert did. Salammho, after all, was a magni- 
 ficent failure, and Veranilda, — well, it must be confessed, 
 sailly but surely, that I'cranilda was a failure too. Far 
 otherwise was it with Ri/ccrofi, which represents, as it were, 
 the sumnia of Gissing's habitual meditation, ;vsthetic feeling 
 and sombre emotional experience. Nt)t that it is a pessimistic 
 work, — quite the contrary, it represents the mellowing 
 influences, the increase of faith in simple, unsophisticated 
 English girlhood and womanhood, in domestic pursuits, in 
 innocent children, in rural homeliness and honest Wessex 
 landscape, which began to operate about ISfXJ, and is seen so 
 unmistakably in the closing scenes of The IVIiirlpuul. Three 
 chief strains are subtly interblended in the composition. 
 First that of a nature book, full of air, foliage and landscape
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY xlvii 
 
 — that English landscape art of Linnell and De Wint and 
 Foster for which he repeatedly expresses such a passionate 
 tendre/ refreshed by 'blasts from the channel, with raining 
 send and spnme of mist breaking upon the hills' in which he 
 seems to crystallise the very essence of a Western winter. 
 Secondly, a paean half of praise and half of regret for the 
 vanishing England, passing so rapidly even as he writes into 
 'a. new Eneland which tries so hard to be unlike the old.' 
 A deeper and richer note of thankfulness, mixed as it must 
 be with anxiety, for the good old ways of English life (as 
 lamented by Mr. Poorgrass and Mark Clark 2), old English 
 simplicity, and old English fare — the fine prodigality of the 
 English platter, has never been raised. God grant that the 
 leaven may work ! And thirdly there is a deeply brooding 
 strain of saddening yet softened aatobiographical reminis- 
 cence, over which is thrown a light veil of literary apprecia- 
 tion and topical comment. Here is a typical cadenza, rising 
 to a swell at one point (suggestive for the moment of 
 Raleigh's famous apostrophe), and then most gently falling, 
 in a manner not wholly unworthy, I venture to think, of 
 Webster and Sir Thomas Browne, of both of which authors 
 there is internal evidence that Gissing made some study. 
 
 ' I always turn out of my way to walk through a country church- 
 yard ; these rural resting-places are as attractive to me as a town 
 cemetery is repugnant. I read the names upon the stones and 
 find a deep solace in thinking that for all these the fret and the 
 fear of life are over. There comes to me no touch of sadness ; 
 whether it be a little child or an aaed man, I have the same sense 
 of happy accomplishment ; the end having come, and with it the 
 eternal peace, what matter if it came late or soon ? There is no 
 
 1 'I love and honour even the least of English landscape painters.' — 
 Ryccroft. 
 
 - ' But wlmt with the parsons and clerks and school-people and serious 
 tea-parties, the merry old ways of good life have gone to the dogs — upon my 
 carcass, they have ! ' — Far from the Madding Crowd.
 
 xlviii THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 such ifratulation as llic j'acet. There is no such dig^nity as that of 
 death. In the path trodden by the noblest of mankind these have 
 followed ; that which of all who live is the utmost thing demanded, 
 these have achieved. 1 cannot sorrow for them, but the thouclit 
 of their vanislied life moves me to a brotherly tenderness. The 
 dead amid this leafy silence seem to whisper encouragement to 
 him whose fate yet lingers : As we are, so shalt thou be ; and 
 behold our quiet !'— (p. 18.'?.) 
 
 Aud in this deeply moving and beautiful passage we get 
 a foretaste, it may be, of the euthanasia, followin<? a brief 
 summer of St. Martin, for which the scarred and troublous 
 portions of Gissing's earlier life had served as a preparation. 
 Some there are, no doubt, to whom it will seem no 
 extravagance in closing these private pages to use the 
 author's own words, of a more potent Enchanter : * As I 
 close the book, love and reverence possess me.* 
 
 Whatever the critics may determine as to the merit of the 
 stories in the present volume, there can be no question as to 
 the interest they derive from their connection with what 
 had gone before. Thus Topham's Chance is manifestly the 
 outcome of material pondered as early as 1884-. The Lodger 
 in Mac Pond devi lops in a most suggestive fashion certain 
 probl' ms discussed in 1894. Miss Rodney is a re incarnation 
 of Paoda Nunn and Constance Bride. Chrislopherson is a de- 
 licious expansion of a mood indicated in Ryeaofl (Spring xii.), 
 r.nd A Capitalist indicates the growing interest in the business 
 side of practical life, the dawn of which is seen in TIic Town 
 Traveller and in the discussion of Dickens's potentialities as 
 a capitalist. The very artichokes in I'he House of Cobivehs 
 (which, like the kindly hand that raised them, alas ! fell a 
 victim to the first frost of the season) are suggestive of a 
 charming ))assage detailing the retired author's experience 
 as a gardener. What Or. Furnivall might call the ' back- 
 ward reach ' of every one of these stories will render tlieir
 
 AN INTRODUCTOllY SURVEY xlix 
 
 perusal delightful to those cultivated readers of Gissing,- of 
 whom there are by no means a few, to whom every fragment 
 of his suave and delicate workmanship 'repressed yet full of 
 power, vivid though sombre in colouring/ has a technical 
 interest and charm. Nor will they search in vain for 
 Gissing's incorrigible mannerisms, his haunting insistence 
 upon the note of ' Dort wo du nicht bist ist das Gluck,' his 
 tricks of the brush in portraiture, his characteristic epithets, 
 the dusking twilight, the decently ignoble penury, the 7iot ignoble 
 ambition, the not wholly base riot of the senses in early man- 
 hood. In my own opinion we have here in The Scrupulous 
 Father, and to a less degree, perhaps, in the first and last of 
 these stories, and in A Poor Gentleman and Cliristopherson, 
 perfectly characteristic and quite admirable specimens of 
 Gissing's own genre, and later, unstudied, but always finished 
 prose style. 
 
 But a few words remain to be said, and these, in part at 
 any rate, in recapitulation. In the old race, of which 
 Dickens and Thackeray were representative, a successful 
 determination to rise upon the broad back of popularity 
 coincided with a growing conviction that the evil in the 
 world was steadily diminishing. Like healthy schoolboys 
 who have worked their way up to the sixtii form, they 
 imagined that the bullying of which they had had to 
 complain was become pretty much a thing of the past. In 
 Gissing the misery inherent in the sharp contrasts of modern 
 life was a far more deeply ingrained conviction. He cared 
 little for the remedial aspect of the question. His idea 
 was to analyse this misery as an artist and to express it to 
 the world. 
 
 One of the most impressive elements in the resulting 
 novels is the witness they bear to prolonged and intense 
 suffering, the suffering of a proud, reserved, and over-sensitive 
 mind brought into constant contact with the coarse and
 
 1 THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 brutal facts of life. The creator of Mr. Biffen suffers all the 
 torture of the fasticlious, the delicately honourable, the 
 scrupulously high-miiulcii in daily contact with persons ot 
 blunt feelini!:s. low ideals, and base instincts. * Human cattle, 
 the herd that feed and breed, with them it was well ; but 
 the few born to a desire for ever unattainable, the gentle 
 spirits who from their prisonin": circumstance looked up and 
 afar, how the heart ached to think of them!' The natural 
 bent of Gissing's talent was towards poetry and classical 
 antiquity. His minil h.id considerable natural affinity with 
 that of Tennyson. 1 He was passionately fond of old litera- 
 ture, of the study of metre and of historical reverie. The 
 subtle curiosities of Anatole France are just of the kind that 
 would have appealed irresistibly to him. His delight in 
 psycholoijical complexity and feats of style are not seldom 
 reminiscent of Paul Bourget. His life would have gained 
 immeasurably by a transference to less pinched and pitiful 
 surroundings : but it is more than doubtful whether his 
 work would have done so. 
 
 Tiie compulsion of the twin monsters Bread and Cheese 
 forced him to write novels the scene of which was laid 
 in the one milieu he had thoroughly observed, that of 
 either utterly hideous or shabby genteel squalor in London. 
 He gradually obtained a rare mastery in the delineation 
 of his unlovely 7nise en scene. He gradually created a 
 small public who read eagerly everything that came from 
 his pen, despite his economy of material (even of ideas), 
 and despite the repetition to which a natural tendency was 
 increased by compulsory over-production. In all his best 
 books we have evidence of the savage and ironical delight 
 
 ' lu a youug lady's album I uuexpectedh' came across the line from Mmid, 
 ' Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet woodland ways,' with the sigiiatiu'e, 
 following the quotation marks, 'George Gissing.' Tlio borrowed aspiration 
 wa.s tran.sparently sincere. 'Tennyson he worshii)ped' (see Odd Women, 
 chap. i.). The contcmporar}- novelist ho liked most was Alphonse Daudet.
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY li 
 
 with which he depicted to the shadow of a hair the 
 sordid and vulgar elements by which he had been 
 so cruelly depressed. The aesthetic observer who wanted 
 material for a picture of the blank desolation and ugli- 
 ness of modern city life could find no better substratum 
 than in the works of George Gissing. Many of his descrip- 
 tions of typical London scenes in Lambeth Walk, Clerken- 
 well, or Judd Street, for instance, are the work of a 
 detached, remorseless, photographic artist realising that ugly 
 sordidness of daily life to which the ordinary observer 
 becomes in the course of time as completely habituated as 
 he does to the smoke-laden air. To a cognate sentiment of 
 revolt I attribute that excessive deference to scholarship and 
 refinement which leads him in so many novels to treat these 
 desirable attributes as if they were ends and objects of life 
 in themselves. It has also misled him but too often into 
 depicting a world of suicides, ignoring or overlooking a 
 secret hobby, or passion, or chimera which is the one thing 
 that renders existence endurable to so many of the waifs 
 and strays of life. He takes existence sadh' — too sadly, 
 it may well be ; but his drabs and greys provide an atmo- 
 sphere that is almost inseparable to some of us from our 
 gaunt London streets. In Farringdon Road, for example, 
 I look up instinctively to the expressionless upper windows 
 where Mr. Luckworth Crewe spreads his baits for intending 
 advertisers. A tram ride through Clerkenwell and its 
 leagues of dreary, inhospitable brickwork will take you 
 through the heart of a region where Clem Peckover, Penny- 
 loaf Candy, and Totty Nancarrow are multiplied rather than 
 varied since they were first depicted by George Gissing. 
 As for the British Museum, it is peopled to this day by 
 chaiacters from New Grub Street. 
 
 There may be a perceptible lack of virility, a fluctuating 
 vagueness of outline about the characterisation of some of 
 his men. In his treatment of crowds, in his description of
 
 lii THE WOllK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 a mob, personified as 'some hiifje beast purring to itself in 
 •.tuj)i(i contentment,' he can have few rivals. In tracing the 
 iiiriuence of women over his heroes he evinces no common 
 subtlety ; it is here probably that he is at his best. The 
 odor di femii'i)ia, to use a phrase of Don Ciiovanni's, is a 
 marked characteristic of his books. Of the kisses — 
 
 ' l)y liopelesB fancy feigned 
 On lips that are for others' — 
 
 there are indeed many to be discovered hidden awav be- 
 tween these pages. And the beautiful verse has a fine 
 parallel in the prose of one of Gissing's later novels. 'Some 
 girl, of delicate instinct, of purpose sweet and pure, wasting 
 her unloved life in toil and want and indignity ; some man, 
 whose youth and courage strove against a mean environ- 
 ment, whose eyes grew haggard in the vain search for a 
 companion promised in his dreams; they lived, these two, 
 parted perchance only by the wall of neighbour houses, yet 
 all huge London was between them, and their hands would 
 never touch.' The dream of fair women which occupies the 
 mood of Piers Otway in the opening passage of the same 
 novel, was evidently no remotely conceived fancy. Its 
 realisation, in ideal love, represents the author's Crown of 
 Life. The wise man who said that Beautiful Woman ^ was 
 a heaven to the eye, a hell to the soul, and a purgatory 
 to the purse of man, could hardly find a more copious field 
 of illustration than in the fiction of George Gissing. 
 
 Gissing was a sedulous artist ; some of his books, it is 
 true, are very hurried productions, finished in haste for 
 the market with no great amount either of inspiration 
 or artistic confidence about them. But little slo\enly 
 
 ' With unconscious recollection, it may be, of Pope's notable phrase in 
 ro^aril to Shakespeare, lie npeaks in his last novel of woman ajipeariii^' at 
 times as 'a force of Nature rather than an individual being' {Will War- 
 ImrUm, p. 275).
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY liii 
 
 work will be found bearing his name, for he was a 
 I thoroughly trained writer ; a suave and seductive work- 
 manship liad become a second nature to him, and there was 
 always a flavour of scholarly, subacid and quasi-ironical 
 modernity about his style. There is little doubt that his 
 quality as a stylist was better adapted to the studies of 
 modern London life, on its seamier side, which he had 
 observed at first hand, than to stories of the conventional 
 iliamatic structure which he too often felt himself bound 
 to adopt. In these his failure to grapple with a big objec- 
 tive, or to rise to some prosperous situation, is often pain- 
 fully marked. A master of explanation and description 
 rather than of animated narrative or sparkling dialogue, he 
 lacked the wit and humour, the brilliance and energy of a 
 consummate style which might have enabled him to compete 
 with the great scenic masters in fiction, or with craftsmen such 
 as Hardy or Stevenson, or with incomparable wits and con- 
 versationalists such as Meredith. It is true, again, that his 
 London-street novels lack certain artistic elements of beauty 
 (though here ;md there occur glints of rainy or sunset town- 
 scape in a half-tone, consummately handled and eminently 
 impressive) ; and his intense sincerity cannot wholly atone for 
 this loss. Where, however, a quiet refinement and delicacy 
 of style is needed as in those sane and suggestive, atmo- 
 spheric, critical or introspective studies, such as Bi/ the lomaii 
 Sea, the unrivalled presentment of Charles Dickens, and that 
 gentle masterpiece of softened autobiography. The Private 
 Papers of Henry Ryecrojl (its resignation and autumnal calm, 
 its finer note of wistfulness and wide human compassion, fully 
 deserve comparison with the priceless work of Silvio Pellico) 
 in which he indulged himself during the last and increas- 
 ingly prosperous years of his life, then Gissing's style is 
 discovered to be a charmed instrument. 1 hat he will suj) 
 late, our Gissing, we are quite content to believe. But that 
 a place is reserved for him, of that at any rate we are reason-
 
 liv Tin: ^v()RK of george gissing 
 
 ablv confident. The three books just named, in con- 
 jiincticin with his short stories and his Xcir (huh Street (not 
 to mention TInirza or The Sethcr World), will suffice to 
 ensure him a devout and admiring fjroup of followers for 
 a vcrv lon<r time to come ; thev accentuate profoundlv the 
 feeling of vivid regret and almost personal loss which not a 
 few of his more assiduous reaiiers experienced upon the sad 
 news ef his premature death at St. Jean de Luz on the 28th 
 December 1903, at the early age of forty-six. 
 
 ACTOX, 
 
 Fobruary lOOG.
 
 THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING 
 
 A CHRONOLOGICAL 
 
 Iv 
 
 1880. 
 1884. 
 1886. 
 1886. 
 1887. 
 1888. 
 1889. 
 1890. 
 1891. 
 1892. 
 1892. 
 1893. 
 1894. 
 1895. 
 1895. 
 1895. 
 1897. 
 
 Workers in the Dawn. 
 The Unclassed. 
 Isabel Clarendon. 
 Demos. 
 Thyrza. 
 
 A Life's Morning. 
 The Nether World. 
 The Emancipated. 
 New Grub Street. 
 Born in Exile. 
 Denzil (^uarrier. 
 The Odd Women. 
 In the Year of Jubilee. 
 The Paying Guest. 
 Sleeping Fires. 
 Eve's Rausom. 
 The Whirlpool. 
 
 RECORD 
 
 1898. tluman Odds and Ends: 
 Stories and Sketches. 
 
 1898. The Town Traveller. 
 
 1898. Charles Dickens : a Criti- 
 
 cal Study. 
 
 1899. The Crown of Life. 
 
 190]. Our Friend the Charlatan. 
 
 1901. By the Ionian Sea. Notes 
 of a Ramble in Southern 
 Italy. 
 
 1903. Forster's Life of Dickens 
 — Abridgement. 
 
 1903. The Private Papers of 
 
 Henry Ryecroft. 
 
 1904. Veranilda : a Romance. 
 
 1905. Will Warburton: a Ro- 
 
 mance of Real Life. 
 
 1906. The House of Cobwebs,. 
 
 and other Stories. 
 
 [Of notices and reviews of George Gissiiig other than those 
 mentioned in the foregoing notes the following is a selection : — 
 Times, 29 Dec. 1903; Guardian, 6 Jan. 1904; Outlook, 2 Jan. 
 1904; Sphere, 9 Jan. 1904; AthencBum, 2 and 16 Jan. 1904; 
 Academy, 9 Jan. 1904 (pp. 40 and 46) ; New York Nation, 11 June 
 1903 (an adverse but interesting paper on the anti-social side of 
 Gissing) ; The Bookman {New York), vol. xviii, ; Independent Review, 
 Feb. 1904 ; Fortnightly Review, Feb. 1904 ; Contemporary Review, 
 Aug. 1897 ; C. F. G. Masterman's In Peril of Change, 1905, 
 pp. 68-73 ; Atlantic Monthly, xciii. 280; Upton Letters, 1905, p. 206.]
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 
 
 It was five o'clock on a June morning. The dirty-buff 
 blind of the lodging-house bedroom shone like cloth of 
 gold as the sun's unclouded rays poured through it, 
 transforming all they illumined, so that things poor 
 and mean seemed to share in the triumphant glory of 
 new-born day. In the bed lay a young man who had 
 already been awake for an hour. He kept stirring un- 
 easily, but with no intention of trying to sleep again. 
 His eyes followed the slow movement of the sunshine 
 on the wall-paper, and noted, as they never had done 
 before, the details of the flower pattern, which repre- 
 sented no flower wherewith botanists are acquainted, 
 yet, in this sunnner light, turned the thoughts to garden 
 and field and hedgerow. The young man had a 
 troubled mind, and his thoughts ran thus : — 
 
 ' I must have three months at least, and how am I 
 to live.'' . . . Fifteen shillings a week — not quite that, 
 if I spread my money out. Can one live on fifteen 
 shillings a week — rent, food, washing ? ... I shall 
 have to leave these lodgings at once. They Ve not 
 luxurious, but I can't live here under twenty-five, that's 
 clear. . . . Three months to finish my book. It 's 
 good; I'm hang-ed if it isn't! This time I shall find 
 a publisher. All I have to do is to stick at my work 
 and keep my mind easy. . . . Lucky that it's summer;
 
 2 Tin: HOUSE OF COBWEBS 
 
 I don't need fires. Any cornei' would do for ine where 
 I can be c|uiet and see the sun. . . . Wonder whether 
 some cottajjer in Surrey would house and feed me for 
 fifteen shillings a week .'* . . . No use lying here. Better 
 get up and see how things look after an hour's walk.' 
 
 So the youjig man arose and clad himself, and went 
 out into the shining street. His name was Goldthorpe. 
 His years were not yet three-and-twenty. Since the 
 age of legal independence he had been living alone in 
 London, solitary and poor, very proud of a whole- 
 hearted devotion to the career of authorship. As soon 
 as he slipped out of the stuffy house, the live air, 
 perfumed with freshness from meadows and hills afar, 
 made his blood pulse joyously. He was at the age of 
 hope, and something within him, which did not rej)re- 
 sent mere youthful illusion, sup])orted his courage in 
 the face of calculations such as would have dan)peil 
 sober experience. With boyish step, so light and 
 sj)i'ingy that it seemed anxious to run and leaj), he took 
 his way through a suburb south of Thames, and pushed 
 on towards the first rising of the Surrey hills. And as 
 he walked resolve strengthened itself in his heart. 
 Somehow or other he would live independently through 
 the next three moiiths. If the worst came to the 
 worst, he could earn bread as clerk or labourer, but as 
 long as his money lasted he would pursue his purj)ose, 
 and that alone. He sani; to himself in this f^allant 
 determination, hap]iv as if some one had left him a 
 fortune. 
 
 In an ascending road, quiet and tree-shadowed, where 
 the dwellings on either side were for the most part old 
 and snjall, though here and there a brand-new edifice 
 on a larger scale showed that the neighbourhood was
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 8 
 
 undergoing change such as in our time destroys the 
 picturesque in all London suburbs, the cheery dreamer 
 chanced to turn his e}es upon a spot of desolation 
 which aroused his curiosity and set his fancy at work. 
 Before him stood three deserted houses, a little row 
 once tenanted bv middle-class folk, hut now for some 
 time unoccupied and unrepaired. They were of brick, 
 but the fronts had a stucco facing cut into imitation 
 of ashlar, and weathered to the sombrest grey. The 
 windows of the ground floor and of that above, and the 
 fanlights above the doors, were boarded up, a guard 
 against unlicensed intrusion ; the top story had not 
 been thought to stand in need of this protection, and a 
 few panes were broken. On these dead frontages could 
 be traced the marks of climbing plants, which once 
 hung their leaves about each doorway ; dry frag- 
 ments of the old stem still adhered to the stucco. 
 What had been the narrow strip of fore-garden, railed 
 from the pavement, was now a little wilderness of 
 coarse grass, docks, nettles, and degenerate shrubs. 
 The paint on the doors had lost all colour, and much of 
 it was blistered off; the three knockers had disappeared, 
 leaving indications of rough removal, as if — which was 
 probably the case — they had fallen a prey to marauders. 
 Standing full in the brilliant sunshine, this spectacle of 
 abandonment seemed sadder, yet less ugly, than it would 
 have looked under a gloomy sky. Goldthorpe began to 
 weave stories about its musty squalor. He crossed the 
 road to make a nearer inspection ; and as he stood 
 gazing at the dishonoured thresholds, at the stained 
 and cracked boarding of the blind windows, at the 
 rusty paling and the broken gates, there sounded from 
 somewhere near a thin, shaky strain of music, the notes
 
 4 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 
 
 of a concertina played with uncertain hand, The 
 sound seemed to come from within the hoii>es, vet how 
 could that be ? Assuredly no one lived under these 
 crazy roofs. The musician was playing ' Home, Sweet 
 Home/ and as Goldthorpe listened it seemed to him 
 that the sound was not stationary. Indeed, it moved ; 
 it became more distant, then again the notes sountied 
 more distinctly, and now as if the plaver were in the 
 oj)en air. Perhaps he was at the back of the houses ? 
 
 On either side ran a narrow passage, which parted 
 the spot of desolation from inhabited dwellings. Ex- 
 ploring one of these, Goldthorpe found that there lav 
 in the roar a tract of gardens. Each of the three 
 lifeless houses had its garden of about twenty yards 
 long. The bordering wall along the passage allowed a 
 man of average height to peer over it, and Goldthorpe 
 searched with curious eye the piece of ground which was 
 nearest to him. Many a year must have gone by since 
 any gardening was done here. Once upon a time the 
 useful and ornamental had both been represented in 
 this modest space ; now, flowers and vegetables, such of 
 them as survived in the struggle for existence, mingled 
 together, and all alike were threatened by a wild, rank 
 growth of grasses and weeds, which had obliterated the 
 beds, hidden the paths, and made of the whole garden 
 plot a green jungle. But Goldthorpe gave only a 
 glance at this still life; his interest was engrossed by a 
 human figure, seated on a camj)stool near the back wall 
 of the house, and holding a concertina, whence, at this 
 moment, in slow, melancholy strain, ' Home, Sweet 
 Home"' began to wheeze forth. The jWaver was a 
 middle-aged man, dres.sed like a decent clerk or shop- 
 keeper, his head shaded with an old straw hat rather
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 6 
 
 too large for him, and on his feet- — one of which swung 
 as he sat with legs crossed — a pair of still more ancient 
 slippers, also too large. AVith head aside, and eyes 
 looking upward, he seemed to listen in a mild ecstasy 
 to the notes of his instrument. He had a round face 
 of much simplicity and good-nature, semicircular eye- 
 brows, pursed little mouth with abortive moustache, 
 and short thin beard fringing the chinless lower jaw. 
 Having observed this unimposing person for a minute 
 or two, himself unseen, Goldthorpe surveyed the rear of 
 the building, anxious to discover any sign of its still 
 serving as human habitation ; but nothing spoke of 
 tenancy. The windows on this side were not boarded, 
 and only a few panes were broken ; but the chief point 
 of contrast with the desolate front was made by a 
 Virginia creeper, which grew luxuriantly up to the 
 eaves, hiding every sign of decay save those dim, dusty 
 apertures which seemed to deny all possibility of life 
 within. And yet, on looking steadily, did he not 
 discern something at one of the windows on the top 
 story — something like a curtain or a blind .^ And 
 had not that same window the appearance of having 
 been more recently cleaned than the others ? He 
 could not be sure ; perhaps he only fancied these 
 things. With neck aching from the strained position 
 in which he had made his survey over the wall, the 
 young man turned away. In the same moment ' Home, 
 Sweet Home ' came to an end, and, but for the cry of 
 a milkman, the early-morning silence was undisturbed. 
 
 Goldthorpe pursued his walk, thinking of what he 
 had seen, and wondering what it all meant. On his 
 way back he made a point of again passing the de- 
 serted houses, and again he peered over the wall of
 
 f) TMK HOUSE OF COBWEBS 
 
 the passage. The man was still there, but no longer 
 seated with the concertina ; wearing a round felt hat 
 instead of the straw, he stood almost knee-deej) in 
 vegetation, and appeared to be examining the various 
 growths about him. Presently he moved forward, and, 
 with head still bent, approached the lower end of the 
 garden, where, in a wall higher than that over which 
 Goldthorpe made his espial, there wjis a wooden door. 
 This the man opened with a key, and, having passed 
 out, could be heard to turn a lock behind him. A 
 minute more, and this short, respectable figure came 
 into sight at the end of the passage. Goldthorpe could 
 not resist the opportunity thus offered. Affecting to 
 turn a look of interest towards the nearest roof, he 
 waited until the stranger was about to pass him, then, 
 with civil greeting, ventured upon a question. 
 
 * Can vou tell me how these houses come to be in 
 this neglected state .'* ' 
 
 The stranger smiled ; a soft, modest, deferential 
 smile such as became his countenance, and spoke in a 
 corresponding voice, which had a vaguely provincial 
 accent. 
 
 ' No wonder it surprises you, sir. I should be sur- 
 prised myself. It comes of cjuarrcls and lawsuits.' 
 
 ' So I supposed. Do you know who the property 
 belongs to ? ' 
 
 ' Well, yes, sir. The fact is — it belongs to me.*' 
 
 The avowal was made aj^ologetically, and yet with a 
 certain timid pride. Goliltliorpe exhibited all the 
 interest he felt. An idea had suddenly sprung up in 
 his mind ; he met the stranger's look, and spoke with 
 the easy good-humour natural to him. 
 
 * It seems a great pity that houses should be stand-
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 7 
 
 ing empty like that. Are they quite uninhabitable ? 
 Couldn't one camp here during this fine summer 
 weather? To tell you the truth, I'm looking for a 
 room — as cheap a room as I can get. Could vou let 
 me one for the next three months .?' 
 
 The stranger was astonished. He regarded the 
 young man with an uneasy smile. 
 
 ' You ai'e joking, sir.' 
 
 ' Not a bit of it. Is the thing quite impossible ? 
 Are all the rooms in too bad a state ? ' 
 
 ' I won't say that^ replied the other cautiously, still 
 eyeing his interlocutor with surprised glances. ' The 
 upper rooms are really not so bad — that is to sav, from 
 a humble point of view. I — I have been looking at 
 them just now. You really mean, sir ? ' 
 
 ' I 'm quite in earnest, I assure you,' cried Gold- 
 thorpe cheerily. 'You see I'm tolerably well dressed 
 still, but 1 've precious little money, and I want to 
 eke out the little I 've got for about three months. 
 I'm writing a book. I think I shall manage to sell 
 it when it 's done, but it '11 take me about three months 
 yet. I don't care what sort of place I live in, so 
 long as it 's quiet. Couldn't we come to terms ? ' 
 
 The listener's visage seemed to grow rounder in 
 progressive astonishment ; his eyes declared an emotion 
 akin to awe ; his little mouth shaped itself as if about 
 to whistle. 
 
 ' A book, sir ? You are writing a book ? You are 
 a literary man .'' ' 
 
 ' Well, a beginner. I have poverty on my side, you 
 see.' 
 
 ' Why, it "s like Dr. Johnson ! ' cried the other, his 
 face glowing with interest. 'It's like Chatterton ! —
 
 S TlIK HOUSE OF COBWEBS 
 
 tlioiiiih I'm sure I hope you won't end like him, sir. 
 It's like Goldsmith ! — indeed it is ! ' 
 
 ' I \e "-ot half Oliver's name, at all events,' laughed 
 the young man. ' Mine is Goldthorpe/ 
 
 ' You don't say so, sir ! What a strange coincidence ! 
 .Mine, sir, is Spicer. I — I don't know whether you "d 
 care to come into my garden ? We might talk 
 there ' 
 
 In a minute or two they were standing amid the 
 green jungle, which Goldthorpe viewed with delight. 
 He declared it the most picturescjue garden he had 
 ever seen. 
 
 ♦ Whv, there are potatoes growing there. And what 
 are those things.? Jerusalem artichokes.? And look 
 at that magnificent thistle ; I never saw a finer thistle 
 in my life ! And poppies — and marigolds — and hroad- 
 heans — and isn't that lettuce.?' 
 
 Mr. Sjiiccr was red with gratifiaxtion. 
 
 ' I feel that something might he done with the 
 garden, .sir,' he said. 'The fact is, sir, I've only 
 lately come into this property, and I'm sorry to say 
 it'll onlv he mine for a little more tlian a year — a 
 vear from next midsunnner day, sir. There 's the ex- 
 planation of what you see. It's leasehold property, 
 and the lea.se is just coming to its end. Five years 
 ago, sir, an uncle of mine inherited the ))roj>erty Ironi 
 his hrother. The houses were then in a very bad 
 state, and only one of them let, and there had been 
 lawsuits going on for a long time between the lease- 
 holder and the ground-landlord — I can't (juite understand 
 these matters, they're not at all in my line, sir; but 
 at all events there were quarrels and lawsuits, and I'm 
 told one of the tenants was somehow mixed up in it.
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 9 
 
 The fact, is, my uncle wasn't a very well-to-do man, 
 and perhaps he didn''t feel able to repair the houses, 
 especially as the lease was drawing to its end. Would 
 you like to go in and have a look round ? ' 
 
 They entered by the back door, which admitted 
 them to a little wash-house. The window was over- 
 spun with cobwebs, thick, hoary ; each corner of the 
 ceiling was cobweb-packed ; long, dusty filaments de- 
 pended along the walls. Notwithstanding, Goldthorpe 
 noticed that the house had a water-supply ; the sink 
 was wet, the tap above it looked new. This con- 
 firmed a suspicion in his mind, but he made no 
 remark. They passed into the kitchen. Here again 
 the work of the spider showed thick on every hand. 
 The window, however, though uncleaned for years, had 
 recently been opened ; one knew that by the torn and 
 ragged condition of the webs where the sashes joined. 
 And lo ! on the window-sill stood a plate, a cup and 
 saucer, a knife, a fork, a spoon — all of them mani- 
 festly new-washed. Goldthorpe affected not to see these 
 objects ; he averted his face to hide an involuntary smile. 
 
 ' I must light a candle,' said Mr. Spicer. ' The 
 staircase is quite dark.' 
 
 A candle stood ready, with a box of matches, on 
 the rustv cookinff-stove. No fire had burned in the 
 grate for many a long day ; of that the visitor 
 assured himself. Save the objects on the window-sill, 
 no evidence of human occupation was discoverable. 
 Having struck a light, Mr. Spicer advanced. In the 
 front passage, on the stairs, on the landing, every 
 angle and every projection had its drapery of cobwebs. 
 The stuffy, musty air smelt of cobwebs ; so, at all 
 events, did Goldthorpe explain to himself a peculiar
 
 10 THE HOUSE of cobwebs 
 
 odour which he seemed never to have smelt. It was 
 the same in the two rooms on the first floor. Through 
 tlie boarded windows of that in fri)nt penetrated a 
 few thin ravs from the golden skv ; they gleamed upon 
 dust and web, on faded, torn wall-paper and a fireplace 
 in ruins. 
 
 * I shouldn't reconnnend you to take either of ihe.'ie 
 rooms,"" said Mr. Spicer, looking nervously at his com- 
 panion. 'They really can't be called attractive.' 
 
 * Those on the top are healthier, no doubt."* was the 
 young man's reply. ' I noticed tliat some of the window- 
 glass is broken. That niust have been good for airing." 
 
 Mr. Spicer grew more and more nervous. He opened 
 his little' round mouth, very much like a fish g^^sping, 
 but seemed unable to speak. Silently he led the wav 
 to the top storv, still amid cobwebs; the atmosphere 
 was certainly purer up here, and when they entered the 
 first room they found themselves all at once in such a 
 flood of glorious sunshine that Goldthorpe shouted with 
 delight. 
 
 '■ Ah, I could live here ! Would it cost much to 
 have })anes put in ? An old woman with a broom 
 would do the rest."" He added in a moment, ' But the 
 back windows are not broken, I think .'' ' 
 
 ' No — I think not — I — no "* 
 
 Mr. Spicer gasped and stammered. He stood holding 
 the candle (its light invisible) so that the grease dripped 
 steadily on his trousers. 
 
 'Let's have a look at the other,' cried Goldthorpe. 
 ' It gets the afternoon sun, no doubt. And one would 
 have a view of the gaiden."' 
 
 ' Stop, sir ! ' broke from his companion, who was red 
 and perspiring. 'There's .something I should like to
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 11 
 
 tell you before you go into that room. I — it — the 
 fact is, sir, that — temporarily — I am occupying it 
 rnvself."* 
 
 ' Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Spicer ! ' 
 
 ' Not at all, sir ! Don't mention it, sir. I have a 
 reason — it seemed to me — I've merely put in a bed and 
 a table, sir, that's all — a temporary arrangement.'' 
 
 ' Yes, yes ; I quite understand. What could be more 
 sensible ? If the house were mine, I should do the 
 same. What 's the good of owning a house, and making 
 no use of it "^ ' 
 
 Great was Mr. Spicer's satisfaction. 
 
 ' See what it is, sir,' he exclaimed, ' to have to do 
 with a literary man ! You are large-minded, sir ; you 
 see things from an intellectual point of view. I can't 
 tell you how it gratifies me, sir, to have made your 
 acquaintance. Let us go into the back room.' 
 
 With nervous boldness he threw the door open. 
 Goldthorpe, advancing respectfully, saw that Mr. Spicer 
 had not exaggerated the simplicity of his aiTangements. 
 In a certain measure the room had been cleaned, but 
 along the angle of walls and ceiling there still clung a 
 good many cobwebs, and the state of the paper was 
 deplorable, A blind hung at the window, but the floor 
 had no carpet. In one corner stood a little camp bed, 
 neatly made for the day ; a table and a chair, of the 
 cheapest species, occupied the middle of the floor, and 
 on the hearth was an oil cooking-stove. 
 
 ' It 's wonderful how little one really wants,' remarked 
 Mr. Spicer, ' at all events in weather such as this. I 
 find that I eet alons: here verv well indeed. The onlv 
 expense I had was for the water-supply. And really, 
 sir, when one comes to think of it, the situation is
 
 12 '11 IK HOUSE OF COBWEBS 
 
 pleasant. If one doesirt mind loneliness — and it 
 
 happens that I don't. I have niv books, sir ' 
 
 He opened the door of a cupboard containinji; several 
 shelves. The first thing Goldthorpe's eve fell upon was 
 the concertina; he saw also sundry articles of clothinfr, 
 neatly disposed, a little crockery, and, ranged on the 
 two top shelves, some thirty volumes, all of venerable 
 aspect. 
 
 ' Literature, sir,' pursued Mr. Spicer modestly, ' has 
 always been my comfort. I haven't had very much time 
 for reading, but my motto, sir, has been indla dies sine 
 linca.'' 
 
 It appeared from his pronunciation that Mr. Spicer 
 was no classical scholar, but he uttered the Latin words 
 with infinite gusto, and timidly watched their effect 
 upon the listener. 
 
 ' This is delightful,' cried Mr. Goldthorpe. ' Will 
 you let me have the front room ? I coultl work here 
 splendidly — splendidly ! What rent do you ask, Mr. 
 Sj)icer .'' ' 
 
 'Why really, sir, to tell you the truth I don't know 
 what to say. Of course the windows must be seen to. 
 The fact is, sir, if you felt disposed to do tbat at your 
 own expense, and — ami to have the room cleaned, and — 
 and, let us say, to bear half the water-rate whilst vou 
 are here, why, really, I hardly feel justified in asking 
 anything more.' 
 
 It was Goldthorpe's turn to be embarrassed, for, little 
 as he was prepared to pay, he did not like to accept a 
 stranger's generosity. They discussed the matter in 
 detail, with the result that for the arrangement which Mr. 
 Spicer had proposed there was substituted a weekly rent 
 of two shillings, the lease extending over a period of
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 13 
 
 three months. Goldthorpe was to live quite indepen- 
 dently, asking nothing in the way of domestic service ; 
 moreover, he was requested to introduce no other person 
 to the house, even as casual visitor. These conditions 
 Mr. Spicer set forth, in a commercial hand, on a sheet 
 of notepaper, and the agreement was solemnly signed by 
 both contracting parties. 
 
 On the way home to breakfast Goldthorpe reviewed 
 his position now that he had taken this decisive step. 
 It was plain that he must furnish his room with the 
 articles which Mr. Spicer found indispensable, and this 
 outlay, be as economical as he might, would tell upon 
 the little capital which was to support him for three 
 months. Indeed, when all had been done, and he found 
 himself, four days later, dwelling on the top story of 
 the house of cobwebs, a simple computation informed 
 him that his total expenditure, after payment of rent, 
 must not exceed fifteenpence a day. What matter ? 
 He was in the highest spirits, full of energy and hope. 
 His landlord had been kind and helpful in all sorts of 
 ways, helping him to clean the room, to remove his 
 property from the old lodgings, to make purchases at 
 the lowest possible rate, to establish himself as comfort- 
 ably as circumstances permitted. And when, on the 
 first morning of his tenancy, he was awakened by a 
 brilliant sun, the young man had a sensation of comfort 
 and satisfaction quite new in his experience ; for he was 
 really at home ; the bed he slept on, the table he ate at 
 and wrote upon, were his own possessions ; he thought 
 with pity of his lodging-house life, and felt a joyous 
 assurance that here he would do better work than ever 
 before. 
 
 In less than a week Mr. Spicer and he were so friendly
 
 14 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 
 
 that they began to eat together, taking it in turns to 
 prepare the meal. Now and then they walked in 
 company, and every evening they sat smoking (very 
 cheap tobacco) in the wild garden. Little by little Mr. 
 Spicer revealed the facts of his history. He had begun 
 life, in a midland town, as a chemist's errand-boy, and 
 bv stead v perseverance, with a little pecuniary help from 
 relatives, had at length risen to the position of chemist's 
 assistant. For five-and-twenty years he practised such 
 rigid economv that, having no one but himself to 
 provide for, he began to foresee a possibility of passing his 
 old a^e elsewhere than in the workhouse. Then befell 
 the death of his uncle, which was to have important 
 conseijuences for him. Mr. Spicer told the story of this 
 exciting moment late one evening, when, kept indoors 
 bv rain, the companions sat together upstairs, one on 
 each side of the rusty and empty fireplace. 
 
 *A1I mv life, Mr. Goldthorpe, Fve thought what a 
 delightful thing it must be to have a house of one's own. 
 I mean, really of one's own ; not only a rented house, 
 but one in which vou could live and die, feeling that no 
 one had a right to turn you out. Often and often I 've 
 dreamt of it, and tried to injagine what the feeling 
 would be like. Not a large, fine house — oh dear, no ! 
 I didn't care how small it might be ; indeed, the smaller 
 the better for a man of my sort. Well, then, you can 
 
 ima<Mne how it came upon me when 1 heard But 
 
 let me tell vou first that I hadn't seen my uncle for fifteen 
 vears or more. I had always thought him a well-to-do 
 man, and I knew he wasn't married, but the truth is, it 
 never came into my head that he might leave me some- 
 thing. Picture me, Mr. Goldthorpe — you have imagina- 
 tion, sir — standing behind the counter and thinking
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 15 
 
 about nothing but business, when in conies a young 
 gentleman — I see him now — and asks for Mr. Spicer. 
 " Spicer is my name, sir," I said. " And you are the 
 nephew," were his next words, " of the late Mr. Isaac 
 Spicer, of Clapham, London ? " That shook me, sir, I 
 assure you it did, but I hope I behaved decently. The 
 young gentleman went on to tell me that my uncle had 
 left no will, and that I was believed to be his next- 
 of-kin, and that if so, I inherited all his property, the 
 principal part of which was three houses in London. 
 Now try and think, Mr. Goldthorpe, what sort of state 
 I was in after hearing that. You Ve an intellectual 
 man, and you can enter into another''s mind. Three 
 houses ! Well, sir, you know what houses those were. 
 I came up to London at once (it was last autumn), and 
 I saw my uncle's lawyer, and he told me all about the 
 property, and I saw it for myself. Ah, Mr. Goldthorpe ! 
 K ever a man suffered a bitter disappointment, sir ! "■ 
 
 He ended on a little laugh, as if excusing himself 
 for making so much of his story, and sat for a moment 
 with head bowed. 
 
 ' Fate played you a nasty trick there,' said Goldthorpe. 
 * A knavish trick.' 
 
 ' One felt almost justified in using strong language, 
 sir — though I always avoid it on principle. However, 
 I must tell you that the houses weren't all. Luckily 
 there was a little money as well, and, putting it with 
 my own savings, sir, I found it would yield me an 
 income. When I say an income, I mean, of course, for 
 a man in my position. Even when I have to go into 
 lodgings, when my houses become the property of the 
 ground-landlord — to my mind, Mr. Goldthorpe, a 
 very great injustice, but I don't set myself up
 
 16 riii: HOUSE OF cobwebs 
 
 against the law of the land — I shall just be able to 
 live. And that 's no SQiall blessing, sir, as I think you 'Jl 
 agree."" 
 
 ' Rather ! It 's the height of human felicitv, Mr. 
 Spicer. I envy you vastly.' 
 
 ' Well, sir, I "m rather disposed to look at it in that 
 li<rht mvself. Mv nature is not discontented, Mr. 
 (roldthorpe. liut, sir, if vou could have seen nie when 
 the lawvcr began to explain about the houses ! I was 
 absolutely ignorant of the leasehold system ; and at first 
 I really couldn't understand. The lawyer thought me 
 a fool, I fear, sir. And when I came down here and saw 
 the houses themselves ! I 'm afraid, Mr. Goldthorpe, 
 I'm reallv afraid, sir, I was weak enough to shed a 
 tear."' 
 
 Thev were sitting bv the light of a very small lamp, 
 which did not tend to cheerfulness. 
 
 'Come,'' cried Goldthorpe, 'after all, the houses are 
 yours for a twelvemonth. A\'hy shouldn't we both live 
 on here all the time.'* It'll be a little breezy in winter, 
 but we could have the fireplaces knocked into shape, 
 and keej) up good fires. When I've sold my book I'll 
 j)av a higher rent, Mr. Spicer. I like the old house, 
 upon mv word I do ! Come, let us have a tune before 
 wo go to bed.' 
 
 Smiling and happv, Mr. Spicer fetched from the 
 cu|)b()ard liis concertina, aiid after the usual apology for 
 what he called his ' im))erfect mastery of the instrument,' 
 sat down to plav ' Home, Sweet Home.' He had played 
 it for years, and evidently would never improve in his 
 execution. After 'Home, Sweet Home' came 'The 
 liluebells of Scotland,' after that ' Ainiie Laurie'; and 
 Mr. Spicer's re])ertorv was at an end. He talked of
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 17 
 
 jlearning new pieces, but there was not the slightest 
 jhope of this achievement. 
 
 Mr. Spicer's mental development had ceased more 
 
 than twenty years ago, when, after extreme efforts, he 
 
 had attained the qualification of chemist's assistant. 
 
 j Since then the world had stood still with him. Though 
 
 la true lover of books, he knew nothing of any that had 
 
 been published during his own lifetime. His father, 
 
 though very poor, had possessed a little collection of 
 
 volumes, the very same which now stood in Mr. Spicer's 
 
 'cupboard. The authors represented in this library were 
 
 ! either English classics or obscure writers of the early 
 
 part of the nineteenth century. Knowing these books 
 
 [very thoroughly, Mr. Spicer sometimes indulged in a 
 
 I quotation which would have puzzled even the erudite. 
 
 j His favourite poet was Cowper, whose moral sentiments 
 
 I greatly soothed him. He spoke of Byron like some con- 
 
 j temporary who, whilst admitting his lordship's genius, felt 
 
 an abhorrence of his life. He judged literature solely 
 
 from the moral point of view, and was incapable of 
 
 understanding any other. Of fiction he had read very 
 
 little indeed, for it was not regarded with favour by his 
 
 parents. Scott was hardly more than a name to him. 
 
 And though he avowed acquaintance with one or two 
 
 works of Dickens, he spoke of them with an uneasy 
 
 smile, as if in some doubt as to their tendency. With 
 
 these intellectual characteristics, Mr. Spicer naturally 
 
 found it difficult to appreciate the attitude of his 
 
 literary friend, a young man whose brain thrilled in 
 
 response to modern ideas, and who regarded himself as 
 
 the destined leader of a new school of fiction. Not 
 
 indiscreet, Goldthorpe soon became aware that he had 
 
 better talk as little as possible of the work which
 
 18 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 
 
 absorbed his energies. He had enough liberality and 
 sense of humour to understand and enjoy his landlords 
 conversation, and the simple goodness of the man 
 inspired him with no little respect. Thus they got 
 along together remarkably well. Mr. S})icer never 
 ceased to feel himself honoured by the presence under 
 his roof of one who — as he was wont to say — wielded 
 the pen. The tradition of Grub Street was for him a 
 living fact. He thought of all authors as strugglin-,^ 
 with poverty, and continued to cite eighteenth-century 
 examples by way of encouraging Goldthorpe and animat- 
 ing his zeal. Whilst the young man was at work Mr. 
 Spicer moved about the house with soundless footsteps. 
 When invited into his tenant's room he had a reverential 
 demeanour, and the sight of manuscript on the bare deal 
 table caused him to subdue his voice. 
 
 The weeks went by, and Goldthorpe's novel steadily 
 progressed. In London he had only two or three 
 acquaintances, and from them he held aloof, lest neces- 
 sity or tempttition should lead to his spending money 
 which he could not spare. The few letters which he 
 received were addressed to a post-office — impossible to 
 shock the nerves of a postman by requesting him to 
 dehver correspondence at this dead house, of which the 
 front door had not been opened for years. The weather 
 was perfect ; a great deal of sunshine, but as yet no 
 oppressive heat, even in the chambers under the roof. 
 Towards the end of June Mr. Spicer began to amuse 
 himself with a little gardening. He had discovered in 
 the coal-hole an ancient fork, with one prong broken 
 and the others rusting away. This implement served 
 him in his slow, meditative attack on that part of the 
 jungle which seemed to offer least resistance. He would
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 19 
 
 work for a quarter of an hour, then, resting on his fork, 
 contemplate the tangled mass of vegetation which he 
 had succeeded in tearing up. 
 
 ' Our aim should be,' he said gravely, when Gold- 
 thorpe came to observe his progress, ' to clear the soil 
 round about those vegetables and flowers which seem 
 worth preserving. These broad-beans, for instance — 
 thev seem to be a very fine sort. And the Jerusalem 
 artichokes. I 've been making inquiry about the arti- 
 chokes, and I 'm told they are not ready to eat till 
 the autumn. The first frost is said to improve them. 
 They 're fine plants — very fine plants.' 
 
 Already the garden had supplied them with occasional 
 food, but they had to confess that, for the most part, 
 these wild vegetables lacked savour. The artichokes, 
 
 '& 
 
 now shooting up into a leafy grove, were the great 
 hope of the future. It would be deplorable to quit the 
 house before this tuber came to maturity. 
 
 ' The worst of it is,' remarked Mr. Spicer one day, 
 when he was perspiring freely, ' that I can't help think- 
 ing of how different it would be if this garden was 
 really my own. The fact is, Mr. Goldthorpe, I can't 
 put much heart into the work ; no, I can't. The more 
 I reflect, the more indignant I become. Really now, 
 Mr. Goldthorpe, speaking as an intellectual man, as 
 a man of imagination, could anything be more cruelly 
 unjust than this leasehold system ? I assure you, it 
 keeps me awake at night ; it really does.' 
 
 The tenor of his conversation proved that Mr. Spicer 
 had no intention of leaving the house until he was 
 legally obliged to do so. More than once he had an 
 interview with his late uncle's solicitor, and each time 
 he came back with melancholy brow. All the details of
 
 20 THE HOl'SE OF COBWEBS 
 
 the storv were now familiar to him ; he knew all about 
 the lawsuits which had ruined the property. Whenever 
 he spoke of the ground-landlord, known to liiin only by 
 name, it was with a severity such as he never })ermitted 
 himself on any other subject. The ground-landlord was, 
 to his mind, an embodiment of social injustice. 
 
 ' Never in my life, Mr. Goklthorjie, did 1 grudge any 
 pavment of monev as I grudge the ground-rent of these 
 houses. I feel it as robbery, sir, as sheer robbery, 
 though the sum is so small. When, in my ignorance, 
 the matter was first explained to me, I wondered why 
 my uncle had continued to pay this rent, the houses 
 being of no profit to him. But now I understand, Mr. 
 Goldthorpe ; the sense of possession is very sweet. Pro- 
 perty 's property, even when it's leasehold and in ruins. 
 I grudge the ground-rent bitterly, but I feel, sir, that 
 I couldn't bear to lose my houses until the fatal 
 moment, when lose them I must.' 
 
 In August the thermometer began to mark high 
 degrees. Goldthorpe found it necessary to dispense 
 with coat and waistcoat when he was working, and at 
 times a treacherous languor whispered to him of the 
 delights of idleness. After one particularly hot day, he 
 and his landlord smoked together in the dusking garden, 
 both unusually silent. Mr. Spicer's eye dwelt upon the 
 great heap of weeds which was resulting from his labour; 
 an odour somewhat too poignant arose from it upon the 
 close air. Goldthorpe, who had been rather headachy 
 all dav, was trying to think into perfect clearness the 
 last chaj)ters of his book, and found it diflicult. 
 
 ' You know,' he said all at once, with an impatient 
 movement, ' we ought to be at the seaside.' 
 
 'The seaside.^' echoed his comj)anion, in surprise.
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 21 
 
 * Ah, it ""s a long time since I saw the sea, Mr. Gold- 
 thorpe. Why, it must be — yes, it is at least twenty 
 years.' 
 
 ' Really ? I \e been there every year of my life till 
 this. One gets into the way of thinking of luxuries as 
 necessities. I tell you what it is. If I sell my book 
 as soon as it 's done, we '11 have a few days somewhere 
 on the south coast together.' 
 
 Mr. Spicer betrayed uneasiness. 
 
 ' I should like it much,' he murmured, ' but I fear, 
 Mr, Goldthorpe, I greatly fear I can't afford it.' 
 
 ' Oh, but I mean that you shall go with me as my 
 guest ! But for vou, Mr. Spicer, I might never have 
 got my book written at all.' 
 
 ' I feel it an honour, sir, I assure you, to have a 
 literary man in my house,' was the genial reply. ' And 
 you think the work will soon be finished, sir ? ' 
 
 Mr. Spicer always spoke of his tenant's novel as 
 ' the work ' — which on his lips had a very large and 
 respectful sound. 
 
 ' About a fortnight more,' answered Goldthorpe with 
 grave intensity. 
 
 The heat continued. As he lay awake before getting 
 up, eager to finish his book, yet dreading the torrid 
 temperature of his room, which made the brain sluggish 
 and the hand slow, Goldthorpe saw how two or three 
 energetic spiders had begun to spin webs once more at 
 the corners of the ceiling ; now and then he heard the 
 long buzzing of a fly entangled in one of these webs. 
 The same thing was happening in Mr. Spicer's chamber. 
 It did not seem worth while to brush the new webs 
 away. 
 
 ' When you come to think of it, sir,' said the landlord.
 
 2« THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 
 
 'ifs the spiders who are the real owners of these 
 houses. When I go away, they'll be pulled down; 
 thev Ve not fit for human habitation. Only the spiders 
 are reallv at home here, and the fact is, sir, I don't feel 
 I have the riglit to disturb them. As a man of 
 imagination, Mr. Goldthorpe, you '11 understand my 
 thoughts ! ' 
 
 Onlv with a great effort was the novel finished. 
 Goldthorpe had lost his appetite (not, perhaps, alto- 
 gether a disadvantage), and he could not sleep ; a slight 
 fever seemed to be constantly upon him. But this 
 work was a question of life and death to him, and he 
 brought it to an end only a few davs after the term he 
 had set himself. The complete manuscript was exhibited 
 to Mr. Spicer, who expressed his profound sense of the 
 privilege. Then, without delay, Goldthorpe took it to 
 the publishing house in which he had most hope. 
 
 The young author could now do nothing but wait, 
 and, under the circumstances, waiting meant torture. 
 His money was all but exhausted ; if he could not 
 speedily sell the book, his position would be that of 
 a mere pauper. Supported thus long by the artists 
 enthusiasm, he fell into despondency, saw the dark side 
 of things. To be sure, his mother (a widow in narrow 
 circumstances) had written pressing him to take a holi- 
 day ' at home,' but he dreaded the thought of going 
 penniless to his mother's house, and there, perchance 
 receiving bad news about his book. An uglv feature of 
 the situation was that he continued to feel anything but 
 well ; indeed, he felt sure that he was getting worse. 
 At night he suffered severely; sleep had almost forsaken 
 him. Hour after hour he lay listening to mysterious 
 noises, strange crackings and creakings through the
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 23 
 
 desolate house ; sometimes he imagined the sound of 
 footsteps in the bare rooms below ; even hushed voices, 
 from he knew not where, chilled his blood at midnight. 
 Since crumbs had begun to lie about, mice were 
 common ; they scampered as if in revelry above the 
 ceil in o;, and under the floor, and within the walls. 
 Goldthorpe began to dislike this strange abode. He 
 felt that under any circumstances it would be impossible 
 for him to dwell here much longer. 
 
 When his last coin was spent, and he had no choice 
 but to pawn or sell something for a few days' subsist- 
 ence, the manuscript came back upon his hands. It had 
 been judged — declined. 
 
 That morning he felt seriously unwell. After making 
 known the catastrophe to Mr. Spicer — who was stricken 
 voiceless — he stood silent for a minute or two, then said 
 with quiet resolve : 
 
 ' It's all up. I Ve no money, and I feel as if I were 
 going to have an illness. I must say good-bye to you, 
 old friend."' 
 
 ' Mr. Goldthorpe ! ' exclaimed the other solemnly ; ' I 
 entreat you, sir, to do nothing rash ! Take heart, sir ! 
 
 Think of Samuel Johnson, think of Goldsmith ' 
 
 ' The extent of my rashness, Mr. Spicer, will be to 
 raise enough money on my watch to get down into 
 Derbyshire. I must go home. If I don't, you '11 have 
 the pleasant job of taking me to a hospital.' 
 
 Mr. Spicer insisted on lending him the small sum he 
 needed. An hour or two later they were at St. Pancras 
 Station, and before sunset Goldthorpe had found har- 
 bourage under his mother's roof. There he lay ill for 
 more than a month, and convalescent for as long again. 
 His doctor declared that he must have been living in some
 
 24 THE HOUSE OF COBUEBS 
 
 very unhealthy place, but the young man preferred to 
 explain his illness by overwork. It seemed to him sheer 
 ingratitude to throw blame on Mr. Spicer's house, where 
 he had been so contented and worked so well until the 
 hot days of latter August. Mr. Spicer himself wrote 
 kind and odd little letters, giving an account of the 
 garden, and earnestly hoping that his literary friend 
 would be back in London to taste the Jerusalem arti- 
 chokes. But Christmas came and went, and Goldthor])e 
 was still at his mother's house. 
 
 Meanwhile the manuscript had gone from publisher 
 to publisher, and at length, on a day in January — date 
 ever memorable in Goldthorpe's life — there arrived a 
 short letter in which a certain firm dryly intimated their 
 approval of the story offered them, and their willingness 
 to purchase the copyright for a sum of fifty pounds. 
 The next morning the triumphant author travelled to 
 London. For two or three days a violent gale had 
 been blowing, with much damage throughout the 
 country ; on his journey Goldthorpe saw many great 
 trees lying prostrate, beaten, as though scornfully, by 
 the cold rain which now descended in torrents. Arrived 
 in town, he went to the house where he had lodged in 
 the time of comj)arative prosperity, and there was lucky 
 enough to find his old rooms vacant. On the morrow j 
 he called upon the gracious publishers, and after that, 
 under a sky now become more gentle, he took his way 
 towards the abode of Mr. Spicer. 
 
 Eager to communicate the joyous news, glad in the 
 jjrospect of seeing his simple-hearted friend, he went at 
 a great pace up the ascending road. There were the 
 three houses, looking drearier than ever in a faint gleam 
 of winter sunshine. There were his old windows. But
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 25 
 
 — what had happened to the roof? He stood in 
 astonishment and apprehension, for, just above the room 
 where he had dwelt, the roof was an utter wreck, show- 
 ing a great hole, as if something had fallen upon it with 
 crushing weight. As indeed was the case ; evidently 
 the chimney-stack had come down, and doubtless in the 
 recent gale. Seized with anxiety on Mr. Spicer's 
 account, he ran round to the back of the garden and 
 tried the door ; but it was locked as usual. He strained 
 to peer over the garden wall, but could discover nothing 
 that threw light on his friend's fate ; he noticed, however, 
 a great grove of dead, brown artichoke stems, seven or 
 eight feet high. Looking up at the back windows, he 
 shouted Mr. Spicer''s name ; it was useless. Then, in 
 serious ala,rm, he betook himself to the house on the other 
 side of the passage, knocked at the door, and asked of 
 the woman who presented herself whether anything was 
 known of a gentleman who dwelt where the chimney- 
 stack had just fallen. News was at once forthcoming ; 
 the event had obviously caused no small local excite- 
 ment. It was two days since the falling of the chimnev, 
 which happened towards evening, when the gale blew its 
 hardest. Mr. Spicer was at that moment sitting before 
 the fire, and only by a miracle had he escaped destruc- 
 tion, for an immense weight of material came down 
 through the rotten roof, and even broke a good deal of 
 the flooring. Had the occupant been anywhere but 
 close by the fireplace, he must have been crushed to a 
 mummy ; as it was, only a few bricks struck him, 
 inflicting severe bruises on back and arms. But the 
 shock had been serious. When his shouts from the 
 window at length attracted attention and brought help, 
 the poor man had to be carried downstairs, and in
 
 26 '11 IE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 
 
 a thoroughly helpless state was removed to the nearest 
 hospital. 
 
 'Which room was he in?' inquired Goldthorj)e. 
 ' Back or front ? ' 
 
 ' In the front room. The back wasn't touched." 
 
 Musing on Mr. Spicer's bad luck — for it seemed as if 
 he had changed from the back to the front room just in 
 order that the chimney might fall on him — Goldthorpe 
 hastened away to the hosj)ital. He could not be 
 admitted to-day, but heard that his friend was doing 
 very well ; on the morrow he would be allowed to see 
 him. 
 
 So at the visitors' hour Goldthorpe returned. Enter- 
 ing the long accident ward, he searched anxiouslv for 
 the familiar face, and caught sight of it just as it began 
 to beam recognition. Mr. Spicer was sitting up in bed ; 
 he looked pale and meagre, but not seriously ill ; his 
 voice (juivered with delight as he greeted the young man. 
 
 ' I heard of your inquiring for me yesterdav, Mr. 
 Goldthorpe, and I've hardly been able to live for im- 
 patience to see you. How are you, sir ? How are 
 you .^ And what news about the work^ sir.^' 
 
 ' We'll talk about that i)resently, Mr. Spicer. Tell 
 me all about your accident. How came vou to be in 
 the front room .'' ' 
 
 ' Ah, sir,' rejjlied the patient, with a little shake of 
 the head, 'that indeed was singular. Onlv a icw days 
 before, I had made a removal from mv room into vours. 
 I call it vours, sir, for I always thought of it as vours : 
 but thank heaven you were not there. Only a few days 
 before. I took that step, Mr. Goldthorpe, for two 
 reasons : first, because water was coming through the 
 roof at the back in rather unpleasant quantities, and
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS 27 
 
 secondly, because I hoped to get a little morning sun 
 in the front. The fact is, sir, my room had been just 
 a little depressing. Ah, Mr. Goldthorpe, if you knew 
 how I have missed you, sir ! But the work — what news 
 of the worJc ? ' 
 
 Smiling as though carelessly, the author made known 
 his good fortune. For a quarter of an hour Mr. Spicer 
 could talk of nothing else. 
 
 'This has completed my cure!' he kept repeating. 
 ' The work was composed under my I'oof, my own roof, 
 sir ! Did I not tell you to take heart .'' ' 
 
 ' And where are you going to live ? ' asked Gold- 
 thorpe presently. ' You can't go back to the old 
 house.' 
 
 ' Alas ! no, sir. All my life I have dreamt of the joy 
 of owning a house. You know how the dream was; 
 realised, Mr. Goldthorpe, and you see what has come of 
 it at last. Probably it is a chastisement for overween- 
 ing desires, sir. I should have remembered my position, 
 and kept my wishes within bounds. But, Mr. Gold- 
 thorpe, I shall continue to cultivate the garden, sir. I 
 shall put in spring lettuces, and radishes, and mustard 
 and cress. The property is mine till midsummer day. 
 You shall eat a lettuce of my growing, Mr. Goldthorpe ; 
 I am bent on that. And how I grieve that you weie 
 not with me at the time of the artichokes — just at the 
 moment when they were touched by the first frost ! ' 
 
 ' Ah ! They were really good, Mr. Spicer ? ' 
 
 'Sir, they seemed good to me, very good. Just at 
 the moment of the first frost ! '
 
 A CAPITALIST 
 
 Amox(; the men whom I saw occasionally at the little 
 club in Mortimer Street, — and nowhere else, — was one 
 who drew my attention before I had learnt his name or 
 knew anything about him. Of middle age, in the full- 
 ness of health and vigour, but slenderly built; his face 
 rather shrewd than intellectual, interesting rather than 
 pleasing; always dressed as the season's mode dictated, 
 but without dandyism ; assuredly he belonged to the 
 money-spending, and probably to the money-getting, 
 world. At first sight of him I remember resenting his 
 cap-a-pie perfection ; it struck me as bad form — here 
 in Mortimer Street, among fellows of the pen and the 
 palette. 
 
 ' Oh,' said Ilarvey Mundcn, ' he 's afraid of being taken 
 foi- one of us. He buys pictures. Not a bad sort, I 
 believe, if it weren't for his snobbishness.' 
 
 'His name .'' ' 
 
 ' Ireton. Has a house in Fitzjohn Avenue, and a 
 high-trotting wife.' 
 
 Six months later I recalled this description of Mrs. 
 Ireton. She was the talk of the town, the heroine of 
 the newest divorce case. By that time I had got to 
 know lior husband ; perhaps once a fortnight we chatted 
 at the club, and I found him an agreeable acquaintance. 
 Jiefore the Divorce Court Hashed a light of scandal upon 
 
 28
 
 A CAPITALIST 29 
 
 his home, I felt that there was more in him than could 
 be discovered in casual gossip ; I wished to know him 
 better. Something of shyness marked his manner, and 
 like all shy men he sometimes appeared arrogant. He 
 had a habit of twisting his moustache nervously and of 
 throwing quick glances in every direction as he talked ; 
 if he found some one's eye upon him, he pulled himself 
 together and sat for a moment as if before a photo- 
 grapher. One easily perceived that he was not a man 
 of liberal education ; he had rather too much of the 
 ' society ' accent ; his pronunciation of foreign names 
 told a tale. But I thought him good-hearted, and 
 when the penny-a-liners began to busy themselves with 
 his affairs, I felt sorry for him. 
 
 Nothing to his dishonour came out in the trial. He 
 and his interesting spouse had evidently lived a cat-and- 
 dog life throughout the three years of their marriage, 
 but the countercharges brought against him broke down 
 completely. It was abundantly proved that he had not 
 kept a harem somewhere near Leicester Square ; that 
 he had not thrown a decanter at Mrs. Ireton. She, on 
 the other hand, left the court with tattered reputation. 
 Ireton got his release, and the weekly papers applauded. 
 
 But in Mortimer Street we saw him no more. Some 
 one said that he had gone to live in Paris ; some one 
 else reported that he had purchased an estate in Bucks. 
 Presently he was forgotten. 
 
 Some three years went by, and I was spending the 
 autumn at a village by the New Forest. One day I came 
 upon a man kneeling under a hedge, examining some 
 object on the ground, — fern or flower, or perhaps insect. 
 His costume showed that he was no native of the locality ; 
 I took him for a stray townsman, probably a naturalist.
 
 30 A CAPITALIST 
 
 He wore a straw hat and a roiiijh summer suit ; a wallet 
 hung from his shoulder. The .sound of mv steps on 
 crackling wood caused him to turn and look at me. 
 After a moment's hesitation I recognised Ireton. 
 
 And lie knew me ; he smiled, as I had often seen him 
 smile, witli a sort of embarrassment. We greeted each 
 other. 
 
 ' Look here,' he said at once, when the handshaking 
 was over, ' can you tell me what this little flower is .? ' 
 
 I stoojied, but was unable to give him the information 
 he desired. 
 
 ' Vou don't go in for that kind of thing ? ' 
 
 ' Well, no.' 
 
 ' I 'm having a turn at it. I want to know the flowers 
 and ferns, I have a book at my lodgings, and I look 
 the things up when I get home.' 
 
 His wallet contained a number of specimens; he 
 plucked up the little plant by the root, and stowed it 
 away. I watched him with curiosity. Perhaps I had 
 seen only his ])ublic side ; perhaps even then he was 
 capable of dressing roughly, and of rambling for liis 
 pleasure among fields and wood. But such a possibility 
 had never occurred to me. I wondered whether his bril- 
 liant wife had given him a disgust for the wavs of town. 
 If so, he was a more interesting man than I had supposed. 
 
 'Where are you staying?' he asked, after a glance 
 this way and that. 
 
 I named the village, two miles away. 
 
 ' Working ? ' 
 
 ' Idling merely.' 
 
 In a few minutes he overcame his reserve and began 
 to talk of the things which he knew interested me. We 
 discussed the books of the past season, the exhibitions,
 
 A CAPITALIST 31 
 
 the new men in letters and art. Ireton said that he 
 had been living at a wayside inn for about a week ; he 
 thought of moving on, and, as I had nothing to do, 
 suppose he came over for a few days to the village where 
 I was camped ? I welcomed the proposal. 
 
 ' There 's an inn, I dare say ? I like the little inns 
 in this part of the country. Dirty, of course, and the 
 cooking hideous ; but it 's pleasant for a change. I like 
 to be awoke by the cock crowing, and to see the grubby 
 little window when I open my eyes.' 
 
 I began to suspect that he had come down in the 
 world. Could his prosperity have been due to Mrs. 
 Ireton ? Had she carried off the money .'* He might 
 affect a liking for simple things when grandeur was no 
 lonsrer in his reach. Yet I remembered that he had 
 undoubtedly been botanising before he knew of my 
 approach, and such a form of pastime seemed to prove 
 him sincere. 
 
 By chance I witnessed his arrival the next morning. 
 He drove up in a farmer's trap, his luggage a couple of 
 large Gladstone-bags. That day and the next we spent 
 many hours together. His vanity, though not outgrown, 
 was in abeyance ; he talked with easy frankness, yet 
 never of what I much desired to know, his own history 
 and present position. It was his intellect that he re- 
 vealed to me. I gathered that he had given much time 
 to study during the past three years, and incidentally it 
 came out that he had been living abroad ; his improved 
 pronunciation of the names of French artists was very 
 noticeable. At his age — not less than forty-five — this 
 advance argued no common mental resources. Whether 
 he had suffered much, I could not determine ; at present 
 he seemed light-hearted enough.
 
 32 A CAPITALIST 
 
 Certainly there was no atKectation in his pursuit of 
 botanv ; a«>;ain and again I saw him glow with genuine 
 delight when he had identified a plant. After ail, this 
 might be in keeping with his character, for even in the 
 old days he had never exhibited — at all events to me — 
 a taste for the ignobler luxuries, and he had seemed 
 to me a very clean-minded man. I never knew any one 
 who refrained so absolutely from allusion, good or bad, 
 to his friends or accjuaintances. He might have stood 
 utterly alone in the world, a simple spectator of 
 civilisation. 
 
 At length I ventured upon a question. 
 
 ' You never see any of the Mortimer Street men ? ' 
 
 ' No,' he answered carelessly, ' I haven't come in their 
 way lately, somehow.' 
 
 That evening our ramble led us into an enclosure 
 where game was preserved. We had lost our way, and 
 Ireton, scornful of objections, struck across country, 
 making for a small plantation which he thought he 
 remembered. Here, among the trees, we were suddenly 
 face to face with an old gentleman of distinguished bear- 
 ing, who regarded us sternly. 
 
 ' Is it necessary,' he said, ' to tell you that you are 
 trespassing .'' ' 
 
 The tone was severe, but not offensive, I saw my 
 com])anion draw himself to his full height. 
 
 ' Not at all necessary,' he answered, in a voice that 
 sur])rised me, it was so nearly insolent. ' We are making 
 our way to the road as (juickly as possible.' 
 
 'Then be so good as to take the turning to the right 
 when you reach the field,' said our iidmonisher coldly. 
 And he turned his back upon us. 
 
 I looked at Ireton. To my astonishment he was
 
 A CAPITALIST 83 
 
 pallid, the lines of his countenance indicating fiercest 
 wrath. He marched on in silence till we had reached 
 the field. 
 
 ' The fellow took us for cheap-trippers, I suppose,' 
 then burst from his lips. 
 
 ' Not very likely."' 
 
 ' Then why the devil did he speak like that ? ' 
 
 The grave reproof had exasperated him ; he was 
 flushed and his hands trembled. I observed him with 
 the utmost interest, and it became clear from the angry 
 words he poured forth that he could not endure to be 
 supposed anything but a gentleman at large. Here 
 was the old characteristic ; it had merely been dormant. 
 I tried to laugh him out of his irritation, but soon saw 
 that the attempt was dangerous. On the way home he 
 talked very little ; the encounter in the wood had 
 thoroughly upset him. 
 
 Next morning he came into my room with a laugh 
 that I did not like ; he seated himself stiffly, looked at 
 me from beneath his knitted brows, and said in an 
 aggressive tone : 
 
 'I have got to know all about that impudent^ old 
 fellow.' 
 
 ' Indeed ? Who is he ? ' 
 
 ' A poverty-stricken squire, with an old house and 
 a few acres — the remnants of a large estate gambled 
 away by his father. I know him by name, and I 'm 
 quite sure that he knows me. If I had offered him my 
 card, as I thought of doing, I dare say his tone would 
 have changed.' 
 
 This pettishness amused me so much that 1 pretended 
 to be a little sore myself. 
 
 ' His poverty, I suppose, has spoilt his temper.'
 
 ;j4 A CAPITALIST 
 
 ' No doubt, — I can understand that," he added, with 
 a smile. " But I don't allow people to treat me like a 
 tramp. I .shall go up and see him this afternoon.' 
 
 ' And insist ou an apology ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, there "11 be no need of insisting. The fellow has 
 several unman-ied daughters.' 
 
 It seemed to me that my companion was bent on 
 showing his worst side. I returned to my old thoughts 
 of him ; he was snobbish, insolent, generally detestable; 
 but a man to be studied, and I let him talk as he 
 would. 
 
 The reduced squire was Mr. Humphrey Armitage, of 
 Brack ley Hall. For my own part, the demeanour of 
 this gentleman had seemed perfectly adapted to the 
 occasion ; we were strangers plunging through his pre- 
 serves, and his tone to us had nothing improper ; it was 
 we who owed an apology. In point of breeding, I felt 
 sure that Ireton could not compare with Mr. Armitage 
 for a moment, and it seemed to me vastly improbable 
 that the invader of Brackley Hall would meet with the 
 kind of reception he anticipated. 
 
 I saw Ireton when he set out to pay his call. His 
 Gladstone-bags had provided him with the costume of 
 Piccadiliv ; from shining hat to patent-leather shoes, 
 he was immaculate. Seeing that he had to walk more 
 than a mile, that the month was September, and that 
 he could not pretend to have come straight from town, 
 this apparel struck me as not a little inappropriate ; I 
 could only suppose that the man had no social tact. 
 
 At seven in the evening he again sought me. His 
 urban glories were exchanged for the ordinary attire, 
 but I at once read in his face that he had suffered no 
 humiliation.
 
 A CAPITALIST 85 
 
 * Come and dine with me at the inn,' he exclaimed 
 cordially ; ' if one may use such a word as dine under 
 the circumstances.'' 
 
 ' With pleasure.' 
 
 ' To-morrow I dine with the Armitages.' 
 
 He regarded me with an air of infinite satisfaction. 
 Surprised, I held my peace. ' It was as I foresaw. The 
 old fellow welcomed me with open arms. His daughters 
 gave me tea. I had really a very pleasant time."" 
 
 I mused and wondered. 
 
 ' You didn't expect it ; I can see that.' 
 
 ' You told me that Mr. Armitage would recognise 
 your name,' I answered evasively. 
 
 'Precisely. Not long ago I gave him, through an 
 agent, a very handsome price for some pictures he had 
 to sell.' 
 
 Again he looked at me, watching the effect of his 
 words. 
 
 ' Of course,' he continued, * there were ample apologies 
 for his treatment of us yesterday. By the bye, I take it 
 for granted you don't carry a dress-suit in your bag ? ' 
 
 ' Heaven forbid ! ' 
 
 ' To be sure — pray don't misunderstand me. I meant 
 that you had expressly told me of your avoidance of all 
 such formalities. Therefore you will be glad that I 
 excused you from dining at the Hall.' 
 
 For a moment I felt uncomfortable, but after all I 
 was glad not to have the trouble of refusing on my own 
 account. 
 
 'Thanks,' I said, 'you did the right thing.' 
 
 We walked over to the inn, and sat down at a rude 
 but not unsatisfying table. After dinner, Ireton pro- 
 posed that we should smoke in the garden. ' It 's quiet,
 
 36 A CAPITALIST 
 
 and we can talk.' The sun had just set ; the sky was 
 magnificent witii afterglow. Ireton's hint about privacy 
 led me to hope that he was going to talk more con- 
 fidentiallv than hitherto, and I soon found that I was 
 not mistaken. 
 
 ' Do you know/ he began, calling me by my name, ' I 
 fancy you have been criticising me — yes, I know you 
 have. You think I made an ass of myself about that 
 affair in the wood. Well, I have no doubt I did. 
 Now that it has turned out pleasantly, I can see and 
 admit that there was nothing to make a fuss about."' 
 
 I smiled. 
 
 ' Very well. Now, you Ve a writer. You like to get 
 at the souls of men. Suppose I show you a bit of 
 mine.' 
 
 He had drunk freely of the potent ale, and was now 
 sipping a strong tumbler of hot whisky. Possibly this 
 accounted in some measure for his communicativeness. 
 
 ' Up to the age of five-and-twentv I was clerk in a 
 drug warehouse. To this day even the faintest smell of 
 drugs makes my heart sink. If I can help it, I never 
 go into a chemist's shop. I was getting a pound a 
 week, and I not only lived on it, but kept up a decent 
 appearance. I always had a good suit of clothes for 
 Sundays and holidays — made at a tailor's in Ilolborn. 
 Since he disa|)j)eared I Ve never been able to find any one 
 who fitted me so well. I paid six-and-six a week for a 
 top bedroom in a street near Gray's Inn lioad. Did 
 you supj)()se I had gone through the mill .'' ' 
 
 I made no answer, and, after looking at me for a 
 moment, Ireton resumed : 
 
 •Tho.se were damned days! It wasn't the want of 
 good food and good lodgings that troubled me most, —
 
 A CAPITALIST 87 
 
 but the feeling that I was everybody's inferior. There 's 
 no need to tell you how I was brought up ; I was led to 
 expect better things, that 's enough. I never got used 
 to being ordered about. When I was told to do this or 
 that, I answered with a silent curse, — and I wonder it 
 didn't come out sometimes. That's my nature. If I 
 had been born the son of a duke, I couldn't have 
 resented a subordinate position more fiercely than I did. 
 And I used to rack my brain with schemes for getting 
 out of it. Many a night I have lain awake for hours, 
 trying to hit on some way of earning my living in- 
 dependently. I planned elaborate forgeries. I read 
 criminal cases in the newspapers to get a hint that I 
 might work upon. Well, that only means that I had 
 exhausted all the honest attempts, and found them all 
 no good. I was in despair, that 's all.' 
 
 He finishec' Wis whisky and shouted to the landlord, 
 who presently brought him another glass. 
 
 ' What 's that bird making the strange noise ? ' 
 
 ' A night-jar, I think.' 
 
 ' Nice to be sitting here, isn't it .'' I had rather be 
 here than in the swellest London club. Well, I was 
 going to tell you how I got out of that beastly life. 
 You know, I 'm really a very quiet fellow. I like simple 
 things ; but all my life, till just lately, I never had a 
 chance of enjoying them; of living as I chose. The 
 one thing I can't stand is to feel that I am looked 
 down upon. That makes a madman of me.' 
 
 He drank, and struck a match to relight his pipe. 
 
 ' One Saturday afternoon I went to an exhibition in 
 Coventry Street. The pictures were for sale, and 
 admission was free. I have always been fond of water- 
 colours ; at that time it was one of my ambitions to
 
 38 A CAPITALIST 
 
 possess a reallv good bit of landscape in water-colour, 
 but, of course, I knew that the prices were beyond me. 
 Well, I walked through the gallery, and there was one 
 thing that caught my fancy ; I kept going back to it 
 again and again. It was a bit of sea-coast by Ewart 
 .Alerrv, — do vou know him ? He died years ago ; his 
 pictures fetch a fairly good price now. As I was 
 looking at it, the fellow who managed the show came 
 up with a man and woman to talk about another 
 picture near me ; he tried his hardest to persuade them 
 to buv, but thev wouldn't, and I dare say it disturbed 
 his temper. Seeing him stand there alone, I stepped 
 up to him, and asked the price of the water-colour. He 
 just gave a look at me, and said, " Too much money 
 for you." 
 
 ' Now, you must remember that I was in ray best 
 clothes, and I certainly didn't look like »; ^.enniless clerk. 
 If the fellow had struck a blow at me, I couldn't have 
 been more astonished than I was by that answer. 
 Astonishment was the first feeling, and it lasted about 
 a second ; then my heart gave a great leap, and began 
 to beat violently, and for a moment I couldn't see 
 anything, and I felt hot and cold by turns. I can 
 remember this as well as if it hapj)ened yesterday; I 
 must have gone through it in memory many thousands 
 of times,' 
 
 I observed his face, and saw that even now he suffered 
 from the recollection. 
 
 ' When he had spoken, the blackguard turned away. 
 I coukin't move, and the wonder is that I didn't swallow 
 his insult, and sneak out of the place, — I was so accus- 
 tomed, you see, to repress myself. But of a sudden 
 something took hold of me, and pushed me forward, — it
 
 A CAPITALIST 89 
 
 really didn't seem to be my own will. I said, " Wait a 
 minute " ; and the man turned round. Then I stood 
 looking him in the eyes. " Are you here," I said, " to 
 sell pictures, or to insult people who come to buy.?" 
 I must have spoken in a voice he didn't expect ; he 
 couldn't answer, and stared at me. " I asked you the 
 price of that water-colour, and you will be good enough 
 to answer me civilly." Those were my very words. 
 They came without thinking, and afterwards I felt 
 satisfied with myself when I remembered them. It 
 wouldn't have been unnatural if I had sworn at him, 
 but this was the turning-point of my life, and I behaved 
 in a way that surprised myself. At last he replied, 
 " The price is forty guineas," and he was going off again, 
 but I stopped him. " I will buy it. Take my name 
 and address." " When will it be paid for ? " he asked. 
 " On Monday." 
 
 ' I followed him to the table, and he entered my 
 name and address in a book. Then I looked straight 
 at him again. " Now, you understand," I said, " that that 
 picture is mine, and I shall either come or send for it 
 about one o'clock on Monday. If I hadn't wanted it 
 specially, you would have lost a sale by your imperti- 
 nence." And I marched out of the room. 
 
 ' But I was in a fearful state. I didn't know where 
 I was going, — I walked straight on, street after street, 
 and just missed being run over half a dozen times. 
 Perspiration dripped from me. The only thing I knew 
 was that I had triumphed over a damned brute who had 
 insulted me. I had stopped his mouth ; he believed he 
 had made a stupid mistake ; he could never have ima- 
 gined that a fellow without a sovereign in the world was 
 speaking to him like that. If I had knocked him down,
 
 40 A CAPITALIST 
 
 the satisfaction would have been very slight in com- 
 parison.' 
 
 The fjlooni of nightfall had come upon us, and I 
 could no longer see his face distinctly, but his voice 
 told me that he still savoured that triumph. He spoke 
 with exultant passion. I was beginning to understand 
 Ireton. 
 
 * Isn't the storv interesting 't " he asked, after a pause. 
 
 ' Very. Pray go on.' 
 
 'Well, vou mustn't suppose that it was a mere bit of 
 crazy bravado. I knew how I was going to get the 
 monev — the forty guineas. And as so- n as I could 
 command mvself, I went to do the business. 
 
 ' A fellow-clerk in the drug warehouse had been 
 badly in want of monev not long before that, and I 
 knew he had borrowed twenty pounds from a loan office, 
 j)aving it back week by week, with heavy interest, out 
 of his screw, poor devil. I could do the same. I went 
 straijfht off' to the lender. It was a fellow called 
 Crowther ; he lived in Dean Street, Soho ; in a window 
 on the ground Hoor there was a card with " Sums from One 
 pound to a Hundred lent at short notice." I was lucky 
 enough to find him at home ; we did our business in a 
 little back room, where there was a desk and a couple 
 of chairs, and nothing else but dirt. I expected to find 
 an oldish man. hut he seemed about my own age, and 
 on the whole I didn't dislike the look of him, — a rather 
 handsome voung fellow, fairly well dressed, with a 
 taking sort of smile. I l)egan by telling him where I 
 was employed, and mentioned my fellow-clerk, whom he 
 knew. That made him quite cheerful ; he offered me a 
 diink, and we got on very well. But he thought forty 
 guineas a big sum ; would I tell him what I wanted it
 
 A CAPITALIST 41 
 
 for ? No, I wouldn''t do that. Well, how long would 
 it take me to pay it back ? Could I pay a pound a 
 week ? No, I couldn't. He began to shake his head 
 and to look at me thoughtfully. Then he asked no 
 end of questions, to find out who I was and what people 
 I had belonging to me, and what my chances were. 
 Then he made me have another drink, and at last I was 
 persuaded into telling him the whole story. First of 
 all he stared, and then he laughed ; I never saw a man 
 laugh more heartily. At last he said, " Why didn't you 
 tell me you had value in hand ? See here, I 'll look at 
 that picture on Monday morning, and I shouldn't 
 wonder if we can do business." This alarmed me, — I 
 was afraid he might get talking to the picture-dealer. 
 But he promised not to say a word about me. 
 
 * On Sunday I sent a note to the warehouse, saying 
 that I should not be able to come to business till 
 Monday afternoon. It was the first time I had ever 
 done such a thing, and I knew I could invent some story 
 to excuse myself. Most of that day I spent in bed ; I 
 didn't feel myself, yet it was still a great satisfaction 
 to me that I had got the better of that brute. On 
 Monday at twelve I kept the appointment in Dean 
 Street. Crowther hadn't come in, and I sat for a few 
 minutes quaking. When he turned up, he was quite 
 cheerful. " Look here ! " he said, " will you sell me that 
 picture for thirty pounds ? " "What then.?" I asked. 
 " Why, then you can pay me another thirty pounds, and 
 I'll give you twelve months to do it in. You shall 
 have your forty guineas at once." I tried to reflect, but 
 I was too agitated. However, I saw that to pay thirty 
 pounds in a year meant that I must live on about eight 
 shillings a week. " I don't know how I 'm to do it," I said.
 
 42 A CAPITALIST 
 
 He looked at me. " Well, I wont be hard on you. 
 IjOoIc here, you shall pay nie six bob a week till the 
 thirty (|uid's made up. Now, you can do that?"^ Yes, 
 I could do that, and I aojreed. In another ten minutes 
 our business was settled, — my signature wjui so shakv 
 that I might safely have disowned it afterwards. Then 
 we had a drink at a neighbouring pub, and we walked 
 together towards Coventry Street. Crowther was to 
 wait for me near the picture-dealer^s. 
 
 ' I entered with a bold step, promising myself pleasure 
 in a new triunijih over the brute. But he wasn't there. 
 I saw only an uncler-strapper. I had no time to lose, 
 for I must be at business bv two o'clock. I paid the 
 money — notes and gold — and took away the picture 
 under my arm. Of course, it had been removed from 
 the frame in which I first saw it, and the assistant 
 wrapped it up for me in brown })aper. At the street 
 corner I surrendered it to Crowther. " Come and see me 
 after business to-morrow,"" he said, " I should like to have 
 a bit more talk with you."" 
 
 ' So I had come out of it gloriously. I cared nothing 
 about losing the picture, and I didn't grieve over the 
 six shillings a week that I should have to pay for the 
 next two years. If I went into that gallery again, I 
 should be treated respectfully — that wtis sufKcient.' 
 
 He laughed, and for a minute or two we sat silent. 
 From the inn sounded rustic voices ; the village worthies 
 were gathered for their evening conversation. 
 
 ' That "'s the best part of my story,' said Ireton at 
 length. ' What followed is commonplace. Still, you 
 might like to hear how I bridged the gulf, from four- 
 teen shillings a week to the position I now hold. Well, 
 I got very intimate with Crowther, and found him
 
 A CAPITALIST 43 
 
 really a very decent fellow. He had a good many irons 
 in the fire. Besides his loan office, which paid much 
 better than you would imagine, he had a turf commission 
 agency, which brought him in a good deal of money, 
 and shortly after I met him he became part proprietor 
 of a club in Soho. He very soon talked to me in the 
 frankest way of all his doings ; I think he was glad to 
 be on friendly terms with me simply because I was 
 better educated and could behave decently. I don't 
 think he ever did anything illegal, and he had plenty 
 of good feeling, — but that didn't prevent him from 
 squeezing eighty per cent, or so out of many a poor 
 devil who had borrowed to save himself or his family 
 from starvation. That was all business ; he drew the 
 sharpest distinctions between business and private rela- 
 tions, and was very ignorant. I never knew a man so 
 superstitious. Every day he consulted signs and omens. 
 For instance, to decide whether the day was to be lucky 
 for him — in betting and so on — he would stand at 
 a street corner and count the number of white horses 
 that passed in five minutes ; if he had made up his 
 mind on an even number, and an even number passed, 
 then he felt safe in following his impulses for the day ; 
 if the number were odd, he would do little or no 
 speculation. When he was going to play cards for 
 money, he would find a beggar and give him something, 
 even if he had to walk a great distance to do it. He 
 often used to visit an Italian who kept fortune-telling 
 ■canaries, and he always followed the advice he got. It 
 put him out desperately if he saw the new moon through 
 glass, or over his left shoulder. There was no end to 
 his superstitions, and, whether by reason of them or in 
 spite of them, he certainly prospered. When he
 
 44 A CAPITALIST 
 
 died, ten or twelve years ago, he left fifteen thousand 
 pounds. 
 
 ' I have to thank him for my own good luck. " Look 
 here,*" he said to me, " it 's only duffers that go on 
 quill-driving at a quid a week. A fellow like you ought 
 to be doing better." " Show me the way," I said. And 
 I was ready to do whatever he told me. I had a furious 
 hunger for money ; the adventure in Coventry Street 
 had thoroughly unsettled me, and I would have turned 
 burglar rather than go on much longer as a wretched 
 slave, looked down upon by everybody, and exposed to 
 insult at every corner. I dreamed of money-making, 
 and woke up feverish with determination. At last 
 Crowther gave me a few jobs to do for him in my 
 off-time. Thev weren't very nice jobs, and I shouldn't 
 like to explain them to you ; but they brought me in 
 half a sovereign now and then. I began to get an 
 insight into the baser modes of filling one's pocket. 
 Then something happened ; my mother died, and I 
 became the owner of a house at Notting Hill of fifty 
 pounds rental. I talked over my situation with 
 Crowther, and he advised me, as it turned out, thor- 
 oughly well. I was to raise money on this house, — not 
 to sell it, — and take shares in a new music-hall which 
 Crowther was connected with. There's no reason why 
 I shouldn't tell you ; it was the Marlborough. I did 
 take shares, and at the end of the second twelve months 
 I was drawing a dividend of sixty per cent. I have 
 never drawn less than thirty, and the year before last we 
 touched seventy-five. At present I am a shareholder in 
 three other halls, — and they don't do badly. 
 
 ' I suppose it isn't only good luck ; no doubt I have 
 & sort of talent for money-making, but I never knew it
 
 A CAPITALIST 45 
 
 before I met Crowther. By just opening my eyes to 
 the fact that money could be earned in other ways than 
 at the regular kinds of employment, he gave me a start, 
 and I went ahead. There isn"'t a man in the world has 
 suffered more than I have for want of money, and no 
 one ever worked with a fiercer resolve to get out of the 
 hell of contemptible poverty. It would fill a book, the 
 history of my money-making. The first big sum I ever 
 was possessed of came to me at the age of two-and- 
 thirty, when I sold a proprietary club (the one Crowther 
 had a share in and which I had ultimately got into my 
 own hands) for nine thousand pounds ; but I owed about 
 half of this. I went on and on, and I got into society ; 
 that came through the Marlborough,- — a good story, but 
 I mustn't tell it. At last I married — a rich woman.' 
 
 He paused, and I thought, but was not quite sure, 
 that I heard him sigh. 
 
 ' We won't talk about that either. I shall not marry 
 a rich woman again, that 's all. In fact, I don't care 
 for such people ; my best friends, real friends, are all 
 more or less strugglers, and perhaps there 's no harm in 
 saying that it gives me pleasure to help them when I 've 
 a chance. I like to buy a picture of a poor devil artist. 
 I like to smoke my pipe with good fellows who never go 
 out of their way for money's sake. All the same, it 's 
 a good thing to be well off. But for that, now, I 
 couldn't make the acquaintance of such people as these 
 at Brackley Hall. I more than half like them. Old 
 Armitage is a gentleman, and looks back upon generations 
 of gentlemen, his ancestors. Ah ! you can't buy that .*" 
 And his daughters are devilish nice girls, with sweet 
 soft voices. I 'm glad the old fellow met us vesterdav.' 
 
 It was now dark ; I looked up and saw the stars^
 
 46 A CAPITALIST 
 
 brightening. We sat for another quarter of an hour, 
 each busy with his own thoughts, then rose and parted 
 for the night. 
 
 A week later, when I returned to London, Ireton was 
 still living at the little inn, and a letter I received from 
 him at the beginning of October told me he had just 
 left. ' The country was exquisite that last week,' he 
 wrote ; — and it struck me that ' exquisite ' was a word 
 he must have caught from some one else's lips. 
 
 I heai'd from him again in the following January. 
 He wrote from the Isle of Wight, and informed me that 
 in the sj)nng he was to be married to Miss Ethel Armi- 
 tage, second daughter of Humphrey Armitage, Esq., 
 of Brackley Hall.
 
 CHRISTOPHERSON 
 
 It was twenty years ago, and on an evening in May. 
 All day long there had been sunshine. Owing, doubt- 
 less, to the incident I am about to relate, the light and 
 warmth of that long-vanished day live with me still ; I 
 can see the great white clouds that moved across the 
 strip of sky before my window, and feel again the spring 
 languor which troubled my solitary work in the heart 
 of London. 
 
 Only at sunset did I leave the house. There was an 
 unwonted sweetness in the air ; the long vistas of newly 
 lit lamps made a golden glow under the dusking flush 
 of the sky. With no purpose but to rest and breathe, 
 I wandered for half an hour, and found myself at 
 length where Great Portland Street opens into Maryle- 
 bone Road. Over the way, in the shadow of Trinity 
 Church, was an old bookshop, well known to me : the 
 gas-jet shining upon the stall with its rows of volumes 
 drew me across. I began turning over pages, and — 
 invariable consequence — fingering what money I had in 
 my pocket. A certain book overcame me ; I stepped 
 into the little shop to pay for it. 
 
 While standing at the stall, I had been vaguely 
 aware of some one beside me, a man who also was looking 
 over the books ; as I came out again with my purchase, 
 this stranger gazed at me intently, with a half-smile of
 
 48 CHRISTOPHERSON 
 
 peculiar interest. He seemed about to say something. 
 I walked slowlv away ; the man moved in the same 
 direction. Just in front of the church he made a 
 quick movement to my side, and spoke. 
 
 ' Prav excuse me, sir — don't misunderstand me — I 
 only wished to ask whether you have noticed the name 
 written on the flyleaf of the book you have just 
 bought .'' ' 
 
 The respectful nervousness of his voice naturally 
 made me suppose at first that the man was going to 
 beg ; but he seemed no ordinary mendicant. I judged 
 him to be about sixty years of age ; his long, thin hair 
 and straggling beard were grizzled, and a somewhat 
 rheumv eye looked out from his bloodless, hollowed 
 countenance ; he was very shabbily clad, yet as a fallen 
 gentleman, and indeed his accent made it clear to what 
 class he originally belonged. The expression with which 
 he regarded me had so much intelligence, so much good- 
 nature, and at the same time such a pathetic diffidence, 
 -that I could not but answer him in the friendliest way. 
 I had not seen the name on the flyleaf, but at once I 
 opened the book, and by the light of a gas-lamp read, 
 inscribed in a verv fine hand, ' VV. R. Christopherson, 
 1849.' 
 
 ' It is my name,' said the stranger, in a subdued and 
 uncertain voice. 
 
 ' Indeed ? The book used to belong to you .'' ' 
 
 ' It belonged to me.' He laughed oddly, a tremulous 
 little crow of a laugh, at the same time stroking his 
 head, as if to deprecate disbelief. ' You never heard of 
 the sale of the Christopherson library ? To be sure, 
 you were too young; it was in 18()0. I have often 
 come across books with inv name in them on the stalls
 
 CHRISTOPHERSON 49 
 
 — often. I had happened to notice this just before you 
 came up, and when I saw you look at it, I was curious 
 to see whether you would buy it. Pray excuse the 
 freedom I am taking. Lovers of books — don't you 
 think ? ' 
 
 The broken question was completed by his look, and 
 when I said that I quite understood and agreed with 
 him he crowed his little laugh. 
 
 ' Have you a large library ? ' he inquired, eyeing me 
 wistfully. 
 
 ' Oh dear, no. Onlv a few hundred volumes. Too 
 many for one who has no house of his own.' 
 
 He smiled good-naturedly, bent his head, and mur- 
 mui'ed just audibly : 
 
 'My catalogue numbered 24,718.' 
 
 I was growing curious and interested. Venturing no 
 more direct questions, I asked whether, at the time he 
 spoke of, he lived in London. 
 
 ' If you have five minutes to spare,' was the timid 
 reply, ' I will show you my house. I mean ' — again the 
 little crowing laugh — ' the house which was mine.' 
 
 Willingly I walked on with him. He led me a short 
 distance up the road skirting Regent's Park, and paused 
 at length before a house in an imposing terrace. 
 
 ' There,' he whispered, ' I used to live. The window 
 to the right of the door — that was my library. Ah ! ' 
 
 And he heaved a deep sigh. 
 
 ' A misfortune befell you,' I said, also in a subdued 
 voice. 
 
 ' The result of my own folly. I had enough for my 
 needs, but thought I needed more. I let mvself be 
 drawn into business — I, who knew nothing of such 
 things — and there came the black day — the black day.'
 
 50 CHRISTOPHERSON 
 
 We turned to retrace our steps, and walking slowly, 
 with heads bent, came in silence again to the church. 
 
 ' I wonder whether you have bought any other of my 
 books ? ' asked Christopherson, with his gentle smile, 
 when we had paused as if for leave-taking. 
 
 I replied that I did not remember to have come 
 across his name before ; then, on an impulse, asked 
 whether he would care to have the book I carried in 
 mv hand ; if so, with pleasure I would give it him. No 
 sooner were the words spoken than I saw the delight 
 thev caused the hearer. He hesitated, murmured re- 
 luctance, but soon gratefully accepted my olier, and 
 flushed with joy as he took the volume. 
 
 ' I still have a few books,' he said, under his breath, 
 as if he spoke of something he was ashamed to make 
 known. * But it is very rarely indeed that I can add 
 to them. I feel I have not thanked you half enough.' 
 
 We shook hands and parted. 
 
 Mv lodging at that time was in Camden Town. One 
 afternoon, perhaps a fortnight later, I had walked for 
 an hour or two, and on my way back I stopped at a 
 bookstall in the High Street. Some one came up to my 
 side ; I looked, and recognised Christopherson. Our 
 greeting was like that of old friends. 
 
 'I have seen vou several times latelv,"' said the broken 
 gentleman, who looked shabbier than before in the 
 broad davlight, 'but I — I didn't like to speak. I live 
 not far from here.' 
 
 ' Whv, so do I,' and I added, without much thinking 
 what I said, 'do you live alone.?' 
 
 ' Alone ? oh no. With my wife.' 
 
 There was a curious embarrassment in his tone. His 
 eyes were cast down and his head moved uneasily.
 
 CHRISTOPHERSON 51 
 
 We began to talk of the books on the stall, and 
 turning away together continued our conversation. 
 Christopherson was not only a well-bred but a very 
 intelligent and even learned man. On his giving some 
 proof of erudition (with the excessive modesty which 
 characterised him), I asked whether he wrote. No, he 
 had never written anything — never; he was only a book- 
 worm, he said. Thereupon he crowed faintly and took 
 his leave. 
 
 It was not long before we again met by chance. We 
 came face to face at a street corner in n)v neighbour- 
 hood, and I was struck by a change in him. He looked 
 older ; a profound melancholy darkened his counten- 
 ance ; the hand he gave me was limp, and his pleasure 
 at our meeting found only a faint expression. 
 
 ' I am going away,' he said in reply to my inquiring 
 look. ' I am leaving London.' 
 
 ' For good ? ' 
 
 ' I fear so, and yet' — he made an obvious effort — ' I 
 am glad of it. My wife's health has not been very 
 good lately. She has need of country air. Yes, I am 
 glad we have decided to go away — very glad — very glad 
 indeed ! ' 
 
 He spoke with an automatic sort of emphasis, his 
 eyes wandering, and his hands twitching nervously. I 
 was on the point of asking what part of the country he 
 had chosen for his retreat, when he abruptly added : 
 
 ' I live just over there. Will you let me show you 
 my books .'* ' 
 
 Of course I gladly accepted the invitation, and a 
 couple of minutes' walk brought us to a house in a 
 decent street where most of the ground-floor windows 
 showed a card announcing lodgings. As we paused at
 
 52 CHHlSTorilERSON 
 
 the door, my companion seemed to hesitate, to regret 
 having invited me. 
 
 ' I'm rcallv afraid it isn"'t worth your while,' he said 
 timidly. 'The tact is, I haven't space to show my 
 books properly.' 
 
 I put aside the objection, and we entered. With 
 anxious courtesy Christophereon led me up the narrow 
 staircase to the second-floor landing, and threw open a 
 door. On the threshold I stood astonished. The room 
 was a small one, and would in anv case have only just 
 sufficed for homely comfort, used as it evidently was for 
 all daytime purposes ; but certainly a third of the entire 
 space was occu[)ied by a solid mass of books, volumes 
 stacked several rows deep against two of the walls and 
 almost up to the ceiling. A round table and two or 
 three chairs were the only furniture — there was no 
 room, indeed, for more. The window being shut, and 
 the sunshine glowing ujion it, an intolerable stuffiness 
 oppressed the air. Never had I been made so uncom- 
 fortable by the odour of printed paper and bindings. 
 
 'But,' I exclaimed, 'you said you had only &. Jew 
 books ! There must be five times as manv here as I 
 have.' 
 
 ' I forget the exact number,' murmured Christopher- 
 son, in great agitation. ' You see, I can't arrange them 
 properly. I have a few more in — in the other room.' 
 
 He led me across the landing, opened another door, 
 • and showed me a little bedroom. Here the encumber- 
 ment was less remarkable, but one wall had completely 
 disappeared behind volumes, and the bookishness of the 
 air made it a disgusting thought that two persons 
 occuj)ied this chamber everv night. 
 
 We returned to the sitting-room, Christopherson
 
 CHRISTOPHERSON 53 
 
 began picking out books from the solid mass to show 
 nie. Talking nervously, brokenly, with now and then a 
 deep sigh or a crow of laughter, he gave me a little 
 light on his history. I learnt that he had occupied 
 these lodgings for the last eight years ; that he had 
 been twice married ; that the only child he had had, a 
 daughter by his first wife, had died long ago in child- 
 hood ; and lastly — this came in a burst of confidence, 
 with a very pleasant smile — that his second wife had 
 been his daughter's governess. I listened with keen 
 interest, and hoped to learn still more of the circum- 
 stances of this singular household. 
 
 ' In the country,' I remarked, ' you will no doubt 
 have shelf room .'' ' 
 
 At once his countenance fell ; he turned upon me a 
 woebegone eye. Just as I was about to speak again 
 sounds from within the house caught my attention ; 
 there was a heavy foot on the stairs, and a loud voice, 
 which seemed familiar to me. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' exclaimed Christopherson with a start, ' heie 
 comes some one who is going to help me in the removal 
 of the books. Come in, Mr. Pomfret, come in ! ' 
 
 The door opened, and there appeared a tall, wiry 
 fellow, whose sandy hair, light blue eyes, jutting jaw- 
 bones, and large mouth made a picture suggestive of 
 small refinement but of vigorous and wholesome 
 manhood. No wonder I had seemed to recognise his 
 voice. Though we only saw each other by chance at 
 long intervals, Pomfret and I were old acquaintances. 
 
 ' Hallo !' he roared out, 'I didn't know you knew 
 Mr. Christopherson.' 
 
 'I'm just as much surprised to find that you know 
 him ! ' was my reply.
 
 54 CHRISTOPHEHSON 
 
 The old book-lover gazed at us in nervous astonish- 
 ment, then shook hands with the newcomer, who greeted 
 him hlnfflv, vet respectfully. Ponifret spoke with a 
 strong Yorkshire accent, and had all the angularity of 
 demeanour which marks the typical Yorkshireman. He 
 came to announce that everything had been settled for 
 the packing and transporting of Mr. Christo^jherson's 
 library ; it remained only to decide the day. 
 
 'There's no hurrv/ exclaimed Christopherson. 
 ' There ""s really no hurry. I'm greatly obliged to you, 
 Mr. Pomfret, for all the trouble you are taking. We'll 
 settle the date in a day or two — a day or two.' 
 
 With a good-humoured nod Pomfret moved to take 
 his leave. Our eves met ; we left the house together. 
 Out in the street again I took a deep breath of the 
 summer air, which seemed sweet as in a meadow after 
 that stifling room. Mv companion evidently had a like 
 sensation, for he looked up to the sky and broadened 
 out his shoulders. 
 
 ' Eh, but it 's a grand day ! I 'd give something for 
 a walk on Ilkley Moors.' 
 
 As the best substitute within our reach we agreed to 
 walk across Regent's Park together. Pomfret's business 
 took him in that direction, and I was glad of a talk 
 about Christopherson. I learnt that the old book- 
 lover's landladv was Pomfret's aunt. C'hristopherson's 
 storv of affluence and ruin was quite true. Ruin 
 comj)lcte, for at the age of forty he had been 
 obliged to earn his living as a clerk or something 
 of the kind. About five vcars later came his second 
 marriage. 
 
 * You know Mrs. Christopherson?' asked Pomfret. 
 
 ' No ! I wish I did. Why = '
 
 CHRISTOPHERSON 55 
 
 ' Because she ''s the sort of woman it does you good to 
 know, that ^s all. She 's a lady — my idea of a lady. 
 Christopherson 's a gentleman too, there 's no denying it ; 
 if he wasn't, I think I should have punched his head 
 before now. Oh, I know 'em well ! why, I lived in the 
 house there with 'em for several years. She 's a lady to 
 the end of her little finger, and how her husband can 'a 
 borne to see her living the life she has, it 's more than I 
 
 can understand. By ! I 'd have turned burglar, 
 
 if I could 'a found no other way of keeping her in 
 comfort.' 
 
 ' She works for her living, then .^ ' 
 
 'Ay, and for his too. No, not teaching; she's 
 in a shop in Tottenham Court Road ; has what they 
 call a good place, and earns thirty shillings a week. 
 It 's all they have, but Christopherson buys books out 
 of it.' 
 
 ' But has he never done anything since their 
 marriage .? ' 
 
 ' He did for the first few years, I believe, but he had 
 an illness, and that was the end of it. Since then he 's 
 only loafed. He goes to all the book-sales, and spends 
 the rest of his time sniffing about the second-hand shops. 
 She ? Oh, she 'd never say a word ! Wait till you 've 
 seen her.' 
 
 ' Well, but,' I asked, ' what has happened. How is it 
 they 're leaving London ? ' 
 
 ' Ay, I '11 tell you ; I was coming to that. Mrs. 
 Christopherson has relatives well off — a fat and selfish 
 lot, as far as I can make out — never lifted a finger to 
 help her until now. One of them 's a Mrs. Keeting, the 
 widow of some City porpoise, I 'm told. Well, this woman 
 has a home down in Norfolk. She never lives there, but
 
 56 CHRISTOPHEUSON 
 
 a son of hers goes there to fish and shoot now and then. 
 Well, this is what Mrs. Christopherson tells my aunt, 
 Mrs. Keeting has offered to let her and her husband live 
 down yonder, rent free, and their food j)rovided. She 's 
 to be housekeeper, in fact, and keep the place ready for 
 any one who goes down.' 
 
 ' Christopherson, / can see, would rather stay where 
 he is.' 
 
 'Why, of course, he doesn't know how he'll live 
 without the bookshops. But he's glad for all that, on 
 his wife's account. And it 's none too soon, I can tell 
 you. The poor woman couldn't go on much longer ; 
 mv aunt says she's just about readv to drop, and some- 
 times, I know, she looks terribly bad. Of course, she 
 won't own it, not she ; she isn't one of the complaining 
 sort, liut she talks now and then about the country — 
 the places where she used to live. I Ve heard her, and 
 it gives me a notion of what she's gone through all 
 these years. I saw her a week ago, just when she 
 had Mrs. Keeting's offer, and I tell you I scarcely 
 knew who it was ! You never saw such a change in 
 any one in your life ! Her face was like that of a girl of 
 seventeen. And her laugh — you should have heard her 
 laugh ! ' 
 
 ' Is she much younger than her husband ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' Twenty years at least. She 's about forty, I think.* 
 
 I mused for a few moments. 
 
 'After all, it isn't an unhappy marriage.''' 
 
 ' Unhappy .'* ' cried Ponifret. ' Why, there 's never 
 been a disagreeal)le word between them, that I'll 
 warrant. Once Christopherson gets over the change, 
 they'll have nothing more in the world to ask for. 
 He'll potter over his books '
 
 CHRISTOPHERSON 57 
 
 * You mean to tell me,"* I interrupted, ' that those 
 books have all been bought out of his wife's thirty 
 shillings a week ?' 
 
 ' No, no. To begin with, he kept a few out of his 
 old library. Then, when he was earning his own living, 
 he bought a great many. He told me once that he's 
 often lived on sixpence a day to have money for books. 
 A rum old owl ; but for all that he 's a gentleman, and 
 you can't help liking him. I shall be sorry when he's 
 out of reach.' 
 
 For my own part, I wished nothing better than 
 to hear of Christopherson's departure. The story I 
 had heard made me uncomfortable. It was good to 
 think of that poor woman rescued at last from her life 
 of toil, and in these days of midsummer free to enjoy 
 the country she loved. A touch of envy mingled, I 
 confess, with my thought of Christopherson, who hence- 
 forth had not a care in the world, and without reproach 
 might delight in his hoarded volumes. One could not 
 imagine that he would suffer seriously by the removal of 
 his old haunts. I promised myself to call on him in a 
 day or two. By choosing Sunday, I might perhaps be 
 lucky enough to see his wife. 
 
 And on Sunday afternoon I was on the point of 
 setting forth to pay this visit, when in came Pomfret. 
 He wore a surly look, and kicked clumsily against 
 the furniture as he crossed the room. His appear- 
 ance was a surprise, for, though I had given him my 
 address, I did not in the least expect that he would 
 come to see me ; a certain pride, I suppose, character- 
 istic of his rugged strain, having always made him shy 
 of such intimacy. 
 
 ' Did you ever hear the like of that ! ' he shouted, half
 
 58 CimiSTOPHERSON 
 
 aiiorrily. ' It 's all over. They Ve not going ! And all 
 because of those blamed books ! ' 
 
 And spluttering and growling, he made known what 
 he had just learnt at his aunt's home. On the previous 
 afternoon the Christophersons had been surprised by a 
 visit from their relatives and would-be benefactress, Mrs. 
 Keeting. Never before had that lady called upon them ; 
 she came, no doubt (this could onlv be conjectured), to 
 speak with them of their approaching removal. The 
 close of the conversation (a verv brief one) was over- 
 heard by the landlady, for Mrs. Keeting spoke loudly as 
 she descended the stairs. ' Impossible ! Quite impos- 
 sible ! I couldn't think of it ! How could vou dream 
 for a moment that I would let you fill mv house with musty 
 old books .'' Most unhealthy ! I never knew anything so 
 extraordinary in my life, never ! " And so she went out 
 to her carriage, and was driven away. And the landlady, 
 presently having occasion to go upstairs, was aware 
 of a dead silence in the room where the Christojihersons 
 were sitting. She knocked — prepared with some excuse 
 — and found the couple side by side, smiling sadlv. At 
 once they told her the truth. Mrs. Keetin<; had come 
 because of a letter in which Mrs. Christopherson had 
 mentioned the fact that her husband had a good many 
 books, and hoped he might be permitted to remove 
 them to the house in Norfolk. She can)e to see the 
 lil)rary — with the result already heard. They had the 
 choice between sacrificing the books and losing what 
 their relative offered. 
 
 'Christopherson refused.''' I let fall. 
 
 ' I suppose his wife saw that it was too much 
 for him. At all events, they'd agreed to keep 
 the books and lose the house. And there's an end
 
 CHRISTOPHERSON 59 
 
 of it. I haven't been so riled about anything for a long 
 time ! ' 
 
 Meantime I had been reflecting. It was easy for me 
 to understand Christopherson's state of mind, and with- 
 out knowing Mrs. Keeting, I saw that she must be a 
 person whose benefactions would be a good deal of a 
 burden. After all, was Mrs. Christopherson so very 
 unhappy ? Was she not the kind of woman who lived 
 by sacrifice — one who had far rather lead a life dis- 
 agreeable to herself than change it at the cost of 
 discomfort to her husband ? This view of the matter 
 irritated Pomfret, and he broke into objurgations, 
 directed partly against Mrs. Keeting, partly against 
 Christopherson. It was an ' infernal shame,' that was 
 all he could say. And after all, I rather inclined to his 
 opinion. 
 
 When two or three days had passed, curiosity drew 
 me towards the Christophersons' dwelling. Walking 
 along the opposite side of the street, I looked up at their 
 window, and there was the face of the old bibliophile. 
 Evidently he was standing at the window in idleness, 
 perhaps in trouble. At once he beckoned to me ; but 
 before I could knock at the house-door he had descended, 
 and came out. 
 
 ' May I walk a little way with you .'' ' he asked. 
 
 There was worry on his features. For some moments 
 we went on in silence. 
 
 ' So you have changed your mind about leaving 
 London ? ' I said, as if carelessly. 
 
 ' You have heard from Mr. Pomfret ? Well — yes, 
 yes — I think we shall stay where we are — for the 
 present.' 
 
 Never have I seen a man more painfully embarrassed.
 
 60 CHRISTOPHEllSON 
 
 He walked with head bent, shoulders stooping; and 
 shuffled, indeed, rather than walked. Even so might a 
 man bear himself who felt guiltv of some peculiar 
 meanness. 
 
 Presently words broke from him. 
 
 'To tell you the truth, there's a difficulty about the 
 books.' He glanced furtively at me, and I saw he was 
 trembling in all his nerves. ' As vou see, my circum- 
 stances are not brilliant.' He half-choked himself with 
 a crow. ' The fact is we were offered a house in the 
 country, on certain conditions, by a relative of Mrs. 
 Christopherson ; and, unfortunately, it turned out that 
 my library is regarded as an objection — a fatal objec- 
 tion. VVe have quite reconciled ourselves to staying 
 where we are.' 
 
 I could not help asking, without emphasis, whether 
 Mrs. Christopherson would have cared for life in the 
 countrv. But no sooner were the words out of mv 
 mouth than I regretted them, so evidently did they hit 
 my companion in a tender place. 
 
 ' I think she would have liked it,' he answered, with 
 a strangely pathetic look at me, as if he entreated my 
 forbearance. 
 
 ' But," I suggested, ' couldn't you make some arrange- 
 ments about the books ? Couldn't you take a room for 
 them in another house, for instance .'' ' 
 
 Christopherson's face was sufficient answer ; it re- 
 minded me of his pennilessness. ' We think no more 
 about it,' he said. 'The matter is settled — quite 
 settled.' 
 
 M'here was no jiursuing the subject At the next 
 parting of the ways we took leave of each other. 
 
 I think it was not more than a week later when I
 
 CHRISTOPHERSON 61 
 
 received a postcard from Pomfret. He wrote : ' Just as 
 I expected. Mrs. C. seriously ill.' That was all. 
 
 Mrs. C. could, of course, only mean Mrs. Christo- 
 pherson. I mused over the message — it took hold of 
 my imagination, wrought upon my feelings ; and that 
 afternoon I again walked along the interesting street. 
 
 There was no face at the window. After a little 
 hesitation I decided to call at the house and speak with 
 Pomfret's aunt. It was she who opened the door to me. 
 
 We had never seen each other, but when I mentioned 
 my name and said I was anxious to have news of Mrs. 
 Christopherson, she led me into a sitting-room, and 
 began to talk confidentially. 
 
 She was a good-natured Yorkshirewoman, very unlike 
 the common London landlady. ' Yes, Mrs. Christo- 
 pherson had been taken ill two days ago. It began 
 with a long fainting fit. She had a feverish, sleepless 
 night ; the doctor was sent for ; and he had her removed 
 out of the stuffy, book-cumbered bedroom into another 
 chamber, which luckily happened to be vacant. There 
 she lay utterly weak and worn, all but voiceless, able 
 only to smile at her husband, who never moved from 
 the bedside day or night. He, too,' said the landlady, 
 * would soon break down : he looked like a ghost, and 
 seemed " half-crazed." ' 
 
 ' What,' I asked, ' could be the cause of this illness .'' 
 
 The good woman gave me an odd look, shook her 
 head, and murmured that the reason was not far to seek. 
 
 'Did she think,' I asked, 'that disappointment might 
 have something to do with it ? ' 
 
 Why, of course she did. For a long time the poor 
 lady had been all but at the end of her strength, and 
 this came as a blow beneath which she sank
 
 68 CHRISTOPHEHSON 
 
 * Your nephew and I have talked ahout it,' I said. 
 ' He thinks that Mr. Christopherson didn't understand 
 what a sacrifice he asked his wife to make.'' 
 
 ' I think so too,"" was the reply. ' But he begins to 
 see it now, I can tell you. He says nothing but ' 
 
 There was a tap at the door, and a hurried tremulous 
 voice begged the landladv to go upstairs. 
 
 ' AVhat is it, sir ? ' she asked. 
 
 ' I 'm afraid she ""s worse,"" said Christopherson, turning 
 his haggard face to me with startled recognition. ' Do 
 come up at once, please.' 
 
 Without a word to me he disappeared with the land- 
 lady. I could not go away ; for some ten minutes I 
 fidgeted about the little room, listening to every sound 
 in the house. Then came a footfall on the stairs, and 
 the landlady rejoined me. 
 
 'It's nothing,' she said. 'I almost think she might 
 drop off to sleep, if she 's left quiet. He worries her, 
 poor man, sitting there and asking her every two 
 minutes how she feels. I 've persuaded him to go to his 
 room, and I think it might do him good if you went and 
 had a bit o' talk with hini.' 
 
 I mounted at once to the second-floor sitting-room, 
 and found Christopherson sunk upon a chair, his head 
 falling forwards, the image of despairing misery. As I 
 approached he staggered to his feet. He took my hand 
 in a shrinking, shamefaced way, and could not raise his 
 eyes. I uttered a few words of encouragement, but they 
 had the opposite effect to that designed. 
 
 ' Don't tell me that,' he moaned, half resentfully. 
 'She's dying — she's dying — say what they will, I 
 know it.' 
 
 ' Have you a good doctor .'* '
 
 CHRISTOPHERSON 63 
 
 * I think so — but it 's too late — it 's too late.' 
 
 As he dropped to his chair again I sat down by him. 
 The silence of a minute or two was broken by a thun- 
 derous rat-tat at the house-door. Christopherson leapt 
 to his feet, rushed from the room ; I, half fearing that 
 he had gone mad, followed to the head of the stairs. 
 
 In a moment he came up again, limp and wretched 
 as before. 
 
 ' It was the postman,' he muttered. ' I am expecting 
 a letter.' 
 
 Conversation seeming impossible, I shaped a phrase 
 preliminary to withdrawal ; but Christopherson would 
 not let me go. 
 
 ' I should like to tell you,' he began, looking at me 
 like a dog under punishment, ' that I have done all I 
 could. As soon as my wife fell ill, and when I saw — I 
 had only begun to think of it in that way — how she felt 
 the disappointment, I went at once to Mrs. Keeting's 
 house to tell her that I would sell the books. But she 
 was out of town. I wrote to her — I said I regretted 
 my folly — I entreated her to forgive me and to renew 
 her kind offer. There has been plenty of time for a 
 reply, but she doesn't answer.' 
 
 He had in his hand what I saw was a bookseller's cata- 
 logue, just delivered by the postman. Mechanically he 
 tore off the wrapper and even glanced over the first page. 
 Then, as if conscience stabbed him, he flung the thing 
 violently away. 
 
 'The chance has gone!' he exclaimed, taking a hurried 
 step or two along the little strip of floor left free by the 
 mountain of books. ' Of course she said she would rather 
 stay in London ! Of course she said what she knew 
 would please me ! When — when did she ever say any-
 
 64 CIIRISTOPHEHSON 
 
 thing else ! And I was cruel enough — base enough — 
 to let her make the sacrifice ! ' He waved his arms 
 frantically. 'Didn't I know what it cost her? 
 Couldn't I see in her face how her heart leapt at the 
 hope of going to live in the country ! I knew what she 
 was suffering ; I knew it, I tell you ! And, like a selfish 
 coward, I let her suffer — I let her drop down and die — 
 die!' 
 
 ' Any hour,' I said, * may bring you the reply from 
 Mrs. Keeting. Of course it will be favourable, and the 
 good news ' 
 
 ' Too late, I have killed her ! That woman won't 
 write. She 's one of the vulgar rich, and we offended 
 her pride ; and such as she never forgive.' 
 
 He sat down for a moment, but started up again in 
 an agonv of mental suffering. 
 
 ' She is dying — and there, there, that 's what has 
 killed her!' He gesticulated wildly towards the l)ooks. 
 ' I liave sold her life for those. Oh ! — oh ! ' 
 
 With this cry he seized half a dozen volumes, and, 
 before I could undei-stand what he was about, he had 
 flung up the window-sash, and cast the books into the 
 street. Another batch followed ; I heard the thud upon 
 the pavement. Then I caught him by the arm, held 
 him fast, begged him to control himself. 
 
 'They shall all go!' he cried. 'I loathe the sight 
 of them. They have killed my dear wife ! ' 
 
 He said it sol)l)ing, and at the last words tears 
 streamed from his eyes. I had no difficulty now in 
 restraining him. He met my look with a gaze of 
 infinite pathos, and talked on while he wept. 
 
 ' If you knew what she has been to me ! ^^'hen she 
 married me I was a ruined man twenty years older. I
 
 CHRISTOPHERSON 65 
 
 ihave given her nothing but toil and care. You shall 
 know everything — for years and years I have lived on 
 the earnings of her labour. Worse than that, I have 
 starved and stinted her to buy books. Oh, the shame 
 of it ! The wickedness of it ! It was my vice — the 
 vice that enslaved me just as if it had been drinking or 
 gambling. I couldn't resist the temptation — though 
 every day I cried shame upon myself and swore to over- 
 come it. She never blamed me ; never a word — nay, not 
 a look — of a reproach. I lived in idleness. I never tried 
 to save her that daily toil at the shop. Do you know 
 that she worked in a shop ? — She, with her knowledge 
 and her refinement leading such a life as that ! Think 
 that I have passed the shop a thousand times, coming 
 home with a book in my hands ! I had the heart to 
 pass, and to think of her there ! Oh ! Oh ! ' 
 
 Some one was knocking at the door. I went to open, 
 and saw the landlady, her face set in astonishment, and 
 her arms full of books. 
 
 * It 's all right," I whispered. ' Put them down on the 
 floor there ; don't bring them in. An accident.' 
 
 Christopherson stood behind me ; his look asked what 
 he durst not speak. I said it was nothing, and by 
 degrees brought him into a calmer state. Luckily, the 
 doctor came before I went away, and he was able to 
 report a slight improvement. The patient had slept a 
 little and seemed likely to sleep again. Christopherson 
 asked me to come again before long — there was no one 
 else, he said, who cared anything about him — and I 
 promised to call the next day. 
 
 I did so, early in the afternoon. Christopherson 
 must have watched for my coming : before I could raise 
 the knocker the door flew open, and his face gleamed
 
 66 CIIlilSTOPHERSON 
 
 such a greeting as astonished me. He gnisped my haiul 
 in both his. 
 
 ' The letter has come ! We are to have the house/ 
 
 ' And how is Mrs. Christopherson .'' ' 
 
 ' Better, much better, Heaven be thanked ! She slept 
 ahnost from the time when you left yesterday afternoon 
 till earlv this morning. The letter came by the first 
 post, and I told her — not the whole trulh,' he addeil, 
 under his breath. ' She thinks I am to be allowed to 
 take the books with me; and if you could have seen 
 her smile of contentment. But they will all be sold 
 and carried away before she knows about it ; and when 
 she sees that I don't care a snap of the fingei-s ! "■ 
 
 He had turned into the sitting-room on the ground 
 floor. AValking about excitedly, Christopherson gloried 
 in the sacrifice he had made. Already a letter was 
 despatched to a bookseller, who would buv the whole 
 library as it stood. But would he not keep a few 
 volumes ? I asked. Surely there could be no objection to 
 a few shelves of books ; and how would he live without 
 them .'' At first he declared vehemently that not a 
 volume should be kept — he never wished to see a book 
 again as long as he lived. But Mrs. Christopherson .'' I 
 urged. Would she not be glad of something to read 
 now and then .'' At this he grew pensive. We dis- 
 cussed the matter, and it was arranged that a box 
 should be packed with select volumes and taken down 
 into Norfolk together with the rest of their luggage. 
 Not even Mrs. Keeting could object to this, and I 
 strongly advised him to take her permission for 
 granted. 
 
 And so it was done. By discreet management the 
 piled volumes were stowed in bags, carried downstairs,
 
 CHRISTOFHERSON 67 
 
 emptied into a cart, and conveyed away, so quietly that 
 the sick woman was aware of nothing. In telling me 
 about it, Christopherson crowed as I had never heard 
 him ; but niethought his eye avoided that part of the 
 floor which had formerly been hidden, and in the course 
 of our conversation he now and then became absent, 
 with head bowed. Of the joy he felt in his wife's 
 recovery there could, however, be no doubt. The crisis 
 through which he had passed had made him, in appear- 
 ance, a yet older man ; when he declared his happiness 
 tears came into his eyes, and his head shook with a 
 senile tremor. 
 
 Before they left I>ondon, I saw Mrs. Christopherson 
 — a pale, thin, slightly made woman, who had never 
 been what is called good-looking, but her face, if ever 
 face did so, declared a brave and loyal spirit. She was 
 not joyous, she was not sad; but in her eyes, as I 
 looked at them again and again, I read the profound 
 thankfulness of one to whom fate has granted her souFs 
 desire.
 
 HUMPLEBEE 
 
 The school was assembled for evening pravers, soni' 
 threescore bovs representing for the most part the 
 well-to-do middle class of a manufacturing county. At 
 either end of the room glowed a pleasant fire, for it was 
 February and the weather had turned to frost. 
 
 Silence reigned, but on all the young faces turned to 
 where the headmaster sat at his desk appeared an 
 unwonted expression, an eager expectancy, as though 
 something out of the familiar routine were about to 
 hapj)en. When the master's voice at length sounded, 
 he did not read from the book before him ; gravely, 
 slowly, he began to speak of an event which had that 
 day stirred the little community with profound emotion. 
 
 'Two of our number are this evening absent. 
 Happily, most hapj)ily, absent but for u short time; in 
 our prayers we shall render thanks to the good Provi- 
 dence which has saved us from a terrible calamity. I 
 do not desire to dwell upon the circumstance that one 
 of these bovs, Chadwick, had committed worse than an 
 imprudence in venturing upon the Long Pond ; it was 
 in disrciraid of mv iniunction ; I had distinctly made it 
 known that the ice was still unsafe. We will speak no 
 more of that. All we can think of at prescjit is the fact 
 that Chadwick was on the point of losing his life; that 
 in all human probability he would have been drowned, 
 
 6*
 
 HUMPLEBEE 69 
 
 but for the help heroically afforded him by one of his 
 schoolfellows. I say heroically, and I am sure I do 
 not exaggerate ; in the absence of Humplebee I may 
 declare that he nobly perilled his own life to save that 
 of another. It was a splendid bit of courage, a fine 
 example of pluck and promptitude and vigour. We 
 have all cause this night to be proud of Humplebee."' 
 
 The solemn voice paused. There was an instant's 
 profound silence. Then, from somewhere amid the 
 rows of listeners, sounded a clear, boyish note. 
 
 ' Sir, may we give three cheers for Humplebee .'' '' 
 
 ' You may.' 
 
 The threescore leapt to their feet, and volleys of 
 cheering made the schoolroom echo. Then the master 
 raised his hand, the tumult subsided, and after a few 
 moments of agitated silence, prayers began. 
 
 Next morning there appeared as usual at his desk a 
 short, thin, red-headed boy of sixteen, whose plain, 
 freckled face denoted good-humour and a certain in- 
 telligence, but would never have drawn attention 
 amongst the livelier and comelier physiognomies grouped 
 about him. This was Humplebee. Hitherto he had 
 been an insignificant member of the school, one of 
 those boys who excel neither at games nor at lessons, 
 of whom nothing is expected, and rarely, if ever, get 
 into trouble, and who are liked in a rather contemptuous 
 way. Of a sudden he shone glorious ; all tongues were 
 busy with him, all eyes regarded him, every one wished 
 for the honour of his friendship. Humplebee looked 
 uncomfortable. He had the sniffy beginnings of a cold, 
 the result of yesterday's struggle in icy water, and his 
 usual diffident and monosyllabic inclination were intensi- 
 fied by the position in which he found himself. Clappings
 
 70 HUMPLEBEE 
 
 on the shoulder from bi<;ger bovs who had been wont 
 to joke about his name made him Hush nervously ; to 
 be addressed as ' Humpy/ or ' Beetle,' or ' Buz/ even 
 though in a new tone, seemed to fi^ratifv him as littk 
 as before. It was plain that Huniplebee would much 
 have liked to be left alone. He stuck as closely a;- 
 possible to his desk, and out of school-time tried to steiil 
 apart from the throng. 
 
 But an ordeal awaited him. Early in the afternoon 
 there arrived, from a great town not far away, a well- 
 dressed and high-complexioned man, whose every look 
 and accent declared commercial importance. This was 
 Mr. Chadwick, father of the boy who had all but been 
 drowned. He and the headmaster held jirivate talk, 
 and presently they sent for Humplebee. Merely to 
 enter the ' study ' was at any time Humplebee's dread ; 
 to do so under the present circumstances cost him 
 angui.sh of spirit. 
 
 'Ha! here he is ! ' exclaimed Mr. Chadwick, in the 
 voice of bluff" geniality which seemed to him appropriate. 
 ' Humplebee, let me shake hands with you ! Humple- 
 bee, 1 am proud to make vour acquaintance ; prouder 
 still to thank vou, to thank vou, mv bov ! ' 
 
 The lad was j)ainfullv overcome; his hands quivered, 
 he stood like one convicted of disgraceful behaviour. 
 
 'I think vou have heard of me, Humjilebee. Leonard 
 has no doubt spoken to you of his father. Perhaps ray 
 name has reached you in other ways.-'' 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' faltered the boy. 
 
 'You mean that you know me as a public man.?' 
 urged Mr. Chadwick, whose eyes glinnnereil a hungry 
 vanity. 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' whispered Humplebee.
 
 HUMPLEBEE 71 
 
 ' Ha ! I see you already take an intelligent interest 
 in things beyond school. They tell me you are sixteen, 
 Humplebee. Come, now ; what are your ideas about 
 the future ? I don't mean '' — Mr. Chadwick rolled a 
 laugh — ' about the future of mankind, or even the 
 future of the English race ; you and I may perhaps 
 discuss such questions a few years hence. In the mean- 
 time, what are your personal ambitions ? In brief, what 
 would you like to be, Humplebee?' 
 
 Under the eye of his master and of the commercial 
 potentate, Humplebee stood voiceless ; he gasped once 
 or twice like an expiring fish. 
 
 'Courage, my boy, courage!' cried Mr. Chadwick. 
 ' Your father, I believe, destines you for commerce. Is 
 that your own wish ? Speak freely. Speak as though I 
 were a friend you have known all your life.' 
 
 ' I should like to please my father, sir,' jerked from 
 the boy's lips. 
 
 ' Good ! Admirable ! That 's the spirit I like, 
 Humplebee. Then you have no marked predilection .'' 
 That was what I wanted to discover — well, well, we 
 shall see. Meanwhile, Humplebee, get on with your 
 arithmetic. You are good at arithmetic, I am sure ? ' 
 
 ' Not very, sir.' 
 
 ' Come, come, that 's your modesty. But I like you 
 none the worse for it, Humplebee. Well, well, get on 
 with your work, my boy, and we shall see, we shall 
 see.' 
 
 Therewith, to his vast relief, Humplebee found him- 
 self dismissed. Later in the day he received a summons 
 to the bedroom where Mr. Chadwick's son was being 
 carefully nursed. Leonard Chadwick, about the same 
 age as his rescuer, had never deigned to pay much
 
 7« HUMPLEBEE 
 
 attention to Huuiplebee, whom he regarded as stupid 
 and plebeian ; but the boy's character was marked by a 
 generous impulsiveness, which came out strongly in the 
 present circumstances. 
 
 'Hallo, Humpy!' he cried, raising himself up when 
 the other entered. ' So you pulled n)e out of that 
 hole ! Shake hands, Buzzy, old fellow ! Vou Ve had a 
 talk with my governor, haven't you ? What do you 
 think of him ? ' 
 
 Humplebee muttered something incoherent. 
 
 ' My governor \s going to make your fortune, Humpy !' 
 cried Leonard. ' He told me so, and when he says a 
 thing he means it. He 's going to start you in busi- 
 ness when you leave school ; most likely you '11 go into 
 his own office. How will you like that. Humpy .'* My 
 governor thinks no end of you ; says you Ve a brick, 
 and so you are. I shan't forget that you pulled me 
 out of that hole, old chap. We shall be friends all 
 our lives, you know. Tell me what you thought of my 
 governor ? ' 
 
 When he was on his legs again, Leonard continued 
 to treat Humplebee with grateful, if somewhat con- 
 descending, friendliness. In the talks they had together 
 the great man's son continually expatiated upon his 
 preserver's brilliant prospects. Beyond possibility of 
 doubt Humplebee would some day be a rich man ; Mr. 
 Chad wick had said so, and whatever he purposed came 
 to pass. To all this Hum{)lebee listened in a dogged 
 sort of wav, now and then smiling, but seldom making 
 verbal answer. In school he was not (juite the same 
 bov as before his exploit; he seemed duller, less atten- 
 tive, and at times even incurred reproaches for work 
 ill done — previously a thing unknown. When the
 
 HUMPLEBEE 73 
 
 holidays came, no boy was so glad as Humplebee ; his 
 heart sang within him as he turned his back upon the 
 school and began the journey homeward. 
 
 That home was in the town illuminated by Mr. 
 Chadwick's commercial and municipal brilliance ; over a 
 small draper's shop in one of the outskirt streets stood 
 the name of Humplebee the draper. About sixty years 
 of age, he had known plenty of misfortune and sorrows, 
 with scant admixture of happiness. Nowadays things 
 were somewhat better with him ; by dint of severe 
 economy he had put aside two or three hundred pounds, 
 and he was able, moreover, to give his son (an only 
 child) what is called a sound education. In the limited 
 rooms above the shop there might have been a measure 
 of quiet content and hopefulness, but for Mrs. Humple- 
 bee. She, considerably younger than her husband, fretted 
 against their narrow circumstances, and grudged the 
 money that was being spent — wasted, she called it — on 
 the boy Harry. 
 
 From his father Harry never heard talk of pecuniary 
 troubles, but the mother lost no opportunity of letting 
 him know that they were poor, miserably poor ; and 
 adding, that if he did not work hard at school he was 
 simply a cold-hearted criminal, and robbed his parents 
 of their bread. 
 
 But during the last month or two a change had 
 come upon the household. One day the draper received 
 a visit from the great Mr. Chadwick, who told a 
 wonderful story of Harry's heroism, and made proposals 
 sounding so nobly generous that Mr. Humplebee was 
 overcome with gratitude. 
 
 Harry, as his father knew, had no vocation for the 
 shop ; to get him a place in a manufacturer's office
 
 74 HUMPLEBEE 
 
 seemed the best thing that could be aimed at, and here 
 was Mr. Chadwick talking of easy book-keeping, quit 
 advancement, and all manner of vaguely splendid pos."-; 
 bilities in the future. The draper's joy proved Mr^. 
 Humplebee's opportunity. She put forward a project 
 which had of late been constantly on her mind and on 
 her lips, to wit, that they should transfer their business 
 into larger ])remises, and give themselves a chance of 
 prosperity. Huiiiplebee need no longer hesitate. He 
 had his little capital to meet the first expenses, and if 
 need arose there need not be the slightest doubt that 
 Mr. Chadwick would assist him. A kind gentleman 
 Mr. Chadwick ! Had he not expressly desired to see 
 Harrv''s mother, and had he not assured her in every 
 way possible of his debt and gratitude he felt towards 
 all who bore the name of Humplebee .'' The draper, if 
 he neglected his opportunity, would be an idiot — a 
 mere idiot. 
 
 So, when the boy came home for his holidays he 
 found two momentous things decided ; first, that he 
 should forthwith enter Mr. Chad wick's office ; secondly, 
 that the little shop .should be abandoned and a new one 
 taken in a better neighbourhood. 
 
 Now Harry Humplebee had in his soul a secret de^ire 
 and a secret abhorrence. Ever since he could read his 
 delight had been in books of natural history ; beasts, 
 birds, and fishes possessed his imagination, and for no- 
 thing else in the intellectual world did he really care. 
 With poor resources he had learned a great deal of his 
 beloved subjects. Whenever he could get away into the 
 fields he was ha{)py ; to lie still for hours watching some 
 wild thing, noting its features and its ways, seemed to 
 him perfect enjoyment. His treasure was a collection,
 
 HUMPLEBEE 75 
 
 locked in a cupboard at home, of eggs, skeletons, butter- 
 flies, beetles, and I know not what. His father regarded 
 all this as harmless amusement, his mother contemp- 
 tuously tolerated it or, in worse humour, condemned it 
 as waste of time. When at school the boy had frequent 
 opportunities of pursuing his study, for he was in mid 
 country and could wander as he liked on free after- 
 noons ; but neither the headmaster nor his assistant 
 thought it worth while to pay heed to Humplebee's 
 predilection. True, it had been noticed more than once 
 that in writing an ' essay ' he showed unusual observa- 
 tion of natural things ; this, however, did not strike his 
 educators as a matter of any importance ; it was not 
 their business to discover what Humplebee could do, and 
 wished to do, but to make him do things they regarded 
 as desirable. Humplebee was marked for commerce ; he 
 must study compound interest, and be strong at dis- 
 count. Yet the boy loathed every such mental effort, 
 and the name of ' business ' made him sick at heart. 
 
 How he longed to unbosom himself to his father ! 
 And in the first week of his holiday he had a chance 
 of doing so, a wonderful chance, such as had never 
 entered his dreams. The town possessed a museum of 
 Natural History, where, of course, Harry had often spent 
 leisure hours. Half a year ago a happy chance had 
 brought him into conversation with the curator, who 
 could not but be struck by the lad's intelligence, and 
 who took an interest in him. Now they met again; 
 they had one or two long talks, with the result that, on 
 a Sunday afternoon, the curator of the museum took the 
 trouble to call upon Mr. Humplebee, to speak with him 
 about his son. At the museum was wanted a lad with 
 a taste for natural history, to perform at first certain
 
 76 HUMPLEBEE 
 
 easy duties, with the prospect of further advancement 
 here or elsewhere. It seemed to the curator that Harrv 
 was the very boy for the place ; would Mr. Humpiebee 
 like to consider this suggestion ? Now, if it had been 
 made to him half a year ago. such an offer would have 
 seemeti to Mr. Humpiebee well worth consideration, and 
 he knew that Harry would have heard of it with delight ; 
 as it was, he could not entertain the thought for a 
 moment. 
 
 Impossible to run the risk of offending Mr. Chadwick ; 
 moreover, who could hesitate between the modest possi- 
 bilities of the museum and such a career as waited the 
 lad under the protection of his powerful friend ? With 
 nervous haste the draper explained how matters stood, 
 excused himself, and begged that not another word on 
 the subject might be spoken in his son's hearing. 
 
 Harry Humpiebee knew what he had lost ; the curator, 
 in talk with him, had alreadv thrown out his suffgestion ; 
 at their next meeting he discreetly made known to the 
 boy that other counsels must prevail. For the first time 
 Harry felt a vehement impulse, prompting him to speak 
 on his own behalf, to assert and to plead for his own 
 desires. But courage failed him. He heard his father 
 loud in praise of Mr. Chadwick, intent upon the grati- 
 tude and respect due to that admirable man. He knew 
 how his mother would exclaim at the mere hint of disin- 
 clination to enter the great man's office. And so he held 
 his peace, though it cost him bitterness of heart and 
 even secret tears. A long, long time passed before he 
 could bring himself to enter again the museum doors. 
 
 He sat on a stool in Mr. Chadwick's office, a clerk at 
 a tririing salarv. Evcrvthing, his father reminded him, 
 must have a beginning ; let him work well and his
 
 HUMPLEBEE 77 
 
 progress would be rapid. Two years passed and he was 
 in much the same position ; his salary had increased by 
 one half, but his work remained the same, mechanical, 
 dreary, hateful to him in its monotony. Meanwhile his 
 father's venture in the new premises had led to great 
 embarrassments ; business did not thrive ; the day came 
 when Mr. Humplebee, trembling and shamefaced, felt 
 himself drawn to beg help of his son's so-called bene- 
 factor. He came away from the interview with empty 
 hands. Worse than that, he had heard things about 
 Harry which darkened his mind with a new anxiety. 
 
 ' I greatly fear,' said Mr. Chadwick, ' that your son 
 must seek a place in some other office. It 's a painful 
 thing ; I wish I could have kept him ; but the fact of 
 the matter is that he shows utter incapacity. I have 
 no fault to find with him otherwise ; a good lad ; in a 
 smaller place of business he might do well enough. But 
 he 's altogether below the mark in an office such as 
 y/iine. Don't distress yourself, Mr. Humplebee, I beg, I 
 shall make it my care to inquire for suitable openings ; 
 you shall hear from me — you shall hear from me. Pray 
 consider that your son is under notice to leave this day 
 month. As for the — other matter of which you spoke, 
 I can only repeat that the truest kindness is only to 
 refuse assistance. I assure you it is. The circumstances 
 forbid it. Clearly, what you have to do is to call 
 together your creditors, and arrive at an understanding. 
 It is my principle never to try to prop up a hopeless 
 concern such as yours evidently is. Good day to you, 
 Mr. Humplebee ; good day.' 
 
 A year later several things had happened. Mr. 
 Humplebee was dead ; his penniless widow had gone to 
 live in another town on the charity of poor relatives, and
 
 78 HUMPLEBEE 
 
 Harrv Humplebee sat in another office, drawing the 
 salary at which he had begun under Mr. Chadwick, his 
 home a wretched hetlrooin in the house of working-folk. 
 
 It did not appear to the lad that he had sufl'ered 
 anv injustice. He knew his own inaptitude for the 
 higher kind of oftice work, and he had expected 
 his dismissal bv Mr. Chadwick long before it came. 
 What he did resent, and profoundly, was Mr. Chadwick's 
 refusal to aid his father in that last death-grapple with 
 ruinous circumstance. At the worst moment Harrv 
 wrote a letter to Leonard Chadwick, whom he had never 
 seen since he left school. He told in simple terms the 
 positioii of his family, and, without a word of justifying 
 reminiscence, asked his schoolfellow to help them if he 
 could. To this letter a reply came from London. 
 Leonard Chadwick wrote brieHy and hurriedly, but in 
 good-natured terms ; he was really very sorry indeed 
 that he could do so little ; the fact was, just now he 
 stood on anything but good terms with his father, who 
 kept him abominably short of cash. He enclosed five 
 pounds, and, if possible, would soon send more. 
 
 ' Don't suppose I have forgotten what I owe vou. 
 As soon as ever I find myself in an independent position 
 you shall have substantial proof of my enduring gratitude. 
 Keep me informed of your address.' 
 
 Humplebee made no second a|)j)lication, and Leonard 
 Chadwick did not again break silence. 
 
 The years Howed on. At five-and-twenty Humplebee 
 toiled in the same office, but he could congratulate him- 
 .self on a certain progress ; by dogged resolve he had 
 acquired something like efficiency in the duties of a 
 commercial clerk, and the salary he now earned allowed 
 him to contribute to the support of his mother. More
 
 HUMPLEBEE 79 
 
 or less reconciled to the day's labour, he had resumed in 
 leisure hours his favourite study ; a free library supplied 
 him with useful books, and whenever it was possible 
 he went his way into the fields, searching, collecting, 
 observing. But his life had another interest, which 
 threatened rivalry to this intellectual pursuit. Humple- 
 bee had set eyes upon the maiden destined to be his 
 heart''s desire; she was the daughter of a fellow-clerk, 
 a man who had grown grey in service of the ledger ; 
 timidly he sought to win her kindness, as yet scarce 
 daring to hope, dreaming only of some happy change of 
 position which might encourage him to speak. The girl 
 was as timid as himself; she had a face of homely 
 prettiness, a mind uncultured but sympathetic ; absorbed 
 in domestic cares, with few acquaintances, she led the 
 simplest of lives, and would have been all but content to 
 live on in gentle hope for a score of years. The two 
 were beginning to understand each other, for their 
 silence was more eloquent than their speech. 
 
 One summer day — the last day of his brief holiday — 
 Humplebee was returning by train from a visit to his 
 mother. Alone in a third-class carriage, seeming to read 
 a newspaper, but in truth dreaming of a face he hoped 
 to see in a few hours, he suddenly found himself jerked 
 out of his seat, flung violently forward, bumped on the 
 floor, and last of all rolled into a sort of bundle, he 
 knew not where. Recovering from a daze, he said to 
 himself, ' Why, this is an accident — a collision ! *■ 
 Then he tried to unroll himself, and in the effort found 
 that one of his arms was useless ; more than that, it 
 pained him horribly. He stood up and tottered on to 
 the seat. Then the carriage-door opened, and a voice 
 shouted —
 
 80 HIMPLEBEE 
 
 ' Anybody hurt here ? ' 
 
 ' I think my arm is broken/ answered Humplebee. 
 
 Two men helped him to alight. The train had 
 stopj)L'd just outside a small station; on a cross line in 
 front of the engine lay a goods truck smashed to pieces ; 
 people were rushing about with cries and gesticulations. 
 
 ' Yes, the arm is broken/ remarked one of the men who 
 had assisted Humplebee. ' It looks as if vou were the 
 onlv passenger injured.' That proved, indeed, to be the 
 case ; no one else had suffered more than a jolt or a 
 bruise. The crowd clustered about this hero of the 
 broken arm, expressing sympathy and offering sugges- 
 tions. Among them was a well-dressed young man, 
 rather good-looking and of livelv demeanour, who 
 seemed to enjoy the excitement; he, after gazing fixedly 
 at the pain-stricken face, exclaimed in a voice of 
 wonder — 
 
 ' Hy jove ! it 's Humplebee ! ' 
 
 The sufl'erer turned towards him who spoke ; hi* 
 eyes brightened, for he recognised the face of Leonard 
 (Ihadwick. Neither one nor the other had greatly 
 altered during the past ten years ; they presented exactly 
 the same contrast of personal characteristic as when they 
 were at school together. With vehement friendliness 
 C'hadwick at once took upon himself the care of the 
 injured clerk. He shouted for a cab, he found out 
 where the nearest doctor lived ; in a (piarter of an hour 
 he had his friend under the doctor's roof. When the 
 fracture had been set and bandaged, thev travelled on 
 together to their native town, onlv a few miles distant, 
 Humj)lebee knowing for the first time in his life the 
 luxury of a first-class compnrtment. On their way 
 Chadwick talked exuberantly. He was delighted at this
 
 HUMPLEBEE 81 
 
 meeting ; why, one of his purposes in coming north had 
 been to search out Humplebee, whom he had so long 
 scandalously neglected. 
 
 'The fact is, I've been going through queer times 
 myself. The governor and I can t get along together ; 
 we quarrelled vears ago, there 's not much chance of our 
 making it up. I Ve no doubt that was the ical reason 
 of his dismissing you from his office — a mean thing ! 
 The governor 's a fine old boy, but he has his nasty side. 
 He 's very tight about money, and I — well, I 'm a bit 
 too much the other way, no doubt. He's kept me in 
 low water, confound him ! But I 'm independent of 
 him now. I'll tell you all about it to-morrow, you'll 
 feel better able to talk. Expect me at eleven in the 
 morning.' 
 
 Through a night of physical suffering Humplebee 
 was supported by a new hope. Chadwick the son, 
 warm-hearted and generous, made a strong contrast 
 with Chadwick the father, pompous and insincere. 
 When the young man spoke of his abiding gratitude 
 there was no possibility of distrusting him, his voice 
 rang true, and his handsome features wore a delightful 
 frankness. Punctual to his appointment, Leonard 
 appeared next morning. He entered the poor lodging 
 as if it had been a luxurious residence, talked suavely 
 and gaily with the landlady, who was tending her 
 invalid, and, when alone with his old schoolfellow, 
 launched into a detailed account of a great enterprise in 
 which he was concerned. Not long ago he had become 
 acquainted with one Geldershaw, a man somewhat older 
 than himself, personally most attractive, and very keen 
 in business. Geldershaw had just been appointed 
 London representative of a great manufacturing firm in
 
 82 HUMPLEBEE 
 
 Germanv. It was a most profitable undertaking, and, 
 out of i)ure friendship, he had otiered a share in the 
 business to Leonard Chadwick. 
 
 ' Of course, I put money into it. The fact is, I have 
 dropped in for a few thousands from a good old aunt, 
 who has been awfully kind to me since the governor and 
 I fell out. I couldn't possibly have found a better 
 investment, it means eight or nine per cent., my boy, at 
 the very least ! And look here, Humplebee, of course 
 you can keep books ? "" 
 
 ' Yes, I can,'' answered the listener conscientiously. 
 
 ' Then, old fellow, a first-rate |)lace is open to vou. 
 We want some one we can thoroughly trust ; you Ve the 
 very man Geldershaw had in his eye. Would you mind 
 telling me what screw you get at present ? ' 
 
 ' Two pounds ten a week.' 
 
 ' Ha, ha ! ' laughed Chadwick exultantly. 'With us 
 you shall begin at double the figure, and I'll see to it 
 that you have a rise after the first year. What 's more, 
 Humplebee, as soon as we get fairly going, I promise 
 you a share in the business. Don't say a word, old boy ! 
 My governor treated you abominably. I've been in 
 your debt for ten years or so, as you know very well, 
 and often enough I 've felt deucedly ashamed of myself. 
 Five pounds a week to begin with, and a certainty of 
 a comfortable interest in a thriving affair ! Come, now, 
 is it agreed ? ' 
 
 Humj)lebee forgot his pain; he felt ready to jump 
 out of lied and travel straightway to London. 
 
 ' And you know,' pursued Chadwick, when they had 
 shaken hands warmly, ' that you have a claim for 
 damages on the railway company. Leave that to me; 
 I'll j)ut llie thing in train at once, through my own
 
 HUMPLEBEE 83 
 
 solicitor. You shall pocket a substantial sum, my boy ! 
 Well, I'm afraid I must be off; I Ve got my hands full 
 of business. Quite a new thing for me to have some- 
 thing serious to do ; I enjoy it ! If I can't see you 
 again before I go back to town, you shall hear from me 
 in a day or two. Here ""s my London address. Chuck 
 up your place here at once, so as to be ready for us as 
 soon as your arm 's all right, Geldershaw shall write 
 you a formal engagement.' 
 
 Happily his broken arm was the left. Humplebee 
 could use his right hand, and did so, very soon after 
 Chadwick's departure, to send an account of all that 
 had befallen him to his friend Mary Bowes, It was 
 the first time he had written to her. His letter was 
 couched in terms of studious respect, with many 
 apologies for the liberty he took. Of the accident he 
 made light — a few davs would see him re-established — 
 but he dwelt with some emphasis upon the meeting with 
 Leonard Chadwick, and what had resulted from it. 
 
 ' I did him a good turn once, when we were at school 
 together. He is a good, warm-hearted fellow, and has 
 sought this opportunity of showing that he remembered 
 the old time,' 
 
 Thus did Humplebee refer to the great event of his 
 boyhood. Having despatched the letter, he waited 
 feverishly for Miss Bowes' reply ; but days passed, and 
 still he waited in vain. Agitation delayed his recovery ; 
 he was suffering as he had never suffered in his life, when 
 there came a letter from London, signed with the name 
 of Geldershaw, repeating in formal terms the offer made 
 to him by Leonard Chadwick, and requesting his 
 immediate acceptance or refusal. This plucked him out 
 of his despondent state, and spurred him to action.
 
 84 HUMPI.EBEE 
 
 With the help of his landhidv he dressed himself, and, 
 having concealed his bandaged arm as well as possible, 
 drove in a cab to Miss Bowes' dwelling. The hour 
 being before noon, he was almost sure to find Mary at 
 home, and alone. Trembling with bodilv weakness and 
 the conflict of emotions, he rang the door bell. To his 
 consternation there appeared Mary's father. 
 
 'Hallo! Huinj)lebee ! ' cried Mr. Bowes, surprised 
 but friendly. ' \\'hy, I was just going to write to vou. 
 Marv has had scarlet fever. I 've been so busy these 
 last ten days, I couldn't even incpiire after you. Of 
 course, I saw about your smsish iu the newspaper ; how 
 are you getting on .'*"' 
 
 The man with the bandaged arm could not utter 
 a word. HoiTor-stricken he stared at Mr. Bowes, who 
 had begun to ex})ress a doubt whether it would be 
 j)iudent for him to enter the house. 
 
 Marv is convalescent ; the anxiety ''s all over, 
 but '-" 
 
 Humplebee suddenly .seized the speaker's hand, and in 
 confused words expressed vehement jov. Thev talked 
 for a few minutes, parted with cordiality, and Humple- 
 bee went home again to recover from his excitement. 
 
 A note from his em])loyers had rej)lied in terms of 
 decent condolence to the message by which he explained 
 his enforced absence. To-day he wrote to the principal, 
 announcing his intention of resigning his post in their 
 office. The response, delivered within a few hours, was 
 admirably brief and to the ))oint. Mr. Humj)lebee''s 
 place had, of course, lieen already taken temj)()rarily by 
 another clerk ; it would have been held ()j)en for him, 
 but, in vifw of his decision, the firm had merely to 
 recjuest that he would acknowledge the checjue enclosed
 
 HUMPLEBEE 85 
 
 in payment of his salary up to date. Not without some 
 shaking of the hand did Humplebee pen this receipt ; 
 for a moment something seemed to come between him 
 and the daylight, and a heaviness oppressed his inner 
 man. But already he had despatched to London his 
 formal acceptance of the post at five pounds a week, and 
 in thinking of it his heart grew joyous. Two hundred 
 and sixty pounds a year ! It was beyond the hope of 
 his most fantastic day-dreams. He was a made man, 
 secure for ever against fears and worries. He was a 
 man of substance, and need no longer shrink from 
 making known the hope which ruled his life. 
 
 A second letter was written to Mary Bowes ; but not 
 till many copies had been made was it at length 
 despatched. The writer declared that he looked for no 
 reply until Mary was quite herself again ; he begged 
 only that she would reflect, meanwhile, upon what he 
 had said, reflect with all her indulgence, all her native 
 goodness and gentleness. And, indeed, there elapsed 
 nearly a fortnight before the answer came ; and to 
 Humplebee it seemed an endless succession of tormenting 
 
 days. Then 
 
 Humplebee behaved like one distracted. His land- 
 lady in good earnest thought he had gone crazy, and 
 was only reassured when he revealed to her what had 
 happened. Mary Bowes was to be his wife ! They 
 must wait for a year and a half ; Mary could not leave 
 her father quite alone, but in a year and a half Mr. 
 Bowes, who was an oldish man, would be able to retire 
 on the modest fruit of his economies, and all three could 
 live together in London. ' What,' cried Humplebee, 
 ' was eighteen months ? It would allow him to save 
 enough out of his noble salary to start housekeeping
 
 vS6 HUMPLEBEE 
 
 with something more than comfort. Blessed be the 
 name of Chadwick ! ' 
 
 When his arm was once more sound, and Mary"'s 
 health quite recovered, they met. In their long, long 
 lalk Humplebee was led to tell the story of that 
 winter day when he saved Leonard Chadwick's life; he 
 related, too, all that had ensued upon his acquaintance 
 with the great Mr, Chadwick, memories which would 
 never lose all their bitterness. Mary was moved to 
 tears, and her tears were dried by indignation. But 
 they agreed that Leonard, after all, made some atone- 
 ment for his father's heartless behaviour. Humplebee 
 showed a letter that had come from young Chadwick 
 a day or two ago ; every line spoke generosity of spirit. 
 ' When,' he asked, ' might thev expect their new book- 
 keeper. They were in full swing ; business promised 
 magnificently. As yet, they had only a temporary office, 
 but Geldershaw was in treaty for fine premises in the 
 city. The sooner Humplebee arrived the better; fortune 
 awaited him."' 
 
 It was decided that he should leave for London in 
 two days. 
 
 The next evening he came to spend an hour or two 
 with Mary and her father. On entering the room he 
 at once observed something strange in the looks with 
 which he was greeted. Mary had a pale, miserable air, 
 and could hardly speak. Mr. Jiowes, after looking at 
 him fixedly for a moment, exclaimed — 
 
 ' Have you seen to-dav's paper .'' " 
 
 ' I Ve been too busy," he replied. ' What has 
 hapjiened ? "* 
 
 'Isn't your London man called Geldershaw?"
 
 HUMPLEBEE 87 
 
 ' Yes," murmured Humplebee, with a sinking of the 
 heart. 
 
 ' Well, the police are after him ; he has bolted. It 's 
 a long-firm swindle that he 's been up to. You know 
 what that means ? Obtaining goods on false credit, and 
 raising money on them. What 's more, young Chadwick 
 is arrested ; he came before the magistrates yesterday, 
 charged with being an accomplice. Here it is ; read it 
 for yourself.' 
 
 Humplebee dropped into a chair. When his eyes 
 undazzled, he read the full report which Mr. Bowes had 
 summarised. It was the death-blow of his hopes. 
 
 ' Leonard Chadwick has been a victim, not a swindler,' 
 sounded from him in a feeble voice. ' You see, he says 
 that Geldershaw has robbed him of all his money — that 
 he is ruined.' 
 
 ' He says so,' remarked Mr. Bowes with angry irony. 
 
 ' I believe him,' said Humplebee. 
 
 His eyes sought Mary's. The girl regarded him 
 steadily, and she spoke in a low firm voice — 
 
 * I, too, believe him.' 
 
 ' Whether or no,' said Mr. Bowes, thrusting his hands 
 into his pockets, ' the upshot of it is, Humplebee, that 
 you 've lost a good place through trusting him. I had 
 my doubts ; but you were in a hurry, and didn't ask 
 advice. If this had happened a week later, the police 
 would have laid hands on you as well.' 
 
 ' So there 's something to be thankful for, at all 
 events,' said Mary. 
 
 Again Humplebee met her eyes. He saw that she 
 would not forsake him. 
 
 He had to begin life over again — that was all.
 
 THE SCRUPULOUS P^ATHER 
 
 It was market day in the little town ; at one o'clock a 
 rustic coinpanv besieged the table of the Greyhound, 
 lured bv savoury odours and the frothing of amber ale. 
 Apart from three frecjuenters of the ordinary, in a small 
 room prepared for overflow, sat two persons of a different 
 stamp — a middle-aged man, bald, meagre, unimpressive, 
 but wholly respectable in bearing and apparel, and a 
 girl, evidently his daughter, who had the look of the 
 latter twenties, her plain dress harmonisiug with a sub- 
 dued charm of feature and a timidity of manner not 
 ungraceful. Whilst waiting for their meal they conversed 
 in an undertone ; their brief remarks and ejaculations 
 told of a long morning's ramble from the seaside resort 
 some miles away ; in their quiet fashion they seemed to 
 have enjoyed themselves, and dinner at an inn evidently 
 struck them as something of an escapade. Rather 
 awkwardly the girl arranged a handful of wild flowers 
 which she had gathered, and put them for refreshment 
 into a tumbler of water; when a woman entered with 
 viands, silence fell upon the two ; after hesitations and 
 mutual glances, they began to eat with nervous appetite. 
 ScArcelv was their modest confidence restored, when 
 in the doorway sounded a virile voice, gaily humming, 
 and they became aware of a tall young man, red-headed,
 
 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 89 
 
 anything but handsome, flushed and perspiring from the 
 sunny road ; his open jacket showed a blue cotton shirt 
 without waistcoat, in his hand was a shabby straw hat, 
 and thick dust covered his boots. One would have 
 judged him a tourist of the noisier class, and his rather 
 loud ' Good morning ! ' as he entered the room seemed 
 a serious menace to privacy ; on the other hand, the 
 rapid buttoning of his coat, and the quiet choice of a 
 seat as far as possible from the two guests whom his 
 arrival disturbed, indicated a certain tact. His greeting 
 had met with the merest murmur of reply ; their eyes 
 on their plates, father and daughter resolutely disregarded 
 him ; yet he ventured to speak again. 
 
 ' They >e busy here to-day. Not a seat to be had in 
 the other room.' 
 
 It was apologetic in intention, and not rudely spoken. 
 After a moment's delay the bald, respectable man made 
 a curt response. 
 
 ' This room is public, I believe."* 
 
 The intruder held his peace. But more than once 
 he glanced at the girl, and after each furtive scrutiny 
 his plain visage manifested some disturbance, a troubled 
 thoughtfulness. His one look at the mute parent was 
 from beneath contemptuous eyebrows. 
 
 Very soon another guest appeared, a massive agri- 
 cultural man, who descended upon a creaking chair and 
 growled a remark about the hot weather. With him 
 the red-haired pedestrian struck into talk. Their topic 
 was beer. Uncommonly good, they agreed, the local 
 brew, anti each called for a second pint. What, they 
 asked in concert, would England be without her ale ? 
 Shame on the base traffickers who enfeebled or poisoned 
 this noble liquor ! And how cool it was — ah ! The
 
 90 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 
 
 rit^ht sort of cellar! He of the red linir hinted at a 
 third pewter. 
 
 These two were still but midway in their stout attack 
 on meat and drink, when father and daujjjliter, having 
 exchantjed a few whispei-s, rose to depart. After leaving 
 the room, the girl remembered that she had left her 
 Howers behind ; she durst not return for them, and, 
 knowing her father would dislike to do so, said nothing 
 about the matter. 
 
 'A pitv!" exclaimed Mr. Whiston (that was his 
 respectable name) as thcv strolled away. ' It looked at 
 first as if we should have such a nice quiet dinner.'' 
 
 ' I enjoyed it all the same,' replied his companion, 
 whose name was Rose. 
 
 'That abominable habit of drinking!' added Mr. 
 Whiston austerely. He himself had cjuaff'ed water, as 
 always. 'Their ale, indeed ! See the coarse, gross 
 creatures it produces ! ' 
 
 He shuddered. Rose, however, seemed less consentient 
 than usual. Her eyes were on the ground ; her lips 
 were closed with a certain firmness. When she spoke, 
 it was on quite another subject. 
 
 They were Londoners. Mr. Whiston held the posi- 
 tion of draughtsman in the oflice of a geographical 
 ])ublisher; though his income was small, he had always 
 practised a ligid economy, and the possession of a 
 modest private capital put him beyond fear of reverses. 
 I'rofoundly conscious of social limits, he felt it a subject 
 for gratitiule that there was nothing to be ashamed of 
 in his calling, which he might fairly regard as a pro- 
 fession, and lie nursed this sense of resj)ectabilitv as niuch 
 on his daujrhter's behalf as on his own. Rose was an onlv 
 child ; her mother had been dead for years ; her kinsfolk
 
 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 91 
 
 on both sides laid claim to the title of gentlefolk, but 
 supported it on the narrowest mar^^in of independence. 
 The girl had grown up in an atmosphere unfavourable to 
 mental development, but she had received a fairly good 
 education, and nature had dowered her with intelligence. 
 A sense of her father's conscientiousness and of his true 
 affection forbade her to criticise openly the principles on 
 which he had directed her life ; hence a habit of solitary 
 meditation, which half fostered, yet half opposed, the 
 gentle diffidence of Rose's character. 
 
 Mr. Whiston shrank from society, ceaselessly afraid 
 of receiving less than his due ; privately, meanwhile, he 
 deplored the narrowness of the social opportunities 
 granted to his daughter, and was for ever forming 
 schemes for her advantage — schemes which never passed 
 beyond the stage of nervous speculation. They in- 
 habited a little house in a western suburb, a house 
 illumined with every domestic virtue ; but scarcely a 
 dozen persons crossed the threshold within a twelve- 
 month. Rose's two or three friends were, like herself, 
 mistrustful of the world. One of them had lately 
 married after a very long engagement, and Rose still 
 trembled from the excitement of that occasion, still 
 debated fearfully with herself on the bride's chances of 
 happiness. Her own marriage was an event so incon- 
 ceivable that merely to glance at the thought appeared 
 half immodest and wholly irrational. 
 
 Every winter Mr. Whiston talked of new places which 
 he and Rose would visit when the holidays came round ; 
 every summer he shrank from the thought of adven- 
 turous novelty, and ended by proposing a return to the 
 same western seaside-town, to the familiar lodgings. The 
 climate suited neither him nor his daughter, who both
 
 92 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 
 
 needed phvsical as well as moral bracing; but they only 
 thought of this on iiiiding themselves at home again, 
 with another long year of monotony before them. And 
 it was so good to feel welcome, respected ; to receive 
 the smiling reverences of tradesfolk ; to talk with just a 
 little well-bred condescension, sure that it would be 
 appreciated. Mr. W'histon savoured these things, and 
 Rose in this respect was not wholly unlike him. 
 
 To-day was the last of their vacation. The weather 
 had been magnificent throughout ; Rose's cheeks were 
 more than touched by the sun, greatlv to the advantage 
 of her unj)retending comeliness. She was a typical 
 English maiden, rather tail, shapely rather than graceful, 
 her head generally bent, her movements always betraying 
 the diffidence of solitary habit. The li})s were her finest 
 feature, their perfect outline indicating sweetness without 
 feebleness of character. Such a girl is at her best 
 towards the stroke of thirty. Rose had begun to know 
 herself; she needed only opportunity to act upon her 
 knowledge. 
 
 A train would take them back to the seaside. At 
 the railway station Rose seated herself on a shaded part 
 of the jilatform, whilst her father, wjio was exceedingly 
 short of sight, peered over publications on the liookstall. 
 Rather tired after her walk, the girl was dreamily tracing 
 a pattern with the point of her para.sol, when some one 
 advanced and stood innnediately in front of iier. Startled, 
 she looked up, and recognised the red-haired stranger of 
 the inn. 
 
 * Vou left these flowers in a glass of water on the 
 table. I hoj)e I'm not doing a rude thing in asking 
 whether they were left by accident.' 
 
 He had the flowers in his hand, their stems carefully
 
 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 93 
 
 protected by a piece of paper. For a moment Rose was 
 incapable of replying ; she looked at the speaker ; she 
 felt her cheeks burn ; in utter embarrassment she said 
 she knew not what. 
 
 'Oh! thank you! I forgot them. It's very 
 
 kind.' 
 
 Her hand touched his as she took the bouquet from 
 him. Without another word the man turned and strode 
 away. 
 
 Mr. Whiston had seen nothing of this. When he 
 approached, Rose held up the flowers with a laugh. 
 
 ' Wasn't it kind ? I forgot them, you know, and 
 some one from the inn came looking for me.' 
 
 ' Very good of them, very,' replied her father graciously. 
 ' A very nice inn, that. We '11 go again — some day. 
 One likes to encourage such civility ; it 's rare nowadays.' 
 
 He of the red hair travelled by the same train, though 
 not in the same carriage. Rose caught sight of him at 
 the seaside station. She was vexed with herself for 
 having so scantily acknowledged his kindness ; it seemed 
 to her that she had not really thanked him at all ; how 
 absurd, at her age, to be incapable of common self- 
 command ! At the same time she kept thinking of her 
 father's phrase, ' coarse, gross creatures,' and it vexed her 
 even more than her own ill behaviour. The stranger 
 was certainly not coarse, far from gross. Even his talk 
 about beer (she remembered every word of it) had been 
 amusing rather than offensive. Was he a ' gentleman ' ? 
 The question agitated her ; it involved so technical a 
 definition, and she felt so doubtful as to the reply. 
 Beyond doubt he had acted in a gentlemanly way ; but 
 his voice lacked something. Coarse ? Gross ? No, no, 
 no ! Really, her father was very severe, not to say
 
 94. THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 
 
 uncharitable. But perhaps he was thinking of the heavy 
 agricultural man ; oh, he must have been ! 
 
 Of a sudden she felt very wearv. At the lodgings 
 she sat down in her bedroom, and gazed through the 
 open window at the sea. A sense of discouragement, 
 hitherto almost unknown, had fallen upon iier ; it spoilt 
 the blue sky and the soft horizon. She thought rather 
 drearily of the townward journey to-morrow, of her 
 home in the suburbs, of the endless monotony that 
 awaited her. The flowers lay on her lap ; she smelt 
 them, dreamed over them. And then — strange incon- 
 gruity — she thought of beer ! 
 
 Between tea and supper she and her father rested 
 on the beach. Mr. Whiston was reading. Rose pre- 
 tended to turn the leaves of a book. Of a sudden, as 
 unexpectedly to herself tis to her companion, she broke 
 silence. 
 
 ' Don't you think, father, that we are too much 
 afraid of talking with strangers ? "■ 
 
 ' Too much afraid ? ' 
 
 Mr. Whiston was puzzled. He had forgotten all 
 about the incident at the diinier-table. 
 
 * I mean — what harm is there in having a little con- 
 versation when one is awav from home f At the inn 
 to-day, you know, I can't help thinking we were rather — 
 perhaps a little too silent.' 
 
 ' My dear Rose, did you want to talk about beer.'* ' 
 
 She reddened, but answered all the more em- 
 phatically. 
 
 ' Of course not. But, when the first gentleman came 
 in, wouldn't it have been natural to exchange a few 
 friendly words.'' I'm sure he wouldn't have talked of 
 beer to ?«.'
 
 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 95 
 
 ' The gentleman ? I saw no gentleman, my dear. I 
 suppose he was a small clerk, or something of the 
 sort, and he had no business whatever to address us/ 
 
 ' Oh, but he only said good morning, and apologised 
 for sitting at our table. He needn't have apologised at 
 all; 
 
 ' Precisely. That is just what I mean,' said Mr. 
 Whiston with self-satisfaction. ' My dear Rose, if I 
 had been alone, I might perhaps have talked a little, 
 but with you it was impossible. One cannot be too 
 careful. A man like that will take all sorts of liberties. 
 One has to keep such people at a distance. 
 
 A moment's pause, then Rose spoke with unusual 
 decision — 
 
 ' I feel quite sure, father, that he would not have 
 taken liberties. It seems to me that he knew quite well 
 how to behave himself.' 
 
 Mr. Whiston grew still more puzzled. He closed his 
 book to meditate this new problem. 
 
 ' One has to lay down rules,' fell from him at length, 
 sententiously. ' Our position. Rose, as I have often 
 explained, is a delicate one. A lady in circumstances 
 such as yours cannot exercise too much caution. Your 
 natural associates are in the world of wealth ; unhappily, 
 I cannot make you wealthy. We have to guard our 
 self-respect, my dear child. Really, it is not safe to talk 
 with strangers — least of all at an inn. And you have 
 only to remember that disgusting conversation about 
 beer ! ' 
 
 Hose said no more. Her father pondered a little, 
 felt that he had delivered his soul, and resumed the 
 book. 
 
 'i he next morning they were early at the station to
 
 96 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 
 
 secure good places for the long journey to London. Up 
 to almost the last moment it seenied that they would 
 have a carriage to themselves. Then the door suddenly 
 opened, a bag was flung on to the seat, and after it 
 came a hot, panting man, a red-haired man, recognised 
 immediately by both the travellers. 
 
 ' I thought I 'd missed it ! ' ejaculated the intruder 
 merrily. 
 
 Mr. Whiston turned his head away, disgust transform- 
 ing his countenance. Rose sat motionless, her eyes cast 
 down. And the stranger mo{)pcd his forehead in 
 silence. 
 
 He glanced at her ; he glanced again and again ; and 
 Rose was aware of every look. It did not occur to her 
 to feel offended. On the contrary, she fell into a mood 
 of trenmlous pleasure, enhanced by every turn of the 
 stranger's eyes in her direction. At him she did not 
 look, yet she saw him. Was it a coarse face? she 
 asked herself. Plain, perhaps, but decitledly not vulgar. 
 The red hair, she thought, was not disagreeably red ; she 
 didn't dislike that shade of colour. He was humming a 
 tune; it seemed to be his habit, and it argued healthy 
 cheerfulness. Meanwhile Mr. Whiston sat stiffly in his 
 corner, staring at the landscape, a model of respectable 
 muteness. 
 
 At the first stop another man entered. This time, 
 unmistakably, a connnercial traveller. At once a 
 dialogue sprang up between him and Rufus. The 
 traveller complained that all the smoking compartments 
 were full. 
 
 ' Why,' exclaimed Rufus, with a laugh, ' that reminds 
 me that I wanted a smoke. I never tiunight about it 
 till now ; jumped in here in a hurry.'
 
 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 97 
 
 The traveller's ' line ' was tobacco ; they talked 
 tobacco — Rufus with much gusto. Presently the con- 
 versation took a wider scope. 
 
 ' I envy you,' cried Rufus, ' always travelling about. 
 I 'm in a beastly office, and get only a fortnight off 
 once a year. I enjoy it, I can tell you ! Time 's up to- 
 day, worse luck ! I 've a good mind to emigrate. Can 
 you give me a tip about the colonies ? ' 
 
 He talked of how he had spent his holiday. Rose 
 missed not a word, and her blood pulsed in sympathy 
 with the joy of freedom which he expressed. She did 
 not mind his occasional slang ; the tone was manly and 
 right-hearted ; it evinced a certain simplicity of feeling 
 by no means common in men, whether gentle or other. 
 At a certain moment the girl was impelled to steal a 
 glimpse of his face. After all, was it really so plain ? 
 The features seemed to her to have a certain refine- 
 ment which she had not noticed before. 
 
 ' I 'm going to try for a smoker,' said the man of 
 commerce, as the train slackened into a busy station. 
 
 Rufus hesitated. His eye wandered. 
 
 ' I think I shall stay where I am,' he ended by saying. 
 
 In that same moment, for the first time, Rose met his 
 glance. She saw that his eyes did not at once avert 
 themselves ; they had a singular expression, a smile 
 which pleaded pardon for its audacity. And Rose, even 
 whilst turning away, smiled in response. 
 
 The train stopped. The commercial traveller alighted. 
 Rose, leaning towards her father, whispered that she was 
 thirsty ; would he get her a glass of milk or of 
 lemonade ? Though little disposed to rush on such 
 errands, Mr. Whiston had no choice but to comply ; he 
 sped at once for the refreshment- room.
 
 98 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 
 
 And Rose knew what would happen ; she knew per- 
 fectly. Sitting rigid, her eyes on vacancy, she felt the 
 ajjproach of the young man, who for the moment was 
 alone with her. She saw him at her side : she heard his 
 voice. 
 
 ' I can't help it. I wajit to speak to you. May I ?"" 
 
 Rose faltered a replv. 
 
 ' It was so kind to bring the flowers. I didn't thank 
 you properly.' 
 
 ' It 's now or never,' pursued the voung m;\n in rapid, 
 excited tones. 'Will you let me tell you my name.'' 
 Will you tell me yours.'*' 
 
 Rose's silence consented. The daring Rufus rent a 
 page from a pocket-book, scribbled his name and address, 
 gave it to Rose. He rent out another page, offered it to 
 Rose with the pencil, and in a moment had secured the 
 precious scrap of paper in his pocket. Scarce was the 
 transaction completed when a stranger jumped in. The 
 young man bounded to his own corner, just in time to 
 see the return of Mr. Whiston, glass in hand. 
 
 During the rest of the journey Rose was in the 
 strangest state of mind. She did not feel in the least 
 ashamed of herself. It seemed to her that what had 
 ha])pened was wholly natural and sin)jile. The extra- 
 ordinary thing was that she must sit silent and with 
 cold counfctKince at the distance of a few feet from a 
 person with whom she ardently desired to converse. 
 Sudden illumination had wholly changed the aspect of 
 life. She seemed to be playing a part in a grotesque 
 comedy rather than livinff in a world of <;rave realities. 
 Her father's dignified silence struck her as intolerably 
 absurd. She could have burst into laughter ; at moments 
 she was indignant, irritated, tremulous with the spirit of
 
 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 99 
 
 revolt. She detected a glance of frigid superiority with 
 which Mr. Whiston chanced to survey the other occu- 
 pants of the coni])artnient. It amazed her. Never had 
 she seen her father in such an alien light. He bent 
 forward and addressed to her some conmionplace 
 remark ; she barely deigned a reply. Her views of 
 conduct, of character, had undergone an abrupt and 
 extraordinai-y change. Having justified without shadow 
 of argument her own incredible proceeding, she judged 
 everything and everybody by some new standard, 
 mysteriously attained. She was no longer the Rose 
 Whiston of yesterday. Her old self seemed an object 
 of compassion. She felt an unspeakable happiness, and 
 at the same time an encroaching fear. 
 
 The fear predominated ; when she grew aware of the 
 streets of London looming on either hand it became a 
 torment, an anguish. Small-folded, crushed within her 
 palm, the piece of paper with its still unread inscription 
 seemed to burn her. Once, twice, thrice she met the 
 look of her friend. He smiled cheerily, bravely, with 
 evident purpose of encouragement. She knew his face 
 better than that of any oldest acquaintance ; she saw in 
 it a manly beauty. Only by a great effort of self- 
 control could she refrain from turning aside to unfold 
 and read what he had written. The train slackened 
 speed, stopped. Yes, it was London. She must arise 
 and go. Once more their eyes met. Then, without 
 recollection of any interval, she was on the Metropolitan 
 Railway, moving towards her suburban home. 
 
 A severe headache sent her earlv to bed. Beneath 
 her pillow lay a scrap of paper with a name and address 
 she was not likely to forget. And through the night of 
 broken slumbers Rose suffered a martyrdom. No more
 
 100 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 
 
 self-glorification ! All her courage gone, all her new- 
 vitality ! She saw hei-self with the old eyes, and was 
 shame-stricken to the very heart. 
 
 Whose the fault ? Towards dawn she argued it with 
 the bitterness of niiscrv. ^Vhat a life was hers in this 
 little world of choking respecbibilities ! Forbidden this, 
 forbidden that ; permitted — the })ride of ladyhood. 
 And she was not a lady, after all. \Vhat lady would 
 have permitted herself to exchange names and addresses 
 with a strange man in a railway carriage — furtively, too, 
 escaping her father's observation ? If not a lady, what 
 was she ? It meant the utter failure of her breeding and 
 education. 'I'he sole end for which she had lived was 
 frustrate. A common, vulgar young woman — well 
 mated, doubtless, with an impudent clerk, whose noisy 
 talk was of beer and tobacco ! 
 
 This arrested her. Stung to the defence of her friend, 
 who, clerk though he might be, was neither impudent 
 nor vulgar, she found herself driven back upon self- 
 respect. The battle went on for hours ; it exhausted 
 her; it undid all the good effects of sun and sea, and 
 left her Haccid, pale. 
 
 ' I 'm afraid the iournev yesterday was too much for 
 vou,' remarketl Mr. Winston, after observing her as she 
 sat mute the next evening. 
 
 ' I shall soon recover," Rose answered coldly. 
 
 The father meditated with some uneasiness. He had 
 not forgotten Rose's singular expression of opinion after 
 their dinner at the inn. His affection made him sensi- 
 tive to changes in the girl's demeanour. Next sunniier 
 they must really find a more bracing resort. Yes, yes; 
 clearly Rose needed bracing. But she was always better 
 when the cool days came round.
 
 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 101 
 
 On the morrow it was his daughter's turn to feel 
 anxious. Mr. Whiston all at once wore a face of 
 indignant severity. He was absent-minded ; he sat 
 at table with scarce a word ; he had little nervous move- 
 ments, and subdued mutterings as of wrath. This con- 
 tinued on a second day, and Rose began to suffer an 
 intolerable agitation. She could not help connecting her 
 father's strange behaviour with the secret which tormented 
 her heart. 
 
 Had something happened ? Had her friend seen Mr, 
 Whiston, or written to him ? 
 
 She had awaited with tremors every arrival of the post. 
 It was probable — more than probable — that he would 
 write to her; but as yet no letter came. A week passed, 
 and no letter came. Her father was himself again ; plainly 
 she had mistaken the cause of his perturbation. Ten 
 davs, and no letter came. 
 
 It was Saturday afternoon. Mr. Whiston reached 
 home at tea-time. The first glance showed his daughter 
 that trouble and anger once more beset him. She 
 trembled, and all but wept, for suspense had overwrought 
 her nerves. 
 
 ' I find myself obliged to speak to you on a very dis- 
 agreeable subject" — thus began Mr. Whiston over the 
 tea-cups — ' a very unpleasant subject indeed. My one 
 consolation is that it will probably settle a little argu- 
 ment we had down at the seaside."" 
 
 As his habit was when expressing grave opinions (and 
 Mr. Whiston seldom expressed any other), he made a 
 long pause and ran his fingers through his thin beard. 
 The delay irritated Rose to the last point of endurance. 
 
 ' The fact is,' he proceeded at length, ' a week ago I 
 received a most extraordinary letter — the most impudent
 
 102 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 
 
 letter I ever read in my life. It came from that noisv, 
 beer-driiikiiiff nian who intruded upon us at the inn — 
 you remember. He began by explaining who he was, 
 and — if vou can believe it — had the impertinence to say 
 that he wished to make my acquaintance ! An amazing 
 letter ! Naturally, I left it unanswered — the onlv digni- 
 fied thing to do. But the fellow wrote again, asking if 
 1 had received his proposal. I now replietl, briefly and 
 severely, asking him, first, how he came to know mv 
 name; secondly, what reason I had given him for sup- 
 posing that I desired to meet him again. His answer 
 to this was even more outrageous than the first offence. 
 He bluntly informed me that in order to discover my 
 name and address he had followed us home that day 
 from Padtlington Station ! As if this was not bad enough, 
 he went on to — really, Rose, I feel I must apologise to 
 vou, but the fact is I seem to have no choice but to tell 
 vou what he said. The fellow tells me, really, that he 
 wants to know me only that he may come to know you ! 
 My first idea was to go with this letter to the police. I 
 am not sure that I shan't do so even yet ; most certainly 
 I shall if he writes ajjain. The man may be crazy — he 
 may be dangerous. Who knows but he may come lurk- 
 ing about the house? I felt obliged to warn you of 
 this unpleasant possibility.'' 
 
 Rose was stirring her tea ; also she was smiling. She 
 continued to stir and to smile, without consciousness of 
 either performance. 
 
 'You make light of it.''*' exclaimed her father 
 solemnly. 
 
 ' O father, of course I am sorry you have had this 
 annoyance.' 
 
 So little was there of manifest sorrow in the girl's tone
 
 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 103 
 
 and countenance that Mr. Whiston gazed at her rather 
 indignantly. His pregnant pause gave birth to one of 
 those admonitory axioms which had hitherto ruled his 
 daughter's life. 
 
 ' My dear, I advise you never to trifle with questions 
 of propriety. Could there possibly be a better illustra- 
 tion of what I have so often said — that in self-defence 
 we are bound to keep strangers at a distance ? ' 
 
 ' Father ' 
 
 Rose began firmly, but her voice failed. 
 
 ' You were going to say. Rose ? ' 
 
 She took her courage in both hands. 
 
 ' Will you allow me to see the letters ? '' 
 
 ' Certainly. There can be no objection to that.' 
 
 He drew from his pocket the three envelojies, held 
 them to his daughter. With shaking hand liose un- 
 folded the first letter ; it was written in clear com- 
 mercial character, and was signed ' Charles James 
 Burroughs.' When she had read all, the girl said 
 quietly — 
 
 'Are you quite sure, father, that these letters are 
 impertinent ? ' 
 
 Mr. Whiston stopped in the act of finger-combing his 
 beard. 
 
 * What doubt can there be of it ? ' 
 
 ' They seem to me,' proceeded Rose nervously, 'to be 
 very respectful and very honest.' 
 
 ' My dear, you astound me ! Is it respectful to 
 force one's acquaintance upon an unwilling stranger ? 
 I really don't understand you. Where is your sense 
 of propriety. Rose ? A vulgar, noisy fellow, who talks 
 of beer and tobacco — a petty clerk ! And he has 
 the audacity to write to me that he wants to — to
 
 104 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 
 
 make friemls with my daughter ! Respectful ? Honest ? 
 Really!' 
 
 ^V^len Mr. Whiston became sufficiently agitated to 
 lose his decorous gravity, he began to splutter, and at 
 such moments he was not imj)ressive. Rose kept her 
 eves cast down. She felt her strength once more, the 
 strength of a wholly reasonable and half-passionate re- 
 volt against that tyramious propriety which Mr, Whiston 
 worshipped. 
 
 ' Father ' 
 
 'Well, my dear.?' 
 
 ' There is only one thing I dislike in these letters — 
 and that is a fjilsehood."' 
 
 ' I don't understand.*" 
 
 Rose was Hushing. Her nerves grew tense ; she had 
 wrought herself to a simple audacity which overcame 
 small embarrassments. 
 
 ' Mr. IJurroughs says that he followed us home from 
 Paddington to discover our address. That is not true. 
 He asked me for my name and address in the train, and 
 gave me his." 
 
 The father gasj)ed. 
 
 ' He asked ? You gnre ? ' 
 
 ' It was whilst you were away in the refreshment- 
 room,'' proceeded the girl, with singular self-control, 
 in a voice almost matter-of-fact. 'I ought to tell 
 vou, at the same time, that it was Mr. Rurroughs 
 who brought me the flowers from the inn, when I lor- 
 got them. Vou didn't see him give them to me in the 
 station.' 
 
 The father stared. 
 
 ' But, Rose, what does all this mean .'' You — you 
 overwhelm me! Go on, please. What next.'''
 
 THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER 105 
 
 * Nothing, father."' 
 
 And of a sudden the girl was so beset with confusing 
 emotions that she hurriedly quitted her chair and 
 vanished from the room. 
 
 Before Mr. Whiston returned to his geographical 
 drawing on Monday morning, he had held long conversa- 
 tions with Rose, and still longer with himself. Not 
 easily could he perceive the justice of his daughter's 
 quarrel with propriety ; many days were to pass, indeed, 
 before he would consent to do more than make inquiries 
 about Charles James Burroughs, and to permit that 
 aggressive young man to give a fuller account of himself 
 in writing. It was by silence that Rose prevailed. Hav- 
 ing defended herself against the charge of immodesty, she 
 declined to urge her own inclination or the rights of Mr. 
 Burroughs ; her mute patience did not lack its effect with 
 the scrupulous but tender parent. 
 
 ' I am willing to admit, my dear,' said Mr. Whiston 
 one evening, a propos of nothing at all, ' that the false- 
 hood in that young man's letter gave proof of a certain 
 delicacy.' 
 
 ' Thank you, father,' replied Rose, very quietly and 
 simply. 
 
 It was next morning that the father posted a formal, 
 proper, self-respecting note of invitation, which bore 
 results.
 
 I 
 
 A POOR GENTLEMAN 
 
 It was in the drawing-room, after dinner. Mrs. Char- 
 man, the large and kindly hostess, sank into a chair 
 beside her little friend Mrs. Loring, and sighed a 
 question. 
 
 ' How do you like Mr. Tymperley .? ' 
 
 'Very nice. Just a little peculiar."' 
 
 ' Oh, he is peculiar ! Quite original. I wanted to 
 tell you about him before we went down, but there wasn't 
 time. Such a very old friend of ours. My dear husband 
 and he were at school together — Harrovians. The 
 sweetest, the most affectionate character! Too good 
 for this world, I 'm afraid ; he takes everything so 
 seriously. I shall never forget his grief at my poor 
 husband's death. — I'm telling Mrs. Loring about Mr. 
 Tymperley, Ada.' 
 
 She addressed her married daughter, a quiet young 
 woman who reproduced Mrs. Charman's good-natured 
 countenance, with something more of intelligence, the 
 reflective serenity of a higher type. 
 
 'I'm sorrv to see him looking so far from well,"" 
 remarked Mrs. Weare, in reply. 
 
 ' He never had any colour, you know, and his life . . . 
 IJut I must tell you,' she resumed to Mrs. Loring. 
 ' He 's a bachelor, in comfortable circumstances, and — 
 
 100
 
 A POOR GENTLEMAN 107 
 
 would you believe it ? — he lives quite alone in one of 
 the distressing parts of London. Where is it, Ada ? ' 
 
 ' A poor street in Islington.' 
 
 ' Yes. There he lives, I 'm afraid in shocking lodg- 
 ings — it must be so unhealthy — just to become acquainted 
 with the life of poor people, and be helpful to them. 
 Isn't it heroic ? He seems to have given up his whole 
 life to it. One never meets him anywhere ; I think 
 ours is the only house where he 's seen. A noble life ! 
 He never talks about it. I'm sure you would never 
 have suspected such a thing from his conversation at 
 dinner .'' ' 
 
 ' Not for a moment,' answered Mrs. Loring, astonished. 
 ' He wasn't very gossipy — I gathered that his chief 
 interests were fretwork and foreign politics.' 
 
 Mrs. Weare laughed. ' The very man ! When I 
 was a little girl he used to make all sorts of pretty 
 things for me with his fret-saw ; and when I grew old 
 enough, he instructed me in the balance of Power. It 's 
 possible, mamma, that he writes leading articles. We 
 should never hear of it.' 
 
 ' My dear, anything is possible with Mr. Tymperley. 
 And such a change, this, after his country life. He had 
 a beautiful little house near ours, in Berkshire. I really 
 can't help thinking that my husband's death caused him 
 to leave it. He was so attached to Mr. Charman ! 
 When my husband died, and we left Berkshire, we 
 altogether lost sight of him — oh, for a couple of years. 
 Then I met him by chance in London. Ada thinks 
 there must have been some sentimental trouble.' 
 
 ' Dear mamma,' interposed the daughter, ' it was you, 
 not I, who suggested that.' 
 
 'Was it.? Well, perhaps it was. One can't help
 
 108 A POOR GENTLEMAN 
 
 seeing that lie has gone through something. Of coui'se 
 it niav be oiilv pity for the poor souls he gives his life 
 to. A wonderful man ! ' 
 
 When masculine voices sounded at the drawing-room 
 door, Mrs. I^oring looked curiously for the eccentric 
 gentleman. He entered last of all. A man of more 
 than middle height, but much bowed in the shouldei"s; 
 thin, ungraceful, with an irresolute step and a shy 
 demeanour ; his pale-grey eyes, very soft in expression, 
 looked timidly this way and that from beneath brows 
 nervously bent, and a self-obliterating smile wavered 
 upon his lips. His hair had begun to thin and to turn 
 grey, but he had a heavy moustache, which would better 
 have sorted with sterner lineaments. As he walked — 
 or sidled — into the room, his hands kept shutting and 
 opening, with rather ludicrous effect. Something which 
 was not exactlv shabbiness, but a lack of lustre, of finish, 
 singled him among the group of men ; looking closer, 
 one saw that his black suit belonged to a fashion some 
 years old. His linen was irreproachable, but he wore 
 no sort of jewellery, one little black stud showing on his 
 front, and, at the cuff's, solitaires of the same simple 
 description. 
 
 He drifted into a corner, and there would have sat 
 alone, seemingly at peace, had not Mrs. Weare presently 
 moved to a seat beside him. 
 
 * I hope vou won't be staying in town through 
 August, Mr. Tymperley?*" 
 
 ' No ! — Oh no !— Oh no, I think not ! ' 
 
 ' Hut you seem uncertain. Do forgive me if I say 
 that I 'm sure you need a change. Really, you know, 
 you are 7iot looking (|uite the thing. Now, can"'t I per- 
 suade vou to join us at Lucerne? My husband would
 
 A POOR GENTLEMAN 109 
 
 be so pleased — delighted to talk with you about the 
 state of Europe. Give us a fortnight — do ! ' 
 
 'My dear Mrs. Weare, you are kindness itself! I 
 am deeply grateful. I can't easily express my sense of 
 vour most friendly thoughtfulness. But, the truth is, 
 I am half engaged to other friends. Indeed, I think I 
 may almost say that I have practically . . . yes, indeed, 
 it amounts to that.' 
 
 He spoke in a thinly fluting voice, with a preciseness 
 of enunciation akin to the more feebly clerical, and with 
 smiles which became almost lachrymose in their expres- 
 siveness as he dropped from phrase to phrase of embar- 
 rassed circumlocution. And his long bony hands writhed 
 together till the knuckles were white. 
 
 ' Well, so long as you are going away. I 'm so afraid 
 lest your conscientiousness should go too far. You 
 won't benefit anybody, you know, by making yourself ill.' 
 
 ' Obviously not ! — Ha, ha ! — I assure you that fact is 
 patent to me. Health is a primary consideration. 
 Nothing more detrimental to one's usefulness than an 
 impaired . . . Oh, to be sure, to be sure ! ' 
 
 'There's the strain upon your sympathies. That 
 must affect one's health, quite apart from an unhealthy 
 atmosphere.' 
 
 ' But Islington is not unhealthy, my dear Mrs. Weare ! 
 Believe me, the air has often quite a tonic quality. We 
 are so hiffh, vou must remember. If only we could 
 
 & 
 
 you 
 
 subdue in some degree the noxious exhalations of domestic 
 and industrial chimneys ! — Oh, I assure you, Islington 
 has every natural feature of salubrity.' 
 
 Before the close of the evening there was a little 
 music, which Mr. Tymperley seemed much to enjoy. 
 He let his head fall back, and stared upwards ; remain- 
 
 F
 
 no A POOH GENTLEMAN 
 
 ing rapt in that posture for some moments after the 
 music ceixsed, and at length recovering himself with a 
 sigh. 
 
 When he left the house, he donned an overcoat con- 
 siderably too thick for the sea^son, and bestowed in the 
 pockets his patent-leather shoes. His hat was a hard 
 felt, high in the crown. He grasped an ill-folded 
 umbrella, and set forth at a brisk walk, as if for the 
 neighbouring station. But the railway was not his goal, 
 nor yet the omnibus. Through the ambrosial night he 
 walked and walked, at the steady pace of one accustomed 
 to pedestrian exercise : from Notting Hill Gate to the 
 Marble Arch ; from the Marble Arch to New Oxford 
 Street ; thence by Theobald's Road to Pentonville, and 
 up, and up, until he attained the heights of his own 
 salubrious quarter. Long after midnight he entered a 
 narrow byway, which the pale moon showed to be decent, 
 though not inviting. He admitted himself with a latch- 
 key to a little house which smelt of glue, lit a candle- 
 end which he found in his pocket, and ascended two 
 flights of stairs to a back bedroom, its size eight feet by 
 seven and a half. A few minutes more, and he lay 
 sound asleep. 
 
 Waking: at eight o'clock — he knew the time by a bell 
 that clanged in the neighbourhood — Mr. Tymperley 
 clad himself with nervous haste. On oj)eniiig his door, 
 he found lying outside a tray, with the materials of a 
 breakfast reducetl to its lowest terms : half a pint of 
 milk, bread, butter. At nine o'clock he went down- 
 stairs, taj)ped civilly at the door of the front parlour, 
 and by an untuned voice was bidden enter. 'J'he room 
 was occupied bv an oldish man and a girl, addressing 
 themselves to the day's work of plain bookbinding.
 
 A POOR GENTLEMAN 111 
 
 * Good morning to you, sir,' said Mr. Tymperley, 
 bending his head. ' Good morning, Miss Suggs. Bright ! 
 Sunny ! How it cheers one ! "* 
 
 He stood rubbing his hands, as one might on a morn- 
 ing of sharp frost. The bookbinder, with a dry nod for 
 greeting, forthwith set Mr. Tymperley a task, to which 
 that gentleman zealously applied himself. He was learn- 
 ing the elementary processes of the art. He worked 
 with patience, and some show of natural aptitude, all 
 through the working hours of the day. 
 
 To this pass had things come with Mr. Tymperley, 
 a gentleman of Berkshire, once living in comfort and 
 modest dignity on the fruit of sound investments. 
 Schooled at Harrow, a graduate of Cambridge, he had 
 meditated the choice of a profession until it seemed, on 
 the whole, too late to profess anything at all ; and, as 
 there was no need of such exertion, he settled himself to 
 a life of innocent idleness, hard by the country-house of 
 his wealthy and influential friend, Mr. Charman. Softly 
 the years flowed by. His thoughts turned once or twice 
 to marriage, but a profound diffidence withheld him 
 from the initial step ; in the end, he knew himself born 
 for bachelorhood, and with that estate was content. 
 Well for him had he seen as clearly the delusiveness of 
 other temptations ! In an evil moment he listened to 
 Mr. Charman, whose familiar talk was of speculation, 
 of companies, of shining percentages. Not on his own 
 account was Mr. Tymperley lured : he had enough and 
 to spare ; but he thought of his sister, married to an 
 unsuccessful provincial barrister, and of her six children, 
 whom it would be pleasant to help, like the opulent 
 uncle of fiction, at their entering upon the world. In 
 Mr. Charman he put blind faith, with the result that
 
 112 A POOR GENTLEMAN 
 
 one morning he found himself shivering on the edge of 
 ruin ; the touch of confirmatory news, and over he 
 went. 
 
 No one was aware of it but 'Mr. Charman himself, 
 and he, a few days later, lay sick unto death. Mr. 
 Charman's own estate suffered inappreciably from what 
 to his friend meant sheer disaster. And Mr. Tvmperley 
 breathed not a word to the widow ; spoke not a word 
 to any one at all, except the lawyer, who quietly wound 
 up his affairs, and the sister whose children must needs 
 go without avuncular aid. During the absence of his 
 friendly neighbours after Mr. Charman's death, he quietly 
 disappeared. 
 
 The poor gentleman was then close upon fortv rears 
 old. There remained to him a capital which he durst 
 not expend ; invested, it bore him an income upon 
 which a labourer could scarce have subsisted. The 
 only possible place of residence — because the only sure 
 place of hiding — was London, and to London Mr. 
 Tymperley betook himself. Not at once did he learn 
 the art of combating starvation with minim resources. 
 During his initiatory trials he was once brought so low, 
 by hunger and humiliation, that he swallowed something 
 of his pride, and wrote to a certain acquaintance, asking 
 counsel and indirect help. But onlv a man in Mr. 
 Tymperley's position learns how vain is well-meaning 
 advice, and how impotent is social influence. Had he 
 begged for money, he would have received, no doubt, a 
 checjue, with words of compassion; but Mr. Tvniperley 
 could never bring himself to that. 
 
 He tried to make profit of his former amusement, 
 fretwork, and to a certain extent succeeded, earning in 
 six months half a sovereign. But the prospect of adding
 
 A POOR GENTLEMAN 113 
 
 one pound a year to his starveling dividends did not 
 greatly exhilarate him. 
 
 All this time he was of course living in absolute 
 solitude. Poverty is the great secluder — unless one 
 belongs to the rank which is born to it ; a sensitive man 
 who no longer finds himself on equal terms with his 
 natural associates, shrinks into loneliness, and learns 
 with some surprise how "very willing people are to forget 
 his existence. London is a wilderness abounding in 
 anchorites — voluntary or constrained. As he wandered 
 about the streets and parks, or killed time in museums 
 and galleries (where nothing had to be paid), Mr. 
 Tymperley often recognised brethren in seclusion ; he 
 understood the furtive glance which met his own, he 
 read the peaked visage, marked with understanding 
 sympathy the shabby-genteel apparel. No interchange 
 of confidences between these lurking mortals ; they would 
 like to speak, but pride holds them aloof ; each goes on 
 his silent and unfriended way, until, by good luck, he 
 finds himself in hospital or workhouse, when at length 
 the tongue is loosed, and the sore heart pours forth its 
 reproach of the world. 
 
 Strange knowledge comes to a man in this position. 
 He learns wondrous economies, and will feel a sort of 
 pride in his ultimate discovery of how little money is 
 needed to support life. In his old days Mr. Tymperley 
 would have laid it down as an axiom that ' one ' cannot 
 live on less than such-and-such an income ; he found 
 that ' a man ' can live on a few coppers a day. He 
 became aware of the prices of things to eat, and was 
 taught the relative virtues of nutriment. Perforce a 
 vegetarian, he found that a vegetable diet was good for 
 his health, and delivered to himself many a scornful
 
 114 A POOR GENTLEMAxN 
 
 speech on the habits of the carnivorous multitude. He 
 of necessity abjured alcohols, and straiujhtway longed tu 
 utter his testimony on a teetotal platform. These wei < 
 his satisfactions. Thev compensate astonishingly for the 
 loss of many kinds of self-esteem. 
 
 But it happened one day that, as he was in the act 
 of drawing his poor little quarterly salvage at the Bank 
 of Enffland, a ladv saw him and knew him. It was 
 Mr. Charman's widow. 
 
 ' Why, Mr. Tymperley, wliat has become of you all 
 this time.'' Why have I never heard from you.? Is it 
 true, as some one told me, that you have been living 
 abroad .'' "■ 
 
 So utterly w-as he disconcerted, that in a mechanical 
 way he echoed the lady's last word : ' Abroad.' 
 
 ' But why didn't you write to us .'' ' pursued Mrs. 
 Charman, leaving him no time to say more. ' How 
 very unkind ! Why did you go away without a word .'* 
 My daughter says that we must have unconsciously 
 oifendcd you in some way. Do explain ! Surely there 
 can't have been anything ' 
 
 ' My dear Mrs. Charman, it is I alone who am to blame. 
 I . . . the explanation is difficult ; it involves a multi- 
 plicity of detail. I beg vou to interpret my urijustifiable 
 behaviour as — as pure idiosyncrasy.' 
 
 * Oh, you must come and see me. Vou know that 
 Ada's married? Yes, nearly a year ago. How glad 
 she will be to see you again. So often she has spoken 
 of you. When can you dine.'' To-morrow?' 
 
 ' With pleasure — with great pleasure.' 
 
 * Delightful ! ' 
 
 She gave her address, and they parted. 
 
 Now, a proof that Mr. Tymperley had never lost all
 
 A POOR GENTLEMAN 115 
 
 hope of restitution to his native world lay in the fact 
 of his having carefully preserved an evening-suit, with 
 the appropriate patent-leather shoes. Many a time had 
 he been sorely tempted to sell these seeming superfluities ; 
 more than once, towards the end of his pinched quarter, 
 the suit had been pledged for a few shillings ; but to 
 part with the supreme symbol of respectability would 
 have meant despair — a state of mind alien to Mr. 
 Tvmperley's passive fortitude. His jewellery, even 
 watch and chain, had long since gone : such gauds 
 are not indispensable to a gentleman's outfit. He now 
 congratulated himself on his prudence, for the meeting 
 with Mrs. Charman had delighted as much as it embar- 
 rassed him, and the prospect of an evening in society 
 made his heart glow. He hastened home ; he examined 
 his garb of ceremony with anxious care, and found no 
 ffiarincr defect in it. A shirt, a collar, a necktie must 
 needs be purchased ; happily he had the means. But 
 how explain himself.? Could he confess his place of 
 abode, his startling poverty.? To do so would be to 
 make an appeal to the compassion of his old friends, and 
 from that he shrank in horror. A gentleman will not, 
 if it can possibly be avoided, reveal circumstances likely 
 to cause pain. Must he, then, tell or imply a falsehood. 
 The whole truth involved a reproach of Mrs. Charman's 
 husband — a thought he could not bear. 
 
 The next evening found him still worrying over this 
 dilemma. He reached Mrs. Charman 's house without 
 having come to any decision. In the drawing-room 
 three persons awaited him : the hostess, with her 
 daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Weare. The 
 cordiality of his reception moved him all but to tears ; 
 overcome by many emotions, he lost his head. He talked
 
 IIG A rOOIl GENTLEMAN 
 
 tit raiulom ; and the result was so strange a piece of 
 fiction, that no sooner had he evolved it than he stood 
 aiilmst at himself. 
 
 It came in reply to the natural question where he was 
 residing. 
 
 'At present' — he smiled fatuously — 'I inhabit a 
 bed-sitting-room in a little street up at Islington.' 
 
 Dead silence followed. Eyes of wonder were fixed 
 upon hinj. But for those eyes, who knows what con- 
 fession Mr. Tymperley might have made "^ As it 
 was . . . 
 
 * I said, Mrs. Charman, that I had to confess to an 
 eccentricitv. I hope it won't shock you. To be brief, I 
 have devoted my poor energies to social work. I live 
 among the poor, and as one of them, to obtain knowledge 
 that cannot be otherwise procured.' 
 
 'Oh, how noble!' exclaimed the hostess. 
 
 The poor gentleman's conscience smote him terribly. 
 He could say no more. To spare his delicacy, his friends 
 turned the conversation. Then or afterwards, it never 
 occurred to them to doubt the truth of what he had 
 said. Mrs. Charman had seen him transacting business 
 at the Bank of England, a place not suggestive of 
 poverty ; and he had always passed for a man somewhat 
 orijiinal in his views and ways. Thus was Mr. Tymperley 
 committed to a singular piece of deception, a fraud which 
 could not easily be discovered, and which injured only its 
 perpetrator. 
 
 Since tiien about a year had elapsed. Mr. Tymperley 
 had seen his friends perhaps half a dozen times, his en- 
 joyment of their society pathetically intense, but troubled 
 by any slightest allusion to his mode of life. It had 
 come to be understood that he made it a matter of
 
 A POOR GENTLEMAN 117 
 
 principle to hide his light under a bushel, so he seldom 
 had to take a new step in positive falsehood. Of course 
 he regretted ceaselessly the original deceit, for Mrs. 
 Charman, a wealthy woman, might very well have assisted 
 him to some not undignified mode of earning his living. 
 As it was, he had hit upon the idea of making himself a 
 bookbinder, a craft somewhat to his taste. For some 
 months he had lodged in the bookbinder's house ; one 
 day courage came to him, and he entered into a compact 
 with his landlord, whereby he was to pay for instruction 
 by a certain period of unremunerated work after he be- 
 came proficient. That stage was now approaching. On 
 the whole, he felt much happier than in the time of 
 brooding idleness. He looked forward to the day when 
 he would have a little more money in his pocket, and no 
 longer dread the last fortnight of each quarter, with its 
 supperless nights. 
 
 Mrs. Weare's invitation to Lucerne cost him pangs. 
 Lucerne ! Surely it was in some former state of exist- 
 ence that he had taken delightful holidays as a matter 
 of course. He thought of the many lovely places he 
 knew, and so many dream-landscapes ; the London streets 
 made them infinitely remote, utterly unreal. His three 
 years of gloom and hardship were longer than all the life 
 of placid contentment that came before. Lucerne ! A 
 man of more vigorous temper would have been maddened 
 at the thought ; but Mr. Tymperley nursed it all day long, 
 his emotions only expressing themselves in a little sigh 
 or a sadly wistful smile. 
 
 Having dined so well yesterday, he felt it his duty to 
 expend less than usual on to-day's meals. About eight 
 o'clock in the evening, after a meditative stroll in the air 
 which he had so praised, he entered th-> shop where he
 
 118 A POOR GKNTLEMAN 
 
 was wont to make his modest purchases. A fat woman 
 behind the counter nodded familiarly to hin), with a grin 
 at another customer, Mr. Tymperley bowed, as was his 
 courteous habit. 
 
 ' Oblige me/ he said, ' with one new-laid egg, and a 
 small, crisp lettuce.' 
 
 'Onlv one to-night, eh .^ ' said the woman. 
 
 ' Thank you, only one,' he replied, as if speaking in 
 a drawing-room. ' Forgive me if I express a hope 
 that it will be, in the strict sense of the word, new-laid. 
 The last, I fancy, had got into that box by some over- 
 sight — pardonable in the press of business."' 
 
 ' Thev 're always the same," said the fat shopkeeper. 
 'We don't make no mistakes of that kind.' 
 
 ' Ah ! Forgive me ! Perhaps I imagined ' 
 
 EffiT and lettuce were carefullv deposited in a little 
 handbag he carried, and he returned home. An hour 
 later, when his meal was finished, and he sat on a 
 straight-backed chair meditating in the twilight, a rap 
 sounded at his door, and a letter was handed to him. 
 So rarely did a letter arrive for Mr. Tymperley that his 
 hand shook as he examined the envelope. On ojiening 
 it, the lirst thing he saw was a cheque. This excited 
 him still more ; he unfolded the written sheet with agita- 
 tion. It came from Mrs. VVeare, who wrote thus : — 
 
 ' Nfv nr.An Mr. Tymperley, — After our t.ilk last evening, 
 I could not lielj) thinking of you and your beautiful life of 
 self-sacrifice. 1 contrasted the lot of these poor people with 
 my own, wliich, one cannot but feel, is so undeservedly blest 
 and so ricii in enjoyments. .As a result of these thou<jhts, I 
 feel impelled to send you a little contribution to your good 
 work — a sort of thank-offering at the moment of settini^ off 
 for a haj));y holiday. Divide the money, ))leasc, araonff two 
 or three of your most deserving pensioners ; or, if you see fit,
 
 A POOR GENTLEMAN 119 
 
 give it all to one. I cling to the hope that we may see you 
 at Lucerne. — With very kind regards. 
 
 The cheque was for five pounds. Mr. Tymperley 
 held it up by the window, and gazed at it. By his 
 present standards of value five pounds seemed a very 
 large sum. Think of what one could do with it ! His 
 boots — which had been twice repaired — would not 
 decently serve him much longer. His trousers were 
 in the last stage of presentability. The hat he wore 
 (how carefully tended !) was the same in which he had 
 come to London three years ago. He stood in need, 
 verily, of a new equipment from head to foot ; and in 
 Islington five pounds would more than cover the whole 
 expense. When, pray, was he likely to have such a sum 
 at his free disposal ? 
 
 He sighed deeply, and stared about him in the 
 dusk. 
 
 The cheque was crossed. For the first time in his 
 life Mr. Tymperlev perceived that the crossing of a 
 cheque may occasion its recipient a great deal of trouble. 
 How was he to get it changed ? He knew his landlord 
 for a suspicious curmudgeon, and refusal of the favour, 
 with such a look as Mr. Suggs knew how to give, would 
 be a sore humiliation ; besides, it was very doubtful 
 whether Mr. Suggs could make any use of the cheque 
 himself. To whom else could he apply ? Literally, to 
 no one in London. 
 
 'Well, the first thing to do was to answer Mrs. 
 Weare's letter. He lit his lamp and sat down at 
 the crazy little deal table ; but his pen dipped several 
 times into the ink before he found himself able to 
 write.
 
 120 A POOR GENTLEMAN 
 
 ' Deah Mrs. We a re,' — 
 
 Then, so loiiti^ a pause that he seemed to be falling asleep. 
 ^^'ith a jerk, he bent again to his task. 
 
 'With sincere gratitude I acknowledge the receipt of your 
 most kind and generous donation. The nionty . . .' 
 
 (Again his hand lay idle for several minutes.) 
 
 'shall be used as vou wish, and I will render to von a detailed 
 account of the benefits conferred by it.' 
 
 Never had he found composition so diflicult. He felt 
 that he was expressing himself wretchedly ; a clog was on 
 his brain. It cost him an exertion of physical strength 
 to conclude the letter. When it was done, he went out, 
 purchased a stamp at a tobacconist's shop, and dropped 
 the envelope into the post. 
 
 Little slumber had Mr. Tymperley that night. On 
 lying down, he began to wonder where he should find 
 the poor people worthy of sharing in this benefaction. 
 Of course he had no acquaintance with the class of 
 persons of whom Mrs. Weare was thinking. In a sense, 
 all the families round about were poor, but — he asked 
 himself — had poverty the same meaning for them as 
 for him .'' Was there a man or woman in this grimy 
 street who, compared with himself, had any right to 
 be called poor at all .-^ An educated man forced to live 
 among the lower classes arrives at nianv interesting con- 
 clusions with regard to them ; one conclusion long since 
 fixed in Mr. Tymperley 's mind was that the 'suffering"' 
 of those cla.sses is very much exaggerated by outsiders 
 using a criterion (piile inapplicable. He saw around him 
 a world of coarse jollity, of contented labour, and of
 
 A POOR GENTLEMAN 121 
 
 brutal apathy. It seemed to him more than probable 
 that the only person in this street conscious of poverty, 
 and suffering under it, was himself. 
 
 From nightmarish dozing, he started with a vivid 
 thought, a recollection which seemed to pierce his brain. 
 To whom did he owe his fall from comfort and self- 
 respect, and all his long miseries ? To Mrs. Weare's 
 father. And, from this point of view, might the cheque 
 for five pounds be considered as mere restitution ? 
 Might it not strictly be applicable to his own 
 necessities ? 
 
 Another little gap of semi-consciousness led to another 
 strange reflection. What if Mrs. Weare (a sensible 
 woman) suspected, or even had discovered, the truth 
 about him. What if she secretly meant the money for 
 his own use ? 
 
 Earliest daylight made this suggestion look very 
 insubstantial ; on the other hand, it strengthened his 
 memory of Mr. Charman's virtual indebtedness to him. 
 He jumped out of bed to reach the cheque, and for an 
 hour lay with it in his hand. Then he rose and 
 dressed mechanically. 
 
 After the day's work he rambled in a street of large 
 shops. A bootmakers arrested him ; he stood before the 
 window for a long time, turning over and over in his 
 pocket a sovereign — no small fraction of the ready coin 
 which had to support him until dividend day. Then he 
 crossed the threshold. 
 
 Never did man use less discretion in the purchase of a 
 pair of boots. His business was transacted in a dream ; 
 he spoke without hearing what he said ; he stared at 
 objects without perceiving them. The result was that 
 not till he had got home, with his easy old footgear under
 
 122 A POOR GENTLEMAN 
 
 his arm, did he become aware that the new boots pinched 
 him most horribly. They creaked too : heavens ! how they 
 creaked ! IJut doubtless all new boots had these faults ; 
 he had forgotten ; it was so long since he had bought a 
 pair. The fact was, he felt dreadfullv tired, utterly worn 
 out. After munching a mouthful of supper he crept into 
 bed. 
 
 All night long he warred with his new boots. Foot- 
 sore, he limped about the streets of a spectral city, 
 where at every corner some one seemed to lie in ambush 
 for him, and each time the lurking enemy proved to be 
 no other than Mrs. Weare, who gazed at him with scorn- 
 ful eyes and let him totter by. The creaking of the 
 boots was an articulate voice, which ever and anon 
 screamed at him a terrible name. He shrank and shivered 
 and groaned ; but on he went, for in his hand he held a 
 crossed cheque, which he was bidden to get changed, and 
 no one would change it. What a night ! 
 
 When he woke his brain was heavv as lead ; but his 
 meditations were very lucid. Pray, what did he mean by 
 that insane outlay of money, which he could not possibly 
 afford, on a new (and detestable) pair of boots ? The 
 old would have lasted, at all events, till winter began. 
 ^Vhat was in his mind when he entered the shop ? Did 
 he intend . . . ? Merciful powers ! 
 
 Mr. Tvmperlev was not much of a psychologist, liut 
 all at once he saw with awful perspicacity the moral 
 crisis through which he had been living. And it taught 
 him one more truth on the subject of poverty. 
 
 Immediately after his breakfast he went downstairs and 
 tapped at the door of Mr. Suggs" sitting-room. 
 
 ' What is it ?^ asked the bookbinder, who was eating 
 his fourth large rasher, and spoke with his mouth full.
 
 A POOR GENTLEMAN 123 
 
 * Sir, I beg leave of absence for an hour or two this 
 morning. Business of some moment demands my 
 attention.' 
 
 Mr. Suggs answered, with the grace natural to his 
 order, ' I s'pose you can do as you like. I don't pay you 
 nothing.' 
 
 The other bowed and withdrew. 
 
 Two days later he again penned a letter to Mrs. 
 Weare. It ran thus : — 
 
 'The money which you so kindly sent, and which I have 
 already acknowledged, has now been distributed. To en- 
 sure a proper use of it, I handed the cheque, with clear 
 instructions, to a clergyman in this neighbourhood, who has 
 been so good as to jot down, on the sheet enclosed, a 
 memorandum of his beneficiaries, which I trust will be 
 satisfactory and gratifying to you. 
 
 ' But why, you will ask, did I have recourse to a clergy- 
 man. Why did I not use my own experience, and give 
 myself the pleasure of helping poor souls in whom I have a 
 personal interest — I who have devoted my life to this mission 
 of mercy ? 
 
 ' The answer is brief and plain. I have lied to you. 
 
 ' I am not living in this place of my free will. I am not 
 devoting myself to works of charity. I am — no, no, I was 
 — merely a poor gentleman, who, on a certain day, found 
 that he had wasted his substance in a foolish speculation, and 
 who, ashamed to take his friends into his confidence, fled to 
 a life of miserable obscurity. You see that I have added 
 disgrace to misfortune. I will not tell you how very near I 
 came to something still worse. 
 
 'I have been serving an apprenticeship to a certain handi- 
 craft which will, I doubt not, enable me so to supplement 
 my own scanty resources that I shall be in better circum- 
 stances than hitherto. I entreat you to forgive me, if you 
 can, and henceforth to forget Yours unworthily, 
 
 ' S. V. Tympkrley.'
 
 MISS RODNEYS LEISURE 
 
 A YOUNG woman of about eight-and-twenty, in tailor- 
 made costume, with unadorned hat of l)rowii felt, and 
 irreproachable umbrella; a young woman who walked 
 faster than anv one in Wattleborouirh, vet never looked 
 hurried ; who crossed a muddy street seemingly without 
 a thought for her skirts, yet somehow was never splashed ; 
 who held up her head like one thoroughly at honie in 
 the world, and frequently smiled at her own thoughts. 
 Those who did not know her asked who she was ; those 
 who had already made her aciiuaintance talked a good 
 deal of the new mistress at the High School, by name 
 Miss Rodney. In less than a week after her arrival in 
 the town, her opinions were cited and discussed by 
 Wattleboroutrh ladies. She brought with her the air 
 of a University ; she knew a great number of important 
 people ; she had a quiet decision of speech and manner 
 which was found very imj)ressive in "NVattleborough 
 drawing-rooms. The headmistress spoke of her in high 
 terms, and the incumbent of St, Luke's, who knew her 
 family, rej)orted that she had always been remarkably 
 clever. 
 
 A stranger in the town, Miss Rodney was recom- 
 mended to the loilgiiigs of Mrs. Ducker, a chuichwarden"'s 
 widow ; but there she remained only for a week or two, 
 and it w;is understood that she left because the rooms 
 
 124
 
 MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE 125 
 
 * lacked character."' Some persons understood this as an 
 imputation on Mrs. Ducker, and were astonished ; others, 
 who caught a glimpse of Miss Rodney's meaning, thought 
 she must be ' fanciful.'' Her final choice of an abode 
 gave general surprise, for though the street was one of 
 those which Wattleborough opinion classed as ' respect- 
 able,' the house itself, as Miss Rodney might have learnt 
 from the incumbent of St. Luke's, in whose parish it 
 was situated, had objectionable features. Nothing grave 
 coidd be alleged against Mrs. Turpin, M'ho regularly 
 attended the Sunday evening service ; but her husband, 
 a carpenter, spent far too much time at ' The Swan 
 With Two Necks ' ; and then there was a lodger, young 
 Mr. RawclifFe, concerning whom Wattleborough had for 
 some time been too well informed. Of such comments 
 upon her proceeding Miss Rodney made light ; in the 
 aspect of the rooms she found a certain ' quaintness ' 
 which decidedly pleased her. ' And as for Mrs. Grundy,"* 
 she added, ^je ni'en Jlche,'' which certain ladies of culture 
 declared to be a polite expression of contempt. 
 
 Miss Rodney never wasted time, and in matters of 
 business had cultivated a notable brevity. Her inter- 
 view with Mrs. Turpin, when she engaged the rooms, 
 occupied perhaps a quarter of an hour; in that space 
 of time she had sufficiently surveyed the house, had 
 learnt all that seemed necessary as to its occupants, and 
 had stated in the clearest possible way her present 
 requirements. 
 
 ' As a matter of course,' was her closing remark, ' the 
 rooms will be thoroughly cleaned before I come in. At 
 present they are filthy.' 
 
 The landlady was too much astonished to reply ; Miss 
 Rodney's tones and bearing had so impressed her that
 
 Iil6 MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE 
 
 she was at a loss for her usual loquacity, and could only 
 stammer resj)ectfully broken answers to wliatever was 
 asked. Assuredly no one had ever dared to tell her 
 that her lodgings were 'filthy' — any ordinary person 
 who had ventured upon such an insult would have been 
 overwhelmed with clamorous retort. But Miss Rotlney, 
 witii a pleasant smile and nod, went her way, and Mrs. 
 Turpi n stood at the open door gazing after her, be- 
 wildered 'twixt satisfaction and resentment. 
 
 She was an easy-going, wool-witted creature, not ill- 
 disposed, but sometimes mendacious and very indolent. 
 Her life had always been what it was now — one of 
 slatternly comfort and daylong gossip, for she came of 
 a small tradesman's faniily, and had married an artisan 
 who was always in well-paid work. Her children were 
 two daughters, who, at seventeen and fifteen, remained 
 in the house with her doing little or nothing, though 
 they were supposed to 'wait upon the lodgers.' For 
 some months only two of the four rooms Mrs. Turpin 
 was able to let had been occupied, one by ' voung Mr. 
 R^iwcliffe,'' always so called, though his age was nearly 
 thirty, but, as was well known, he belonged to the ' real 
 gentry,' and Mrs. Turpin held him in reverence on that 
 account. No matter for his little weaknesses — of which 
 evil tongues, said Mrs. Turpin, of course made the most. 
 He might be irregular in payment ; he might come 
 home 'at all houi-s,'and make unnecessary noise in going 
 upstairs; he might at times grundile when his chop was 
 ill-cooked ; and, to tell the truth, he might occasionally 
 be ' a little too free ' with the young ladies — that is to say, 
 with Mabel and Lily Turpin; but all these things were 
 forgiven him because he was 'a real gentleman,' and spent 
 just as little time as he liked daily in a solicitor's office.
 
 MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE 127 
 
 Miss Rodney arrived early on Saturday afternoon. 
 Smiling and silent, she saw her luggage taken up to the 
 bedroom ; she paid the cabman ; she beckoned her 
 landlady into the parlour, which was on the ground- 
 floor front. 
 
 ' You haven't had time yet, Mrs. Turpin, to clean 
 the rooms ? ' 
 
 The landlady stammered a half-indignant surprise. 
 Why, she and her daughters had given the room a 
 thorough turn out. It was done only yesterday, and 
 hours had been devoted to it. 
 
 ' I see,' interrupted Miss Rodney, with quiet decision, 
 ' that our notions of cleanliness differ considerably. I 'm 
 going out now, and I shall not be back till six o'clock. 
 You will please to clean the bedroom before then. The 
 sitting-room shall be done on Monday.' 
 
 And therewith Miss Rodney left the house. 
 
 On her return she found the bedroom relatively clean, 
 and, knowing that too much must not be expected at 
 once, she made no comment. That night, as she sat 
 reading at eleven o'clock, a strange sound arose in the 
 back part of the house ; it was a man's voice, hilariously 
 mirthful and breaking into rude song. After listening 
 for a few minutes. Miss Rodney rang her bell, and the 
 landlady appeared. 
 
 ' Whose voice is that I hear ? ' 
 
 ' Voice, miss ? ' 
 
 ' Who is shouting and singing ? ' asked Miss Rodney, 
 in a disinterested tone. 
 
 ' I 'm sorry if it disturbs you, miss. You 'II hear no 
 more.' 
 
 ' Mrs. Turpin, I asked who it was.' 
 
 ' My 'usband, miss. But '
 
 128 MISS RODNEYS LEISURE 
 
 ' Thank you. Good night, Mrs. Turpin.*" 
 
 There was quiet for an hour or more. At something 
 after n)i(]night, when Miss Rodney had just finished 
 writing half a dozen letters, there sounded a latch-key 
 in the front door, and some one entered. This person, 
 whoever it was, seemed to stumble about the passage in 
 the dark, and at length banged against the listener's 
 door. Miss Rodney started up and flung the door open. 
 By the light of her lamp she saw a moustachioed face, 
 highly Hushed, and grinning. 
 
 ' Beg pardon,"" cried the man, in a voice which harmon- 
 ised with his look and bearing. ' Infernally dark here ; 
 haven't got a match. You're Miss — })ardon — forgotten 
 the name — new lodger. Oblige me with a light .'* 
 Thanks awfuUv.' 
 
 ^Vithout a word Miss Rodney took a match-box 
 from her chinmey-piece, entered the passage, entered the 
 second j)arlour — that occupied by Mr. Rawcliffe — and 
 lit a candle which stood on the table. 
 
 * You '11 be so kind,' she said, looking her fellow- 
 lodger in the eyes, ' as not to set the house on fire.' 
 
 'Oh, no fear,' he rejiliod, with a high laugh. ' Quite 
 accustomed. Thanks awfully, Miss — pardon — forgotten 
 the name.' 
 
 But Miss Rodney was back in her sitting-room, and 
 had closed the door. 
 
 Her breakfast next morning was served by Mabel 
 Turpin, the elder daughter, a stupidly good-natured girl, 
 who would fain have entered into conversation. i\Iiss 
 Rodney rej)lied to a (juestion that she had slept well, 
 and added that, when she rang her bell, she would like 
 to see Mrs. Turpin. Twenty minutes later the landlady 
 entered.
 
 MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE 129 
 
 ' You wanted me, miss ? ■■ she began, in what was 
 meant for a voice of dignity and reserve. ' I don't really 
 wait on lodgers myself.' 
 
 ' We '11 talk about that another time, Mrs. Turpin. 
 I wanted to say, first of all, that you have spoiled a 
 piece of good bacon and two good eggs. I must trouble 
 you to cook better than this.' 
 
 ' I 'm very sorry, miss, that nothing seems to suit 
 you ' 
 
 ' Oh, we shall get right in time ! ' interrupted Miss 
 Rodney cheerfully. ' You will find that I have patience. 
 Then I wanted to ask you whether your husband and 
 your lodger come home tipsy every night, or only on 
 Saturdays .'' ' 
 
 The woman opened her eyes as wide as saucers, trying 
 hard to look indignant. 
 
 ' Tipsy, miss ? ' 
 
 ' Well, perhaps I should have said " drunk " ; I beg 
 your pardon.' 
 
 ' All I can say, miss, is that young Mr. RawclifFe has 
 never behaved himself in this house excepting as the 
 gentleman he is. You don't perhaps know that he 
 belongs to a very high-connected family, miss, or I 'm 
 sure you wouldn't ' 
 
 ' I see,' inteiposed Miss Rodney. ' That accounts 
 for it. But your husband. Is he highly connected "^ ' 
 
 ' I 'm sure, miss, nobody could ever say that my 
 'usband took too much — not to say really too much. 
 You may have heard him a bit merry, miss, but where 's 
 the harm of a Saturday night ''i ' 
 
 'Thank you. Then it is only on Saturday nights 
 that Mr. Turpin becomes merry. I'm glad to know 
 that. I shall get used to these little things.'
 
 130 MISS RODNEY'S LEISITRE 
 
 But Mrs. Turpin did not feel sure that she would get 
 used to her lodger. Sunday was spoilt for her bv this 
 beginning. W'hen her husband woke from his pro- 
 longed slumbers, and shouted for breakfast (which on 
 this dav of rest he always took in bed), the good woman 
 went to him with downcast visage, and spoke querulously 
 of Miss Rodney's behaviour. 
 
 ' I icnnt wait upon her, so there ! The girls may do 
 it, and if she isn't satisfied let her give notice. I 'ni sure 
 I shan't be soiry. She's given me more trouble in a 
 day than poor Mrs. Brown did all the months she was 
 here. I ~coiit be at her beck and call, so there !' 
 
 Before in-ht came this declaration was repeated 
 times innumerable, and as it happened that Miss Rodney 
 made no demand for her landlady's attendance, the good 
 woman enjoved a sense of triumphant self-assertion. On 
 Monday morning Mabel took in the breakfast, and 
 reported that Miss Rodney had made no remark ; but, 
 a quarter of an hour later, the bell rang, and Mrs. 
 Turpin was summoned. Very red in the face, she 
 obeyed. Having civilly greeted her, Miss Rodney 
 inquired at what hour Mr. Turpin took his breakfast, 
 and was answered with an air of surprise that he always 
 left the house on week-days at half-past seven. 
 
 ' In that case,' said Miss Rodney, 'I will ask ])er- 
 mission to come into your kitchen at a (juarter to eight 
 to-morrow morninfj, to show you how to frv bacon and 
 boil eggs. You mustn't mind. You know that teach- 
 ing is my profession.' 
 
 Mrs. Tur[)in, nevertheless, seemed to mind very much. 
 Her generally good-tempered face wore a dogged sullen- 
 ness, and she began to mutter something about such a 
 thing never having been heard of; but Miss Rodney
 
 MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE 131 
 
 paid no heed, renewed the appointment for the next 
 morning, and waved a cheerful dismissal. 
 
 Talking with a friend that day, the High School 
 mistress gave a humorous description of her lodgings, 
 and when the friend remarked that they must be very 
 uncomfortable, and that surely she would not stay there. 
 Miss Rodney replied that she had the fii'mest intention 
 of staying, and, what was more, of being comfortable. 
 
 ' I 'm going to take that household in hand,' she 
 added. ' The woman is foolish, but can be managed, I 
 think, with a little patience. I'm going to tackle the 
 drunken husband as soon as I see my way. And as 
 for the highly connected gentleman whose candle I had 
 the honour of lighting, I shall turn him out.' 
 
 ' You have your work set ! ' exclaimed the friend, 
 laughing. 
 
 ' Oh, a little employment for my leisure ! This kind 
 of thing relieves the monotony of a teacher's life, and 
 prevents one from growing old.' 
 
 Very systematically she pursued her purpose of getting 
 Mrs. Turpin ' in hand.' The two points at which she 
 first aimed were the keeping clean of her room and the 
 decent preparation of her meals. Never losing temper, 
 never seeming to notice the landlady's sullen mood, 
 always using a tone of legitimate authority, touched 
 sometimes with humorous compassion, she exacted 
 obedience to her directions, but was well aware that at 
 any moment the burden of a new civilisation might 
 prove too heavy for the Turpin family and cause revolt. 
 A week went by; it was again Saturday, and Miss 
 Rodney devoted a part of the morning (there being no 
 school to-day) to culinary instruction. Mabel and Liiy 
 shared the lesson with their mother, but both young
 
 132 MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE 
 
 ladies wore an air of condescension, and grimaced at 
 Miss Rodney behind her back. Mrs. Tur|)in was obsti- 
 nately mute. The pride of ignorance stiffened her back- 
 bone and curieil her lip. 
 
 Miss Rodney's leisure generally had its task ; though 
 as a matter of principle she took daily exercise, her 
 walking or cycling was alwavs an opportunity for think- 
 ing something out, and this afternoon, as she sj)ed on 
 wheels some ten miles from Wattleborough, her mind 
 was busy with the problem of Mrs. Turpin's husband. 
 From her clerical friend of St. Luke's .she had learnt 
 that Turpin was at bottom a decent sort of man, rather 
 intelligent, and that it was only during the last year or 
 two that he had taken to passing his evenings at the 
 public-house. Causes for this decline could be suggested. 
 The carpenter had lost his only son, a lad of whom he 
 was very fond; the boy's death quite broke him down 
 at the time, and perhajis he had begun to drink as a 
 wav for forgetting his trouble. Perhaps, too, his foolish, 
 slatternly wife bore part of the blame, for his home had 
 alwavs been comfortless, and such comj)ai)ionship must, 
 in the long-run, tell on a man. Reflecting uj)on this, 
 Miss Rodnev had an idea, and she took no time in 
 putting it into practice. ^Vhen Mabel brought in her 
 tea, she asked the girl whether her father was at home. 
 
 ' I think he is, miss,' was the distant reply — for 
 Mabel had been bidden by her mother to ' show a 
 proper sjiirit' when Miss Rodnev addresseil her. 
 
 'You think so.? Will you please make sure, and, if 
 vou are right, ask Mr. Turpin to be so kind as to let 
 me have a word with him.' 
 
 StMvtied and puzzled, the girl left the room. Miss 
 Rodnev waited, but no one came. When ten minutes
 
 MISS RODNEY^S LEISURE 133 
 
 had elapsed she rang the bell. A few minutes more 
 and there sounded a heavy foot in the passage ; then a 
 heavy knock at the door, and Mr. Turpin presented 
 himself. He was a short, sturdy man, with hair and 
 beard of the hue known as ginger, and a face which told 
 in his favour. Vicious he could assuredly not be, with 
 those honest grey eyes ; but one easily imagined him 
 weak in character, and his attitude as he stood just 
 within the room, half respectful, half assertive, betrayed 
 an embarrassment altogether encouraging to Miss Rodney. 
 In her pleasantest tone she begged him to be seated. 
 
 'Thank you, miss," he replied, in a deep voice, which 
 sounded huskily, but had nothing of surliness ; ' I sup- 
 pose you want to complain about something, and I 'd 
 rather get it over standing.' 
 
 ' I was not going to make any complaint, Mr. 
 Turpin.' 
 
 ' I 'm glad to hear it, miss ; for my wife wished 
 me to say she'd done about all she could, and if 
 things weren't to your liking, she thought it would 
 be best for all if you suited yourself in somebody else's 
 lodgings.' 
 
 It evidently cost the man no little effort to deliver 
 his message ; there was a nervous twitching about his 
 person, and he could not look Miss Rodney straight in 
 the face. She, observant of this, kept a very steady eye 
 on him, and spoke with all possible calmness. 
 
 ' I have not the least desire to change my lodgings, 
 Mr. Turpin. Things are going on quite well. There is- 
 an improvement in the cooking, in the cleaning, in every- 
 thing ; and, with a little patience, I am sure we shall all 
 come to understand one another. What I wanted to- 
 speak to you about was a little practical matter in whicb^
 
 134 MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE 
 
 you may be alile to help me. I teach mathematics at 
 the High Sdiool, and I have an idea that I might make 
 certain points in geometry easier to my younger girls if 
 I could demonstrate them in a mechanical way. Pray 
 look here. You see the shapes I have sketched on this 
 piece of paper; do you think you could make them for 
 me in wood ?'' 
 
 The carpenter was moved to a show of reluctant 
 interest. He took the pa|>er, balanced himself now on 
 one leg, now on the other, and said at length that he 
 thought he saw what was wanted. Miss Jiodnev, com- 
 ing to his side, explained in more detail ; his interest 
 grew more active. 
 
 'That's Euclid, miss.?' 
 
 'To be sure. Do you remember vour Euclid ?' 
 
 'My own schooling never went as far as that,' he 
 replied, in a muttering voice ; ' but my Harrv used to do 
 Euclid at the (Trammar School, and I got into a sort of 
 way of doing it with him.' 
 
 Miss Rodney kept a moment's silence ; then quietly 
 and kindly she asked one or two questions about the 
 boy who had died. The father answered in an awkward, 
 confused way, as if speaking only by constraint. 
 
 'Well, III see what I can do. miss,' he added 
 abruptly, folding the paper to take away. ' You 'd like 
 them soon f ' 
 
 ' Yes. I was going to ask you, Mr. Turpin, whether 
 you could do them this evening. Then I should have 
 them for Mondav morning.' 
 
 Turpin hesitated, shufHed his feet, and seemed to 
 reflect uneasily; but he said at length that he 'would 
 see about it,' and, with a rough bow, got out of the 
 room. That night no hilarious sounds came from the
 
 MISS RODNEY^S LEISURE 135 
 
 kitchen. On Sunday morning, when Miss Rodney went 
 into her sitting-room, she found on the table the wooden 
 geometrical forms, excellently made, just as she wished. 
 Mabel, who came with breakfast, was bidden to thank 
 her father, and to say that Miss Rodney would like to 
 speak with him again, if his leisure allowed, after tea- 
 time on Monday. At that hour the carpenter did not 
 fail to present himself, distrustful still, but less em- 
 barrassed. Miss Rodney praised his work, and desired 
 to pay for it. Oh ! that wasn't worth talking about, 
 said Turpin ; but the lady insisted, and money changed 
 hands. This piece of business transacted. Miss Rodney 
 produced a Euclid, and asked Turpin to show her how 
 far he had gone in it with his boy Harry. The subject 
 proved fruitful of conversation. It became evident that 
 the carpenter had a mathematical bias, and could be 
 readily interested in such things as geometrical pro- 
 blems. Why should he not take up the subject 
 again ? 
 
 ' Nay, miss,' replied Turpin, speaking at length quite 
 naturally ; * I shouldn't have the heart. If my Harry 
 had lived ' 
 
 But Miss Rodney stuck to the point, and succeeded 
 in making him promise that he would get out the old 
 Euclid and have a look at it in his leisure time. As he 
 withdrew, the man had a pleasant smile on his honest 
 face. 
 
 On the next Saturday evening the house was again 
 quiet. 
 
 Meanwhile, relations between Mrs. Turpin and her 
 lodger were becoming less strained. For the first time 
 in her life the flabby, foolish woman had to do with a 
 person of firm will and bright intelligence ; not being
 
 136 MISS R()DNE\"S LEISURE 
 
 vicious of temper, she necessarily felt herself submitting 
 to domiimlioii, and darkly surmised that the rule might 
 in some wav be for her good. All the sluggard and the 
 slattern in her, all the obstinacy of lit'elonff habits, hung 
 back from the new things which Miss Rodney was forc- 
 ing upon her acceptance, but she was no longer moved 
 by active resentment. To be told that she cooked badly 
 had long ceased to be an insult, and was becoming 
 merely a worrying truism. That she lived in dirt there 
 seemed no way of denyingr, and thoiitrh every muscle 
 groaned, she began to look upon the physical exertion 
 of dusting and scrubbing as part of her lot in life. 
 Why she submitted, Mrs. Turpin could not have told 
 you. And, as was presently to be seen, there were 
 regions of her mind still unconquered, instincts of resist- 
 ance which yet had to come into play. 
 
 For, during all this time. Miss Rodney had had her 
 eye on her fellow-lodger, Mr. Rawcliff'e, and the more 
 she observed this gentleman, the more resolute she 
 became to turn him out of the house ; but it was plain 
 to her that the undertaking would be no easy one. In 
 the landlady''s eyes Mr. R^xwcIifFe, though not perhaps a 
 faultless specimen of humanity, conferred an honour on 
 her house by residing in it ; the idea of giving him 
 notice to quit was inconceivable to her. This came out 
 very clearly in the first frank conversation which Miss 
 Rodney held witli her on the topic. It hajipcned that 
 Mr. RawcliH'e had p.issed an evening at home, in the 
 comjmny of his friends. After supping together, the 
 gentlemen indulged in merriment which, towards mid- 
 night, became uproarious. In the morning Mrs. Turpin 
 mumbled a shamefaced apology for this disturbance of 
 Miss Rodney's repose.
 
 MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE 137 
 
 * Why don't you take this opportunity and get rid of 
 him ? ■■ asked the lodger in her matter-of-fact tone. 
 
 ' Oh, miss ! 
 
 ' Yes, it 's your plain duty to do so. He gives your 
 house a bad character ; he sets a bad example to your 
 husband ; he has a bad influence on your daughters.' 
 
 ' Oh ! miss, I don't think ' 
 
 ' Just so, Mrs. Turpin ; you dojit think. If you had, 
 you would long ago have noticed that his behaviour to 
 those girls is not at all such as it should be. More 
 than once I have chanced to hear bits of talk, when 
 either Mabel or Lily was in his sitting-room, and didn't 
 like the tone of it. In plain English, the man is a 
 blackguard.' 
 
 Mrs. Turpin gasped. 
 
 * But, miss, you forget what family he belongs to.' 
 
 * Don't be a simpleton, Mrs. Turpin. The black- 
 guard is found in every rank of life. Now, suppose you 
 go to him as soon as he gets up, and quietly give him 
 notice. You 've no idea how much better you would 
 feel after it.' 
 
 But Mrs. Turpin trembled at the suggestion. It was 
 evident that no ordinary argument or persuasion would 
 bring her to such a step. Miss Rodney put the matter 
 aside for the moment. 
 
 She had found no difficulty in getting information 
 about Mr. RawclifFe. It was true that he belonged to 
 a family of some esteem in the Wattleborough neigh- 
 bourhood, but his father had died in embarrassed circum- 
 stances, and his mother was now the wife of a prosperous 
 merchant in another town. To his stepfather RawclifFe 
 owed an expensive education and two or three starts in 
 life. He was in his second year of articles to a Wattle-
 
 138 MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE 
 
 borough solicitor, but there seemed little probabilitv of 
 his ever earning a living by the law, and reports of his 
 excesses which reached the stepfather's ears had begun 
 to make the voung man's position decidedly preairious. 
 The incumbent of St. Luke's, whom Rawcliffe had more 
 than once insulted, took much interest in Miss liodney's 
 design against this common enemy ; he could not him- 
 self take active part in the campaign, but he never met 
 the High School mistress without inquiring what pro- 
 gress she had made. The conquest of Turpin, who 
 now for several weeks had kept sober, and sj)ent his 
 evenings in mathematical study, was a most encouraging 
 circumstance ; but Miss Rodney had no thought of using 
 her influence over her landlady's husband to assail Raw- 
 cliffe's position. She would rely upon herself alone, in 
 this as in all other undertakings. 
 
 Only by constant watchfulness and energy did she 
 maintain her control over Mrs. Turpin, who was ready 
 at any moment to relapse into her old slatternly ways. 
 It was not enough to hold the ground that had been 
 gained ; there must be progressive conquest ; and to 
 this end Miss Rodney one day broached a subject which 
 had already been discussed between her and her clerical 
 ally. 
 
 ' Why do you keep both your girls at houje, Mrs. 
 
 Turj)in ? ' she asked. 
 
 ' What should I do with them, miss ? I don't hold 
 with sending girls into shops, or else they've an aunt in 
 Birmingham, who 's manageress of ' 
 
 'That isn't my idea,' interposed Miss Rodney quietly. 
 ' I have been asked if I knew of a girl who would go 
 into a country-house not far from here as second 
 housemaid, and it occurred to me that Lily '
 
 MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE 189 
 
 A sound of indignant protest escaped the landlady, 
 which Miss Rodney, steadily regarding her, purposely 
 misinterpreted. 
 
 ' No, no, of course, she is not really capable of taking 
 such a position. But the lady of whom I am speaking 
 would not mind an untrained girl, who came from a 
 decent house. Isn't it worth thinking of?'' 
 
 Mrs. Turpin was red with suppressed indignation, but 
 as usual she could not look her lodger defiantly in the 
 face. 
 
 ' We 're not so poor, miss,' she exclaimed, ' that we 
 need send our daughters into service.' 
 
 ' Why, of course not, Mrs. Turpin, and that 's one of 
 the reasons why Lily might suit this lady.' 
 
 But here was another rock of resistance which pro- 
 mised to give Miss Rodney a good deal of trouble. The 
 landlady's pride was outraged, and after the manner of 
 the inarticulate she could think of no adequate reply 
 save that which took the form of personal abuse. Re- 
 strained from this by more than one consideration, she 
 stood voiceless, her bosom heaving. 
 
 ' Well, you shall think it over,' said Miss Rodney, 
 ' and we '11 speak of it again in a day or two.' 
 
 Mrs. Turpin, without another word, took herself out 
 of the room. 
 
 Save for that singular meeting on Miss Rodney's first 
 night in the house, Mr. Rawclifle and the energetic 
 lady had held no intercourse whatever. Their parlours 
 being opposite each other on the ground floor, they 
 necessarily came face to face now and then, but the 
 High School mistress behaved as though she saw no one, 
 and the solicitor's clerk, after one or two attempts at 
 polite formality, adopted a like demeanour. The man's
 
 UO MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE 
 
 proximity caused his neighbour a ceaseless irritation ; 
 of all objectionable types of humanity, this loafing and 
 boozing degenerate was, to Miss Itodney, perhaps the 
 least endurable ; his mere countenance excited her 
 animosity, for feebleness and conceit, things abhorrent 
 to her, were legible in eyery line of the triyial features ; 
 and a full moustache, evidently subjected to training, 
 served only as emj)ha.sis of fopjiish imbecility. ' I could 
 beat him !' she exclaimed more than once within herself, 
 overcome with contemptuous wrath, when she passed Mr. 
 RawclifJ'e. And, indeed, had it been possible to settle 
 the matter thus simply, no doubt Mr. Rawcliffe's rooms 
 would very soon have been vacant. 
 
 The crisis upon which Miss Rodney had resolved 
 came about, quite unexpectedly, one Sunday evening. 
 Mrs. Turpin and her daughters had gone, as usual, to 
 church, the carpenter had gone to smoke a pipe with a 
 neighbour, and Mr. Rawclifie believed himself alone in 
 the house. But Miss Rodney was not at church this 
 evening; she had a headache, and after tea lay down in 
 her bedroom for a while. Soon impatient of repose, 
 she got up and went to her parlour. The door, to her 
 surprise, was partly open ; entering — the tread of her 
 slippered feet was noiseless — she beheld an astonishing 
 spectacle. Before her writing-table, his back turned 
 to her, stood Mr. Rawclifte, engaged in the deliberate 
 perusal of a letter which he had found there. For a 
 moment she observed him ; then she spoke. 
 
 ' ^\'hat business have you here .'' ' 
 
 ]{awclifte gave such a start that he almost jumped 
 from the ground. His face, as he put down the letter 
 and turned, was that of a gibbering idiot ; his lips moved, 
 but no sound came from them.
 
 MISS RODNEY^S LEISURE 141 
 
 * What are you doing in my room ? ' demanded Miss 
 Rodney, in her severest tones, 
 
 'I really beg your pardon — I really beg ' 
 
 ' I suppose this is not the first visit with which you 
 have honoured me ? ' 
 
 ' The first — indeed — I assure you — the very first ! 
 A foolish curiosity ; I really feel quite ashamed of my- 
 self ; I throw myself upon your indulgence.'' 
 
 The man had become voluble ; he approached Miss 
 Rodney smiling in a sickly way, his head bobbing 
 forward. 
 
 * It 's something,"' she replied, ' that you have still the 
 grace to feel ashamed. Well, there 's no need for us to 
 discuss this matter ; it can have, of course, only one 
 result. To-morrow morning you will oblige me by giv- 
 ing notice to Mrs. Turpin — a week's notice.' 
 
 ' Leave the house ? ' exclaimed Rawclifi'e. 
 
 ' On Saturday next — or as much sooner as you like.' 
 
 ' Oh ! but really ' 
 
 ' As you please,' said Miss Rodney, looking him 
 sternly in the face. ' In that case I complain to the 
 landlady of your behaviour, and insist on her getting rid 
 of you. You ought to have been turned out long ago. 
 You are a nuisance, and worse than a nuisance. Be so 
 good as to leave the room.' 
 
 RawclifFe, his shoulders humped, moved towards the 
 door ; but before reaching it he stopped and said 
 doggedly — 
 
 ' I can't give notice.' 
 
 ' Why not ? ' 
 
 ' I owe Mrs. Turpin money.' 
 
 ' Naturally. But you will go, all the same.' 
 
 A vicious light flashed into the man's eyes.
 
 142 MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE 
 
 ' If it comes to that, I shall not go ! ' 
 
 'Indeed?'' said Miss Rodney calmly and coldly. 
 ' We will see about it. In the meantime, leave the 
 room, sir ! ' 
 
 Rawcliffe nodded, grinned, and withdrew. 
 
 Late that evening there was a conversation between 
 Miss Rodney and Mrs. Turpin. The landlady, though 
 declaring herself horrified at what had happened, did 
 her best to plead for Mr. Rawcliffe's forgiveness, and 
 would not be brought to the point of promising to give 
 him notice. 
 
 ' Very well, Mrs. Turpin,"" said Miss Rodney at length, 
 ' either he leaves the house or I do.' 
 
 Resolved, as she was, not to quit her lodgings, this 
 was a bold declaration. A meeker spirit would have 
 trembled at the possibility that Mrs. Turj)in misfht be 
 only too glad to free herself from a subjection which, 
 again and again, had all but driven her to extremities. 
 But Miss Rodney had the soul of a conqueror ; she saw 
 only her will, and the straight way to it. 
 
 ' To tell you the truth, miss,"" said the landlady, sore 
 perplexed, ' he 's rather backward with his rent -" 
 
 ' Very foolish of vou to have allowed him to set into 
 your debt. The probability is that he would never pay 
 his arrears; they will only inciease, the longer he stays. 
 But I have no more time to spare at present. Please 
 understand that by Saturday next it must be settled 
 which of vour lodgers is to go,' 
 
 Mrs. Turpin had never been so worried. The more 
 she thought of the possibility of Miss Rodney's leaving 
 the house, the le.ss did she like it. Notwithstanding 
 Mr. Rawcliffe's 'family,' it was growing clear to her 
 that, as a stamp of respectability and a source of credit,
 
 MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE 143 
 
 the High School mistress was worth more than the 
 solicitor's clerk. Then there was the astonishing change 
 that had come over Turpin, owing, it seemed, to his 
 talk with Miss Rodney ; the man spent all his leisure 
 time in 'making shapes and figuring' — just as he used 
 to do when poor Harry was at the Grammar School. 
 If Miss Rodney disappeared, it seemed only too probable 
 that Turpin would be off again to ' The Swan With 
 Two Necks.' On the other hand, the thouoht of ' aivinsr 
 notice' to Mr. RawclifFe caused her something- like dis- 
 may ; how could she have the face to turn a real gentle- 
 man out of her house ? Yes, but was it not true that 
 she had lost money by him — and stood to lose more ? 
 She had never dared to tell her husband of Mr. Raw- 
 cliffe's frequent shortcomings in the matter of weekly 
 payments. When the easy-going young man smiled 
 and nodded, and said, < It '11 be all right, you know. Mi's. 
 Turpin ; you can trust me, I hope,' she could do nothing 
 but acquiesce. And Mr. Rawcliffe was more and more 
 disposed to take advantage of this weakness. If she 
 could find courage to go through with the thing, per- 
 haps she would be glad when it was over. 
 
 Three days went by. Rawcliffe led an unusuallv 
 quiet and regular life. There came the day on which 
 his weekly bill was presented. Mrs. Turpin brought it 
 in person at breakfast, and stood with it in her hand, 
 an image of vacillation. Her lodger made one of his 
 familiar jokes; she laughed feebly. No; the words 
 would not come to her lips ; she was physically incapable 
 of giving him notice. 
 
 ' By the bye, Mrs. Turpin,' said Rawcliffe in an off- 
 hand way, as he glanced at the bill, ' how much exactly 
 do I owe vou ? '
 
 144 MISS RODNEY^S LEISURE 
 
 Plejisantly aoitated, his landlady mentioned the sum. 
 
 ' Ah ! I must settle tiiat. I tell you what, Mrs. 
 Turpin. Let it stand over for another month, and 
 we'll sciuare things up at Christmas. Will that suit 
 you ? ' 
 
 A'iid, by way of encouragement, he paid his week's 
 account on the spot, without a penny of deduction. 
 Mrs. Turpin left the room in greater embarrassment 
 than ever. 
 
 Saturday came. At breakfast Miss Rodney sent for 
 the landlady, who made a timid appearance just within 
 the room. 
 
 ' Good morning, Mrs. Turpin. What news have you 
 for me .'' You know what I mean ? ' 
 
 The landlady took a step forward, and began babbling 
 excuses, explanations, entreaties. She was coldly and 
 decisively interrupted. 
 
 'Thank you, Mrs. Turpin, that will do. A week 
 to-day I leave.' 
 
 With a sound which was half a sob and half grunt 
 Mrs. Turpin bounced from the room. It was now in- 
 evitable that she should report the state of things to her 
 husl)and, and that evening half an hour's circumlocution 
 brought her to the point. \\'iiich of the two lodgers 
 should go.'* The carpenter paused, [)ijie in mouth, 
 before him a <;eometrical fijjure over wliich he had 
 puzzled for a day or two, and about which, if he could 
 find courage, he wished to consult the High School 
 mistress. He reflected for five minutes, and uttered 
 an unhesitating decision. Mr. Rawclifle must go. 
 Naturally, his wife broke into indignant clamour, and 
 the debate lasted for an hour or two ; but Turpin could 
 be firm when he likid, and he h.ul solid reasons for
 
 MISS RODNEY^S LEISUIIE 145 
 
 preferring to keep Miss Rodney in the house. At 
 four o'clock INIrs. Turpin crept softly to the sitting- 
 room where her offended lodger was quietly reading. 
 
 ' I wanted just to say, miss, that I 'm willing to give 
 Mr. RawclifFe notice next Wednesday.'* 
 
 ' Thank you, Mrs. Turpin,' was the cold reply. ' I 
 have already taken other rooms.' 
 
 The landlady gasped, and for a moment could say 
 nothing. Then she besought Miss Rodney to change 
 her mind. Mr. Rawcliffe should leave, indeed he should, 
 on Wednesday week. But Miss Rodney had only one 
 reply ; she had found other rooms that suited her, and 
 she requested to be left in peace. 
 
 At eleven Mr. RawclifFe came home. He v.as un- 
 naturally sober, for Saturday night, and found his way 
 into the parlour without difficulty. There in a minute 
 or two he was confronted by his landlady and her 
 husband : they closed the door behind them, and stood 
 in a resolute attitude. 
 
 ' Mr. Rawclilfe,' began Turpin, ' you must leave these 
 lodgings, sir, on Wednesday next.' 
 
 'Hullo! what's all this about.'*' cried the other. 
 ' What do you mean, Turpin .? ' 
 
 The carpenter made plain his meaning ; spoke of Miss 
 Rodney's complaint, of the irregular payment (for his 
 wife, in her stress, had avowed everything), and of other 
 subjects of dissatisfaction ; the lodger must go, there was 
 an end of it. Rawcliffe, putting on all his dignity, 
 demanded the legal week's notice ; Turpin demanded 
 the sum in arrear. There was an exchange of high 
 words, and the interview ended with mutual defiance. 
 A moment after Turpin and his wife knocked at Miss 
 Rodney's door, for she was still in her parlour. There
 
 146 MISS RODNEY^S LEISURE 
 
 followed a brief conversation, with the result that Miss 
 Rodney graciously consented to remain, on the under- 
 standing that Mr. Riiwcliff'e left the house not later than 
 W'eilnesday. 
 
 Enraged at the treatment he was receiving, Rawcliffe 
 loudly declared that he would not budge. Turpin warned 
 him that if he had made no preparations for departure 
 on Wednesday he would be forcibly ejected, and the iloor 
 closed against him. 
 
 ' You haven't the right to do it,' shouted the lodger. 
 ' I ""U sue you for damages.' 
 
 ' And I,' retorted the carpenter, ' will sue vou for the 
 money you owe me ! ' 
 
 The end could not be doubtful. Rawcliffe, besides 
 being a j)oor creature, knew very well that it was 
 dangerous for him to get involved in a scandal ; his 
 stepfather, upon wliom he depended, asked but a fair 
 excuse for cutting him adrift, and more than one grave 
 warning had comp from his mother during the past few 
 months. But he enjoyed a little blustering, and even 
 at breakfast-time on Wednesday his attitude was that 
 of contemptuous defiance. In vain had Mrs. Turpin 
 tried to coax him with maternal suavity ; in vain had 
 Mabel and Lily, when serving his meals, whispered abuse 
 of Miss Rodney, and promised to find some way of get- 
 ting rid of her, so that Rawcliffe might return. In a 
 voice loud enough to be heard by his enemy in the 
 opposite parlour, he declared that no * cat of a school 
 teacher should get the better of him.'' As a matter 
 of fact, however, he arranged on Tuesday evening to 
 take a couple of cheaper rooms just outside the town, 
 and ordered a cab to come for him at eleven next 
 morning.
 
 MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE 147 
 
 ' You know what the understanding is, Mr. Raw- 
 clifFe/ said Turpiu, putting his head into the room 
 as the lodger sat at breakfast. ' I 'm a man of my 
 word.' 
 
 ' Don't come bawling here ! ' cried the other, with a 
 face of scorn. 
 
 And at noon the house knew him no more. 
 
 Miss Rodney, on that same day, was able to offer 
 her landlady a new lodger. She had not spoken of 
 this before, being resolved to triumph by mere force 
 of will. 
 
 ' The next thing,' she remarked to a friend, when tell- 
 ing the story, ' is to pack off one of the girls into 
 service. I shall manage it by Christmas,' and she added 
 with humorous complacency, ' it does one good to be 
 making a sort of order in one's own little corner of the 
 world.'
 
 A CHARMING FAMILY 
 
 ' I MUST be firm,"' said Miss Shepperson to herself, as hlu 
 poured out her morning tea with tremulous hand. ' i 
 must reallv be very firm with them."" 
 
 Firmness was not the most legible characteristic of 
 Miss Shej)person's phvsiogiiomv. A jilain woman of 
 .something more than thirty, she had gentle eyes, a 
 twitching forehead, and lips ever ready for a sympathetic 
 smile. Her attire, a little shabby, a little disorderly, well 
 became the occupant of furnished lodgings, at twelve ai;.i 
 sixpence a week, in the unjjretentious suburb of Acton. 
 She was the daughter of a Hammersmith draper, at 
 whose death, a few years ago, she had become possessed 
 of a small house and an income of fortv pounds a year; 
 her two elder sisters were comfortably married to London 
 tradesmen, but she did not see very much of them, for 
 their ways were not hers, and Miss Shepperson had 
 always been one of those singular persons who shrink into 
 solitude the moment they feel ill at ease. The house 
 which was her proj)ertv had, until of late, given her no 
 trouble at all ; it stood in a quiet part of Hannnersmith, 
 and had long been occiijiied by good tenants, who paid 
 'heir rent ((iftv pounds) with excin))lary {)uiictualitv ; 
 repairs, of course, would now and then be called for, and 
 to that end Miss Shepperson carefully put aside a few 
 
 })ounds every year. Unhappily, the old tenants were ai 
 
 us
 
 A CHARMING FAMILY 119 
 
 length obliged to change their abode. The house stood 
 empty for two months ; it was then taken on a three 
 years' lease by a family named Rvnier — really nice 
 people, said Miss Shepperson to herself after her first 
 interview with them. Mr. Rymer was ' in the City ' ; 
 Mrs. Rymer, who had two little girls, lived only for 
 domestic peace— she had been in better circumstances, 
 but did not repine, and forgot all worldly ambition in 
 the happy discharge of her wifely and maternal duties. 
 ' A charming family ! ' was Miss Shepperson's mental 
 comment when, at their invitation, she had called 
 one Sunday afternoon soon after thev were settled in 
 the house ; and, on the way home to her lodgings, she 
 sighed once or twice, thinking of Mrs. Rymer's bliss- 
 ful smile and the two pretty children. 
 
 The first quarter's rent was duly paid, but the second 
 quarter-day brought no cheque ; and, after the lapse of 
 a fortnight, Miss Shepperson wrote to make known her 
 ingenuous fear that Mr. Rymer's letter might have mis- 
 carried. At once there came the politest and friendliest 
 re] iy. Mr. Rymer (wrote his wife) was out of town, and 
 had been so overwhelmed with business that the matter 
 of the rent must have altogether escaped his mind ; he 
 would be back in a day or two, and the cheque should 
 be sent at the earliest possible moment ; a thousand 
 apologies for this un])ardonable neglect. Still the cheque 
 did not come ; another quarter-day arrived, and again no 
 XLiit was paid. It was now a month after Christmas, and 
 Miss Shepperson, for the first time in her life, found her 
 accounts in serious disorder. This mornirg she had a 
 letter from Mrs. Rymer, the latest of a dozen or so, all 
 in the same strain — 
 
 ' I really feel quite ashamed to take up the pen,' wrote
 
 150 A CHARMING FAMILY 
 
 the jjraceful ladv, in her delicate hand. ' What must 
 vou think of us ! I assure vou that never, never before 
 did I find myself in such a situation. Indeed, I should 
 not have the courage to write at all, but that the end of 
 our troubles is already in view. It is ahsohitebj certain 
 that, in a month's time, Mr. Rvmer will be able to send 
 vou a cheque in complete discharge of his debt. Mean- 
 while, I beg you to believe, dear Miss Shepperson, how 
 very, very grateful I am to you for your most kind for- 
 bearance."' Another page of almost affectionate protests 
 closed with the touching subscription, ' ever yours, sin- 
 cerelv and gratefully, Adelaide Kvnier."' 
 
 But Miss Shepperson had fallen into that state of 
 nervous agitation which imjiels to a decisive step. She 
 foresaw the horrors of pecuniary embarrassment. Her 
 faith in the Rvmers' promises was exhausted. This verv 
 morning she would go to see Mrs. Rvmer, lav before her 
 the plain facts of the case, and with all firmness — with 
 UTunistakable resolve — make known to her that, if the 
 arrears were not paid within a month, notice to quit 
 would be gi^cn, and the recovery of the debt be sought 
 bv legal process. Fear had made INliss Shepperson 
 indignant; it was wrong and cowardly for people such 
 as the Rymers to behave in this way to a poor wonian 
 who had only just enough to live upon. She felt sure 
 that they could pav if they liked ; but because she had 
 shown herself soft and jiatient, they took advantage of 
 her. She would be firm, very firm. 
 
 So, about ten o'clock. Miss Shepperson put on her 
 best things, and set out for Haniniersmilh. It was o 
 foggy, driz/lv, enervating day. When Miss Shepperson 
 found herself drawing near to the house, her counige 
 sank, her heart throbbed painfully, and for a nunnent
 
 A CHARMING FAMILY 151 
 
 she all but stopped and turned, thinking that it would 
 be much better to put her ultimatum into writing. 
 Yet there was the house in view, and to turn back 
 would be deplorable weakness. By word of mouth 
 she could so much better depict the gravitv of her 
 situation. She forced herself onwards. Trembling 
 in every nerve, she rang the bell, and in a scarce 
 audible gasp she asked for Mrs. Rymer. A brief delay, 
 and the servant admitted her. 
 
 Mrs. Rymer was in the drawing-room, giving her 
 elder child a piano-lessou, while the younger, sitting in 
 a baby-chair at the table, turned over a picture-book. 
 The room was comfortably and prettily furnished ; the 
 children were very becomingly dressed ; their mother, a 
 tall woman, of fair complexion and thin, refined face, 
 with wandering eyes and a forehead rather deeply lined, 
 stepped forward as if in delight at the unexpected visit, 
 and took Miss Shepperson's ill-gloved hand in both her 
 own, gazing with tender interest into her eyes. 
 
 ' How kind of you to have taken this trouble ! You 
 guessed that I really wished to see you. I should have 
 come to you, but just at present I find it so difficult to 
 get away from home. I am housekeeper, nursemaid, 
 and governess all in one ! Some women would find it 
 rather a strain, but the dear tots are so good — so good ! 
 Cissy, you remember Miss Shepperson? Of course you 
 do. They look a little pale, I ""m afraid ; don't you 
 think so ? After the life they were accustomed to — but 
 we won't talk about that. Tots, school-time is over for 
 this morning. You can't go out, my poor dears ; look at 
 the horrid, horrid weather. Go and sit by the nursery 
 fire, and sing " Rain, rain, go away ! "' 
 
 Miss Shepperson followed the cluldren with her look as
 
 152 A CHARMING FAMILY 
 
 they silently left the room. She knew not how to enter 
 upon what she had to say. To talk of the law and use 
 threats in this atmosphere of serene doniesticitv seemed 
 impossibly harsh. IJiit tlie necessity of broaching the 
 disai^reeable sul)ject was spared her. 
 
 ' My husband and I were talking about you last night,'' 
 began ]Mrs. Rymer, as soon as the door had closed, in a 
 tone of the friendliest confidence. ' I hail an idea; it 
 seems to me so good. I wonder whether it will to vou ? 
 You told me, did you not, that you live in lodgings, and 
 quite alone .''"' 
 
 ' Yes,' replied Miss Shepperson, struggling to com- 
 mand her nerves and betra\inLj uneasv wonder. 
 
 ' Is it by choice ? ' asked the soft-voiced ladv, with 
 sympathetic bending of the head. ' Have vou no 
 relations in I^ondon .'* I can't help thinking vou must 
 feel very lonelv.' 
 
 It was not diilicult to lead Miss Shepperson to talk 
 of her circumstances— a natural introduction to the 
 announcement which she was still resolved to make with 
 all firnniess. She narrated in outline the history of her 
 fjxmily, made known exactly how she stood in pecuniary 
 matters, and ended by saying — 
 
 ' You see. Mis. llymer, that I have to live as carefully 
 as I can. This house is really all I have to depend u)K)n, 
 and — and " 
 
 Again she was spared the unpleasant utterance. ^Vith 
 an irresistible smile, and laying her soft hand on the 
 visitor's ill-(itting glove, Mrs. Rymer began to reveal the 
 happy thought which had occurred to her. In the 
 house therc was a spare room ; why should not Miss 
 Shepperson come and live here — live, that is to say, as 
 a member of the family ? Nothing simpler than to
 
 A CHARMING FAMILY 153 
 
 arrange the details of such a plan, which, of course, must 
 be ' strictly businesslike,' though carried out in a spirit 
 of mutual goodwill. A certain sum of money was due 
 to her for rent ; suppose this were repaid in the form of 
 board and lodging, which might be reckoned at — should 
 one say, fifteen shillings a week ? At midsummer next 
 an account would be drawn up, ' in a thoroughly business- 
 like way,' and whatever then remained due to Miss 
 Shepperson would be paid at once ; after which, if the 
 arrangement proved agreeable to both sides, it might be 
 continued, cost of board and lodging being deducted 
 from the rent, and the remainder paid ' with regularity ' 
 every quarter. Miss Shepperson would thus have a home 
 — a real home — with all family comforts, and Mrs. 
 Rvmer, who was too much occupied with house and 
 children to see much society, would have the advantage 
 of a sympathetic friend under her own roof. The good 
 ladv's voice trembled with joyous eagerness as she 
 unfolded the project, and her eyes grew large as she 
 waited for the response. 
 
 Miss Shepperson felt such astonishment that she could 
 only reply with incoherencies. An idea so novel and so 
 strange threw her thoughts into disorder. She was 
 alarmed by the invitation to live with people who were 
 socially her superiors. On the other hand, the proposal 
 made appeal to her natural inclination for domestic life ; 
 it offered the possibility of occupation, of usefulness. 
 Moreover, from the pecuniary point of view, it would be 
 so very advantageous. 
 
 ' But,' she stannnered at length, when Mrs. Rymer 
 had repeated the suggestion in words even more gracious 
 and alluring, ' but fifteen shillings is so very little for 
 board and lodging
 
 154 A CHARMING FAMILY 
 
 ' Oil, lion't let that trouble vou, dear Miss Shepperson,' 
 cried the other s^ailv. ' In a familv, so little difference 
 is made bv an extra person. I assure vou it is a ])ert"ectlv 
 businesslike arrangement ; otherwise mv husband, who is 
 prudence itself, would never have sanctioned it. As vou 
 know, we are suffering a temporary embarrassment. I 
 wrote to you yesterday before my husband's return from 
 business. When he came home, I learnt, to my dismay, 
 that it might be rather more than a month before he was 
 able to send you a cheque. I said : " Oh, I must write 
 again to Miss Shepperson. I can't bear to think of mis- 
 leading her." Then, as we talked, that idea came to me. 
 As I think you will believe. Miss Shepperson, I am not 
 a scheming or a selfish woman ; never, never have I 
 wronged any one in my life. This proposal, I cannot 
 help feeling, is as much for your benefit as for ours. 
 Doesn't it really seem so to you .'' Suppose you come up 
 with me and look at the room. It is not in perfect 
 order, but you will see whether it pleases you. 
 
 Curiosity allying itself with the allurement which had 
 begun to work upon her feelings, Miss Shepperson 
 timidlv rose and followed her smiling guide upstairs. 
 The little spare room on the second floor was furnished 
 simplv enough, but made such a contrast with the bed- 
 chamber in the Acton lodo-injj-house that the visitor 
 could scarcely repress an exclamation. Mrs. Rvmer was 
 voluble with promise of added comforts. She interested 
 herself in Miss Shepperson's health, and learnt with the 
 utmost satisfaction that it seldom gave trouble. She 
 in(|uired as to Miss Shepperson's likings in the matter 
 of diet, and strongly aj)provcd her preference for a plain, 
 nutritive regimen. From the spare room the visitor 
 was taken into all the others, and before thev went
 
 A CHARMING FAMILY 155 
 
 downstairs again Mrs. Rvmer had begun to talk as though 
 the matter were decided. 
 
 ' You will stay and have lunch with me,' she said. 
 ' Oh yes, indeed you will ; I can't dream of your going 
 out into this weather till after lunch. Suppose we have 
 the tots into the drawing-room again ? I want them 
 to make friends with you at once. I know you love 
 children. — Oh, I have known that for a long time ! ' 
 
 Miss Shepperson stayed to lunch. She stayed to tea. 
 When at length she took her leave, about six o'clock, 
 the arrangement was complete in every detail. On this 
 day week she would transfer herself to the Rymers' house, 
 and enter upon her new life. 
 
 She arrived on Saturday afternoon, and was received 
 by the assembled family like a very dear friend or 
 relative. Mr. Rymer, a well-dressed man, polite, good- 
 natured, with a frequent falsetto laugh, talked over the 
 teacups in the pleasantest way imaginable, not only 
 putting Miss Shepperson at ease, but making her feel as 
 if her position as a member of the household were the 
 most natural thing in the world. His mere pronuncia- 
 tion of her name gave it a dignity, an importance quite 
 new to Miss Shepperson's ears. He had a way of shaping 
 his remarks so as to make it appear that the homely, timid 
 woman was, if anything, rather the superior in rank and 
 education, and that their simple ways might now and 
 then cause her amusement. Even the children seemed 
 to do their best to make the newcomer feel at home. 
 Cissy, whose age was nine, assiduously handed toast and 
 cake with a most engaging smile, and little Minnie, not 
 quite six, deposited her kitten in Miss Shepperson's lap, 
 saying prettily, 'You may stroke it whenever you like.' 
 
 Miss Shepperson, to be sure, had personal qualities
 
 156 A CHARMING FAMILY 
 
 which could not but appeal to people of discernment. 
 Her plain features expressed a simplicity and gentleness 
 which more than compensated for the lack of conventional 
 grace in her manners ; she spoke softly and with obvious 
 frankness, nor was there much fault to find with her 
 phrasing and accent ; dressed a little more elegantly, she 
 would in no wav have iarred with the tone of average 
 middle-class society. If she had not much education, 
 she was altogether free from pretence, and the possession 
 of property (which always works very decidedly for good 
 or for evil) saved her from that excess of deference which 
 would have accentuated her social shortcomings. Un- 
 distinguished as she might seem at the first glance, Miss 
 Shepperson could not altogether be slighted by any one 
 who had been in her presence for a few minutes. And 
 when, in the course of the evening, she found courage to 
 converse more freely, giving her views, for instance, on 
 the great servant (jucstion, and on other matter^ of 
 domestic interest, it became clear to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Rymer that their landlady, though a soft-hearted and 
 simple-minded woman, was by no means to be regarded 
 a.s a person of no account. 
 
 The servant question was to the front just now, as 
 Mrs. Rymer explained in detail. She, ' of course,' kept 
 two domestics, but was temporarily making shift with 
 only one, it being so difficult to rcj)lace the cook, who 
 had left a week ago. Did Miss Shepperson know of a 
 cook, a sensible, trustworthy woman ? For the present 
 Mrs. Rymer — she confessed it with a pleasant little 
 laugh — had to give an eye to the dinner herself. 
 
 ' I only hope you won't make yourself ill, dear," said 
 Mr. Rymer, bending towards his wile with a look of well- 
 bred solicitude. ' Miss Shepperson, I beg you to insist
 
 A CHARMING FAMILY 157 
 
 that she lies down a little every afternoon. She has 
 great nervous energy, but isn't really very strong. You 
 ean't think what a relief it will be to me all day to 
 know that some one is with her."* 
 
 On Sunday morning all went to church together ; for, 
 to Mrs. Rymer's great satisfaction. Miss Shepperson was 
 a member of the orthodox community, and particular 
 about observances. Meals were reduced to the simplest 
 terms ; a restful quiet prevailed in the little house ; in 
 the afternoon, while Mrs. Rymer reposed, Miss Shepper- 
 son read to the children. She it was who — the servant 
 being out — prepared tea. After tea, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Rymer, with many apologies, left the home together for 
 a couple of hours, being absolutely obliged to pay a call 
 at some distance, and Miss Shepperson again took care 
 of the children till the domestic returned. 
 
 After breakfast the next day — it was a very plain 
 meal, merely a rasher and dry toast — the lady of 
 the house chatted with her friend more confiden- 
 tially than ever. Their servant, she said, a good girl 
 but not very robust, naturally could not do all the work 
 of the house, and, by way of helping, Mrs. Rymer was 
 accustomed to ' see to ' her own bedroom. 
 
 'Ifs really no hardship,' she said, in her graceful, 
 sweet-tempered way, 'when once you're used to it; in 
 fact, I think the exercise is good for my health. But, of 
 course, I couldn't think of asking you to do the same. 
 No doubt you will like to have a breath of air, as the 
 sky seems clearing.' 
 
 What could Miss Shepperson do but protest that to 
 put her own room in order was such a trifling matter 
 that they need not speak of it another moment. Mrs. 
 Rymer was confused, vexed, and wished she had not
 
 158 A CHARMING FAMILY 
 
 said a word ; but the othev made a joke of these 
 scruples. 
 
 ' W'lien do the children go out ? ' asked Miss Shepper- 
 son. ' Do you take them yourself?' 
 
 ' Oh, always ! almost always! I shall go out witii 
 them for an hour at eleven. And vet ' — she checked 
 herself, with a look of worry — ' oh, dear me I 1 must 
 absolutely go shopjiing, and I do so dislike to take the 
 tots in that direction. Never mind ; the walk must be 
 put orf' till the afternoon. It vunf rain ; but ' 
 
 Miss She})person straightway ofl'ered her services ; she 
 would either shop or go out with the chililien, whichever 
 Mrs. Rymer preferred. The lady thought she had better 
 do the shopping— so her friend's morning was pleasantlv 
 aiTanged, In a day or two things got into a hap|)v 
 routine. Miss Shepperson practically became nursemaid, 
 with the privilege of keeping her own bedroom in ordei- 
 and of helping in a good many little wavs throughout 
 the domestic day. A fortnight elapsed, and Mrs. 1{\ nier 
 was still unable to ' suit herself with a cook, thougii she 
 had visited, or professed to visit, many registrv-olficcs 
 and corresponded with many friends. A wuek after that 
 the subject of the cook had somehow fallen into forget- 
 fulness ; and, indeed, a less charitably disposed observer 
 than Miss Shepperson might have doubted whether Mrs. 
 Rvmer had ever seriously meant to enjjaore one at all. 
 The food served on the family table was of the plainest, 
 and not always superabundant in quantity ; but tiie 
 table itself was tastefully ordered, and, indeed, no sort 
 of carelessness apj)eared in any detail of the household 
 life. Mrs. Rymer was always busy, and without fuss, 
 without irritation. She had a large correspondence ; but 
 it was not often that people called. No guest was ever
 
 A CHARMING FAMILY 159 
 
 invited to lunch or dinner. All this while the master 
 of the house kept regular hours, leaving home at nine 
 and returning at seven ; if he went out after dinner, which 
 happened rarely, he was always back by eleven o'clock. No 
 more respectable man than Mr. Rymer ; none more even- 
 tempered, more easily pleased, more consistentlv polite 
 and amiable. That he and his wife were very fond of 
 each other appeared in all their talk and behaviour ; 
 both worshipped the children, and, in spite of that, 
 trained them with a considerable measure of good sense. 
 In the evenings Mr. Rymer sometimes read aloud, or he 
 would talk instructively of the affairs of the day. The 
 more Miss Shepperson saw of her friends the more she 
 liked them. Never had she been the subject of so much 
 kind attention, and in no company had she ever felt so 
 happily at ease. 
 
 Time went on, and it was near midsummer. Of late 
 Mrs. Rymer had not been very well, and once or twice 
 Miss Shepperson fancied that her eyes showed traces of 
 tears ; it was but natural that the guest, often pre- 
 occupied with the thought of the promised settlement, 
 should feel a little uneasy. On June 23 Mrs. Rymer 
 chose a suitable moment, and with her most confi- 
 dential air, invited Miss Shepperson to an intimate chat. 
 
 ' I want to explain to you," she said, rather cheerfully 
 than otherwise, ' the exact state of our affairs. I 'm sure 
 it will interest you. We have become such good friends 
 — as I knew we should. I shall be much easier in mind 
 when you know exactly how we stand.' 
 
 Thereupon she spoke of a certain kinsman of her 
 husband, an old and infirm man, whose decease was ex- 
 pected, if not from day to day, at all events from week 
 to week. The event would have great importance for
 
 160 A cHAiniiNG fa:\iily 
 
 tiieiii, as Mr. Ilviner was entitled to the reversion of several 
 thousands of pounds, held in use by his lingering 
 relative. 
 
 ' Now let me ask you a question,' pursued the lady in 
 friendship's undertone. ' My husband is qxt'ite })repared 
 to settle with you to-morrow. He wishes to do so, for 
 he feels that vour patience has been most exemplary. 
 But, as we spoke of it last night, an idea came to me. I 
 can't help thmking it was a happy idea, but I wish to 
 know how it strikes you. On receiving the sum due to 
 you, vou will no doubt place it in a bank, or in some 
 wav invest it. Suppose, now, you leave the money in 
 Mr. Rymers hands, receiving his acknowledgment, and 
 allowing him to pay it, with four per cent, interest, when 
 he enters into possession of his capital ? Mind, I only 
 suggest this ; not for a moment would I put jiressure upon 
 you. If you have need of the money, it shall be paid at 
 oiice. But it struck me that, knowing us so well now, you 
 might even be glad of such an investment as this. The 
 event to which we are looking forward may ha])pen very 
 soon ; but it may be delayed. How would you like to 
 leave this money, and the sums to which you will be- 
 come entitled under our arrangements, from quarter to 
 (juarter, to increase at compound interest .'' Let us make 
 a little calculation ' 
 
 Miss Shepperson listened nervously. She wa.s on the 
 point of saving that, on the whole, she preferred im- 
 mediate payment ; but while she struggled with her 
 moral weakness Mrs. Rymer, anxiously reading her face, 
 struck another note. 
 
 ' I mustn't disguise from you that the money, though 
 such a small sum, would be useful to my husband. Poor 
 fellow ! he has been fighting against adversity for the
 
 A CHARMING FAMILY ICl 
 
 last year or two, and I \n sure no man ever struggled 
 more bravely. You would never think, would you ? that 
 he is often kept awake all night by his anxieties. As I 
 tell him, he need not really be anxious at all, for his 
 troubles will so soon come to an end. But there is no 
 more honourable man living, and he worries at the 
 thought of owing money — you can't imagine how he 
 worries ! Then, to tell you a great secret ' 
 
 A change came upon the speaker's face ; her voice 
 softened to a whisper as she communicated a piece of 
 delicate domestic news. 
 
 ' My poor husband,' she added,' cannot bear to think 
 that, when it happens, we may be in really straitened 
 circumstances, and I may suffer for lack of comforts. To 
 tell you the whole truth, dear Miss Shepperson, I have 
 no doubt that, if you like my idea, he would at once put 
 aside that money to be ready for an emergency. So, 
 you see, it is self-interest in me, after all.' Her smile 
 was very sweet. ' But don't judge me too severely. What 
 I propose is, as you see, really a very good investment- 
 is it not ? ' 
 
 Miss Shepperson found it impossible to speak as she 
 wished, and before the conversation came to an end she 
 saw the matter entirely from her friend's point of view. 
 She had, in truth, no immediate need of money, and the 
 more she thought of it, the more content she was to do 
 a kindness to the Rymers, while at tl.e same time bene- 
 llting herself. That very evening Mr. Rymer prepared 
 a legal document, promising to pay on demand the sum 
 which became due to Miss Shepperson to-morrow, with 
 compound interest at the rate of four per cent. While 
 signing this, he gravely expressed his conviction that before 
 Michaelmas the time for payment would have arrived.
 
 162 A CHARMING FAMILY 
 
 ' But if it were next week,' he added, with a polite 
 movement towards his creditor, ' I should be not a bit 
 the less grateful to our most kind friend.' 
 
 'Oh, but it's purely a matter of business,' said Miss 
 Shepperson, who was always abashed bv such expres- 
 sions. 
 
 ' To be sure,' murmured Mrs. Rymer, ' Let us look 
 at it in that light. But it shan't prevent us from calling 
 Miss Shepperson our dearest friend.' 
 
 The homely woman blushed and felt happy. 
 
 Towards the end of autumn, when the domestic crisis 
 was very near, the servant declared herself ill, and at 
 twenty-four hours' notice quitted the house. As a matter 
 of fact, she had received no wages for several months ; 
 the kindness with which she was otherwise treated had 
 kept her at her post thus long, but she feared the in- 
 crease of work impending, and preferred to go off unpaid. 
 Now for the first time did Mrs. Rymer's nerves give way. 
 Miss Shepperson found her sobbing bv the fireside, the 
 two children lamenting at such an unwonted spectacle. 
 Where was a new servant to be found ? In a dav or two 
 the monthly nurse would be here, and must, of course, 
 be waited upon. And what was to become of the 
 children .'' Miss Shepperson, moved by the calajiiitous 
 situation, entreated her friend to leave everything to her. 
 She would find a servant somehow, and meanwhile would 
 keep the house going with her own hands Mrs. Rymer 
 sobbed that she was ashamed to allow such a thing; but 
 the other, braced by a crisis, displayed wondeiful activity 
 and resource. I'or two days Miss Shepperson did all the 
 domestic labour; then a maid, of the species known as 
 ' general,' presented herself, and none too soon, for that 
 same night there was born to the Rymers a third
 
 A CHARMING FAMILY 163 
 
 daughter. But troubles were by no means over. While 
 Mrs. Rvmer was ill — very ill indeed — the new handmaid 
 exhibited a character so eccentric that, after nearlv set- 
 ting fire to the house while in a state of intoxication, 
 she had to be got rid of as speedily as possible. Miss 
 ShepT)erson resolved that, for the present, there should 
 be no repetition of such disagreeable things. She quietly 
 told Mr. Rymer that she felt quite able to grapple with 
 the situation herself. 
 
 ' Impossible ! ' cried the master of the house, who, after 
 many sleepless nights and distracted days, had a haggard, 
 unshorn face, scarcely to be recognised. ' I cannot per- 
 mit it ! I will go myself ' 
 
 Then, suddenly turning again to Miss Shepperson, he 
 grasped her hand, called her his dear friend and 
 benefactress, and with breaking voice whispered to 
 her — 
 
 ' I will help you. I can do the hard work. It's only 
 for a day or two."" 
 
 Late that evening he and Miss Shepperson were in 
 the kitchen together : the one was washing crockery, 
 the other, who had been filling coal-scuttles, stood with 
 dirty hands and melancholy visage, his eyes fixed on the 
 floor. Their looks met ; Mr. Rymer took a step forward, 
 smiling with confidential sadness. 
 
 ' I feel that I ought to speak fi-ankly,"" he said, in a 
 voice as polite and well-tuned as ever. ' I should like 
 to make known to you the exact state of my affairs.' 
 
 ' Oh, but Mrs. Rymer has told me everything,' replied 
 Miss Shepperson, as she dried a tea-cup. 
 
 'No; not quite everything, I'm afraid.' He had 
 
 ^ar^hovel in his hand, and eyed it curiously. ' She has 
 
 not told vou that I am considerablv in debt to variou?
 
 164 A CHARMING FAMILY 
 
 people, and that, not long ago, I was obliged to raise 
 uionev on our furniture.'' 
 
 Miss Shepperson laid down the tea-cu]i and gazed 
 anxiously at him, whereupon he began a detailed storv 
 of his misfortunes in business. Mr. Rvmer was a com- 
 mission-agent — that is to sav, he was everything and 
 nothing. Struggle with pecuniary embarrassment was 
 his normal condition, but onlv durinjj the last twelve- 
 month had he fallen under persistent ill-luck and come 
 to all but the very end of his resources. It would still 
 be possible for him, he exjii.iined, to raise monev on tlie 
 reversion for wluch he was waiting, but of such a step 
 he could not dream. 
 
 * It would be dishonesty. Miss Shepperson, and, how- 
 ever unfortunate, I have never yet lost mv honour. 
 People have trusted me, knowing that I am an honest 
 man. I belong to a good family — as, no doubt, Mrs. 
 Rymer has told you. A brother of mine holds a re- 
 spected position in I'innin^ham, anti, if the worst comes 
 to the worst, he will find me employment. But, as you 
 can well understand, I shrink from that extremitv. For 
 one thing, I am in debt to my brother, and I am 
 resolved to pay what I owe him before asking for any 
 more assistance. I do not lose courajje. You know the 
 proverb : '• Lose heart, lose all." I am blest with an 
 admirable wife, who stands by me and supports me 
 under every trial. If my wife were to die, Miss Shop- 
 person ' He faltered ; his eyes glistened in the gjis- 
 
 light. ' But no, I won''t encourage gloomy fears. She 
 is a little better to-day, they tell me. We shall come 
 out of our troubles, and laucrh over then) by our cheerful 
 Hre-side — ycu with us — you, our dearest and staunchcst 
 friend.''
 
 A CHARMING FAMILY 165 
 
 ' Yes, we must hope,'' said Miss Shepperson, reassured 
 once more as to her own interests ; for a moment her heart 
 had sunk very low indeed. ' We are all doing our 
 best.' 
 
 ' You above all,' said Mr. Rymer, pressing her hand 
 with his coal-blackened fingers. ' I felt obliged to speak 
 frankly, because you must have thought it strange that 
 I allowed things to get so disorderly — our domestic 
 arrangements, I mean. The fact is. Miss Shepperson, I 
 simply don't know how I am going to meet the expenses 
 of this illness, and I dread the thought of engaging 
 servants. I cannot — I will not — raise money on my 
 expectations ! When the money comes to me, I must be 
 able to pay all my debts, and have enough left to 
 recommence life with. Don't you approve this resolu- 
 tion, Miss Shepperson ? ' 
 
 ' Oh yes, indeed I do,' replied the listener heartily. 
 
 ' And yet, of course,' he pursued, his eyes wandering, 
 ' we must have a servant ' 
 
 Miss Shepperson reflected, she too with an uneasy 
 look on her face. There was a long silence, broken by 
 a deep sigh from Mr. Rymer, a sigh which was almost a 
 sob. The other went on drying her plates and dishes, 
 and said at length that perhaps they might manage with 
 quite a young girl, who would come for small wages ; 
 she herself was willing to help as much as she could 
 
 ' Oh, you shame me, you shame me ! ' broke in 
 Mr. Rymer, laying a hand on his forehead, and leaving 
 a black mark there. ' There is no end to vour kind- 
 ness ; but I feel it as a disgrace to us — to me — that 
 you, a lady of property, should be working here like a 
 servant. It is monstrous— monstrous ! ' 
 
 At the flattering description of herself Miss Shepper-
 
 i(j6 a charming family 
 
 son smiled ; her soft eyes beamed with the light of con- 
 tentment. 
 
 ' Don't you ^i\e a thought to that, Mr. Rymer,"' she 
 exclaimed. 'Why, ifs a pleasure to me, and it gives 
 me something to do — it "'s good for mv health. Don''t 
 vou worry. Think about vour business, and leave me 
 to look after the house. It'll be all riglit.' 
 
 A week later Mrs. R\-mer was in the way of recovery, 
 and her husband went to the City as usual. A servant 
 had been engaged — a girl of sixteen, who knew as much 
 of housework as London girls of sixteen generally do ; at 
 all events, she could carry coals and wash steps. But 
 the mistress of the house, it was evident, would for a 
 long time be unable to do anything whatever ; the real 
 niaiil-of-all-work was Miss Shepperson, who rose every 
 morning at six o'clock, and toiled in one way or another 
 till weary bedtime. If she left the house, it was to lio 
 needful shop})ing or to take the children for a walk. 
 Her reward was the admiration and gratitude of the 
 family ; even little Minnie had been taught to say, at 
 frequent intervals : ' I love Miss Sheppei*son because she 
 is good ! ' The invalid behaved to her as to a sister, 
 and kissed her cheek morning and evening. Miss Shep- 
 person's name being Dora, the bal)y was to be so called, 
 and, as a matter of course, the godmother drew a 
 sovereign from her small saviniis to buy little Miss Dora 
 a christening present. It would not have been easy to 
 find a house in London in which there reigned so 
 delightful a spirit of harmony and kindliness. 
 
 ' I was so glad,' said Mrs. Rymer one day to her 
 friend, the day on which she first rose from bed, ' that 
 my husband took you into his confiilcnce about our 
 afi'airs. Now you know everything, and it is much
 
 A CHARMING FAMILY 167 
 
 better. You know that we are very unlucky, but that 
 no one can breathe a word against our honour. This 
 was the thought that held ine up through my illness. 
 In a very short time all our debts will be paid — every 
 farthing, and it will be delightful to remember how we 
 struggled, and what we endured, to keep an honest 
 name. Though,' she added tenderly, * how we should 
 have done without you, I really cannot imagine. We 
 might have sunk — gone down ! ' 
 
 For months Mrs. Rymer led the life of a feeble con- 
 valescent. She ought to have had change of air, but 
 that was out of the question, for Mr. Rymer's business 
 was as unreniunerative as ever, and with difficulty he 
 provided the household with food. One gleam of light 
 kept up the courage of the family : the aged relative 
 was known to be so infirm that he could only leave the 
 house in a bath-chair ; every day there might be news 
 even yet more promising. Meanwhile, the girl of sixteen 
 exercised her incompetence in the meaner departments 
 of domestic life, and Miss Shepperson did all the work 
 that required care or common-sense, the duties of nurse- 
 maid alone taking a great deal of her time. On the 
 whole, this employment seemed to suit her ; she had a 
 look of improved health, enjoyed more equable spirits, 
 and in her manner showed more self-confidence. Once 
 a month she succeeded in getting a few hours' holiday, 
 and paid a visit to one or the other of her sisters ; but 
 to neither of them did she tell the truth regarding her 
 position in the house at Hammersmith. Now and then, 
 when every one else under the roof was asleep, she took 
 from a locked drawer in her bedroom a little account- 
 book, and busied herself with figures. This she found 
 an enjoyable moment ; it was very pleasant indeed to
 
 168 A CHAiiMlNG FAMILY 
 
 make the computation of what the Hvmers owed to her, 
 a dailv-growing debt of which the payment could not 
 now be long delayed. She did not feel quite sure with 
 regard to the interest, but the principal of the debt was 
 very easily reckoned, and it would make a nice little sum 
 to put by. Certainly Miss Shepperson was not unhappy- 
 Mrs. Uvmer was just able to resume her normal 
 habits, to write many letters, teach her children, ])ay 
 visits in distant parts of London — the care of the baby 
 being still chieHy left to Miss Shepperson — when, on a 
 pleasant dav of spring, a little before lunch-tiine, Mr. 
 Rvmer rushed into the house, calling in an agitated 
 voice his wife's name. Miss Shepperson was the only 
 person at home, for Mrs. Rymer had gone out with the 
 children, the servant accompanying her to wheel baby's 
 perambulator ; she ran up from the kitchen, aproned, 
 with sleeves rolled to the elbow, and met the excited 
 man as he descended from a vain search in the bed- 
 rooms. 
 
 ' Has it happened ?"" she cried — for it seemed to her 
 that there could be only one explanation of Mr. Rymer's 
 behaviour. 
 
 ' Yes ! He died this morning — this morning ! ' 
 Thev clasped hands ; then, as an afterthought, their 
 eyes fell, and they stood limply cml)arrassed. 
 
 ' It seems shockins: to take the news in this way,* 
 murmured Mr. Rymer; 'but the relief; oh, the relief! 
 And tlien, I scarcely knew him ; we haven't seen each 
 other for years. I can't help it ! I feel as if I had 
 thrown off a load of tons ! Where is Adelaide .? Which 
 way have tliey gone ? ' 
 
 He rushed out again, to meet his wife. For several 
 minutes Miss Shepperson stood motif)nless, in a happy
 
 A CHARMING FAMILY 169 
 
 daze, until she suddenly remembered that chops were at 
 the kitchen fire, and sped downstairs. 
 
 Throughout that day, and, indeed, for several days to 
 come, Mrs. Rymer behaved very properly indeed ; her 
 pleasant, refined face wore a becoming gravity, and when 
 she spoke of the deceased she called him poor Mr. So- 
 and-so. She did not attend the funeral, for baby 
 happened to be ailing, but Mr. Rymer, of course, went. 
 He, in spite of conscientious effort to imitate his wife's 
 decorum, frequently betrayed the joy which was in his 
 mind ; Miss Shepperson heard him singing as he got up 
 in the morning, and noticed that he ate with unusual 
 appetite. The house brightened. Before the end of a 
 week smiles and cheerful remarks ruled in the family ; 
 sorrows were forgotten, and everybody looked forward 
 to the great day of settlement. 
 
 It did not come quickly. In two months' time Mr. 
 Rymer still waited upon the pleasure of the executors. 
 But he was not inactive. His brother at Birminoham 
 had suggested 'an opening"" in that city (thus did Mrs. 
 Rymer phrase it), and the commission-agent had decided 
 to leave London as soon as his affairs were in order. 
 Towards the end of the third month the family was 
 suffering from hope deferred. Mr. Rymer had once 
 more a troubled face, and his wife no longer talked to 
 Miss Shepperson in happy strain of her projects for the 
 future. At length notice arrived that the executors 
 were prepared to settle with Mr. Rymer ; yet, in 
 announcing the fact, he manifested only a sober con- 
 tentment, while Mrs. Rymer was heard to sigh. Miss 
 Shepperson noted these things, and wondered a little, 
 but Mrs. Rymer's smiling assurance that now at last all 
 was well revived her cheerful expectations.
 
 170 A CHARMING FAMILY 
 
 Witli a certain solemnity she was summoned, a day 
 or two later, to a morning colloquy in the drawing-room. 
 Mr. Ryiner sat in an easy-chair, holding a bundle of 
 papers; Mrs. llymersat on the sofa, the dozing baby on 
 her lap ; over against them their friend took her seat. 
 With a little cough and a rustle of his papers, the polite 
 man began to speak — 
 
 ' Miss Shepperson, the day has come when I am able 
 to discharge my debt to you. You will not misunder- 
 stand that expression — I speak of my debt in money. 
 What I owe to you — what we all owe to you — in 
 another and a higher sense, can never be repaid. That 
 moral debt must still go on, and be acknowledged by 
 the unfailing gratitude of a lifetime."' 
 
 * Of a lifetime,"' repeated Mrs. Rymer, sweetly murmur- 
 ing, and casting towards her friend an eloquent glance. 
 
 ' Here, however,"" resumed her husband, ' is the 
 |>ecuniary account. Will you do me the kindness. Miss 
 Shepperson, to glance it over and see if you find it 
 correct ? "* 
 
 Miss Shepperson took the paper, which was covered 
 with a verv neat arrav of figures. It was the same 
 calculation which she herself had so often made, but 
 with interest on the money due to her correctly com- 
 puted. The weekly sum of fifteen shillings for board 
 and lodging had been deducted, throughout the whole 
 time, from the rent due to her as landlady. Mr. Rymer 
 stood her debtor for not quite thirty pounds. 
 
 'It^s gtdte correct,"* said Miss Shepperson, handing 
 back the paper with a |)leased smile. 
 
 Mr. R\mer turned to his wife. 
 
 ' And what do yon say, dear ? Do i^ou think it 
 correct ? ""
 
 A CHARMING FAMILY 171 
 
 Mrs. Rymer shook her head. 
 
 ' No,' she answered gently, ' indeed I do not.' 
 
 Miss Shepperson was startled. She looked from one 
 to the other, and saw on their faces only the kindliest 
 expression. 
 
 ' I really thought it came to about that,' fell from her 
 lips. ' I couldn't quite reckon the interest ' 
 
 'Miss Shepperson,' said Mr. Rymer impressively, 'do 
 you really think that we should allow vou to pav us for 
 your board and lodging — you, our valued friend — you, 
 who have toiled for us, who have saved us from endless 
 trouble and einbaiTassment ? That indeed would be a 
 little too shameless. This account is a mere joke — as I 
 hope you really thought it. I insist on giving you a 
 cheque for the total amount of the rent due to you 
 from the day when you first entered this house.' 
 
 ' Oh, Mr. Rymer ! ' panted the good woman, turning 
 pale with astonishment. 
 
 ' Why, of course ! ' exclaimed Mrs. Rymer. ' Do you 
 think it would be possible for us to behave in any other 
 way ? Surely you know us too well, dear Miss Shep- 
 person ! ' 
 
 ' How kind you are ! ' faltered their friend, unable to 
 decide in herself whether she should accept this gener- 
 osity or not — sorely tempted by the money, yet longing 
 to show no less generous a spirit on her own side. ' I 
 really don't know ' 
 
 Mr. Rymer imposed silence with a wave of the hand, 
 and began talking in a slow, grave way. 
 
 ' Miss Shepperson, to-day I may account myself a 
 happy man. Listen to a very singular story. You know 
 that I was indebted to others besides you. I have com- 
 municated with all those persons; I have drawn up a
 
 172 ^ A CHAKMING FAMILY 
 
 schedule of evervthiiif!; I owe ; and — extraordinary 
 coincidence ! — the sum-total of my dehts is exactly that 
 of the reversion upon which I have entered, rn'miis three 
 pounds fourteen shilUngs."" 
 
 ' Strange ! ' murmured Mrs. Rymcr, as if delightedly. 
 ' I did not know, Miss Shepperson, that I owed so 
 much. I had forgotten items. And sujjpose, after all, 
 the total had exceeded my resources ! That indeed 
 would have been a blow. As it is, I am a happy man ; 
 my wife is happv. We pay our debts to the last 
 fartiiins:, and we beoin the world acrain — with three 
 pounds to the good. Our furniture must go ; I cannot 
 redeem it; no matter. I owe nothing; our honour is 
 saved 1 "* 
 
 Miss Shepperson was aghast. 
 
 ' But, Mrs. Rvmer,"' she began, ' this is dreadful ! 
 What are you going to do ? ' 
 
 ' Evervthing is arranged, dear friend,' Mrs. Rymcr 
 replied. ' Mv husband has a little })ost in Birmingham, 
 which will bring him in just enough to suj)})ort us in 
 the most modest lodgings. We cannot hope to have a 
 house of our own, for we are determined never again to 
 borrow — and, indeed, I do not know who would lend to 
 us. We are poor people, and must live as poor peoj^lc 
 do. Miss Shepperson, I ask one favour of you. W^ill 
 vou permit us to leave your house without the customary 
 notice.'* We should feel very grateful. To-day I pay 
 Susan, and part with her; to-morrow we must travel to 
 Birminghan). The furniture will be removed by the 
 
 people who take possession of it ' 
 
 Miss Shep})erson was listening with a bewildered look. 
 She saw Mr. Rymer stand up. 
 
 'I will now," he said, 'pay you the rent from the day '
 
 A CHARMING FAMILY 173 
 
 * Oh, Mr. Rvmer ! *■ cried the agitated woman. * How 
 can I take it ? How can I leave you penniless ? I 
 should feel it a downright robbery, that I should ! ' 
 
 ' Miss Shepperson,' exclaimed Mrs. Rymer in soft 
 reproach, ' don't you understand how much better it is 
 to pay all we owe, even though it does leave us penniless ? 
 Why, even darling baby ' — she kissed it — ' would say so 
 if she could speak, poor little mite. Of course you will 
 accept the money ; I insist upon it. You wont forget 
 us. We will send you our address, and you shall hear 
 of your little godchild ' 
 
 Her voice broke ; she sobbed, and rebuked herself for 
 weakness, and sobbed again. Meanwhile Mr. Rymer 
 stood holding out banknotes and gold. The distracted 
 Miss Shepperson made a wild gesture. 
 
 ' How can I take it ? How can \? I should be 
 ashamed the lonijest dav I lived I' 
 
 ' I must insist," said Mr. Rymer firmly ; and his wife, 
 calm again, echoed the words. In that moment Miss 
 Shepperson clutched at the notes and gold, and, with a 
 quick step forward, took hold of the baby's hand, making 
 the little fingers close upon the money. 
 
 ' There ! I give it to little Dora — there ! ' 
 
 Mr. Rymer turned away to hide his emotion. IMrs. 
 Rymer laid baby down on the sofa, and clasped Miss 
 Shepperson in her arms. 
 
 A few days later the house at Hammersmith was 
 vacant. The Rymers wrote from Birmingham that they 
 had found sufficient, though humble, lodgings, and were 
 looking for a tiny house, which they would furnish very, 
 very simply with the money given to baby by their ever 
 dear friend. It may be added that they had told the 
 
 H
 
 174 A CHARMING FAMILY 
 
 truth regarding their position — save as to one detail : 
 Mr. Rviiicr thought it needless to acquaint Miss Shop- 
 person with the fact that his brother, a creditor for 
 three hundred pounds, had generously forgiven the debt. 
 Miss Shepperson, lodging in a little bedroom, with an 
 approving conscience to keep her company, hoped that 
 her house would soon be let again.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE 
 
 For a score of years the Rocketts had kept the lodge 
 of Brent Hall. In the beginning Rockett was head 
 gardener ; his wife, the daughter of a shopkeeper, had 
 never known domestic service, and performed her duties 
 at the Hall gates with a certain modest dignity not 
 displeasing to the stately persons upon whom she 
 depended. During the lifetime of Sir Henry the best 
 possible understanding existed between Hall and lodge. 
 Though Rocketfs health broke down, and at length 
 he could work hardly at all, their pleasant home was 
 assured to the family ; and at Sir Henry's death the 
 nephew who succeeded him left the Rocketts undis- 
 turbed. But, under this new lordship, things were not 
 quite as they had been. Sir Edwin Shale, a middle- 
 aged man, had in his youth made a foolish marriage ; 
 his lady ruled him, not with the gentlest of tongues, nor 
 always to the kindest purpose, and their daughter, Hilda, 
 asserted her rights as only child with a force of character 
 which Sir Edwin would perhaps have more sincerely 
 admired had it reminded him less of Lady Shale. 
 
 While the Hall, in Sir Henry's time, remained child- 
 less, the lodge prided itself on a boy and two girls. 
 Young Rockett, something of a scapegrace, was by the 
 baronefs advice sent to sea, and thenceforth gave his 
 parents no trouble. The second daughter, Betsy, grew 
 
 175
 
 176 A DACGHTEU OF THE LODGE 
 
 u)i to be her mother's help. But Betsy's elder sister 
 showed from early years that the life of the lodge would 
 afford no adequate scope for her ambitions. May 
 Bockett had good looks ; what was more, she had an 
 intellect which sharpened itself on everything with which 
 it came in contact. The village school could never have 
 been held responsible for May Rockett's acquirements and 
 views at the age of ten ; nor could the High School in 
 the neighbouring town altogether account for her menbil 
 development at seventeen. Not without misgivings had 
 the health-broken gardener and his wife consented to 
 May's pursuit of the higher learning ; but Sir Henrv 
 and the kind old Lady Shale seemed to think it the 
 safer course, and evidently there was little chance of the 
 girl's accepting any humble kind of employment : in one 
 way or another she must depend for a livelihood u)>on 
 her brains. At the time of Sir Edwin's succession Miss 
 Rockett had already obtained a place as governess, giving 
 her parents to understand that this was only, of coui-se, 
 a temporary expedient — a paving of ilie way to some- 
 thing vaguely, but superbly, independent. Nor was 
 promotion long in coming. At two-and-twenty May 
 accepted a secretaryship to a lady with a mission — con- 
 cerning the rights of womanhood. In letters to her 
 father and mother she spoke much of the importance of 
 her work, but did not confess how very modest was her 
 salary. A couj)le of years went by without her visiting 
 the old home ; then, of a sudden, she made known her 
 intention of coming to stay at the lodge ' for a week 
 or ten days.' She explained that her purpose was rest; 
 intellectual strain had begun rather to tell upon her, 
 and a few days of absolute tran(]uillity, such as she 
 might expect under the elms of Hrent Hall, would do
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE 177 
 
 her all the good in the world. ' Of course,' she added, 
 ' it 's unnecessary to say anything about me to the Shale 
 people. They and I have nothing in common, and it 
 will be better for us to ignore each other's existence.' 
 
 These characteristic phrases troubled Mr. and Mrs. 
 Rockett. That the family at the Hall should, if it 
 seemed good to them, ignore the existence of May was, 
 in the Rocketts' view, reasonable enough ; but for May 
 to ignore Sir Edwin and Lady Shale, who were just now 
 in residence after six months spent abroad, struck them 
 as a very grave impropriety. Natural respect demanded 
 that, at some fitting moment, and in a suitable manner, 
 their daughter should present herself to her feudal 
 superiors, to whom she was assuredly indebted, though 
 indirectly, for ' the blessings she enjoyed.' This was 
 Mrs. Rockett's phrase, and the rheumatic, wheezy old 
 gardener uttered the same opinion in less conventional 
 language. They had no affection for Sir Edwin or his 
 lady, and Miss Hilda they decidedly disliked ; their 
 treatment at the hands of these new people contrasted 
 unpleasantly enough with the memory of old times ; but 
 a spirit of loyal subordination ruled their blood, and, to 
 Sir Edwin at all events, they felt gratitude for their 
 retention at the lodge. Mrs. Rockett was a healthy and 
 capable woman of not more than fifty, but no less than 
 her invalid husband would she have dreaded the thouaht 
 of turning her back on Brent Hall. Rockett had often 
 consoled himself with the thought that here he should 
 die, here amid the fine old trees that he loved, in the 
 ivy-covered house which was his only idea of home. 
 And was it not a reasonable hope that Betsy, good 
 steady girl, should some day marry the promising young 
 gardener whom Sir Edwin had recently taken into his
 
 178 A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE 
 
 service, und so re-establibh the old order of things at 
 the lodge ? 
 
 ' I luilf wish May wasn't coming,'' said Mrs. Rockett, 
 after long and anxious thought. ' Last time she was 
 here she quite upset me with her strange talk/ 
 
 'She's a funny girl, and that's the truth,' muttered 
 Rockett from his old leather chair, full in the sunshine 
 of the kitchen window. They had a nice little sitting- 
 room ; but this, of course, was onlv used on Sunday, 
 and no particular idea of comfort attached to it. 
 Mav, to be sure, had always used the sitting-room. 
 It was one of the habits which emphasised most 
 strongly the moral distance between her and her 
 parents. 
 
 The subject being full of })erplexity, they put it aside, 
 and with very mixed feelings awaited their elder 
 daughter's arrival. Two days later a cab deposited at 
 the lotlge Miss Mav, and her dress-basket, and her travel- 
 ling-bag, and her holdall, together with certain loose 
 periodicals and a volume or two bearing the yellow label 
 of Mudie. The voung ladv was well dres.sed in a severely 
 practical way; nothing unduly feminine marked her 
 appearance, and in the matter of collar and necktie she 
 inclined to the example of the other sex ; for all that, 
 her soft complexion and bright eyes, her well-turned 
 figure and light, quick movements, had a picturescjue 
 value which Miss Mav certainly did not ignore. She 
 manifested no excess of feeling when her mother and 
 sister came forth to welcome her ; a nod, a smile, an 
 offer of her cheek, and the pleasant exclamation, ' Well,! 
 good people ! ' carried her through this little scene with 
 becoming dignity. 
 
 ' Vou will bri'ig these things inside, please,' she .said
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE 179 
 
 to the driver, in her agreeable head- voice, with the tone 
 and gesture of one who habitually gives orders. 
 
 Her father, bent with rheumatism, stood awaiting her 
 just within. She grasped his hand cordially, and cried 
 on a cheery note, ' Well, father, how are you getting 
 on? No worse than usual, I hope ?' Then she added, 
 regarding him with her head slightly aside, ' We must 
 have a talk about your case. I Ve been going in a little 
 for medicine lately. No doubt your country medico is a 
 duif'er. Sit down, sit down, and make yourself comfort- 
 able. I don't want to disturb any one. About teatime, 
 isn't it, mother ? Tea very weak for me, please, and a 
 slice of lemon with it, if you have such a thing, and just 
 a mouthful of dry toast."* 
 
 So unwilling was May to disturb the habits of the 
 fan)ily that, half an hour after her arrival, the homely 
 three had fallen into a state of nervous agitation, and 
 could neither say nor do anything natural to them. Of 
 a sudden there sounded a sharp rapping at the window. 
 Mrs. Rockett and Betsy started up, and Betsy ran to the 
 door. In a moment or two she came back with glowing- 
 cheeks. 
 
 ' I 'm sure I never heard the bell ! ' she exclaimed 
 with compunction. ' Miss Shale had to get off her 
 bicvcle ! ' 
 
 'Was it she who hammered at the window.?' asked 
 May coldly. 
 
 * Yes — and she was that annoyed.' 
 
 'It will do her good. A little anger now and then 
 is excellent for the health.' And Miss Rockett sipped 
 her lemon - tinctured tea with a smile of ineffable 
 contempt. 
 
 The others went to bed at ten o'clock, but May,
 
 180 A DAUGHTER OF THK LODGE 
 
 havinsj made hei-self at ease in the sitting-room, sat there 
 reading until after twelve. Nevertheless, she was up 
 very early next morning, and, before going out for ii 
 sharp little walk (in a heavy shower), she gave preei>e 
 directions about her breakfast. She wanted only the 
 simplest things, prepared in the simplest way, but the 
 tone of her instructions vexed and perturbed Mrs. 
 Rockett sorely. After breakfast the young lady made a 
 .searching inquiry into the state of her father's health, 
 and diajinosed his ailments in such learned words that 
 the old ffardener bejjan to feel worse than he had done 
 for many a year. May then occupied herself witii 
 correspondence, and before midday sent her sister out 
 to post nine letters. 
 
 ' But I thoutrht you were going to rest yourself r " 
 said ner mother, in an irritable voice quite unusual with 
 her. 
 
 ' Why, so I am resting ! ' May exclaimed. 'If vou 
 saw my ordinary morning's work ! I sujipose you have 
 a London ne.wspaper .'' No.'' How do you live without 
 it .'' I must run into the town for one this afternoon.'' 
 
 The town was three miles away, but could be reached 
 bv train Irom the village station. On reflection, Miss 
 Rockett announced that she would use this opportunity 
 for calling on a lady whose accjuaintance she desired to 
 make, one Mrs. Lindley, who in social position stood 
 on an equality with the family at the Hall, and was 
 often seen there. On her mother's expressing surprise, 
 May smiled indulgently. 
 
 ' Why shouKhrt I know Mrs. Lindley ? I have heard 
 she''s interested in a movement which occupies me a good 
 deal just now. I know she will be delighted to see me. 
 [ can give her a good deal of first-hand information, for
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE 181 
 
 which she will be grateful. You do amuse me, mother, 
 she added in her blandest tone, ' When will you come 
 to understand what my position is ? ' 
 
 The Rocketts had put aside all thoughts of what they 
 esteemed May's duty towards the Hall ; they earnestly 
 hoped that her stay with them might pass unobserved 
 by Lady and Miss Shale, whom, they felt sure, it would 
 be positively dangerous for the girl to meet, Mrs. 
 Rockett had not slept for anxiety on this score. The 
 father was also a good deal troubled ; but his wonder at 
 May's bearing and talk had, on the whole, an agreeable 
 preponderance over the uneasy feeling. He and Betsv 
 shared a secret admiration for the brilliant qualities 
 which were flashed before their eyes ; they privately 
 agreed that May was more of a real lady than either the 
 baronet's hard-tongued wife or the disdainful Hilda Shale. 
 
 So Miss Rockett took the early afternoon train, and 
 found her way to Mrs. Lindley's, where she sent in her 
 card. At once admitted to the drawing-room, she gave 
 a rapid account of herself, naming persons whose ac- 
 quaintance sufficiently recommended her. Mrs, Lindley 
 was a good-humoured, chatty woman, who had a lively 
 interest in everything ' progressive ' ; a new religion 
 or a new cycling-costume stirred her to just the same 
 kind of happy excitement; she had no prejudices, but 
 a decided preference for the society of healthy, high- 
 spirited, well-to-do people. Miss Rockett's talk was 
 exactly what she liked, for it glanced at innumerable 
 topics of the ' advanced "" sort, was much concerned 
 with personalities, and avoided all tiresome precision 
 of argument. 
 
 ' Are you making a stay here ? ' asked the hostess. 
 
 ' Oh ! I am with my people in the country — not far
 
 182 A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE 
 
 off,' ^I^v answered in an oft'hand way. 'Only tor a day 
 or two/ 
 
 Other callers were admitted, but Miss Rockett kept 
 the lead in talk ; she glowed with self-satisfaction, feeliiig 
 that she was reallv showing to great advantage, and that 
 everybody admired her. When the iloor again opened 
 the name announced was ' Miss Shale/ Stopping in the 
 middle of a swift sentence, May looked at the new- 
 comer, and saw that it was indeed Hilda Shale, of Brent 
 Hall ; but this did not disconcert her. Without lower- 
 ing her voice she finished what she was saying, and 
 ended in a mirthful key. The baronet's daughter had 
 come into town on her bicycle, as was declared by the 
 short skirt, easv jacket, and brown shoes, which well dis- 
 played her athletic person. She was a tall, strongly 
 built girl of six-and-twenty, with a face of hard comeli- 
 ness and maffniHcent tawnv hair. All her movements 
 suiiiiested viirour ; she shook hands with a downward 
 jerk, moved about the room with something of a stride 
 and, in sitting down, crossed her legs abruptly. 
 
 From the first her look had turned with surprise to 
 Miss Rockett. When, after a minute or two, the 
 hostess presented that young lady to her. Miss Shale 
 raised her eyebrows a little, smiled in another direction, 
 and gave a just perceptible nod. May's behaviour was 
 as nearly as possible the same. 
 
 'Do you cycle, Miss Rockett?' asked Mrs. Lindley. 
 
 ' No, I don't. 'Hie fact is, I have never found time 
 to learn.' 
 
 A lady remarked that nowadays there was a certain 
 distinction in not cycling ; whereupon Miss Shale's 
 abrupt and rather metallic voice sounded what was 
 meant for gentle irony.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE 183 
 
 * It 's a pity the machines can't be sold cheaper. A 
 great many people who would like to cycle don't feel 
 able to afford it, you know. One often hears of such 
 cases out in the country, and it seems awfully hard lines, 
 doesn't it ? ' 
 
 Miss Rockett felt a warmth ascendinor to her ears, 
 and made a violent eff'ort to look unconcerned. She 
 wished to say something, but could not find the right 
 words, and did not feel altogether sure of her voice. 
 The hostess, who made no personal application of Miss 
 Shale's remark, began to discuss the prices of bicycles, 
 and others chimed in. May fretted under this turn 
 oi' the conversation. Seeing that it was not likely to 
 revert to subjects in which she could shine, she rose and 
 offered to take leave. 
 
 ' Must you really go ? ' fell with conventional regret 
 from the hostess's lips. 
 
 'I'm afraid I must,' Miss Rockett replied, bracing 
 herself under the converging eyes and feeling not quite 
 equal to the occasion. ' My time is so short, and there 
 are so many people I wish to see.' 
 
 As she left the house, anger burned in her. It was 
 certain that Hilda Shale would make known her circum- 
 stances. She had fancied this revelation a matter of 
 indifference ; but, after all, the thought stung her intoler- 
 ably. The insolence of the creature, with her hint about 
 the prohibitive cost of bicycles ! All the hai'der to bear 
 because hitting the truth. May would have long ago 
 bought a bicycle had she been able to afford it. Stray- 
 ing about the main streets of the town, she looked 
 flushed and wrathful, and could think of nothing but 
 her humiliation. 
 
 To make things worse, she lost count of time, and
 
 18-i A DAUGHTER OF THE L()1)(;E 
 
 j)resently fouml tliat she had missed the onlv train bv 
 which she could return home. A cab would be too 
 much of an expense; she had no choice but to walk the 
 three or four miles. The eveninfj was close ; walking 
 rapidly, and with the accompaniment of vexatious 
 thoufihts, she reached the gates of the Hall tired, 
 perspiring, irritated. Just as her hand was on the 
 gate a bicycle-bell trilled vigorously behind her, and, 
 from a distance of twenty yards, a voice cried impera- 
 tively — 
 
 ' Open the gate, please ! "" 
 
 Miss Rockett looked round, and saw Hilda Shale 
 slowly wheeling forward, in expectation that wav would 
 be made for her. Deliberately May passed through the 
 side entrance, and let the little gate fall to. 
 
 Miss Shale dismounted, admitted herself, and spoke 
 to Mav (now at the lodge door) with angrv emphasis. 
 
 ' Didn't you hear me ask you to open .'' "' 
 
 ' I couldn't imagine you were sj)eaking to me^ 
 answered Miss Rockett, with brisk dignity. ' I supposed 
 some servant of yours was in sight.'' 
 
 A peculiar smile distorted Miss Shale's full red lips. 
 Without another word she mounted her machine and 
 rode away up the elm avenue. 
 
 Now Mrs. Rockett had seen this encounter, and heard 
 the words I'xchanged : she w;is lost in consternation. 
 
 ' What do you mean by behaving like that, Mav ? 
 Why, I was running out myself to open, and then I saw 
 you were there, and, of course, I thought you 'd do it. 
 There's the second time in two days Miss Shale has had 
 to complain about us. How could vou forget yourself, 
 to i)ehave and speak like that ! AVhv, vou must be 
 cra/v, mv girl ! *
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE 185 
 
 * I don't seem to get on very well here, mother,' was 
 May's reply. ' The fact is, I 'm in a false position. I 
 shall go to-morrow morning, and there won't be any 
 more trouble.' 
 
 Thus spoke Miss Rockett, as one who shakes off' a 
 petty annoyance — she knew not that the serious trouble 
 was just beginning. A few minutes later Mrs. Rockett 
 went up to the Hall, bent on humbly apologising for her 
 daughter's impertinence. After being kept waiting for a 
 quarter of an hour she was admitted to the presence of 
 the housekeeper, who had a rather grave announcement 
 to make. 
 
 ' Mrs. Rockett, I 'm sorry to tell you that you will 
 have to leave the lodge. My lady allows you two months, 
 though, as your wages have always been paid monthly, 
 only a month's notice is really called for. I believe some 
 allowance will be made you, but you will hear about that. 
 The lodge must be ready for its new occupants on the 
 last day of October.' 
 
 The poor woman all but sank. She had no voice for 
 protest or entreaty — a sob choked her ; and blindly she 
 made her wav to the door of the room, then to the exit 
 from the Hall. 
 
 * What in the world is the matter ? ' cried May, hear- 
 ing from the sitting-room, whither she had retired, a 
 clamour of distressful tongues. 
 
 She came into the kitchen, and learnt what had 
 happened. 
 
 ' And now I ho])e you 're satisfied ! ' exclaimed her 
 mother, with tearful wrath. ' You 've got us turned out 
 of our home — you 've lost us the best place a family ever 
 had — and I hope it 's a satisfaction to your conceited, 
 overbearing mind ! If- you 'd tried for it you couldn't
 
 18G A DAUGHTER OF THK LODGE 
 
 have gone to work better. And much you care ! We re 
 below vou, we are; we're like dirl under your feet! 
 And your father "'1] jjo and end his life who knows where, 
 miserable as miserable can be; and your sister "11 have 
 to go into service ; and as for me ' 
 
 ' Listen, mother ! ■" shouted the girl, her eves flashing 
 and everv nerve of her bodv strung;. ' If the Shales are 
 such contemptible wretches as to turn vou out just 
 because they're offended with me. I should have thouirht 
 you 'd have spirit enough to tell them what vou think of 
 such behaviour, and be glad never more to serve such 
 brutes! Father, what do you say? I'll tell you how 
 it was.' 
 
 She narrated the events of the afternoon, amid sobs 
 and ejaculations from her mother and Betsv. Rockett, 
 who was just now in anguish of lumbago, tried to 
 straighten himself in his chair before replying, but sank 
 helplessly together with a groan. 
 
 ' You can't help yourself, May,' he said at length. 'It's 
 your nature, my girl. Don"t worry. I '11 see Sir Edwin, 
 and perhaps he'll listen to me. It's the women who 
 make all the mischief. I must try to see Sir Edwin ' 
 
 A pang across the loins made him end abruj)tlv, 
 groaning, moaning, muttering. Before the renewed 
 attack of her mother Mav retreated into the sittinff- 
 rooni, and there j)a>sed an hour wretchedlv enough. A 
 knock at the door without words called her to supper, 
 but she had no appetite, and would not join the family 
 circle. Presently the door opened, and her father 
 looked in. 
 
 'Don't worry, my girl,' he whispered. 'I'll see Sir 
 Ivlwin in the morninir.' 
 
 May uttered no rejily. Vaguely repenting what she
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE 187 
 
 had done, she at the same time rejoiced in the recollec- 
 tion of her passajre of arms with Miss Shale, and was 
 inclined to despise her family for their pusillanimous 
 attitude. It seemed to her very improbable that the 
 expulsion would really be carried out. Lady Shale and 
 Hilda meant, no doubt, to give the Rocketts a good 
 fright, and then contemptuously pardon them. She, in 
 any case, would return to London without delay, and 
 make no more trouble. A pity she had come to the 
 lodge at all ; it was no place for one of her spirit and 
 her attainments. 
 
 In the morning she packed. The train which was to 
 take her back to town left at half-past ten, and after 
 breakfast she walked into the village to order a cab. Her 
 mother would scarcely speak to her ; Betsy was continually 
 in reproachful tears. On coming back to the lodge she 
 saw her father hobbling down the avenue, and walked 
 towards him to ask the result of his supplication. 
 Rockett had seen Sir Edwin, but onlv to hear his 
 sentence of exile confirmed. The baronet said he was 
 sorrv, but could not interfere ; the tnatter iav in Ladv 
 Shale's hands, and Lady Shale absolutely refused to 
 hear any excuses or apologies for the insult which had 
 been offered her daughter. 
 
 ' It 's all up with us,' said the old gardener, who was 
 pale and trembling after his great effort. ' We must 
 go. But don't worry, my girl, don't worrv.' 
 
 Then fright took hold upon May Rockett. She felt 
 for the first time what she had done. Her heart 
 fluttered in an anguish of self-reproach, and her eyes 
 strayed as if seeking help. A minute's hesitation, then, 
 vfith all the speed she could make, she set off up the 
 avenue towards the Hall.
 
 188 A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE 
 
 Presenting herself at the servants" entrance, she 
 begged to be allowed to see the housekeeper. Of course 
 her storv was known to all the domestics, half a dozen 
 of whom quickly collected to stare at her, with more or 
 less malicious smiles. It was a bitter moment for Miss 
 Rockett, but she subdued herself, and at length obtained 
 the interview she sought. With a cold air of superiority 
 and of disaj)proval the housekeeper listened to her quick, 
 broken sentences. Would it be possible, May asked, for 
 her to see Lady Shale ? She desired to — to apologise 
 for — for rudeness of which she had been guilty, rude- 
 ness in which her family had no part, which they 
 utterly dej)lored, but for which they were to suffer 
 severely. 
 
 ' If you could help me, ma'am, I should be very 
 grateful — indeed I should "" 
 
 Her voice all but broke into a sob. That ' ma"'am ' 
 cost her a terrible effort ; the sound of it seemed to 
 smack her on the ears. 
 
 ' If you will go into the servants' hall and wait,' the 
 housekeeper eloigned to say, after reflecting, ' I '11 see 
 what can be done.' 
 
 And ]\Iiss liockett submitted. In the servants' hall 
 she sat for a long, long time, observed, but never 
 addressed. The hour of her train went by. More than 
 once she was on the point of rising and fleeing ; more 
 than onco her smouldering wrath all but broke into 
 flame. But she thought of her father's pale, pain- M 
 stricken face, and sat on. 
 
 At something past eleven o'clock a footman approached 
 her, and said curtly, ' You are to go up to mv lady ; 
 follow me.' ]Mav followed, shaking with weakness and 
 ap})rehension, buramg at the same time with j)ride all
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE 189 
 
 bul in revolt. Conscious of nothing on the way, she 
 found herself in a large room, where sat the two ladies, 
 who for some moments spoke together about a topic of 
 the day placidly. Then the elder seemed to become 
 aware of the girl who stood before her. 
 
 'You are Rocketfs elder daughter.'*'' 
 
 Oh, the metallic voice of Lady Shale ! How gratified 
 she would have been could she have known how it 
 bruised the girl's pride ! 
 
 ' Yes, my lady ' 
 
 ' And why do you want to see me .'' ' 
 
 ' I wisk to apologise — most sincerely — to your lady- 
 ship — for my behaviour of last evening ' 
 
 ' Oh, indeed ! ' the listener interrupted contemptu- 
 ously. ' I am glad you have come to your senses. But 
 your apology must be offered to Miss Shale — if my 
 daughter cares to listen to it.' 
 
 May had foreseen this. It was the bitterest moment 
 of her ordeal. Flushing scarlet, she turned towards the 
 younger woman. 
 
 ' Miss Shale, I beg your pardon for what I said 
 yesterday — I beg you to forgive my rudeness — my 
 impertinence ' 
 
 Her voice would go no further ; there came a choking 
 sound. Miss Shale allowed her eves to rest triumphantly 
 for an instant on the troubled face and figure, then 
 remarked to her mother — 
 
 ' It 's really nothing to me, as I told you. I suppose 
 this person may leave the room now ?'' 
 
 It was fated that May Rockett should go through 
 with her purpose and gain her end. But fate alone 
 (which meant in this case the subtlest preponderance of 
 one impulse over another) checked her on the point of a
 
 190 A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE 
 
 burst of passion winch would have startled Lady Shile 
 and Miss Hilda out of their cold-blooded coniplaceucy. 
 In the silence May's blood gurgled at iier ears, and she 
 tottered with dizziness. 
 
 ' You may go,' said Lady Shale. 
 
 But Mav could not move. There Hashed across her 
 the terrible thought that perhaps she had humiliated 
 herself for nothing. 
 
 ' Mv ladv — I hope — will your ladyship pleise to 
 forgive my father and mother? I entreat you not to 
 send them away. We shall all be so grateful to your 
 ladyship if vou will overlook ' 
 
 ' That will do,' said Lady Shale decisively. ' I will 
 merely say that the sooner you leave the lodge the 
 better ; and that you will do well never again to pass 
 the gates of the Hall. You may go.' 
 
 Miss Rockett withdrew. Outside, the footman was 
 awaiting her. He looked at her with a grin, and asked 
 in an untlertone, 'Any good .^ ' But 3Iay, to whom 
 this was the last blow, rushed past him, lost herself in 
 corridors, ran wildly hither and thither, tears streaming 
 from her eyes, and was at length guidcil by a maid- 
 servant into the outer air. Fleeing she cared not 
 whither, she came at length into a still corner of the 
 l)ark, and there, hidilen amid trees, watched only by 
 birds and rabbits, she wept out tlic bitterness of her 
 soul. 
 
 IV,- an evening train she returned to London, not 
 having confessed to her family what she had done, and 
 suH'eriuir still from some uncertaintv as to the result. 
 A dav or two later Betsy wrote to lier the happy news 
 that the sentence of expulsion was withdrawn, and peace 
 reigned once more in the ivy-covered lodge. By that
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE 191 
 
 time Miss Rockett had all but recovered her self-ref^pect, 
 and was so busy in her secretaryship that she could only 
 scribble a line of congratulation. She felt that she had 
 done rather a meritorious thing, but, for the first time 
 in her life, did not care to boast of it.
 
 THE RIDING-WHIP 
 
 It was not easy for Mr. Daffv to leave his shop for 
 the whole day, but an urgent aflPair called him to 
 London, and he breakfasted early in order to catch the 
 8.30 train. On account of his asthma he had to allow 
 himself plentv of time for the walk to the station ; and 
 all would have been well, but that, just as he was polish- 
 insr his silk hat and jriving^ final directions to his assistant, 
 in stepped a customer, who came to grumble about the 
 fit of a new coat. Ten good minutes were thus con- 
 sumed, and with a painful glance at his watch the 
 breathless tailor at length started. The walk was uj)hill ; 
 the sun was already powerful ; Mr. Daffy reached the 
 station with dripjiing forehead and ]mnting as if his 
 sides would burst. There stood the train; he had 
 barelv time to take his ticket and to rush across the 
 platform. As a porter slammed the carriage-door behind 
 him, he sank upon the seat in a lamentable condition, 
 gasping, coughing, writhing ; his eyes all but started 
 from his head, and his respectable top-hat tumbled to 
 the floor, where unconsciously he gave it a kick. A 
 grotescjue and distressing sight. 
 
 Only one person beheld it, and this, as it happened, a 
 friend of Mr. Daily's. In the far corner sat a large, 
 ruddv-cheeked man, whose eve rested upon the sufferer 
 with a look of greeting disturbed by compassion. Mi.
 
 THE RIDING- WHIP 198 
 
 Lott, a timber-merchant of this town, was in every sense 
 of the word a more flourishing man than the asthmatic- 
 tailor ; his six-feet-something of sound flesh and muscle, 
 his ripe sunburnt complexion, his attitude of eupeptic 
 and broad-chested ease, left the other, by contrast, scarce 
 his proverbial fraction of manhood. At a year or two 
 short of fifty, Mr. Daffy began to be old ; he was 
 shoulder-bent, knee-shaky, and had a pallid, wrinkled 
 visage, with watery, pathetic eye. At fifty turned, Mr. 
 Lott showed a vigour and a toughness such as few men 
 of any age could rival. For a score of years the measure 
 of Mr. Lott's robust person had been taken by Mr. 
 Daffy's professional tape, and, without intimacy, there 
 existed kindly relations between the two men. Neither 
 had ever been in the other's house, but they had long 
 met, once a week or so, at the Liberal Club, where it 
 was their habit to play together a game of draughts. 
 Occasionally they conversed ; but it was a rather one- 
 sided dialogue, for whereas the tailor had a sprightly 
 intelligence and — so far as his breath allowed — a ready 
 flow of words, the timber-merchant found himself at a 
 disadvantage when mental activity was called for. The 
 best-natured man in the world, Mr. Lott would sit smil- 
 ing and content so lono; as he had only to listen ; asked 
 his opinion (on anything but timber), he betrayed by 
 a knitting of the brows, a rolling of the eyes, an infla- 
 tion of the cheeks, and other signs of discomposure, the 
 serious effort it cost him to shape a thought and to 
 utter it. At times Mr. Daffy got on to the subject of 
 social and political reform, and, after copious exposi- 
 tion, would ask what Mr. Lott thought. He knew the 
 timber-merchant too well to expect an immediate reply. 
 There came a long pause, during which Mr. Lott
 
 194 THE RIDING-WHIP 
 
 snorted a little, shuffled in his chair, and stared at 
 vacancy, until at length, with a sudden smile of relief, 
 he exclaimed, * Do you know my idea ! ' And the 
 idea, often rather explosively stated, was fj^oneraliv 
 marked by common-sense of the bull-headed, British 
 kind. 
 
 ' Bad this morning,"' remarked Mr. I.ott, abruptly 
 hut sympathetically, as soon as the writhing tailor could 
 hear him. 
 
 ' Rather bad — ugh, ugh ! — had to run — ugli ! — doesn't 
 suit me, Mr. Lott,' gasj^ed the other, as he took the 
 silk hat which his friend had picked up and stroked 
 for hiu). 
 
 ' Hot weather trying.' 
 
 ' I vary so," panted Mr. Daffy, wiping his face with 
 a handkerchief. 'Sometimes one things seems to suit 
 me — ugh, ugh — sometimes another. Going to town, 
 Mr. Lott.?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 The blunt affirmative was accompanied by a singular 
 grimace, such as might have been caused by the swal- 
 lowing of something very unpleasant; and thereupon 
 followed a silence which allowed Mr. Daffv to recover 
 liimself. He sat with his eyes half closed and head bent, 
 leaning hack. 
 
 They had a general acquaintance with each other's 
 domestic aflairs. Both were widowers ; both lived alone. 
 Mr. Daffy's son was married, and dwelt in London ; the 
 same formula applied to Mr. Lott's daughter. And, as 
 it happened, the marriages had both been a subject of 
 parental dissatisfaction. Very rarely had Mr. Lott let 
 fall a word with regard to his daughter, Mrs. Bowles, but 
 the townsfolk were well aware that he thought his son-
 
 THE RIDING- WHIP 195 
 
 in-law a fool, if not worse ; Mrs. Bowles, in the seven 
 vears since her wedding, had only two or three times 
 revisited her father's house, and her husband never came. 
 A like reticence was maintained by Mr. Daffy concern- 
 ing his son Charles Edward, once the hope of his life. 
 At school the lad had promised well ; tailoring could 
 not be thought of for him ; he went into a solicitor's 
 office, and remained there just long enough to assure 
 himself that he had no turn for the law. From that 
 day he was nothing but an expense and an anxiety to his 
 father, until — now a couple of years ago — he announced 
 his establishment in a prosperous business in London, of 
 which Mr. Daffy knew nothing more than that it was 
 connected with colonial enterprise. Since that date 
 Charles Edward had made no report of himself, and 
 his father had ceased to write letters which received no 
 reply. 
 
 'Presently, Mr. Lott moved so as to come nearer to his 
 travelling companion, and said in a muttering, shame- 
 faced way- — 
 
 ' Have you heard any talk about my daughter 
 lately .? ' 
 
 Mr. Daffy showed embarrassment. 
 
 ' Well, Mr. Lott, I 'm sorry to say I have heard 
 something ' 
 
 ' Who from ? ' 
 
 * Well — it was a friend of mine — perhai)s I won't 
 mention the name — who came and told me something — 
 something that quite upset me. That 's what I 'm going 
 to town about, Mr. Lott. I 'm — well, the fact is, I was 
 going to call upon Mr. Bowles. "" 
 
 ' Oh, you were ! ' exclaimed the timber-merchant, 
 with gruffness, which referred not to his friend but
 
 196 THE RIDING-WHIP 
 
 to his son-in-law. 'I (ion't particularly want to see 
 hhn, but I iiad thoufrht of seeing my daughter 
 Vou wouldn't mind saying whether it was John 
 Koj)cr ?*' 
 
 ' Ves, it was.' 
 
 'Then we've both heard the same storv, no doubt.'' 
 
 Mr. Lott leaned l)ack and stared out of the window. 
 He kept thrusting out his lips and drawing them in 
 again, at the same time wrinkling his foix'head into 
 the frown which signified that he was trying to shape a 
 thought. 
 
 ' Mr. Lott,' resumed the tailor, with a gravely troubled 
 look, ' may I ask if John Roper made any mention of 
 my son ? ' 
 
 The timber-merchant glared, and ]\Ir. DaffV, inter- 
 preting the look as one of anger, trembled under it. 
 
 * I feel ashamed and miserable ! "" burst from his 
 lips. 
 
 It's not your fault, Mr. Daffy,"' interru})ted the other 
 in a good-natured growl. ' You 're not responsible, no 
 more than for any stranger.' 
 
 'That's just what I cant feel,' exclaimed the tailor, 
 nervously slajiping his knee. 'Anyway, it would be a 
 disgrace to a man to have a son a bookmaker — a black- 
 guard bookmaker. That's bad enough. But when it 
 comes to robbing and ruining the friends of your own 
 family — why, I never heard a more disgraceful thing 
 in my life. How I 'm going to stand in my shoj), and 
 hold up niv head before my customers, I — do — not 
 — know. Of course, it'll be the talk of the town: 
 we know what the Ropers are when they get hold of 
 anything. It'll dri\c me off my head, Mr. Lott, I 'm 
 sure it will.' 
 
 I
 
 THE RIDING- WHIP 197 
 
 The timber-merchant stretched out a great hand, and 
 laid it gently on the excited man's shoulder. 
 
 ' Don't worry ; that never did any good yet. We \i-. 
 got to find out, first of all, how much of Roper's story 
 is true. What did he tell you ? ' 
 
 ' He said that Mr. Bowles had been going down the 
 hill for a year or more — that his business was neglected, 
 that he spent his time at racecourses and in public- 
 houses — and that the cause of it all was my son. Mz/ 
 son f What had my son to do with it .'* Why, didn't 
 I know that Charles was a racing and betting man, and 
 a notorious bookmaker .? You can imagine what sort 
 of a feeling that gave me. Roper couldn't believe it was 
 the first I had heard of it ; he said lots of people in the 
 town knew how Charles was living. Did you know, Mr. 
 Lott ? ' 
 
 ' Not I ; I 'm not much in the way of gossip.' 
 
 ' Well, there 's what Roper said. It was last night, 
 and what with that and my cough, I didn't get a wink of 
 sleep after it. About three o'clock this morning I made 
 up my mind to go to London at once and see Mr. Bowles. 
 If it 's true that he 's been robbed and ruined by Charles, 
 I've only one thing to do — my duty's plain enough. I 
 shall ask him how much money Charles has had of him, 
 and, if my means are equal to it, I shall pay every penny 
 back — every penny.' 
 
 Mr. Lott's countenance waxed so grim that one would 
 have thought him about to break into wrath against the 
 speaker. But it was merely his way of disguising a 
 pleasant emotion. 
 
 ' I don't think most men would see it in that v/ay,' 
 he remarked gruffly. 
 
 ' Whether they would or not,' exclaimed Mr. DafFy,
 
 198 THE RIDIXG-WHIP 
 
 panting and wrigj^ling, 'it's «is plain as plain could be 
 that there 's no other course for a man who respects 
 himself. I couldirt live a day with such a burden as that 
 on my mind. A bookmaker ! A blackguard bookmaker ! 
 To think my son should come to that ! Vou know very 
 well, Mr. Lott, that there ""s nothing I hate and despise 
 more than horse-racing. We've often talked about 
 it, and the harm it does, and the sin and shame 
 it is that such doings should be permitted — haven"t 
 we ? ' 
 
 ' Course we have, course we have,"* returned the other, 
 u ith a nod. But he was absorbed in his own reflections, 
 and gave onlv half an ear to the gasping vehemences 
 which Mr. Daffy jioured forth for the next ten minutes. 
 There followed a short silence, then the strong man shook 
 himself and opened his lips. 
 
 ' Do vou know m?/ idea ? ' he blurled out. 
 
 ' What\s that, Mr. Lott.^' 
 
 ' If I were vou I wouldn't go to see Bowles. Better 
 for me to do that. WeVe only gossip to go u})on, and 
 we know what that often amounts to. Leave Bowles to 
 me, and go and see your son.'' 
 
 ' But I don't even know wliere he's living."* 
 
 'Vou don't? That's awkward. Well then, come 
 along with me to Bowles's place of business ; as likely 
 as not, if we find him, he'll be able to give you your 
 son's address. What do vou say to my idea, Mr. 
 DaJFv?' 
 
 Tiie tailor assented to this arrangement, on condition 
 that, if things were fomid to be as he had heard, he 
 should be left free to obey his conscience. The stopj)ing 
 of the train at an intermediate station, where new 
 passengers entered, jiiit an end to the confidential talk.
 
 THE RIDING-WHIP 199 
 
 Mr. DafFy, breathing hard, struggled with his painful 
 thoughts ; the timber-merchant, deeply meditative, let 
 his eyes wander about the carriage. As they drew near 
 to the London terminus, Mr. Lott bent forward to his 
 friend. 
 
 ' I want to buy a present for my eldest nephew,' he 
 remarked, ' but I can't for the life of me think what it 
 had better be.' 
 
 ' Perhaps you '11 see something in a shop-window,' 
 suggested Mr. Daffy. 
 
 ' Maybe I shall.' 
 
 They alighted at Liverpool Street. Mr. Lott hailed a 
 hansom, and they were driven to a street in Soutliwark, 
 where, at the entrance of a building divided into offices, 
 one perceived the name of Bowles and Perkins. This 
 firm was on the fifth floor, and Mr. Daflf'y eyed the stair- 
 case with misgiving. 
 
 ' No need for you to go up,' said his companion. 
 ' Wait here, and I '11 see if I can get the address.' 
 
 Mr. Lott was absent for only a few minutes. He came 
 down again with his lips hard set, knocking each step 
 sharply with his walking-stick. 
 
 ' I 've got it,' he said, and named a southern 
 suburb. 
 
 ' Have you seen Mr. Bowles ? ' 
 
 ' No ; he 's out of town,' was the reply. ' Saw his 
 partner.' 
 
 They walked side by side for a short way, then Mr. 
 Lott stopped. 
 
 ' Do you know my idea ? It 's a little after eleven. 
 I'm going to see my daughter, and I dare say I shall 
 catch the 3.49 home from Liverpool Street. Suppose we 
 take our chance of meeting there ?'
 
 200 THE RIDING-WHIP 
 
 Thus it was agreed. Mr. Daffy turned in the direc- 
 tion of" his son's abode ; the timber- merchant went 
 northward, and presently reached Finsbury Park, where, 
 in a house of unpretentious but decent appearance, dwelt 
 Mr. Bowles. The servant who answered the door wore 
 a strange look, as if something had alarmed her ; she 
 professed not to know whether any one was at home, 
 and, on going to incpiire, shut the door on the visitor's 
 face. A few minutes elapsed before Mr. Lott was 
 admitted. The hall struck him as rather bare ; and 
 at the entrance of the drawing-room he stoj)ped in 
 astonishment, for, excej)ting the window-curtains and a 
 few ornaments, the room was quite unfurnished. At 
 the far end stood a young woman, her hands behind her, 
 and her head bent — an attitude indicative of distress or 
 shame. 
 
 ' Are vou moving, Jane ? ' inquired Mr. Lott, eyeing 
 her curiously. 
 
 His daui'hter looked at him. She had a comelv face, 
 with no little of the paternal character stamped upon it ; 
 her knitted brows and sullen eyes bespoke a perturbed 
 humour, and her voice was only just audible. 
 
 ' Yes, we are moving, father.' 
 
 Mr. Lott's heavv footfall crosseil the floor. He 
 planted himself before her, his hands resting on his 
 stick. 
 
 ' What 's the matter, Jane ? Where 's Bowles 't ' 
 
 ' He left town yesterday. He "11 be back to-morrow, 
 I think.' 
 
 ' Vou Ve had the brokers in the house — isn't that 
 it, eh > ' 
 
 Mrs. Bowles made no answer, but her head sank 
 again, and a trembling of her shoulders betrayed the
 
 THE illDING-WIIIP 201 
 
 emotion with which she strove. Knowing that Jane 
 would tell of her misfortunes only when and how she 
 chose, the father turned away and stood for a minute 
 or two at the window ; then he asked abruptly whether 
 there was not such a thing as a chair in the house. Mrs. 
 Bowles, who had been on the point of speaking, bade 
 him come to another room. It was the dining-room, but 
 all the appropriate furniture had vanished : a couple of 
 bedi-oom chairs and a deal table served for present neces- 
 sities. Here, when they had both sat down, Mrs. Bowles 
 found courage to break the silence. 
 
 * Arthur doesn't know of it. He went away yesterday 
 morning, and the men came in the afternoon. He had 
 a promise — a distinct promise — that this shouldn't be 
 done before the end of the month. By then he hoped 
 to have money.*' 
 
 ' Who 's the creditor ? ' inquired Mr. Lott, with a 
 searching look at her face. 
 
 Mrs. Bowles was mute, her eyes cast down. 
 
 * Is it Charles DafFy ? ' 
 
 Still his daughter kept silence, 
 
 ' I thought so,' said the timber-merchant, and 
 clumped on the floor with his stick. 'You'd better 
 tell me all about it, Jane. I know something already. 
 Better let us talk it over, my girl, and see what can be 
 done.' 
 
 He waited a moment. Then his daughter tried to 
 speak, with difficulty overcame a sob, and at length 
 began her story. She would not blame her husband. 
 He had been unlucky in speculations, and was driven to 
 a money-lender — his acquaintance, Charles Daffy. This 
 man, a heartless rascal, had multiplied charges and 
 interest on a small sum originally borrowed, until it
 
 202 THE RIDING-WHIP 
 
 became a crushing debt. He held a bill of sale on most 
 of their furniture, and vesterdav, as if he knew of Bowles's 
 absence, had made the seizure ; he was within his legal 
 rights, but had led the debtor to suppose that he would 
 not exercise them. Thus far did Jane relate, in a hard, 
 matter-of-fact voice, but with many nervous movements. 
 Her father listened in grim silence, and, when she ceased, 
 appeared to reflect. 
 
 'That's your storv ! ' he said of a sudden. 'Now, 
 what about the horse-racing ? "" 
 
 ' I know nothing of horse-racing,' was the cold reply. 
 
 'Howies keeps all that to himself, does he? We'd 
 better have our talk out, Jane, now that we've begun. 
 Better tell me all you know, my girl.' 
 
 Again there was a long pause ; but Mr. Lott had 
 patience, and his dogged persistency at length overcame 
 the wife's pride. Yes, it was true that Bowles had lost 
 money at races ; he had been guilty of much selfish folly ; 
 but the ruin it had brought ujion him would serve as a 
 lesson. He was a wretched and a penitent man ; a few 
 days ago he had confessed everything to his wife, and 
 besought her to pardon him ; at present he was making 
 desperate efforts to recover an honest footing. The 
 business might still be carried on if some one could be 
 induced to put a little capital into it ; with that in view, 
 Bowles had gone to see certain relatives of his in the 
 north. If his hope failed, she did not know what was 
 before them ; thev had nothing left now but their cloth- 
 ing and the furniture of one or two rooms. 
 
 ' Would you like to come back home for a while ? ' 
 asked Mr. Lott ai^ruptly. 
 
 ' No, father,' was the not less abrupt reply. ' I couldn't 
 do that.'
 
 THE RIDING-WHIP 203 
 
 * I '11 give no money to Bowles."' 
 
 * He has never asked you, and never will.' 
 
 Mr. Lott glared and glowered, but, with all that, had 
 something in his face which hinted softness. The dialogue 
 did not continue much longer ; it ended with a promise 
 from Mrs. Bowles to let her father know whether her 
 husband succeeded or not in re-establishing himself. 
 Thereupon they shook hands without a word, and Mr. 
 Lott left the house. He returned to the City, and, it 
 being now neai'ly two o'clock, made a hearty meal. 
 When he was in the street again, he remembered the 
 birthdav present he wished to buy for his nephew, and 
 for half an hour he rambled vaguely, staring into shop- 
 windows. At length something caught his eye ; it was a 
 row of riding-whips, mounted in silver ; just the thing, 
 he said to himself, to please a lad Avho would perhaps 
 ride to hounds next winter. He step])ed in, chose care- 
 fully, and made the purchase. Then, having nothing left 
 to do, he walked at a leisurely pace towards the railway 
 station. 
 
 Mr. Daffy was there before him ; they met at the 
 entrance to the platform from which their train would 
 start. 
 
 ' Must you go back by this ? ' asked the tailor. ' My 
 son wasn't at home, and won't be till about five o'clock. 
 I should be terribly obliged, Mr. Lott, if you could stay 
 and go to Clapham with me. Is it asking too much ? " 
 
 The timber-merchant gave a friendly nod, and said 
 it was all the same to him. Then, in reply to anxious 
 questions, he made brief report of what he had learnt 
 at Finsbury Park. Mr. Daffy was beside himself with 
 wrath and shame. He would pay every farthing, if he 
 had to sell all he possessed !
 
 ^04 THE RIDING-WHIP 
 
 ' I ""m so glad and so thankful you will come with me, 
 Mr. Lott. He'd care nothing for what / said; but 
 when he sees you^ and hears your opinion of him, it may 
 have some effect. I beg vou to tell him your mind 
 plainly ! Let him know what a contemptible wretch, 
 what a dirtv blackguard, he is in the eyes of all decent 
 folk — let him know it, I entreat you ! Perhaps even 
 yet it isn't too late to make him ashamed of himself.'' 
 
 They stood amid a rush of people ; the panting tailor 
 clung to his big companion's sleeve. GrufHv promising 
 to do what he could, Mr. Lott led the wav into the 
 street again, where they planned the rest of their day. 
 By five o'clock thev were at Clapham. Charles Dafiv 
 occupied the kind of house which is known as eminently 
 respectable; it suggested an income of at least a couple 
 of thousand a vear. As thev waited for the door to 
 open, Mr. Lott smote gently on his leg with the new 
 riding-whip. He had been silent and meditative all 
 the way hither. 
 
 A smart maidservant conducted them to the dining- 
 room, and there, in a minute or two, thev were joineil 
 by Mr. Charles. No one could have surmised from this 
 gentleman's appearance that he was the son of the little 
 tradesman who stood before him ; nature had given the 
 younger Mr. Daffy a tall and shapelv person, and experi- 
 ence of life had refined his maimers to an easv assurance 
 he would never have learnt from paternal example. His 
 smooth-shaven visage, so long as it remained grave, 
 might have been that of an acute and energetic lawver ; 
 his smile, however, disturbed this imjjre.ssion, for it had 
 a twinkling insolence, a raffish facetiousness, incom- 
 j)atible with anv sober (jualitv. He wore the morning 
 dress of a Citv man, with collar and necktie of the latest
 
 THE RIDING-WHIP 205 
 
 fashion ; his watchguard was rather demonstrative, and 
 he had two very solid rings on his left hand. 
 
 ' Ah, dad, how do you do ! ' he exclaimed, on enter- 
 ing, in an affected head- voice. 'Why, what's the 
 matter ? "" 
 
 Mr. Daffy had drawn back, refusing the offered hand. 
 With an unpleasant smile Charles turned to his other 
 visitor. 
 
 ' Mr. Lott, isn't it ! You 're looking well, Mr. Lott ; 
 but I suppose you didn't come here just to give me 
 the pleasure of seeing you. I 'm rather a busy man ; 
 perhaps one or the other of you will be good enough 
 to break this solemn silence, and let me know what your 
 game is.' 
 
 He spoke with careless impertinence, and let himself 
 drop on to a chair. The others remained standing, and 
 Mr. Daffy broke into vehement speech. 
 
 ' I have come here, Charles, to ask what you mean 
 by disgracing yourself and dishonouring my name. Only 
 yesterday, for the first time, I heard of the life you are 
 leading. Is this how you repay me for all the trouble 
 I took to have you well educated, and to make you an 
 honest man ? Here I find you living in luxury and extra- 
 vagance — and how? On stolen money- -money as much 
 stolen as if you were a pickpocket or a burglar ! A 
 pleasant thing for me to have all my friends talking 
 about Charles Daffy, the bookmaker and the money- 
 lender ! What right have you to dishonour your father 
 in this way .? I ask, what right have you, Charles ? ' 
 
 Here the speaker, who had struggled to gasp his last 
 sentence, was overcome with a violent fit of coughing. 
 He tottered back and sank on to a sofa. 
 
 ' Are you here to look after him ? ' asked Charles of
 
 206 THE RIDING-WHIP 
 
 Mr. Lott, crossing his legs and nodding towards the 
 sufferer. ' If so, I advise you to take him away before 
 he does himself harm. YouVe a lot bigger than he is, 
 and perhaps have more sense.' 
 
 The timber-merchant stood with legs slightly apart, 
 holding his stick and the riding-whip horizontally 
 with both hands. His eyes were fixed u})on young 
 Mr. DafFv, and his lips moved in rather an omin()lI^ 
 way; but he made no replv to Charles's smiling remark. 
 
 ' Mr. I.ott,"' said the tailor, in a voice still broken bv 
 jjants and coughs, ' will vou sjieak or me ? Will vou 
 say what you think of him ? "^ 
 
 'You'll have to be (|uick about it,' interposed 
 Charles, with a glance at his watch. ' I can give you 
 five minutes ; you can say a lot in that time, if you 're 
 sound of wind.** 
 
 The timber-merchant's eyes were very wide, and his 
 cheeks unusually red. Abruj)tly he turned to Mr. Daffy. 
 
 ' Do vou know my idea f ' 
 
 But just as he spoke there sounded a knock at the 
 door, and the smart maidservant cried out that a gentle- 
 man wished to see her master. 
 
 ' Who is it ? ' iisked Charles. 
 
 The answer came from the visitor himself, who, push 
 ing the servant aside, broke into the room. It was a 
 voung man of no very distinguished appearance, thin, 
 red-haiied, with a j)astv com))l('xion and a scrubby 
 moustache; his clothes were approaching shabbiiiess, 
 and he had an unwashed look, due in part to hasty 
 travel on this hot day. Streaming with sweat, his 
 features di.storted with angry excitement, he shouted as 
 he entered, ' You 've got to see me. Daffy ; I won't be 
 refused!'' In the same moment his glance discovered
 
 THE RIDING-WHIP 207 
 
 the two visitors, and he stopped short. ' Mr. Lott, you 
 here ? I 'm glad of it — I 'm awfully glad of it. I 
 couldn't have wished anything better. I don't know 
 who this other gentleman is, but it doesn't matter. I 'm 
 glad to have witnesses — I'm infernally glad ! Mr. Lott, 
 you 've been to my house this morning ; you know what 's 
 happened there. I had to go out of town yesterday, 
 and this Daffy, this cursed liar and swindler, used the 
 opportunity to sell up my furniture. He '11 tell you he 
 had a legal right. But he gave me his word not to do 
 anything till the end of the month. And, in any case, I 
 don't really owe him half the sum he has down against 
 me. I 've paid that black-hearted scoundrel hundreds of 
 pounds — honourably paid him — debts of honour, and 
 now he has the face to charge me sixty per cent, on 
 money I was fool enough to borrow from him ! Sixty 
 per cent. — what do you think of that, Mr. Lott ? What 
 do you think of it, sir ? ' 
 
 ' I 'm sorry to say it doesn't at all surprise me,' 
 answered Mr. Daffy, who perceived that the speaker was 
 Mr. Lott's son-in-law. ' But I can't sympathise with 
 you very much. If you have dealings with a book- 
 maker ' 
 
 ' A blackleg, a blackleg ! ' shouted Bowles. ' Book- 
 makers are respectable men in comparison with him. 
 He 's bled me, the brute ! He tempted me on and on — 
 Look here, Mr. Lott, I know as well as you do that I 've 
 been an infernal fool. I've had my eyes opened — now 
 that it 's too late. I hear my wife told you that, and 
 I 'm glad she did. I 've been a fool, yes ; but I fell 
 into the hands of the greatest scoundrel unhung, and 
 he's mined me. You heard from Jane what I was gone 
 about. It 's no good. I came back by the first train
 
 208 THE RIDING-WHIP 
 
 this morning without a mouthful of breakfast. It 's all 
 up with me ; I 'm a cursed beggar — and that thief is 
 the cause of it. And he comes into my house — no 
 better than a burglar — and lays his hands on everything 
 that'll bring money. Where's the account of that sale, 
 vou liar ? I '11 go to a magistrate about this.' 
 
 Charles Daffy sat in a reposeful attitude. The scene 
 amused him ; he chuckled inwardly from time to time. 
 But of a sudden his aspect changed ; he started up, and 
 spoke with a snarling emphasis. 
 
 ' I Ve had just about enough. Look here, clear out, 
 all of you ! There 's the door — go ! ' 
 
 Mr. Daffy moved towards him. 
 
 ' Is that how you speak to your father, Charles ? ' he 
 exclaimed indignantly. 
 
 ' Yes, it is. Take your hook with the others ; I "m 
 sick of your tommy-rot ! ' 
 
 ' Then listen to me before I go,' cried Mr. Daffv, his 
 short and awkward figure straining in every muscle for 
 the dignity of righteous wrath. ' I don't know whether 
 you are more a fool or a knave. Perhaps you really think 
 that there 's as much to be said for your way of earning 
 a living as for anv other. I hope you do, for it 's a cruel 
 thing to suppose that my son has turned out a shameless 
 scoundrel. Let me tell you, then, this business of yours 
 is one that moves every honest and sensible man to 
 auger and disgust. It matters nothing whether you 
 keep the rules of the blackguard game, or whether you 
 cheat ; the difference between bookmaker and blackleg 
 is so small that it isn't worth talking about. You live 
 by the plunder of people who are foolish and vicious 
 enough to fall into your clutches. You 're an enemy of 
 society — that 's the plain truth of it ; as much an enemy
 
 THE RIDING -WHIP 209 
 
 of society as the forger or the burglar. You live — and 
 live in luxury — by the worst vice of our time, the vice 
 which is rotting English life, the vice which will be 
 our national ruin if it goes on much longer. When 
 you were a boy, you 've heard me many a time say all I 
 thought about racing and betting ; you 've heard me 
 speak with scorn of the high-placed people who set so 
 vile an example to the classes below them. If I could 
 have foreseen that ymi would sink to such disgrace ! ' 
 
 Charles was standing in an attitude of contemptuou? 
 patience. He looked at his watch and interjected a 
 remark. 
 
 ' I can only allow your eloquence one minute and a 
 half more.' 
 
 ' That will be enough,' replied his father sternly. 
 * The only thing I have to add is, that all the money 
 you have stolen from Mr. Bowles I, as a simple duty, 
 shall repay. You 're no longer a boy. In the eye of 
 the law I am not responsible for you ; but for very 
 shame I must make good the wrong you have done in 
 this case. I couldn't stand in my shop day by day, and 
 know that every one was saying, " There 's the man 
 whose son ruined Mr. Lott's son-in-law and sold up his 
 home," unless I had done all I could to repair the 
 mischief. I shall ask Mr. Bowles for a full account of 
 what he has lost to you, and if it 's in my power, every 
 penny shall be made good. He, thank goodness, seems 
 to have learnt his lesson.' 
 
 ' That I have, Mr. DafFv ; that I have ! ' cried Bowles. 
 
 ' There 's not much fear that he '11 fall into your 
 clutches again. And I hope, I most earnestly hope, 
 that before vou can do much more harm, you '11 over- 
 reach yourself, and the law — stupid as it is — will get
 
 210 THE RIDING-WHir 
 
 hold of you. Reuiember the father I was, Charles, and 
 think what it means that the best wish I can now form 
 for you is that you may come to public disoiace.' 
 
 ' Does no one applaud ?' asked Charles, looking round 
 the room. 'That's rather unkind, seeing how the 
 speaker has blown himself. Be off, dad, and don't fool 
 any longer. Bowles, take your hook. Mr. Lott ' 
 
 Charles met the eye of the timber-merchant, and was 
 unexpectedly nuite. 
 
 ' Well, sir,' said Mr. Lott, regarding him fixedlv, 
 ' and what have you to say to me?'' 
 
 ' Only that my time is too valuable to be wasted,' 
 continued the other, with an im})atient gesture. ' Be 
 good enough to leave mv house.' 
 
 ' Mr. Lott,' said the tailor in an exhausted voice, ' I 
 apologise to you for my son's rudeness. I gave vou the 
 trouble of coming here hoping it might shame him, but 
 I 'm af'aid it 's been no good. Let us go.' 
 
 Mr. Lott regarded him mildly. 
 
 ' Mr. Daffy,' he said, * if i/ou don't mind, I should 
 like to have a word in private with your son. Do vou 
 and Mr. Bowles go on to the station, and wait for ine ; 
 perhaps I shall catch vou up before vou get there.' 
 
 ' I have told you already, Mr. Lott,' shouted Charles, 
 ' that I can waste no more time on vou. I refuse to 
 talk with vou at all.' 
 
 ' And I, Mr. Charles Daffy,' was the resolute answer, 
 ' refuse to leave this room till I have had a word with 
 you.' 
 
 ' What do you want to say .''' asked Charles brutallv. 
 
 ' Just to let you know an idea of mine,' was the 
 reply, ' an idea that's come to me whilst I've stood here 
 listcninfr.' 
 
 (
 
 THE RIDING-WHIP 211 
 
 The tailor and Mr. Bowles moved towards the door. 
 Charles glanced at them fiercely and insolently, then 
 turned his look again upon the man who remained. The 
 other two passed out ; the door closed. Mr. Lott, stick 
 and riding-whip still held horizontally, seemed to be lost 
 in meditation. 
 
 ' Now,' blurted Charles, ' what is it .'' ' 
 
 Mr. Lott regarded him steadily, and spoke with his 
 wonted deliberation. 
 
 ' You heard what your father said about paying that 
 money back .? ' 
 
 ' Of course I heard. If he 's idiot enough ' 
 
 ' Do you know my idea, young man .'' You 'd better 
 do the honest thing, and repay it yourself.' 
 
 Charles stared for a moment, then sputtered a laugh. 
 
 ' That 's your idea, is it, Mr. Lott "i Well, it isn't 
 mine. So, good morning ! ' 
 
 Again the timber-merchant seemed to meditate ; his 
 eyes wandered from Charles to the dining-room table. 
 
 ' Just a minute more,' he resumed ; ' I have another 
 idea — not a new one ; an idea that came to me long 
 acjo, when vour father first beoran to have trouble about 
 you. I happened to be in the shop one day — it was 
 when you were living idle at your fn iher's expense, 
 young man — and I heard you speak to him in what I 
 call a confoundedly impertinent wav. Thinking it over 
 afterwards, I said to myself : If I had a son who spoke 
 to me like that, I 'd give him the soundest thrashing 
 he'd be ever likelv to get. That was my idea, young 
 man ; and as I stood listening to you to-day, it came 
 back into my mind again. Your father can't thrash 
 vou ; he hasn't the brawn for it. But as it 's nothino- 
 less than a public dutv, somebodv must^ and so '
 
 212 THE RIDING- WHIP 
 
 Charles, who had heen watching everv movement of 
 the speaker's face, sutlilenly sprang forward, making for 
 the door. But Mr. Lott liad foreseen this ; with Jistonish- 
 ing alertness and vigour he intercepted the fugitive, 
 seized hi in bv the scruft' of the neck, and, after a 
 monienfs struggle, pinned him face downwards across 
 the end of the table. His stick he had thrown aside ; 
 the riding-whip he held between his teeth. So brief 
 was this conflict that there sounded only a scuffling of 
 feet on the floor, and a growl of fury from Charles as 
 he found himself handled like an infant; then, during 
 some two minutes, one might have thought that a coujiie 
 of very strenuous carpet- beaters were at work in tiie 
 room. For the space of a dozen switches Charles strove 
 frantically with wild kicks, which wounded only the air, 
 but all in silence ; gripj)ed only the more tightly, he at 
 length uttered a yell of pain, followed by curses hot and 
 swift. Still the carpet-beaters seemed to be at work, 
 and more vigorously than ever, Charles began to roar. 
 As it happened, there were only servants in the house. 
 When the clamour had lasted long enough to be reallv 
 alarming, knocks sounded at the door, which at length 
 was thrown open, and the startled face of a domestic 
 appeared. At the same moment Mr. Lott, his rigiit 
 arm being weary, brought the castigatory exercise to t\n 
 end. Charles rolled to his feet, and began to strike out 
 furiously with both fists. 
 
 'Just as you like, young man,' said the timber- 
 merchant, as he coolly warded off the blows, 'if vou 
 wish to have it this way too. liut, I warn vou, it isn"t 
 a fair match. Sally, shut the door and go about your 
 business.' 
 
 'Shall I fetch a policeman, sir.^' shrilled the servant.
 
 THE RIDING- WHIP 213 
 
 Her master, sufficiently restored to his senses to 
 perceive that he had not the least chance in a pugilistic 
 encounter with Mr. Lott, drew back and seemed to 
 hesitate. 
 
 ' Answer the girl,' said Mr. Lott, as he picked up his 
 whip and examined its condition. * Shall we have a 
 policeman in ? ' 
 
 ' Shut the door ! ' Charles shouted fiercely. 
 
 The men gazed at each other. Daffy was pale and 
 quivering ; his hair in disorder, his waistcoat torn open, 
 collar and necktie twisted into rags, he made a pitiful 
 figure. The timber-merchant was slightly heated, but 
 his countenance wore an expression of calm contentment. 
 
 ' For the present,' remarked Mr. Lott, as he took up 
 his hat and stick, ' I think our business is at an end. It 
 isn't often that a fellow of your sort gets his deserts, 
 and I 'm rather sorry we didn't have the policeman 
 in ; a report of the case might do good. I bid you 
 good day, young man. If I were you I 'd sit quiet for 
 an hour or two, and just reflect — you Ve a lot to think 
 about.' 
 
 So, with a pleasant smile, the visitor took his 
 leave. 
 
 As he walked away he again examined the riding- 
 whip. ' It isn't often a thing happens so luckily,' he 
 said to himself. ' First-rate whip ; hardly a bit damaged. 
 Harry '11 like it none the worse for my having hand- 
 selled it.' 
 
 At the station he found Mr. Daffy and Bowles, who 
 regarded him with questioning looks. 
 
 ' Nothing to be got out of him,' said Mr. Lott. 
 ' Bowles, I want a talk with you and Jane ; it '11 be 
 best, perhaps, if I go back home with you. Mr. Daff'v,
 
 214i THE RIDING- WHIP 
 
 sorry we can't travel down together. You ""ll catch the 
 eight oYlock/ 
 
 ' I hope you told him plainly what you thought of 
 him/ said Mr. Daffy, in a voice of indignant shame. 
 
 ' I did,' answered the timber-merchant, ' and I don't 
 think he's very likely to forget it.'
 
 FATE AND THE APOTHECARY 
 
 ' Farmiloe. Chemist by Examination.'' So did the 
 good man proclaim himself to a suburb of a city in the 
 West of England. It was one of those pretty, clean, 
 fresh-coloured suburbs only to be found in the west ; 
 a few daintv little shops, everything about them 
 bright or glistening, scattered among pleasant little 
 houses with gardens eternally green and all but per- 
 ennially in bloom ; every vista ending in foliage, and in 
 one direction a far glimpse of the Cathedral towers, 
 sending forth their music to fall dreamily upon these 
 quiet roads. The neighbourhood seemed to breathe a 
 tranquil prosperity. Red-cheeked emissaries of butcher, 
 baker, and grocer, order-book in hand, knocked cheerily 
 at kitchen doors, and went smiling away ; the ponies 
 they drove were well fed and frisky, their carts spick 
 and span. The church of the parish, an imposing 
 edifice, dated only from a few years ago, and had cost 
 its noble founder a sum of money which any church- 
 going parishioner would have named to you with proper 
 awe. The population was largely female, and every 
 shopkeeper who knew his business had become proficient 
 in bowing, smiling, and suave servility. 
 
 Mr. Farmiloe, it is to be feared, had no very profound 
 acquaintance with his business from any point of view. 
 True, he was ' chemist by examination,^ but it had cost
 
 216 FATE AND THP: APOTHECARY 
 
 him rej)eated efforts to reach this unassailable ground, 
 and more than one jiharmaceutist with whom he abode 
 as assistant had felt it a measure of prudence to dispense 
 with his services. Give him time, and he was generallv 
 ecjual to the demands of suburban customers ; hurry or 
 interrupt him, and he showed himself anything but the 
 man for a crisis. Face and demeanour were against 
 him. He had exceedingly })lain features, and a per- 
 sistently sour expression ; even his smile suggested 
 sarcasm. He could not tune his voice to the tradesman 
 note, and on the slightest provocation he became, quite 
 unintentionally, offensive. Such a man had no chance 
 whatever in this flowery and bowery little suburb. 
 
 Yet he came hither with hopes. One circumstance 
 seemed to him especially favourable : the shop was also 
 a j)ost-office, and no one could fail to see (it was put 
 most impressively by the predecessor who sold him the 
 business) how advantiigeous was this blending of public 
 service with commercial interest; especially as there was 
 uo telegraphic work to make a skilled assistant necessary. 
 As a ma.tter of course, people using the post-office would 
 patronise the chemist ; and a provincial chemist can add 
 to his legitimate business sundry pleasant little tradings 
 which benefit himself without provoking the jealousy of 
 neighbour shopmen. ' It will be your own fault, my dear 
 sir, if you do not make a very good thing of it indeed. 
 The sole and sufficient explanation of — of the decline 
 during this last year or two is my shocking health. I 
 really have not been able to do justice to the business." 
 
 Necessarily, Mr. Farmiloe entered into negotiation 
 with the postal authorities; and it was with some little 
 disapjioiiitment that he learnt how very modest could 
 be his direct remuneration for the res])onsibilities and
 
 FATE AND THE APOTHECARY 217 
 
 labours he undertook. The Post-Office is a very shrewdly 
 managed department of the public service ; it has brought 
 to perfection the art of obtaining maximum results with 
 a minimum expenditure. But Mr. Farmiloe remembered 
 the other aspect of the matter ; he would benefit so 
 largely by this ill-paid undertaking that grumbling was 
 foolish. Moreover, the thing carried dignity with it ; 
 he served his Majesty, he served the nation. And — ha, 
 ha ! — how very odd it would be to post one's letters in 
 one's own post-office. One might really get a good deal 
 of amusement out of the thought, after business hours. 
 His age was eight-and -thirty. For some years he had 
 pondered matrimony, though without fixing his affec- 
 tions on any particular person. It was plain, indeed, 
 that he ought to marry. Every tradesman is made 
 more respectable by wedlock, and a chemist who, in some 
 degree, resembles a medical man, seems especially to 
 stand in need of the matrimonial guarantee. Had it 
 been feasible, Mr. Farmiloe would have brought a wife 
 with him from the town where he had lived for the past 
 few years, but he was in the difficult position of know- 
 ing not a single marriageable female to whom he could 
 address himself with hope or with self-respect. Natural 
 shvness had always held him aloof from reputable 
 women ; he felt that he could not recommend himself 
 to them — he who had such an unlucky aptitude for 
 saving the wrong word or keeping silence when speech 
 was demanded. With the men of his acquaintance he 
 could relieve his sense of awkwardness and deficiency by 
 becoming aggressive ; in fact, he had a reputation for 
 cantankerousness, for pugnacity, which kept most of his 
 equals in some awe of him, and to perceive this was 
 one solace amid many discontents. Nicely dressed and
 
 218 FATE AND THE APOTHECARY 
 
 well-spoken and good-looking women above the class 
 of domestic servants he worshipped from afar, and only 
 in vivacious moments pictured himself as the wooer of 
 such a superior being. 
 
 It seemed as though fate could do nothinir with Mr. 
 Farmiloe. At six-and-thirty he suffered the shock of 
 learning that a relative — an old woman to whom he had 
 occasionally written as a matter of kindness (Farmiloe 
 could do such things) — had left him by will the sum of 
 dfi'CJOO. It was strictly a shock ; it upset his health 
 for several days, and not for a week or two could he 
 realise the legacy as a fact. Just when he was begin- 
 ning to look about him with a new air of confidence, 
 the solicitors who were managing the little affair for 
 him drily acquainted him with the fact that his relative's 
 will was contested by other kinsfolk whom the old 
 woman had passed over, on the ground that she was 
 imbecile and incapable of conducting her affairs. There 
 followed a law-suit, which consumed manv months and 
 cost a good deal of money ; so that, though he won 
 his ca.se, Mr. Farmiloe lost all satisfaction in his 
 improved circumstances, and was only more embittered 
 against the world at large. 
 
 Then, no sooner had he purchased his business, than 
 he learnt from smiling neighbours that he had ])aid con- 
 siderably too much for it. His predecessor, beyond a 
 doubt, would have taken verv much less ; had, indeed, 
 been on the point of doing so just when Mr. Farmiloe 
 appeared. This kind of experience is a trial to any 
 man. It threw Mr. Farmiloe into a silent rage, with 
 the result that two or three customers who chanced to 
 enter his shop declared that they would never have 
 anything more to do with such a surlv creature.
 
 FATE AND THE APOTHECARY 219 
 
 And now began his torment — a form of exasperation 
 peculiar to his dual capacity of shopkeeper and manager 
 of a post-office. All day long he stood on the watch 
 for customers — literally stood, now behind the counter, 
 now in front of it, his eager and angry eyes turning to 
 the door whenever the steps of a passer-by sounded 
 without. If the door opened his nerves began to tingle, 
 and he straightened himself like a soldier at attention. 
 For a moment he suffered an agony of doubt. Would 
 the person entering turn to the counter or to the post- 
 office ? And seldom was his hope fulfilled ; not one in 
 four of the people who came in was a genuine customer ; 
 the post-office, always the post-office. A stamp, a card, 
 a newspaper wrapper, a postal- order, a letter to be 
 registered — anything but an honest purchase across the 
 counter or the blessed tendering of a prescription to 
 make up. From vexation he passed to annoyance, to 
 rage, to fury ; he cursed the post-office, and committed 
 to eternal perdition the man who had waxed eloquent 
 upon its advantages. 
 
 Of course, he had hired an errand-boy, and never had 
 errand-boy so little legitimate occupation. Resolved 
 not to pay him for nothing, Mr. Farmiloe kept him 
 cleaning windows, washing bottles, and the like, until 
 the lad fairly broke into rebellion. If this was the 
 sort of work he was eng-aijed for he must have higher 
 wages ; he wasn't over strong and his mother said he 
 must lead an open-air life— that was why he had taken 
 the place. To be bearded thus in his own shop was too 
 much for Mr. Farmiloe, he seized the opportunity of 
 giving his wrath full swing, and burst into a frenzy of 
 vilification. Just as his passion reached its height (he 
 stood with his back to the door) there entered a lady
 
 220 FATE AND THE APOTHECARY 
 
 who wished to make a large purchase of disinfectants. 
 Alarmed and scandalised at what was going on, she had 
 no sooner crossed the threshold than she turned again, 
 and hurried away. Her friends were not long in 
 learninir from her that the new chemist was a most 
 violent man, a most disagreeable person — the very last 
 man one could think of doing business with. 
 
 The home was but poorly furnished, and Mr. Farmiloe 
 had engaged a very cheap general servant, who involved 
 him in dirt and discomfort. It was a matter of talk 
 amontr the neishbouring tradesmen that the chemist 
 lived in a beggarly fashion. When the dismissed errand- 
 boy spread the story of how he had been used, people 
 jumped to the conclusion that Mr. Farmiloe drank. 
 Before long there was a legend that he had been suffer- 
 ing from an acute attack of delirium tremens. 
 
 The post-office, always the post-office. If he sat down 
 at a meal the shop-bell clanged, and hope springing 
 eternal, he hurried forth in readiness to make up a packet 
 or concoct a mixture ; but it was an old lady who held 
 him in talk for ten minutes about rates of postage to 
 South America. ^Vhen, by rare luck, he had a prescrip- 
 tion to dispense (the hideous scrawl of that pestilent 
 Dr. Bunker) in came somebody with lettei-s and parcels 
 which he was recjuested to weigh ; and his hand shook 
 so with rage that he could not resume his dispensing for 
 the next quarter of an hour. People asked extraordinary 
 questions, and were surprised, offended, when he declared 
 he could not answer them. When could a letter be 
 delivered at a village on the north-west coast of Ireland .'' 
 Was it true that the Post-Office contemplated a reduc- 
 tion of rates to Hong-Kong .'' Would he explain in 
 detail the new system of exj)ress delivery ? Invariably
 
 FATE AND THE APOTHECARY 221 
 
 he betraved impatience, and occasionally he lost his 
 temper ; people went away exclaiming what a Jiorrid 
 man he was ! 
 
 ' Mr. What 's-your-name,"' said a shopkeeper one day, 
 after receiving a short answer, ' I shall make it my busi- 
 ness to complain of you to the Postmaster-General. I 
 don't come here to be insulted.' 
 
 ' Who insulted you ? ' returned Farmiloe like a sullen 
 schoolboy. 
 
 ' Why, you did. And you are always doing it/ 
 
 * I 'm not.' 
 
 ' You are.' 
 
 ' K I did ' — terror stole upon the chemist's heart — ' T 
 didn't mean it, and I — I 'm sure I apologise. It 's a way 
 I have.' 
 
 ' A damned bad way, let me tell you. I advise you 
 to get out of it.' 
 
 ' I 'm sorry ' 
 
 ' So you should be.' 
 
 And the tradesman walked off, only half appeased. 
 
 Mr. Farmiloe could have shed tears in his mortification, 
 and for some minutes he stood looking at a bottle of 
 laudanum, wishing he had the courage to have done 
 with life. Plainly he could not live very long unless 
 things improved. His ready money was coming to an 
 end, rents and taxes loomed before him. An awful 
 thought of bankruptcy haunted him in the early morning 
 hours. 
 
 The most frequent visitor to the post-office was a 
 well-dressed, middle-aged man, who spoke civilly, and 
 did his business in the fewest possible words. IMr. 
 Farmiloe rather liked the look of him, and once or 
 twice made conversational overtures, but with no en-
 
 222 FATE AND THE APOTIIIOCAllY 
 
 couraginu; result. One day, feeling bolder than usual, 
 the chemist ventured to speak what he had in mind. 
 After supplying the grave gentleman with stamps and 
 postal-orders, he said, in a tone meant to be concilia-, 
 tory — 
 
 ' I don't know whether you ever have need of mineral 
 waters, sir ? ' 
 
 ' Why. yes, sometimes. My ordinary tradesman 
 supplies them."' 
 
 ' I thought I 'd just mention that I keep them in 
 stock."" 
 
 ' Ah — thank you ' 
 
 ' I Ve noticed,' went on the luckless apothecary, his 
 bosom heaving with a sense of his wrongs, ' that vou 're 
 a pretty large customer of the ])ost-oHice, and it seems 
 to me' — he meant to speak jocosely — 'that it would be 
 only fair if you gave me a turn now and then. I get 
 next to nothing out of thiSy you know. I should be 
 much obliged if vou ' 
 
 The man of few words was looking at him, half in 
 surprise, half in indignation, and when the chemist 
 blundered into silence he spoke : — 
 
 ' I really have nothing to do with that. As a matter 
 of fact, I was on the jxiint of making a little purchase 
 in your shop, but I decidedly object to this kind of 
 behaviour, and shall make my purchase elsewhere.' 
 
 He strode solenuily into the street, and Mr. Farmiloe, 
 unconscious of all about him, glared at vacancy. 
 
 Whether from the angry tradesman, or from some 
 lady with whom Mr. Farmiloe had been abrupt, a 
 comj)laint did presently reach the postal authorities, 
 with the result that an official called at the chemist's 
 shop. The interview was unpleasant. It happened
 
 FATE AND THE APOTHECARY 223 
 
 that Mr. Farmiloe (not for the first time) had just then 
 allowed himself to run out of certain things always in 
 demand by the public — halfpenny stamps, for instance. 
 Moreover, his accounts were not in perfect order. This, 
 he had to hear, was emphatically unbusinesslike, and, in 
 brief, would not do. 
 
 ' It shall not occur again, sir,' mumbled the unhappy 
 man. ' But, if you consider my position "" 
 
 ' Mr. Farmiloe, allow me to tell you that this is 
 a matter for your own consideration, and no one 
 else^s.^ 
 
 ' True, sir, quite true. Still, when you come to think 
 of it — I assure you ' 
 
 ' The only assurance I want is that the business of 
 the post-office will be properly attended to, and that 
 assurance I must have. I shall probably call again 
 before long. Good morning.*" 
 
 It was always with a savage satisfaction that Mr. 
 Farmiloe heard the clock strike eight on Saturday 
 evening. His shop remained open till ten, but at eight 
 came the end of the post-office business. If, as 
 happened, any one entered five minutes too late, it 
 delighted him to refuse their request. These were the 
 only moments in which he felt himself a free man. 
 After eating his poor supper, he smoked a pipe or two 
 of cheap tobacco, brooding ; or he fingered the pages of 
 his menacing account-books ; or, very rarely, he walked 
 about the dark country roads, asking himself, with many 
 a tragi-comic gesture and ejaculation, why he could not 
 get on like other men. 
 
 One afternoon it seemed that he, at length, had his 
 chance. There entered a maidscivant with a prescrip- 
 tion to be made up and sent as soon as possible. A
 
 224 FATE AND THE APOTHECARV 
 
 glance at the name delighted Mr. Farmiloe ; it was that 
 of the richest family in the suburbs. The medicine, to 
 be sure, was only for a governess, but his existence w; 
 recognised, and the patronage of such people would d 
 him good. But for the never-sufficiently-to-be-con 
 dcnined handwriting of Dr. Bunker, the prescription 
 ollered no difficulty. Rubbing his palms together, and 
 smiling as he seldom smiled, he told the domestic that 
 the medicine should be delivered in less than half an 
 hour. 
 
 Scarcely had he begun upon it, w hen a lady came in. 
 a lady whom he knew well. Her business was at tli 
 post-office side, and she looked a peremptory demand for 
 his attention. Inwardly furious, he crossed the shop. 
 
 ' Be so good as to tell me what this will cost by bonk- 
 post." 
 
 It seemed to be a pamphlet. Giving a glance at one 
 of the open ends, Mr. Farmiloe saw handwriting within. 
 and his hostility to the woman found vent in a sharp 
 remark. 
 
 ' There 's a written communication in this. It will 
 be letter rate.' 
 
 The lady eyed him with terrible scorn. 
 
 ' Vou will oblige me bv minding vour own business. 
 Your remark is the merest impertinence. That packet 
 consists of -AIS., and will, therefore, go at book rate. 
 Be so good as to weigh it at once.' 
 
 Mr. Farmiloe lost all control of himself, and well- 
 nigh screamed. 
 
 * No, madam, I will vot weigh it. And let me 
 inform you, as you are so ignorant, that to weigh packets 
 is not part of my duty. I do it merely to oblige civil 
 persons, and you, madam, are not one of them.'
 
 FATE AND THE APOTHECARY 22 
 
 o 
 
 The lady instantly turned and withdrew. 
 
 ' Damn the post-office ! ' yelled Mr. Farmiloe, alone 
 with his errand-boy, and shaking his fist in the air. 
 ' This very day I write to give it up. I say — damn the 
 post-office.' 
 
 He returned to his dispensing, completed it, wrapped 
 up the bottle in the customary manner, and despatched 
 the boy to the house. 
 
 Five minutes later a thought flashed through his 
 mind which put him in a cold sweat. He happened to 
 glance along the shelf from which he had taken the 
 bottle containing the last ingredient of the mixture, 
 and it struck him, with all the force of a horrible doubt, 
 that he had made a mistake. In the irate confusion 
 of his thoughts, he had done the dispensing almost 
 mechanically. The bottle he ought to have taken down 
 was that, but had he not actually poured from that 
 other .'' Of poisoning there was no fear, but, if indeed 
 he had made a slip, the result would be a very extra- 
 ordinary mixture ; so surprising, in fact, that the patient 
 would be sure to speak to Dr. Bunker about it. Good 
 heavens ! He felt sure he had made the mistake. 
 
 Any other man would have taken down the two 
 bottles in question, and have examined the mouths of 
 them for traces of moisture. Mr. Farmiloe, a victim of 
 destiny, could do nothing so reasonable. Heedless of 
 the fact that his shop remained urguarded, he seized his 
 hat and rushed after the errand-boy. If he could only 
 have a sniff" at the mixture it would either confirm his 
 fear or set his mind at rest. He tore along the road — 
 and was too late. The boy met him, having just 
 completed his errand. 
 
 With a wild curse he sped to the house, he rushed to
 
 226 FATE AND THE ArOTHECARV 
 
 the tradesnian"'s door. The nieilicine just delivered ! 
 He inu^t examine it — he feared there was a mistake — an 
 extraordinarv oversiirht. 
 
 The bottle had not yet been upstairs. Mr. Farmilo 
 tore oH' the wrapper, wrenched out the cork, sniffed — 
 and smiled feebly. 
 
 ' Thank vou. I ""m glad to find there was no mistake. 
 I '11 take it back, and have it wrapj)ed up again, and 
 send it immctliately — immediately. And, bv the bve'— 
 he fumbled in his pocket for half-a-crown, still smiling 
 like a detected culjirit — ' I 'm sure you won't mention 
 this little affair. A new assistant of mine — stupid 
 fellow — I am going to get rid of him at once. Thank 
 you, thank you.' 
 
 Notwithstanding that half-crown the incident was, ot 
 course, talked of through the house before a quarter 
 of an hour had ela))sed. Next day it was the gossip oi 
 the suburbs; and the dav after the city itself heard the 
 story. People were alarmed and scandalised. Why, 
 such a chemist was a public danger ! One lady declared 
 that he ought at once to be ' struck off the roll ! ' 
 
 And so in a sense he was. Another month and the 
 flowery, bowery little suburb knew him no more. He 
 hid himself in a great town, living on the wreck of his 
 fortune whilst he sought a place as an assistant. A 
 leakv pair of boots and a b.id east wind found tin 
 vulnerable sjiot of his constitution. After all. there 
 tvas just enough money left to bury him.
 
 TOPHAM'S CHANCE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 On a summer afternoon two surly men sat together in a 
 London lodging. One of them occupied an easy-chair, 
 smoked a cigarette, and read the newspaper ; the other 
 was seated at the table, with a mass of papers before 
 him, on which he laboured as though correcting exercises. 
 They were much of an age, and that about thirty, but 
 whereas the idler was well dressed, his companion had a 
 seedy appearance and looked altogether like a man who 
 neglected himself. For half an hour they had not 
 spoken. 
 
 Of a sudden the man in the chair jumped up. 
 
 ' Well, I have to go into town,' he said gruffly, ' and 
 it 's uncertain when I shall be back. Get that stuff 
 cleared off, and reply to the urgent letters — mind you 
 write in the proper tone to Dixon — as soapy as you can 
 make it. Tell Miss Brewer we can't reduce the fees, 
 but that we '11 give her credit for a month. Guarantee 
 the Leicestershire fellow a pass if he begins at once.' 
 
 The other, who listened, bit the end of his wooden 
 penholder to splinters. 
 
 ' All right,' he replied. ' But, look here, I want a 
 little money.' 
 
 « So do I ' 
 
 227
 
 228 TOPHA.ArS CHANCE 
 
 ' Yes, but you're not like me, without a coin in vour 
 pocket. Look here, give me halt'-a-crown. I ha\ 
 absolute need of it. Why, I can't even get my haircut. 
 I 'm sick of this slavery.' 
 
 ' Then go and do better,' cried the well-dressed man 
 insolently. ' You were glad enough of the job when I 
 offered it to you. It 's no good vour looking to me for 
 money. 1 can do no more myself than just live ; and a>; 
 soon as I see a chance, you may be sure I shall clear out 
 of this rotten business.' 
 
 He moved towards the door, but before opening it 
 stood hesitating. 
 
 'Want to get your hair cut, do you.-* Well, there's 
 sixpence, and it 's all I can spare.' 
 
 The door closed. And the man at the table, leaniiii: 
 back, stared gloomily at the sixpenny piece on the tab! 
 before him. 
 
 His name was Topham ; he had a university degrn 
 and a damaged reputation. Six months ago, when hi- 
 choice seemed to be between staying in the streets and 
 turning sandwich-man, huk had made him HC(]uainted 
 with Mr. ]{udol})h Starkey, who wrote himself M.A. of 
 Dublin University and advertised a system of tuition by 
 correspondence. In return for mere board and lodging 
 Topham became Mr. Starkev's assistant ; that is to say, 
 he did bv far the greater part of Mr. Starkey 's work. 
 The tutorial business was but moderately successful ; 
 still, it kept its proprietor in cigarettes, and enabled him 
 to pass some hours a day at a club, where he was con- 
 vinced that before long some better chance in life would 
 offer itself to him. Ilaviiif; alwavs been a lazy dot:. 
 Starkey regarded himself as an example of industry un- 
 rewurded ; being as selfish a fellow as one could meet.
 
 TOPHAiVrS CHANCE 229 
 
 he reproached himself with the unworldliness of his 
 nature, which had so hindered him in a basely material 
 age. One of his ventures was a half-moral, half- practical 
 little volume entitled Success in Life. Had it been 
 either more moral or more practical, this book would 
 probably have yielded him a modest income, for such 
 works are dear to the British public ; but Rudolph 
 Starkey, M.A., was one of those men who do everything 
 by halves and snarl over the ineffectual results. 
 
 Topham''s fault was that of a man who had followed 
 his instincts but too thoroughly. They brought him to 
 an end of everything, and, as Starkey said, he had been 
 glad enough to take the employment which was offered 
 without any inconvenient inquiries. The work which he 
 undertook he did competently and honestly for some time 
 without a grumble. Beginning with a certain gratitude 
 to his employer, though without any liking, he soon grew 
 to detest the man, and had much ado to keep up a show 
 of decent civility in their intercourse. Of better birth 
 and breeding than Starkey, he burned with resentment 
 at the scant ceremony with which he was treated, and 
 loathed the meanness which could exact so much toil 
 for such poor remuneration. When offering his terms 
 Starkey had talked in that bland way characteristic of 
 him with strangers. 
 
 'I'm really ashamed to propose nothing better to a 
 man of your standing. But — well, I 'm making a start, 
 you see, and the fact of the matter is that, just at present, 
 I could very well manage to do all the work myself. Still, 
 if you think it worth your while, there 's no doubt we shall 
 get on capitally together, and, of course, I need not say, 
 as soon as our progress justifies it, we must come to new 
 arrangements. A matter of six or seven hours a day
 
 230 TOPHAMS CHANCE 
 
 will be all I shall ask of you at present. For my own 
 part, 1 work chiefly at night.'' 
 
 CHAFl^ER n 
 
 By the end of the first month Topham was workinor, 
 not six or seven, but ten or twelve hours a day, and 
 his spells of labour only lengthened as time went on. 
 Seeing himself victimised, he one day alluded to the 
 promise of better terms, but Starkey turned sour. 
 
 ' You surprise me, Topham. Here are we, practically 
 partners, doing our best to make this thing a success, 
 and all at once you spring upon me an uiire;usonable 
 demand. You know how exj)ensive these rooms are — fori 
 we must have a decent address. If vou are dissatisfied, 
 say so, and give me time to look out for some one else.' 
 
 Topham was afraid of the street, and that his employer 
 well knew. The conversation ended in mutual sullen- 
 ness, which thenceforward became the note of their 
 colloquies. Starkey felt himself a victim of ingratitude, 
 and consecjuently threw even more work upon his help- 
 less assistant. That the work was so conscientiously 
 done did not at all astonish him. Now and then he 
 gave himself the satisfaction of finding fault : just to 
 remind Toj)hain that his bread depended on another's 
 goodwill. Congenial indolence grew upon him, but he 
 talked only the more of his ceaseless exertions. Some- 
 times in the evening he would throw uj) his arms, yawn 
 wearily, and declare that so much toil with such paltry 
 results was a heart-breaking thing. 
 
 Topham stared sullenly at the sixpence. This was 
 but the latest of many insults, yet never before had
 
 TOPHAM'S CHANCE 231 
 
 he so tasted the shame of his subjection. Though he 
 was earning a living, and a right to self-respect, more 
 strenuously than Starkey ever had, this fellow made him 
 feel like a mendicant. His nerves quivered, he struck the 
 table fiercely, shouting within himself, ' Brute ! Cad ! ' 
 Then he pocketed the coin and got on with his duties. 
 
 It was toil of a peculiarly wearisome and enervating 
 kind. Starkey 's advertisements, which were chiefly in 
 the country newspapers, put him in communication with 
 persons of both sexes, and of any age from seventeen 
 onwards, the characteristic common to them all being in- 
 experience and intellectual helplessness. Most of these 
 correspondents desired to pass some examination ; a few 
 aimed — or professed to aim — merely at self-improvement, 
 or what they called 'culture.' Starkey, of course, under- 
 took tuition in any subject, to any end, stipulating only 
 that his fees should be paid in advance. Throughout 
 the day his slave had been correcting Latin and Gi'eek 
 exercises, papers in mathematical or physical science, 
 answers to historical questions : all elementary and many 
 grotesquely bad. On completing each set he wrote the 
 expected comment ; sometimes briefly, sometimes at con- 
 siderable length. He now turned to a bundle of so- 
 called essays, and on opening the first could not repress 
 a groan. No ! This was beyond his strength. He 
 would make up the parcels for post, write the half-dozen 
 letters that must be sent to-day, and go out. Had he 
 not sixpence in his pocket ? 
 
 Just as he had taken this resolve some one knocked 
 at the sitting-room door, and with the inattention of a 
 man who expects nothing, Topham bade enter. 
 
 ' A gen'man asking for Mr. Starkey, sir/ said the 
 servant.
 
 ^232 TOPHAM'S CHANCE 
 
 ' All right. Send him in.' 
 
 And then entered a man whose years seemed to be 
 something short of fifty, a hale, ruddv-cheeked, stoutish 
 man, whose dress and bearing made it probable that he 
 was no Londoner. 
 
 'Mr. Starkey, M.A. ? ' he inquired, rather nervously, 
 though his smile and his upright posture did not lack a 
 certain dijjnitv. 
 
 ' Quite right,' murmured Topham, who was authorised 
 to represent his principal to any one coming on business. 
 • ^^'ill vou take a seat ? ' 
 
 ' You will know mv name,' began the stranger. ' ^Vis:- 
 more — Abraham Wigmore.' 
 
 ' Very glad to meet you, Mr. Wigmore. I was on 
 the point of sending your last batch of papers to the 
 post. You will find, this time, I have been able to 
 praise them unreservedly.' 
 
 The listener fairly blushed with delight; then Iv 
 grasped his short beard with his left hand and laughed 
 silently, showing excellent teeth. 
 
 ' Well, Mr. Starkey,' he replied at length in a 
 moderately subdued voice, * I did really think I \\ 
 managed better than usual. But there's mucii thanks 
 due to you, sir. You 've heljied me, Mr. Starkey, vou 
 really have. And that's one reason why, hapj)ening to 
 come uj) to London, I wished to have the pleasure of 
 seeing you ; I really did want to thank you, sir.' 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 Topham was closely observing this singular visitor. He 
 had always taken ' Abraham Wigmore ' for a youth of
 
 TOPHAM'S CHANCE 238 
 
 nineteen or so, some not over-bright, but plodding and 
 earnest clerk or counter-man in the little Gloucestershire 
 town from which the correspondent wrote ; it astonished 
 him to see this mature and most respectable person. 
 They talked on. Mr. Wigmore had a slight west- 
 country accent, but otherwise his language differed little 
 from that of the normally educated ; in every word he 
 revealed a good and kindly, if simple, nature. At length 
 a slight embarrassment interfered with the flow of his 
 talk, which, having been solely of tuitional matters, began 
 to take a turn more personal. Was he taking too much 
 of Mr. Starkey's time ? Reassured on this point, he 
 begged leave to give some account of himself. 
 
 ' I dare say, Mr. Starkey, you 're surprised to see how 
 old I am. It seems strange to you, no doubt, that at 
 my age I should be going to school.' He grasped his 
 beard and laughed. ' Well, it is strange, and I 'd like 
 to explain it to you. To begin with, I '11 tell you what 
 my age is ; I 'm seven-and-forty. Only that. But I 'm 
 the father of two daughters — both married. Yes, I was 
 married young myself, and my good wife died long ago, 
 more 's the pity.' 
 
 He paused, looked round the room, stroked his hard- 
 felt hat, Topham murmuring a sympathetic sound. 
 
 ' Now, as to my business, Mr. Starkey. I 'm a 
 fruiterer and greengrocer. I might have said fruiterer 
 alone ; it sounds more respectable, but the honest truth 
 is, I do sell vegetables as well, and I want you to know 
 that, Mr. Starkey. Does it make you feel ashamed of 
 me ? ' 
 
 ' My dear sir ! What business could be more honour- 
 al)le ? I heartily wish I had one as good and as lucra- 
 tive.'
 
 234 TOPHAM'S CHANCE 
 
 ' Well, that's your kindness, sir,' said Wigniore, with 
 a pleased smile. 'The fact is, I have done prettv well, 
 though I "m not by any means a rich man : comfortal)le. 
 that 's all. 1 gave my girls a good schooling, and what 
 with that and their good looks, they Ve both made what 
 may be called better marriajjes than might have been 
 expected. For down in our country, you know, sir, a 
 shopkeeper is one thing, and a gentleman 's another. 
 Now mv girls liave married gentlemen.' 
 
 Again he paused, and with en)j)hasis. Again Topham 
 murmured, this time congratulation, 
 
 ' One of" them is wife to a young solicitor ; the other 
 to a young gentleman farmer. And they 've both gont 
 to live in another part of the country. I dare say you 
 understand that, Mr. Starkey ? ' 
 
 The speaker's eyes had fallen ; at the same time i 
 twitching of the brows and hardening of the mouLii 
 changed the expression of his face, marking it with an 
 unexpected sadness, all but pain. 
 
 ' !)(» you mean, Mr. Wigmore,' asked Topham, ' that 
 vour daughters desire to live at a distance from vou .'' ' 
 
 ' Well, I'm sorry to say that's what I do mean, Mr. 
 Starkev. My son-in-law the solicitor had intended 
 practising in the town where he was born ; instead of 
 that he went to another a long way off. ]\Iy son-in-law 
 the gentleman fanner was to have taken a farm close by 
 us; he altered his mind, and went into another county. 
 You see, sir! It's quite natural : 1 find no fault. 
 There 's never been an unkind word between any of us. 
 But ' 
 
 He was growing more and more embarras.sed. 
 Evidently the man had something he wished to say, 
 something to which he had been leading up by this
 
 TOPHAM'S CHANCE 235 
 
 disclosure of his domestic affairs ; but he could not utter 
 his thoughts. Topham tried the commonplaces natur- 
 ally suggested by the situation ; they were received with 
 gratitude, but still Mr. Wigmore hung his head and 
 talked vaguely, with hesitations, pauses. 
 
 ' I Ve always been what one may call serious-minded, 
 Mr. Starkey. As a boy I liked reading, and I \'e always 
 had a book at hand for mv leisure time — the kind of 
 book that does one good. Just now I 'm reading The 
 Christian Year. And since my daughters married — 
 well, as I tell you, Mr. Starkey, I Ve done pretty well in 
 business — there 's really no reason why I should keep on 
 in my shop, if I chose to — to do otherwise.' 
 
 ' I quite understand,' interrupted Topham, in whom 
 there began to stir a thought which made his brain 
 warm. ' You would like to retire from business. And 
 you would like to — well, to pursue your studies more 
 seriously.' 
 
 Again Wigmore looked grateful, but even yet the 
 burden was not oft' his mind. 
 
 ' I know,' he resumed presently, turning his hat round 
 and round, ' that it sounds a strange thing to say, but — 
 well, sir, I 've always done my best to live as a religious 
 man.' 
 
 ' Of that I have no doubt whatever, Mr. Wigmore.' 
 
 ' Well, then, sir, what I should like to ask you is 
 this. Do you think, if I gave up the shop and worked 
 very hard at my studies — with help, of course, with 
 help, — do you think, Mr. Starkey, that I could hope to 
 get on ^ ' 
 
 He was red as a peony ; his voice choked. 
 
 * You mean,' put in Topham, he, too, becoming 
 excited, ' to become a really well-educated man.?'
 
 236 TOPHA:\rS CHANCE 
 
 ' Yes, sir, yes. But more than that. I want, Mr. 
 Starkev, to make myself — something — so that my 
 daughters and mv sons-in-law would never feel ashamed 
 of me — so that their children won't be afraid to talk of 
 their grandfjither. I know it "s a very bold thought, 
 sir, but if I could " 
 
 ' Speak, Mr. Wigmore,"" cried T()])ham, quivering with 
 curiositv, ' speak more plaiidv. What do vou wish to 
 become? With competent help — of course, with com- 
 petent help — anything is possible.' 
 
 'Really.?'' exclaimed the other. 'You mean that, 
 Mr. Starkey .'' Then, sir' — he leaned forward, blushing, 
 trembling, gasping — 'could I get to be — a curate.'' ' 
 
 Topham fell back into his chair. For two or threo 
 minutes he was mute with astonishment ; then the very 
 soul of him sang jubilee. 
 
 ' My dear Mr. \\'igmore,' he began, restraining him- 
 self to an impressive gravity. ' I should be the last man 
 to speak lightly of the profession of a clergvman or to 
 urge anv one to enter the Church whom I thought un- 
 fitted for the sacred office. But in your case, mv good 
 sir, there can be no such misgiving, I entertain no 
 doubt whatever of your fitness — your moral fitness, and 
 I will go so far as to say that with competent aid vou 
 might, in no very long time, be prepared for the neces- 
 sary examination.' 
 
 The listener laughed with delight. He began to talk 
 rapidly, all tliflidence subdued. He told how the idea had 
 first come to him, how he had brooded upon it, how he 
 had worked at elementary lesson-books, very secretly — 
 then how the sight of Starkey's advertisement had 
 inspired him with hope. 
 
 'Just to get to be a curate — that 'sail. I should
 
 TOPHA]SrS CHANCE 237 
 
 never be worthy of being a vicar or a rector. I don't 
 look so high as that, Mr. Starkey. But a curate is a 
 clergyman, and for my daughters to be able to say their 
 father is in the Church — that would be a good thing, sir, 
 a good thing ! ** 
 
 He slapped his knee, and again laughed with joy. 
 Meanwhile Topham seemed to have become pensive, his 
 head was on his hand. 
 
 ' Oh,' he murmured at length, ' if I had time to work 
 seriously with you, several hours a day,"* 
 
 Wigmore looked at him, and let his eyes fall : ' You are, 
 of course, very busy, Mr. Starkey ! ' 
 
 ' Very busy."* 
 
 Topham waved his hand at the paper- covered table, 
 and appeared to sink into despondency. Thereupon 
 Wigmore cautiously and delicately approached the next 
 thought he had in mind, Topham — cunning fellow — at 
 one moment facilitating, at another retarding what he 
 wished to say. It came out at last. Would it be quite 
 impossible for Mr. Starkey to devote himself to one sole 
 pupil. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ' Mr. Wigmore, I will be frank with you. If I asked 
 an equivalent for the value of my business as a business, 
 I could not exDect you to agree to such a proposal. 
 But, to speak honestly, my health has suffered a good 
 deal from overwork, and I must take into consideration 
 the great probability that in any case, before long, I 
 shall be obliged to find some position where the duties 
 were less exhausting.' 
 
 ' Good gracious ! ' exclaimed the listener. ' Why, you '11 
 
 K
 
 238 TOPHAM S CHANCE 
 
 kill yoursel, sir. And I 'm bound to say, you look far 
 from well." 
 
 Topham smiled pathetically, paused a moment as if 
 to reflect, and continued in the same tone of genial con- 
 fidence. Let us consider the matter in detail. Do you 
 propose, Mr. ^Vigmore, to withdraw from business at 
 once ? " 
 
 The fruiterer replied that he could do so at very short 
 notice. Questioned as to his wishes regarding a place 
 of residence, he declared that he was ready to live in any 
 place where, being unknown, he could make, as it were, 
 a new heginning. 
 
 ' You would not feel impatient," said Topham, ' if, say, 
 two or three years had to elapse before you could be 
 ordained ? " 
 
 ' Impatient," said the other cheerily. ' Why, if it took 
 ten years I would go through with it. When I make up 
 my mind about a thing, I "m not easily dismayed. If I 
 could have your help, sir " 
 
 The necessity of making a definite proposal turned 
 Topham pale; he was so afraid of asking too much. 
 Almost in sj)ite of himself, he at length spoke. ' Suppose 
 we say — if I reside with you — that you ])av me a salary 
 of, well. i?200 a year?" * 
 
 The next moment he inwardly raged. Wiormore"s 
 countenance expressed such contentment, that it was 
 plain the good man would have paid twice that sum. 
 
 ' Ass ! ' cried Topham, in his mind. ' I always under- 
 value myself." 
 
 • " • • • • 
 
 It was late that evening when Slarkey came home ; to 
 his surprise he found that Topham was later still. In 
 v;iin he sat writing until past one o"cl()ck. Topham did
 
 TOPHAMS CHANCE 239 
 
 not appear, and indeed never came back at all. The over- 
 worked corresponding tutor was taking his ease at the 
 seaside on the strength of a quarter''s salary in advance, 
 which Mr. Wigmore, tremulously anxious to clinch their 
 bargain, had insisted on paving him. Before leaving 
 London he had written to Starkey, apologising for his 
 abrupt departure, * The result of unforeseen circum- 
 stances."' He enclosed six penny stamps in repayment of 
 a sum lent, and added — 
 
 ' When I think of my great debt to you I despair 
 of expressing my gratitude. Be assured, however, that 
 the name of Starkey will always be cherished in my 
 remembrance."* 
 
 Under that name Topham dwelt with the retired 
 shopkeeper, and assiduously discharged his tutorial 
 duties. A day came when, relying upon the friendship 
 between them, and his pupiPs exultation in the progress 
 achieved, the tutor unbosomed himself. Having heard 
 the whole story, Wigmore laughed a great deal, and de- 
 clared that such a fellow as Starkey was rightly served. 
 
 ' But,"" he inquired, after reflection, ' how was it the 
 man never wrote to ask why I sent no more work ? "* 
 
 ' That asks for further confession. While at the sea- 
 side I wrote, in a disguised hand, a letter supposed to 
 come from a brother of yours in which I said you were 
 very ill and must cease your correspondence. Starkey 
 hadn''t the decency to reply, but if he had done so I 
 should have got his letter at the post-office.'' 
 
 Mr. Wig-more looked troubled for a moment. How- 
 ever, this too was laughed away, and the pursuit of 
 gentility went on as rigorously as ever. 
 
 But Topham, musing over his good luck, thought with 
 a shiver on how small an accident it had depended.
 
 240 TOPHAM^S CHANCE 
 
 Had Starkey been at home when the fruiterer called, he, 
 it was plain, would have had the offer of this engage- 
 ment. 
 
 ' With the result that dear old Wigniore would have 
 been bled for who knows how manv vears bv a mere 
 swindler. Whereas he is really being educated, and, 
 for all I know, may some day adorn the Church of 
 England,*' Such thoughts are very consoling.
 
 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 
 
 Harvey Munden had settled himself in a corner of the 
 club smoking-room, with a cigar and a review. At, 
 eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning in August he 
 might reasonably expect to be undisturbed. But behold, 
 there entered a bore, a long-faced man with a yellow 
 waistcoat, much dreaded by all the members ; he stood 
 a while at one of the tables, fingering newspapers and 
 eyeing the solitary. Harvey heard a step, looked up, 
 and shuddered. 
 
 The bore began his attack in form ; Harvey parried 
 with as much resolution as his kindly nature permitted. 
 
 ' You know that Dr. Shergold is dying .? "• fell casually 
 from the imperturbable man. 
 
 * Dying ? ' 
 
 Munden was startled into attention, and the full flow 
 of gossip swept about him. Yes, the great Dr. Shergold 
 lay dying ; there were bulletins in the morning papers ; 
 it seemed unlikely that he would see another dawn. 
 
 ' Who will benefit by his decease ? ' inquired the bore. 
 ' His nephew, do you think ? ' 
 
 ' Very possibly."* 
 
 'A remarkable man, that — a most remarkable man. 
 He was at Lady Teasdale's the other evening, and he 
 talked a good deal. Upon my word, it reminded one of 
 Coleridge, or Macaulay, — that kind of thing. Certainly
 
 <242 A LODGLR IN MAZE rOM) 
 
 most brilliant talk. I can't remember what it was a!i 
 about — something literary. A sort of fantasia, don t 
 you know. Wonderful eloquence. By the bye, I belie\ r 
 he is a great friend of yours .'' * 
 
 * Oh, we have known each other for a long time.' 
 
 'Somebody was saving that he had gone in for nie<ii- 
 cine — walking one ol' the hospitals — that kind of thing.' 
 
 ' Yes, he 's at Guy's.'' 
 
 To avoid infinite questioning, Harvey Hung aside h 
 review and went to glance at the Times. He read tlu' 
 news concerning the great physician. Then, as his pur- 
 suer drew near again, he hastily departed. 
 
 By middav he was at London Bridge. He crossed to 
 the Surrey side, turned immediately to the left, and ; 
 a short distance entered one of the vaulted thoroujili 
 fares which run beneath London Bridge Station. 1 1 
 was like the mouth of some monstrous cavern. Out «'■ 
 glaring daylight he passed into gloom and chill air; (n 
 either side of the way a row of suspended lamps gave -i 
 dull, yellow light, revealing entrances to vast storehouse>, 
 most of them occupied by wine merchants ; an alcoholic 
 smell prevailed over indeterminate odours of dampness. 
 There was great concourse of drays and waggons ; 
 wheels and the clang of gi.int hoofs made roaring echo, 
 and above thundered the trains. The vaults, barely 
 illumined with gas-jets, seemed of infinite extent; dim 
 figures moved near and far, amid huge ban^els, cases, 
 packages; in rooms partitioned off bv glass framework 
 men sat writing. A cune in the tunnel made it aj)pear 
 much longer than it really was; till midway nothing 
 could be seen ahead but deepening darkness ; then of a 
 sudden appeared the issue, and beyond, greatly to the 
 surprise of anv one who should have ventured hither for
 
 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 243 
 
 the first time, was a vision of magnificent plane-trees, 
 golden in the August sunshine — one of the abrupt con- 
 trasts which are so frequent in London, and which make 
 its charm for those who wander from the beaten tracks ; 
 a transition from the clangorous cave of commerce to 
 a sunny leafy quietude, amid old houses — some with 
 quaint tumbling roofs — and byways little frequented. 
 
 The planes grow at the back of Guy's Hospital, and 
 close by is a short narrow street which bears the name of 
 Maze Pond. It consists for the most part of homely, 
 fiat-fronted dwellings, where lodgings are let to medical 
 students. At one of these houses Harvey Munden plied 
 the knocker. 
 
 He was answered by a trim, rather pert-looking girl, 
 who smiled familiarly. 
 
 ' Mr. Shergold isn't in, sir,' she said at once, antici- 
 pating his question. ' But he will be vei'y soon. Will 
 you step in and wait ? ' 
 
 ' I think I will.' 
 
 As one who knew the house, he went upstairs, and 
 entered a sitting-room on the first fioor. The girl 
 followed him. 
 
 ' I haven't had time to clear away the breakfast 
 things,' she said, speaking rapidly and with an air. 
 ' Mr. Shergold was late this mornin' ; he didn't get up 
 till nearly ten, an' then he sat writin' letters. Did he 
 know as you was com in', sir.?' 
 
 ' No ; I looked in on the chance of finding him, or 
 learning where he was.' 
 
 ' I 'm sure he '11 be in about half-past twelve, 'cause 
 he said to me as he was only goin' to get a breath of 
 air. He hasn't nothing to do at the 'ospital just now.'' 
 
 ' Has he talked of going away ? '
 
 24>4> A LODGER IN MAZE POND 
 
 ' Going away ?^ The girl repeated the words sharplv, 
 and examined the speaker's face. * Oh, he won't be 
 goin' away just yet, I think."" 
 
 Munden returned her look with a certain curiosity, and 
 watched her as she begran to clink together the thinjjs 
 upon the table. Obviously she esteemed herselt a 
 })er.son of some importance. Her figure was not bad, 
 and her features had the trivial prettiness so connnonlv 
 seen in London girls of the lower orders, — the kind of 
 prettiness which ultimately loses itself in fat and chronic 
 perspiration. Her complexion already began to show a 
 tendency to muddiness, and when her lips parted, thcv 
 showed decay of teeth. In dress she was untidv ; her 
 hair exhibited a futile attempt at elaborate arraiigi' 
 nient ; she had dirty hands. 
 
 Disposed to talk, she lingered as long as possible, but 
 Harvey Munden had no leanings to this kind of coUoquv : 
 when the girl took herself oH", he drew a breath of satis- 
 faction, and smiled the smile of an intellectual man who 
 has outlived youthful follies. 
 
 He stepped over to the lodger's bookcase. There were 
 about a hundred volumes, only a handful of them con- 
 nected with medical study. Seeing a volume of his own 
 Munden took it down and idly turned the pages; it 
 surprised him to discover a great many marginal notes 
 in pencil, and an examination of these showed him that 
 Sheri^oid must have fjone carefully throu'di the book with 
 an eye to the correction of its stvie ; adjective> weie de- 
 leted and inserted, words of common usage removed for 
 others which oidy a fine literary conscience could supply, 
 and in places even the punctuation was minutely changed. 
 Whilst he still pondered this singular manifestation of 
 critical zeal, the door o|)encd, and Shergold came in.
 
 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 245 
 
 A man of two-and-thirty, short, ungraceful, ill- 
 dressed, with features as little commonplace as can be 
 imagined. He had somewhat a stern look, and on his 
 brow were furrows of care. Light-blue eyes tended to 
 modify the all but harshness of his lower face ; when he 
 smiled, as on recognising his friend, they expressed a 
 wonderful innocence and suavity of nature ; overshadowed, 
 in thoughtful or troubled mood, by his heavy eyebrows, 
 they became deeply pathetic. His nose was short and 
 flat, yet somehow not ignoble ; his full lips, bare of 
 moustache, tended to suggest a melancholy fretfulness. 
 But for the high forehead, no casual observer would have 
 cared to look at him a second time ; but that upper 
 story made the whole countenance vivid with intellect, 
 as though a light beamed upon it from above. 
 
 ' You hypercritical beggar ! ' cried Harvey, turning 
 with the volume in his hand. ' Is this how you treat 
 the glorious works of your contemporaries ? ' 
 
 Shergold reddened and was mute. 
 
 ' I shall take this away with me,' pursued the other, 
 laughing. ' It'll be worth a little study.' 
 
 ' My dear fellow — you won't take it ill of me — I 
 didn't really mean it as a criticism,' the deep, musical 
 voice stammered in serious embarrassment. 
 
 ' Why, wasn't it just this kind of thing that caused a 
 quarrel between George Sand and Musset ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, yes ; but George Sand was such a peremptory 
 fellow, and Musset such a vapourish young person. Look ! 
 I '11 show you what I meant.' 
 
 ' Thanks,' said Munden, ' I can find that out for my- 
 self.' He thrust the book into his coat-pocket. ' 1 
 came to ask you if you are aware of your uncle's 
 condition.'
 
 246 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 
 
 * Of course I am. 
 
 * When did you see him last ?' 
 
 'See him ? "" Shergold's eyes wandered vaguely. ' Oh, 
 to talk with him, about a month ago.' 
 
 * Did you part friendly ? ' 
 
 ' On excellent terms. And last night I went to ask 
 after him. Unfortunately he didn't know any one, but 
 the nurse said he had been mentioning my name, and in 
 a kind wav.' 
 
 ' Capital ! Hadn't you better walk in that direction 
 this afternoon .'' ' 
 
 * Yes, perhaps I had, and yet, you know, I hate i 
 have it supposed that I am hovering about him.' 
 
 ' All the same, go.' 
 
 Shergold pointed to a chair. * Sit down a bit. I 
 have been having: a talk with Dr. Salmon. He di 
 courages me a good deal. You know it's far fro; 
 certain that I shall go on with medicine.' 
 
 * Far from certain ! ' the other assented, smiling. ' B" 
 the bye, I hear that you have been in the world of lati 
 You were at Ladv Teasdale's not long ago.' 
 
 ' Well— yes — why not ? ' 
 
 Perhaps it was partly his vexation at the bo( 
 incident, — Shergold seemed unable to fix his thought* 
 on anvthing ; he shuffled in his seat and kept glancing 
 nervous! v towards the door. 
 
 'I was delighted to hear it,' said his friend. 'That's 
 a symptom of health. Go everywhere ; see everybody — 
 that's worth seeing. They got you to talk, I believe .'** 
 
 ' Who has been telling vou .'' I 'm afraid I talked 
 a lot of rubbish : I had shivers of shame all through a 
 sleepless night after it. But some one brought up 
 Whistler, and etching, and so on, and I had a few ideas
 
 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 247 
 
 of which I wanted to relieve my mind. And, after all, 
 there's a pleasure in talking to intelligent people. 
 Henry Wilt was there with his daughters. Clever girls, 
 by Jove ! And Mrs. Peter Rayne — do you know her .? ' 
 
 ' Know of her, that ''s all.' 
 
 ' A splendid woman — brains, brains ! Upon my soul, 
 I know no such delight as listening to a really intel- 
 lectual woman, when she's also beautiful. I shake with 
 delight — and what women one does meet, nowadays ! 
 Of course the world never saw their like. I have my 
 idea of Aspasia — but there are lots of grander women 
 in London to-day. One ought to live among the rich. 
 What a wretched mistake, when one can help it, to herd 
 with narrow foreheads, however laudable your motive ! 
 Since I got back among the better people my life has 
 been trebled — oh, centupled — in value ! ' 
 
 ' My boy,' remarked Munden quietly, ' didn't I say 
 something to this effect on a certain day nine years ago ? ' 
 
 ' Don't talk of it,' the other replied, waving his hand 
 in agitation. ' We '11 never look back at that.' 
 
 ' Your room is stuffy,' said Munden, rising. ' Let us 
 go and have lunch somewhere.' 
 
 ' Yes, we will ! Just a moment to wash my hands — 
 I 've been in the dissecting-room.' 
 
 The friends went downstairs. At the foot they 
 passed the landlady's daughter : she drew back, but, as 
 Shergold allowed his companion to pass into the street, 
 her voice made itself heard behind him. 
 
 ' Shall you want tea, Mr. Shergold ? ' 
 
 Munden turned sharply and looked at the girl. Sher- 
 gold did not look at her, but he delayed for a moment 
 and appeared to balance the question. Then, in a 
 friendly voice, he said —
 
 248 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 
 
 'No, thank you. I may not be back till late in tb> 
 evening.' And he went on hurriedly. 
 
 ' Cheeky little beggar that/ Munden observed, with a 
 glance at his friend. 
 
 'Oh, not a bad girl in her way. ThevVe made nu 
 very comfortable. All the same, I shan't grieve when 
 the day of departure comes.' 
 
 It was not cheerful, the life-story of Henrv Shergold, 
 At two-and-twenty he found himself launched upon the 
 world, with a university education incomplete and about 
 forty pounds in his pocket. A little management, a 
 little less of boyish pride, and he might have found the 
 means to go forward to his degree, with pleasant hopes 
 in the background ; but Henry was a Pladical, a scorner 
 of privilege, a believer in human perfectibility. He got 
 a place in an office, and he began to write poetry — 
 some of which was published and duly left unpaid for. 
 A year later there came one fateful dav when he 
 announced to his friend Harvey Munden that he was 
 going to be married. His chosen bride was the daughter 
 of a journeyman tailor — a tall, pale, unhealthy girl 
 of eighteen, whose acquaintance he had made at a 
 tobacconist's shop, where she served. He was ffoinn^ to 
 marry her on principle — principle informed with callow 
 pas.sion, the passion of a youth who has lived demurely, 
 more among books than men. Harvey Munden Hew 
 into a rage, and called uj)on the gods in protest, 
 liut Shergold w.as not to be shaken. The girl, he 
 di'clarcd, had fallen in love with him durint; conversa- 
 tions across the counter ; her happiness was in his 
 hands, and he would not betray it. She had excellent 
 dispositions; he would educ^ate her. The friends 
 quarrelled about it, and Shergold led home his bride.
 
 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 249 
 
 With the results which any sane person could have 
 foretold. The marriage was a hideous disaster ; in three 
 years it brought Shergold to an attempted suicide, for 
 which he had to appear at the police-court. His 
 relative, the distinguished doctor, who had hitherto done 
 nothing for him, now came forward with counsel and 
 assistance. Hapj); /the only child of the union had died 
 at a few weeks old, and the wife, though making noisy 
 proclamation of rights, was so weary of her husband 
 that she consented to a separation. 
 
 But in less than a year the two were living together 
 again ; Mrs. Shergold had been led by her relatives to 
 believe that some day the poor fellow would have his 
 uncle's money, and her wiles ultimately overcame Sher- 
 gold's resistance. He, now studying law at the doctor's 
 expense, found himself once more abandoned, and re- 
 duced to get his living as a solicitor's clerk. His uncle 
 had bidden him good-bye on a postcard, whereon was 
 illegibly scribbled something about ' damned fools.' 
 
 He bore the burden for three more years, then his 
 wife died. One night, after screaming herself speechless 
 in fury at Shergold's refusal to go with her to a music- 
 hall, she had a fit on the stairs, and in falling received 
 fatal injuries. 
 
 The man was free, but terribly shattered. Only after 
 a long sojourn abroad, at his kinsman's expense, did he 
 beo-in to recover health. He came back and entered 
 himself as a student at Guy's, greatly to Dr. Shergold's 
 satisfaction. His fees were paid and a small sum was 
 allowed him to live upon — a very small sum. By degrees 
 some old acquaintances began to see him, but it was only 
 quite of late that he had accepted invitations from 
 people of social standing, whom he met at the doctor's
 
 250 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 
 
 house. The hints of his storv that got about made him 
 an interesting figure, especially to women, and his re- 
 markable gifts were recognised as soon as circumstances 
 began to give him fair plav. All modern things were of 
 interest to him, and his knowledge, acquired with astonish- 
 ing facility, formed the fund of talk which had singular 
 charm alike for those who did and those who did not 
 understand it. Undeniably shy, he yet, when warmed 
 to a subject, spoke with nerve and confidence. In days 
 of jabber, more or less impolite, this appearance of an 
 articulate mortal, with soft manners and totally un- 
 affected, could not but excite curiosity. Lady Teas- 
 dale, eager for the uncommon, chanced to observe him 
 one evening as he conversed with his neighbour at the 
 dinner-table ; later, in the drawing-room, she encouraged 
 him with flattery of rapt attention to a display of his 
 powers ; she resolved to make him a feature of her 
 evenings. Fortunately, his kindred with Dr. Shergold 
 made a respectable introduction, and Lady Teasdale 
 whispered it among matrons that he would inherit from 
 the wealthy doctor, who had neither wife nor child. He 
 might not be fair to look upon, but hanilsome is that 
 handsome has. 
 
 And now the doctor lay sick unto death. Society 
 was out of town, but Lady Teasdale, with a house full 
 of friends about her down in Hampshire, did not forget 
 her protcjrt ; she waited with pleasant expectation for 
 the young man's release from poverty. 
 
 It came in a day or two. Dr. Shergold was dead, and 
 an enterprising newspaj)er announced simultaneously that 
 the bulk of his estate would pass to Mr. Henrv Shergold, 
 agenlleman at present studying for his uncle's j)rofes- 
 sion. This paragraph caught the eye of Harvey Munden,
 
 A LODGER IN MAZE FOND 251 
 
 who sent a line to his friend, to ask if it was true; In 
 reply he received a mere postcard : ' Yes. Will see you 
 before long.' But Harvey wanted to be off to Como, and 
 as business took him into the city, he crossed the river 
 and sought Maze Pond. Again the door was opened to 
 him by the landlady's daughter ; she stood looking keenly 
 in his face, her eyes smiling and yet suspicious. 
 
 ' Mr. Shergold in .? ' he asked carelessly. 
 
 ' No, he isn't.' There was a strange bluntness about 
 this answer. The girl stood forward, as if to bar the 
 entrance, and kept searching his face. 
 
 ' When is he likely to be ? ' 
 
 ' I don't know. He didn't say when he went out.' 
 
 A woman's figure appeared in the background. The 
 girl turned and said sharply, ' All right, mother, it 's only 
 somebody for Mr. Shergold.' 
 
 ' I '11 go upstairs and write a note,' said Munden, in a 
 rather peremptory voice. 
 
 The other drew back and allowed him to pass, but 
 with evident disinclination. As he entered the room, he 
 saw that she had followed. He went up to a side-table, on 
 which lay a blotting-book, with other requisites for writ- 
 ing, and then he stood for a moment as if in meditation. 
 
 ' Your name is Emma, isn't it ? ' he inquired, looking 
 at the girl with a smile. 
 
 ' Yes, it is.' 
 
 ' Well then, Emma, shut the door, and let 's have a 
 talk. Your mother won't mind, will she .? ' he added 
 slyly. 
 
 The girl tossed her head. 
 
 ' I don't see what it's got to do with mother.' She 
 closed the door, but did not latch it. ' What do you 
 want to talk about ? '
 
 252 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 
 
 ' You're a very nice girl to look at, Emma, and IVe 
 always admired vou when vou opened the door to me. 
 IVe always liked your nice, respectful way of speaking, 
 but somehow you don't speak quite so nicely to-day. 
 What has put you out ? ' 
 
 Her eyes did not (juit his face for a moment ; her 
 attitude betokened the utmost keenness of suspicious 
 observation. 
 
 ' Nothing 's put me out, that I know of.' 
 
 ' Yet you don't speak very nicely — not very respect- 
 fully. Perhaps' — he paused — ' perhaps Mr. Shergold is 
 going to leave ?"" 
 
 PVaps he may be.' 
 
 ' And vou 're vexed at losing a lodger 
 
 He saw her lip curl and then she laughed. 
 
 ' You 're wrong there.' 
 
 ' Then zchnt is it ? ' 
 
 He drew near and made as though he would advance 
 a familiar arm. Emma started back. 
 
 'All right,' she exclaimed, with an insolent nod. ' I '11 
 tell Mr. Shergold.' 
 
 'Tell Mr. Shergold? Why.? What has it to do 
 with him ? ' 
 
 ' A good deal.' 
 
 ' Indeed ':' For shame, Emma ! I never expected that ! ' 
 
 ' What do vou mean .'* ' she retorted hotly. ' You keep 
 your impudence to yourself. If you want to know, Mr. 
 Shergold is going to marry me — so there ! ' 
 
 The stroke was eflectual. Harvey Munden stood as 
 if transfixed, but he recovered himsclt before a word 
 escaped his lips. 
 
 'Ah, that alters the case. I beg your pardon. You 
 wont make trouble between old friends.?'
 
 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 253 
 
 Vanity disarmed the girl's misgiving. She grinned 
 with satisfaction. 
 
 ' Tiiat depends how you behave."' 
 
 * Oh, you don't know me. But promise, now ; not 
 a word to Shergold.' 
 
 She gave a conditional promise, and stood radiant 
 with her triumph. 
 
 'Thanks, that's very good of you. Well, I won't 
 trouble to leave a note. You shall just tell Shergold 
 that I am leaving England to-morrow for a holiday. 
 I should like to see him, of course, and I may possibly 
 look round this evening. If I can't manage it, just tell 
 him that I think he ought to have given me a chance of 
 congratulating him. May I ask when it is to be .'' ' 
 
 Emma resumed an air of prudery, ' Before very long, 
 I dessay.' 
 
 ' I wish you joy. Well, I mustn't talk longer now, 
 but I '11 do my best to look in this evening, and then we 
 can all chat together.' 
 
 He laughed and she laughed back ; and thereupon 
 they parted. 
 
 A little after nine that evening, when only a grey 
 reflex of daylight lingered upon a cloudy sky, Munden 
 stood beneath the plane-trees by Guy's Hospital wait- 
 ing. He had walked the length of Maze Pond and had 
 ascertained that his friend's window as yet showed no 
 light ; Shergold was probably still from home. In 
 the afternoon he had made inquiry at the house of 
 the deceased doctor, but of Henry nothing was known 
 there ; he left a message for delivery if possible, to the 
 effect that he would call in at Maze Pond between nine 
 and ten. 
 
 At a quarter past the hour there appeared from
 
 254 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 
 
 the uirection of London Bridsre a well-known fiirure, 
 walking slowly, head bent. Munden moved forward, and, 
 on seeing him, Shergold grasped his hand feverishly. 
 
 ' Ha ! how glad I am to meet you, Munden ! Come ; 
 let us walk this way.' He turned from Maze Pond. ' I 
 got your message up yonder an hour or two ago. So 
 glad I have met vou here, old fellow." 
 
 ' Well, your day has come,' said Harvey, trving to 
 read his friend's features in the gloom. 
 
 ' He has left me about eighty thousand pounds,' Sher- 
 gold replied, in a low, shaken voice. ' I 'm told there 
 are big legacies to hospitals as well. Heavens ! how rich 
 he was ! ' 
 
 ' When is the funeral ? ' 
 
 ' Friday.' 
 
 'Where shall you live in the meantime?'' 
 
 ' I don't know — I haven't thought about it.' 
 
 *I should go to some hotel, if I were you,' said 
 Munden, ' and I have a proposal to make. If I wait 
 till Saturday, will you come with me to Como ? ' 
 
 Shergold did not at once replv. He was walking 
 hurriedly, and making rather strange movements with 
 his head and arms. They came into the shadow of the 
 vaulted way beneath London Bridge Station. At this 
 hour tlu- great tunnel was quiet, save when a train roared 
 above ; the warehouses were closed ; ojie or two idlers, 
 of forbidding aspect, hung about in the murky gas- 
 light, and from the far end came a sound of children 
 at plav. 
 
 ' You won't be wanted here.'" Munden added. 
 
 * No — no — I think not.' There was agitation in 
 the voice. 
 
 ' Then vou will come .'' '
 
 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 255 
 
 i 
 
 Yes, I will come.'' Shergold spoke with unnecessary 
 ▼ehemeiice and laughed oddly. 
 
 ' What 's the matter with you ? ' his friend asked. 
 
 ' Nothing — the change of cii-cumstances, I suppose. 
 Let "'s get on. Let us go somewhere — I can't help re- 
 proaching myself; I ought to feel or show a decent 
 sobriety ; but what was the old fellow to me ? I 'm 
 grateful to him.' 
 
 ' There 's nothing else on your mind ? ' 
 
 Shergold looked up, startled. 
 
 ' What do you mean ? Why do you ask .'* ' 
 
 They stood together in the black shadow of an interval 
 between two lamps. After reflecting for a moment, 
 Munden decided to speak. 
 
 ' I called at your lodgings early to-day, and somehow 
 I got into talk with the girl. She was cheeky, and her 
 behaviour puzzled me. Finally she made an incredible 
 announcement — that you had asked her to marry you. 
 Of course it 's a lie ? ' 
 
 ' To marry her ? ' exclaimed the listener hoarsely, with 
 an attempt at laughter. ' Do you think that likely — 
 after all I have gone through ? "" 
 
 ' No, I certainly don't. It staggered me. But what 
 I want to know is, can she cause trouble ? ' 
 
 ' How do I know ? — a girl will lie so boldly. She 
 might make a scandal, I suppose ; or threaten it, in hope 
 of getting money out of me.' 
 
 ' But is there any ground for a scandal ? ' demanded 
 Harvey. 
 
 ' Not the slightest, as you mean it.' 
 
 ' I 'm glad to hear that. But she may give you trouble. 
 I see the thing doesn't astonish you very much ; no doubt 
 you were aware of her character.'
 
 256 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 
 
 ' Yes, yes . T know it pretty well. Come, let us get 
 out of this s(|ualid inferno ; how I hate it ! Have you 
 had dinner ? I don't want any. Let us go to vour 
 rooms, shall we.'' There'll be a hansom passing the 
 bridge* 
 
 They walked on in silence, and when they had found a 
 cab they drove westward, talking only of Dr. Shergold''s 
 affairs. Munden lived in the region of the Scjuares, 
 hard by the British Museum ; he took his friend into a 
 comfortably furnished roo\n, the walls hidden with books 
 and prints, and there they sat down to smoke, a bottle 
 of whisky within easy reach of both. It was plain to 
 Harvey that some mystery lay in his friend's reserve on 
 the subject of the girl Emma ; he was still anxious, 
 but would not lead the talk to unpleasant things. Sher- 
 gold drank like a thirstv man, and the whi>^kv seemed tu 
 make him silent. Presently he fell into absolute mute- 
 ness, and lay wearily back in his chair. 
 
 'The excitement has been too much for you, "* Munden 
 remarked. 
 
 Shergolil looked at him, vnth a painful embarrassment 
 in his features; then suddenlv he lient forward. 
 
 ' Munden, it's I who have lie<l. I did ask that girl 
 to marry me.' 
 
 * When ? ' 
 
 * I^ast night.' 
 ' Why -f ' 
 
 ' Because for a moment I was insane.' They stared 
 at each other. 
 
 'Has she any hold upon you?' Munden asked 
 slowly. 
 
 ' .None whatever, except this frantic offer of mine.' 
 
 * Into which she inveigled you ?''
 
 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 257 
 
 * I can't honestly say she did ; it was entirely my own 
 fault. She has never behaved loosely, or even like a 
 schemer. I doubt whether she knew anything about my 
 uncle, until I told her last night.' 
 
 He spoke rapidly, in a thick voice, moving his arms in 
 helpless protestation. His look was one of unutterable 
 misery. 
 
 'Well,' observed Munden, *the frenzy has at all 
 events passed. You have the common-sense to treat it 
 as if it had never been ; and really I am tempted to 
 believe that it was literal lunacy. Last night were you 
 drunk ? ' 
 
 ' I had drunk nothing. Listen, and I will tell you all 
 about it. I am a fool about women. I don't know 
 what it is — certainly not a sensual or passionate nature ; 
 mine is nothing of the sort. It's sheer sentimentality, 
 I suppose. I can't be friendly with a woman without 
 drifting into mawkish tenderness — there's the simple 
 truth. If I had married happily, I don't think I should 
 have been tempted to go about philandering. The 
 society of a wife I loved and respected would be suffi- 
 cient. But there's that need in me — the incessant 
 hunger for a woman's sympathy and affection. Such 
 a hideous mistake as mine when I married would have 
 made a cynic of most men ; upon me the lesson has been 
 utterly thrown away. I mean that, though I can talk 
 of women rationally enough with a friend, I am at their 
 mercv when alone with them — at the mercy of the 
 silliest, vulgarest creature. After all, isn't it very much 
 the same with men in general .? The average man — how 
 does he come to marry ? Do you think he deliberately 
 selects ? Does he fall in love, in the strict sense of the 
 phrase, with that one particular girl ? No ; it comes
 
 258 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 
 
 about by chance — by the drifting force of circumstances. 
 Not one man in ten thousand, when lie thinks of marriage, 
 waits for the ideal wife — for the woman who makes 
 capture of his soul or even of his senses. Men marry 
 without passion. Most of us have a very small circle 
 for choice ; the hazard of everydav life throws us into 
 contact with this girl or that, and presently we begin to 
 feel either that we have compromised ourselves, or that 
 we might as well save trouble and settle down as soon as 
 possible, and the girl at hand will do as well as another. 
 More often than not it is the girl who decides for us. 
 In more than half the marriages it's the woman who has 
 practically ynoposed. She puts herself in a man's way. 
 With her it rests almost entirely whether a man shall 
 think of her as a possible wife or not. She has endless 
 ways of putting herself forward without seeming to do 
 so. As often as not, it's mere pa.ssivity that efi'ects the 
 end. She has only to remain seated instead of moving 
 away ; to listen with a smile instead of looking bored ; 
 to be at home instead of being out, — and she is mak- 
 ing love to a man. In a Palace of Truth how many 
 husbands would have to confess that it decidedly sur- 
 prised them when they found themselves engaged to be 
 married ? The will comes into play only for a moment 
 or two now and then. Of course it is made to seem re- 
 sponsible, and in a sense it is responsible, but, in the 
 vast majority of cases, j)urely as an aninial instinct, con- 
 firming the suggestion of circumstances."" 
 
 * There's something in all this,"* granted the listener, 
 ' but it doesn't explain the behaviour of a man who, 
 after frightful experience in marriage — after recovering 
 his freedom — after finding himself welcomed by congenial 
 society — after inheriting a fortune to use as he likes —
 
 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 259 
 
 goes and offers himself to an artful hussy in a lodging- 
 house.'' 
 
 ' That 's the special case. Look how it came to pass. 
 Months ago I knew I was drifting into dangerous rela- 
 tions with that girl. Unfortunately I am not a rascal : 
 I can''t think of girls as playthings; a fatal conscien 
 tiousness in an unmarried man of no means. Day after 
 day we grew more familiar. She used to come up 
 and ask me if I wanted anything ; and of course I knew 
 that she began to come more often than necessary. 
 When she laid a meal for me, we talked — half an hour 
 at a time. The mother, doubtless, looked on with 
 approval ; Emma had to find a husband, and why not 
 me as well as another ? They knew I was a soft creature 
 — that I never made a row about anything — was grate- 
 ful for anything: that looked like kindness — and so on. 
 Just the kind of man to be captured. But no — I don''t 
 want to make out that I am their victim ; that 's a feeble 
 excuse, and a worthless one. The average man would 
 either have treated the girl as a servant, and so kept 
 her at her distance, or else he would have alarmed her 
 by behaviour which suggested anything you like but 
 marriage. As for me, I hadn't the common-sense to 
 take either of these courses. I made a friend of the 
 girl ; talked to her more and more confidentially ; and 
 at last — fatal moment — told her my history. Yes, I 
 was ass enough to tell that girl the whole story of my 
 life. Can you conceive such folly ? 
 
 ' Yet the easiest thing in the world to understand. 
 We were alone in the house one evening. After trying 
 to work for about an hour I gave it up. I knew that 
 the mother was out, and } heard Emma moving down- 
 stairs. I was lonely and dispirited — wanted to talk —
 
 260 A LODGER IN :\IAZE POND 
 
 to talk about tnvself to some one who would give a kind 
 ear. So I went down, and made some excuse for begin- 
 ning a conversation in the parlour. It lasted a couple 
 of hours ; we were still talking when the mother came 
 back. I didn't persuade myself that I cared for Emma, 
 even then. Her vulgarisms of speech and feeling jarred 
 upon me. But she was feminine ; she spoke and looked 
 gently, with sympathy. I enjoyed that evening — and 
 vou must bear in mind what I have told vou before, 
 that I stand in awe of refined wome?i. I am their 
 equal, I know ; I can talk witii them ; their society is an 
 exquisite delight to me; — but when it comes to thinking 
 
 of intimacy with one of them ! Perhaps it is my 
 
 long years of squalid existence. Perhaps I have come to 
 regard myself as doomed to life on a lower level. I 
 find it an impossible thing to imagine myself offering 
 marriage — making love — to a girl such as those I meet 
 in the big houses.' 
 
 'You will outgrow that,' said Munden. 
 
 ' Yes, yes, — I hope and believe so. And wouldn't it 
 be criminal to deny mvself even the chance, now that 
 I have nionev ? All to-day I have been tortured like a 
 soul that beholds its salvation lost by a moment's weak- 
 ness of the flesh. You can imagine what my suffering 
 has been ; it drove me into sheer lying. I had resolved 
 to deny utterly that I had asked Emma to marry 
 me — to deny it with a savage boldness, and take the 
 consequences.' 
 
 ' A most rational resolve, my dear fellow. Pray 
 stick to it. lint you haven't told me yet how the dizzy 
 culmination of your madness was reached. You say 
 that vou proposed last niffht i ' 
 
 ' Yes — and simj)ly for the pleasure of telling Emma
 
 A LODGER IN :^JAZE POND 261 
 
 when she had accepted me, that I had eighty thousand 
 pounds ! You can't understand that ? I suppose the 
 change of fortune has made me a little light-headed ; I 
 have been going about with a sense of exaltation which 
 has prompted me to endless follies. I have felt a desire 
 to be kind to people — to bestow happiness — to share my 
 joy with others. If I had some of the doctor's money 
 in my pocket, I should have given away five-pound 
 notes.' 
 
 ' You contented yourself,' said Munden, laughing, 
 * with giving a promissory-note for the whole legacy.' 
 
 ' Yes ; but try to understand. Emma came up to my 
 room at supper-time, and as usual we talked. I didn't 
 say anything about my uncle's death — yet I felt the 
 necessity of telling her creep fatally upon me. There 
 was a conflict in my mind, between common-sense and 
 that awful sentimentality which is my curse. When 
 Emma came up again after supper, she mentioned that 
 her mother was gone with a friend to a theatre. " Why 
 don't you go ? " I said. " Oh, I don't go anywhere." 
 " But after all," I urged consolingly, " August isn't exactly 
 the time for enjoying the theatre." She admitted it 
 wasn't ; but there was the Exhibition at Earl's Court, 
 she had heard so much of it, and wanted to go. " Then 
 suppose we go together one of these evenings ? " 
 
 ' You see ? Idiot ! — and I couldn't help it. My 
 tongue spoke these imbecile words in spite of my brain. 
 All very well, if I had meant what another man would ; 
 but I didn't, and the girl knew I didn't. And she 
 looked at me — and then — why, mere brute instinct did 
 the rest — no, not mere instinct, for it was complicated 
 with that idiot desire to see how the girl would look, 
 hear what she would say, when she knew that I had
 
 ^^62 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 
 
 given her eighty tiiousand pounds. You can't under- 
 stand ? ' 
 
 ' As a bit of morbid psychology — yes.' 
 
 ' And the frantic proceeding made me happy ! For an 
 hour or two I behaved as if I loved the girl with all my 
 soul. And afterwards I was still happy. I walked up 
 and down my bedroom, making plans for the future — 
 for her education, and so on. I saw all sorts of admir- 
 able womanly qualities in her. I was in love with her, 
 and there 's an end of it ! ' 
 
 Munden mused for a while, then laid down his pipe. 
 
 ' Remarkably suggestive, Shergold, the name of the 
 street iji which you have been living. Well, you don't 
 go back there ? ' 
 
 ' No. I have come to my senses. I shall go to an 
 hotel for to-night, and send presently for all my things.' 
 
 ' To be sure, and on Saturday — or on Friday evening, 
 if you like, we leave England."* 
 
 It was evident that Shergold rejoiced with trembling. 
 
 ' But I can't stick to the lie,' he said. ' I shall com- 
 pensate the girl. You see, by running away I make 
 confession that there's something wrong. I shall see a 
 solicitor and put the matter into his hands.' 
 
 'As you jjlcfuse. But let the solicitor exercise his own 
 discretion as to damages.' 
 
 * Damages ! ' Shergold pondered the woid. ' I 
 sup})ose she won't drag me into court — make a })ublic 
 ridicule of me ? If so, there 's an end of my hopes. I 
 couldn't go among })eople after that.' 
 
 '■ I don't see wliy not. But your solicitor will 
 probably manage the affair. They have their methods,' 
 Munden added drily. 
 
 Early the next iiiorning Shergold despatched a tele-
 
 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 263 
 
 gram to Maze Pond, addressed to his lanclkdy. It said 
 that he would be kept away by business for a day or 
 wo. On Friday he attended his uncle's funeral, and 
 that evening he left Charing Cross with Harvey Munden, 
 en route for Corao. 
 
 There, a fortnight later, Shergold received from his 
 solicitor a communication which put an end to his feign- 
 ing of repose and hopefulness. That he did but feign, 
 Harvey Munden felt assured ; signs of a troubled con- 
 science, or at all events of restless nerves, were evident 
 in all his doing and conversing ; now he once more made 
 frank revelation of his weakness. 
 
 ' There 's the devil to pay. She won't take money. 
 She's got a lawyer, and is going to bring me into court 
 I 've authorised Reckitt to offer as much as five thousand 
 pounds, — it 's no good. He says her lawyer has evidently 
 encouraged her to hope for enormous damages, and then 
 she '11 have the satisfaction of making me the town-talk. 
 It's all up with me, Munden. My hopes are vanished 
 like — what is it in Dante ? — ilfumo in acre ed in aqua la 
 schiuma ! ' 
 
 Smoking a Cavour, Munden lay back in the shadovv- 
 of the pergola, and seemed to disdain reply. 
 
 ' Your advice ? ' 
 
 * What 's the good of advisinoj a man born to be 
 fooled ? Why, let the do her worst ! ' 
 
 Shergold winced. 
 
 ' We mustn't forget that it 's all mv fault.' 
 
 * Yes, just as it's your own fault you didn't die on 
 the day of your birth ! ' 
 
 ' I must raise the oi'rer ' 
 
 ' By all means ; offer ten thousand. I suppose a jury 
 would give her two hundred and fifty.'
 
 264 A LODGER IN MAZE POND 
 
 ' But the scandal — the ridicule "■ 
 
 ' Face it. Very likely it 's the only thing that would 
 teach you wisdom and save your life."" 
 
 ' That 's one way of looking at it. I half believe it 
 might be effectual. ' 
 
 He kept alone for most of the day. In the evening, 
 from nine to ten, he went upon the lake with Harvey, 
 but could not talk ; his blue eyes were sunk in a restless 
 melancholy, his brows were furrowed, he kept making 
 short, nervous movements, as though in silent remon- 
 strance with himself. And when the next morning 
 came, and Harvey Munden rang the bell for his coffee, a 
 waiter brought him a note addressed in ShergoWs hand. 
 ' I have started for London,' ran the hurriedly written 
 lines. ' Don't be uneasy ; all I mean to do is to stoj) 
 the danger of a degrading publicity ; the fear of that is 
 too much lor me. I have an idea, and you shall hear 
 how I get on in a few days.' 
 
 The nature of that promising idea Munden never 
 learnt. His next letter from Shergold came in about 
 ten days ; it informed him very briefly that the writer 
 was ' about to be married,' and that in less than a week 
 he would have started with his wife on a voyage round 
 the world. Harvey did not reply ; indeed, the letter 
 contained no address. 
 
 One (lav in November he was accosted at the club by 
 his familiar bore. 
 
 ' So your friend Shergold is dead ?' 
 
 ' Dead .'' I know nothing of it.' 
 
 'Really.? They talked of it last night at Lady 
 Teasdale's. He died a few days ago, at Calcutta. 
 Dysentery, or something of that kind. His wife cabled 
 to some one or other.'
 
 THE SALT OF THE EARTH 
 
 Strong and silent the tide of Thames flowed upward, 
 and over it swept the morning tide of humanity. 
 Through white autumnal mist yellow sunbeams flitted 
 from shore to shore. The dome, the spires, the river 
 frontages slowly unveiled and brightened : there was 
 hope of a fair day. 
 
 Not that it much concerned this throng of men and 
 women hastening to their labour. From near and far, 
 by the league-long highways of South London, hither 
 they converged each morning, and joined the procession 
 across the bridge ; their task was the same to-day as 
 yesterday, regardless of gleam or gloom. Many had 
 walked such a distance that they plodded wearily, look- 
 ing neither to right nor left. The more vigorous 
 strode briskly on, elbowing their way, or nimbly skipping 
 into the road to gain advance ; yet these also had a fixed 
 gaze, preoccupied or vacant, seldom cheerful. Here and 
 there a couple of friends conversed ; girls, with bag or 
 parcel and a book for the dinner hour, chattered and 
 laughed ; but for the most part lips were mute amid the 
 clang and roar of heavy-laden wheels. 
 
 It was the march of those who combat hunger with 
 delicate hands : at the pen's point, or from beiiind the 
 breastwork of a counter, or trusting to bare wits pressed 
 dailv on the grindstone. Their chief advantage over the 
 
 2G5
 
 266 THE SALT OF THE EARTH 
 
 sinewy class beneath them lay in the privilege of spend- 
 ing more than they could aiiord on house and clothing: 
 with rare exceptions they had no hope, no chance, of 
 reaching independence; enough if they upheld the 
 threadbare standard of respectability, and becjueathed 
 it to their children as a solitary heirloom. The oldest 
 looked the poorest, and naturally so ; amid the tramp of 
 multiplying feet, their steps had begun to lag when speed 
 was more than ever necessary ; thev saw newcomers out- 
 strip them, and trudged under an increasing load. 
 
 No eve surveying this procession would have paused 
 for a moment on Thomas Bird. In costume there was 
 nothing to distinguish him from hundreds of rather 
 shabby clerks who passed along with their out-of-fashion 
 chimney-pot and badly rolled umbrella; his gait was 
 that of a man who takes no exercise beyond the daily 
 walk to and from his desk ; the casual glance could see 
 nothing in his features but patient dullness tending to 
 good humour. He might be thirty, he might be fortv 
 — impossible to decide. Yet when a ray of sunshine 
 fell upon him, and he lifted his eyes to the eastwai'd 
 proijiise, there shone in his countenance something one 
 might vainly have sought through the streaming con- 
 course of which Thomas Bird was an unregarded atom. 
 For him, it apy)eare<i, the strnggling sunlight had a 
 message of hope. Trouble cleared from his face ; he 
 smiled unconsciously and quickened his steps. 
 
 For Hi teen years he had walked to and fro over 
 Blackfriars Bridge, leaving his home in Camberwell at 
 eight oVlock and reaching it again at seven. Fate made 
 him a commercial clerk as his father before him ; he 
 earned more than enough for his necessities, but seemed 
 to have reached the limit of promotion, for he had no
 
 THE SALT OF THE EARTH 267 
 
 influential friends, and he lacked the capacity to rise by 
 his own efforts. There may have been some calling for 
 which Thomas was exactly suited, but he did not know 
 of it ; in the office he proved himself a trustworthy 
 machine, with no opportunity of becoming anything else. 
 His parents were dead, his kindred scattered, he lived, as 
 for several years past, in lodgings. But it never occurred 
 to him to think of his lot as mournful. A man of 
 sociable instincts, he had many acquaintances, some of 
 whom he cherished. An extreme simplicity marked his 
 tastes, and the same characteristic appeared in his con- 
 versation ; an easy man to deceive, easy to make fun 
 of, yet impossible to dislike, or despise — unless by the 
 despicable. He delighted in stories of adventure, of 
 bravery by flood or field, and might have posed — had he 
 ever posed at all — as something of an authority on North 
 Pole expeditions and the geography of Polynesia. 
 
 He received his salary once a month, and to-day was 
 pay-day : the consciousness of having earned a certain 
 number of sovereigns always set his thoughts on possible 
 purchases, and at present he was revolving the subject 
 of his wardrobe. Certainly it needed renewal, but 
 Thomas could not decide at which end to be^in, head or 
 feet. His position in a leading house demanded a good 
 hat, the bad weather called for new boots. Living 
 economically as he did, it should have been a simple 
 matter to resolve the doubt by purchasing both articles, 
 but, for one reason and another, Thomas seldom had a 
 surplus over the expenses of his lodgings ; in practice 
 he found it very difficult to save a sovereign for other 
 needs. 
 
 When evening released him he walked away in a 
 cheerful frame of mind, grasping the money in his
 
 268 THE SALT OF THE EARTH 
 
 trousers'' pocket, and all but decided to make some 
 acquisition on the way home. Near Ludgate Circus some 
 one addressed him over his shoulder. 
 
 * Good evening, Tom ; pleixsant for the time of 
 year.' 
 
 The speaker was a man of fifty, stout and florid — 
 the latter peculiarity especially marked in his nose; 
 he looked like a substantial merchant, and spoke with 
 rather pompous geniality. Thrusting his arm through 
 the clerk's, he walked with him over Blackfriars Bridge, 
 talking in the friendliest strain of things impersonal. 
 Bevond the bridge — 
 
 ' Do you tram it ? ' he asked, glancing upwards. 
 
 ' I think so, Mr. Warbeck," answered the other, whose 
 tone to his acquaintance was very respectful. 
 
 ' Ah ! I ""m afraid it would make me late. — Oh, by 
 the bve, Tom, I 'm really ashamed — most awkward that 
 this kind of thing happens so often, but — could you, do 
 you think ? — No, no ; one sovereign only. Let me make 
 a note of it by the light of this shop-window. Really. 
 the total is getting quite considerable. Tut, tut ! You 
 shall have a cheque in a day or two. Oh, it can*t run 
 on any longer; I'm completely ashamed of myself. 
 Entirely temporary — as I explained. A checjue on 
 Wednesday at latest. Good-bye, Tom."' 
 
 Thev shook hands cordially, and Mr. Warbeck went 
 off' in a hansom. Thomas Bird, changing his mind 
 about the tram, walked all the way home, and with bent 
 head. One would have thought that he had just done 
 something discreditable. 
 
 He was wondering, not for the first time, whether Mrs. 
 Warbeck knew or suspected that her husband was in 
 debt to him. Miss Warbeck —Alma Warbeck — a.ssuredly
 
 THE SALT OF THP: EARTH 269 
 
 had never dreamed of such a thing. The system of 
 casual loans dated from nearly twelve months ago, and 
 the total was now not much less tlian thirty pounds. 
 Mr. Warbeck never failed to declare that he was 
 ashamed of himself, but probably the creditor experi- 
 enced more discomfort of that kind. At the first play- 
 ful demand Thomas felt a shock. He had known the 
 Warbecks since he was a Jad, had always respected them 
 as somewhat his social superiors, and, as time went on, 
 had recognised that the difference of position grew wider : 
 he remaining stationary, while his friends progressed to a 
 larger way of living. But they were, he thought, no less 
 kind to him ; Mrs. Warbeck invited him to the house 
 about once a month, and Alma — Alma talked with him 
 in such a pleasant, homely way. Did their expenditure 
 outrun their means ? He would never have supposed it, 
 but for the City man's singular behaviour. About the 
 cheque so often promised he cared little, but with all his 
 heart he hoped Mrs. Warbeck did not know. 
 
 Somewhere near Camberwell Green, just as he had 
 resumed the debate about his purchases, a middle-aged 
 woman met him with friendly greeting. Her appear- 
 ance was that of a decent shopkeeper''s wife. 
 
 ' I 'm so glad I 've met you, Mr. Bird. I know you'll 
 be anxious to hear how our poor friend is getting on."" 
 
 She spoke of the daughter of a decayed tradesman, a 
 weak and overworked girl, who had lain for some weeks 
 in St. Thomas's Hospital. Mrs. Pritchard, a gadabout 
 infected with philanthropy, was fond of discovering such 
 cases, and in everyday conversation made the most of 
 her charitable efforts. 
 
 'They'll allow her out in another week,' she pur- 
 sued. ' But, of course, she can't expect to be fit for 
 
 L
 
 270 THE SALT OF THE EAUTII 
 
 aiivthins for a time. Aiul I very imu-li douht wlu'ther 
 she'll ever get the right use of her linihs again. But 
 what we have to think of now is to get her some detent 
 clothing. The poor thing has positively nothing. 
 I 'm going to sj)eak to Mrs. Douhleday, and a few other 
 peoj)le. lleally, Mr. Bird, if it weren't that I \'e pre- 
 sumed on your good nature so often lately ^ 
 
 She paused and smiled unctuously at him. 
 ' I 'm afraid I can't do niwch/ faltered Thomas, redden- 
 ing at the vision of a new ' chimney-])ot.'' 
 
 ' No, no ; of coui-se not. I 'm sure 1 should never 
 expect — it's only that every little — however little — does 
 help, you know.' 
 
 Thomas thrust a hand into his pocket and brought 
 out a Horin, which Mrs. Pritchard pursed with effusive 
 thanks. 
 
 Certain of this good woman's critics doubted her com- 
 petence as a trustee, but Thomas liird had no such mis- 
 giving. He talked with kindly interest of the unfortunate 
 «'irl, and wished her well in a voice that carried con- 
 viction. 
 
 xlis lodgings were a pair of very small, mouldy, and 
 ill-furnished rooms; he took them unwillingly, overcome 
 by the landlady's doleful story of their long lodgerless 
 condition, and, in the exercise of a heavenly forbearance, 
 remained year after year. The woman did not cheat him, 
 and Thomas knew enough of life to resj)ect her for this 
 remaikable honesty ; she was .simply an ailing, lachrymose 
 slut, incapable of cflbrt. Her son, a lad who had failed 
 in several employments from sheer feebleness of mind and 
 body, practically owed his subsistence to Thomas liird, 
 whose good ofiices liad at length established the poor 
 fellow at a haiidresser's. To sit frequently for an hour
 
 THE SALT OF THE EARTH 271 
 
 at a time, as Thomas did, listening with attention to Mrs. 
 Batty 's talk of her own and her son's ailments, was in 
 itself a marvel of charity. This evening she met him as 
 he entered, and lighted him into his room. 
 
 'There's a letter come for you, Mr. Bird. I put it 
 
 down somewheres — why, now, where did I ? Oh, 'ere 
 
 it is. You '11 be glad to 'ear as Sam did his first shave 
 to-day, an' his 'and didn't tremble much neither.' 
 
 Burning with desire to open the letter, which he saw 
 was from Mrs. Warbeck, Thomas stood patiently until 
 the flow of words began to gurgle away amid groans and 
 pantings. 
 
 ' Well,' he cried gaily, ' didn't I promise Sam a shilling 
 when he 'd done his first shave ? If I didn't I ought to 
 have done, and here it is for him.' 
 
 Then he hurried into the bedroom, and read his letter 
 by candle-light. It was a short scrawl on thin, scented, 
 pink-hued notepaper. Would he do Mrs. Warbeck the 
 ' favour ' of looking in before ten to-night ? No ex- 
 planation of this unusually worded request ; and Thomas 
 fell at once into a tremor of anxiety. With a hurried 
 glance at his watch, he began to make ready for the 
 visit, struggling with drawers which would neither open 
 nor shut, and driven to despair by the damp condition 
 of his clean linen. 
 
 In this room, locked away from all eyes but his own, 
 lay certain relics which Thomas worshipped. One was 
 a photograph of a girl of fifteen. At that age Alma 
 Warbeck promised little charm, and the photograph 
 allowed her less ; but it was then that Thomas Bird 
 became her bondman, as he had ever since remained. 
 There was also a letter, the only one that he had ever 
 received from her — 'Dear Mr. Bird, — Mamma says will
 
 i372 Till': SALT OF TUK KAltTII 
 
 vou l)iiv Iter some more of those jrzcjncb.s at the shop in 
 the city, and bring them on Sunihiy. — Yours sincerely, 
 Ahna Warheck ' — written when she wjis sixteen, seven 
 years ago. Moreover, tiiere was a playbill, used by Ahna 
 on the single occasion when he accompanied the family 
 to a theatre. 
 
 Never had he dared to breatlie a syllable of what he 
 thought — ' hoj)ed' would misrejiresent him, for Thomas 
 in this matter had always stiHed hope. Indeed, hope 
 would have been irrational. In the course of lier teens 
 Ahna grew tall and well j)ropoitioned ; not beautiful of 
 feature, but pleasing ; not brilliant in personalitv, but 
 good-natured ; fairly intelligent and modei'ately ambi- 
 tious. She was the only daughter of a dubiously active 
 coinmission-agent, and must deem it good fortune if she 
 married a man with three or four luuulred a year; but 
 Thomas Bird had no more than his twelve ])ounds a 
 month, and did not venture to call himself a gentleman. 
 In Alma he found the essentials of true ladyhood — per- 
 haps with reason ; he had never heard her sav an ill- 
 natured thing, nor seen uj)on her face a look which 
 j)ained his acute .sensibilities ; she was unpretentious, of 
 eijual temper, nothing of a gossip, kindly disj)osed. 
 Never for a moment had he Hattered himself that Alma 
 perceived his devotion or cared for him tjtherwise than 
 JUS for an old friend. Hut thought is free, and so is love. 
 The modest clerk liad made this girl the light of his 
 life, and whether far oi' near the rays of that ideal 
 would guide him on his unworldly j)alli. 
 
 New shaven and freshly clad, he set out for the 
 Warbecks' house, which was in a near part of Brixton. 
 Not an imposing house bv any means, but an object of 
 reverence to Thomas liird. A servant whom he did
 
 THE SALT OF THE EARTH 273 
 
 not recognise — servants came and went at the War- 
 becks' — admitted him to the drawing-room, which was 
 vacant ; there, his eyes wandering about the gimcrack 
 f'uniitare, which he never found in the same arrange- 
 ment at two successive visits, he waited till his hostess 
 came in. 
 
 Mrs. Warbeck was very stout, very plain, and rather 
 untidy, yet her countenance made an impression not on 
 the whole disagreeable ; with her wide eyes, slightly 
 parted lips, her homely smile, and unadorned speech, 
 she counteracted in some measure the effect, upon a 
 critical observer, of the irretentions ugliness with which 
 she was surrounded. Thomas thought her a straight- 
 forward woman, and jierhaps was not misled by his 
 partiality. Certainly the tone in which she now began, 
 and the tenor of her remarks, repelled suspicion of 
 duplicity. 
 
 ' Well, now, Mr. Thomas, I wish to have a talk.' 
 She had thus styled him since he grcAv too old to be 
 called Tom ; that is to say, since he was seventeen. 
 He was now thirty-one. 'And I'm going to talk to 
 you just like the old friends we are. You see .? No 
 nonsense ; no beating about the bush. You 'd rather 
 have it so, wouldn't you ? ' Scarce able to articulate, 
 the visitor showed a cheery assent. ' Yes, I was sure of 
 that. Now — better come to the point at once — my 
 daughter is — well, no, she isn't yet, but the fact is I 
 feel sure she '11 very soon be engaged.' 
 
 The blow was softened by Thomas's relief at discover- 
 ing that money would not be the subject of their talk, 
 yet it fell upon him, and he winced. 
 
 ' You 've expected it,' pursued the lady, with bluff 
 good-humour. ' Yes, of course you have.' She said
 
 274 THE SALT OF THE EARTH 
 
 ' 'ave,' a weakness happily unshared bv her daughter. 
 ' We don't want it talked about, but I know vou can 
 hold your tongue. Well, it's young Mr. Fisher, of 
 Nokes, Fisher and Co. We haven't known him long, 
 but he took from the first to Alma, and I have ray 
 reasons for believing that the feeling is mutial, though 
 I wouldn't for the world let Alma hear me say so."* 
 
 ' Young Mr. Fisher. Thomas knew of him ; a capable 
 business man, and son of a worthy father. He kept his 
 teeth close, his eyes down. 
 
 ' And now,' pursued Mrs. Warbeck, becoming still 
 more genial, ' I 'm getting round to the unpleasant side 
 of the talk, though I don't see that it need be un- 
 pleasant. We're old friends, and where ""s the use of 
 being friendly if you can't speak your mind, when speak 
 you must .'' It comes to this : I just want to ask vou 
 (luite straightforward, not to be offended or take it ill 
 if we don't ask you to come here till this business is over 
 and settled. You see? The fact is, we've told Mr. 
 Fisher he can look in whenever he likes, and it might 
 liaj)pen, you know, that he 'd meet you here, and, speak- 
 ing like old friends — I think it better not.' 
 
 A fire burneil in the listener's cheeks, a noise buzzed 
 in his ears. He understood the motive of this frank re- 
 quest ; humble as ever — never humbler than when beneath 
 this roof— -he was ready to avow himself Mr. Fisher's 
 inferior; but with all his heart he wished that Mrs. 
 Warbeck had found some other way of holding him aloof 
 from her prospective son-in-law. 
 
 'Of course,' continued the woman stolidly, 'Alma 
 doesn't know I'm saying this. It's just between our 
 two selves. I haven't even spoken of it to Mr. Warbeck. 
 1 in (juite sure that you '11 understand that we 're obliged
 
 THE SALT OF THE EARTH 275 
 
 to make a lew changes in the way weVe lived. It's all 
 very well for you and me to be comfortable together, and 
 laugh and talk about all sorts of things, but with one 
 like Alma in the ouse, and the friends she 's making and 
 the company that 's likely to come here — now you do 
 see what I mean, donH you, now ? And you won't take 
 it the wrong way ? No, I was sure you wouldn't. There, 
 now, we '11 shake 'ands over it, and be as good friends 
 as ever.' The handshaking was metaphorical merely. 
 Thomas smiled, and was endeavouring to shape a sentence, 
 when he heard voices out in the hall. 
 
 ' There 's Alma and her father back,' said Mrs. War- 
 beck. ' I didn't think they 'd come back so soon ; 
 they 've been with some new friends of ours,' Thomas 
 jumped up, 
 
 ' I can't — I 'd rather not see them, please, Mrs. War- 
 beck. Can you prevent it ? ' His voice startled her 
 somewhat, and she hesitated. A gesture of entreaty 
 sent her from the room. As the door opened Alma 
 was heard laughing merrily ; then came silence. In a 
 minute or two the hostess returned and the visitor, falter- 
 ing, ' Thank you, I quite understand,' quietly left the 
 house. 
 
 For three weeks he crossed and recrossed Blackfriars 
 Bridge without meeting Mr, Warbeck, His look was 
 perhaps graver, his movements less alert, but he had 
 not noticeably changed ; his life kept its wonted tenor. 
 The florid-nosed gentleman at length came face *to face 
 with him on Ludgate Hill in the dinner-hour — an em- 
 barrassment to both. Speedily recovering self-possession 
 Mr. Warbeck pressed the clerk's hand with fervour and 
 drew him aside, 
 
 ' I 've been wanting to see you, Tom, So you keep
 
 276 TH1-: SALl^ OF THE EARTH 
 
 awav from us, do voii ? I luiderstftiul. The old lady 
 has given me a i|uict hint. Well, well, vou Ve i|uite 
 riirht, and I honour you for it, Tom. Nothing selfish 
 about you\ you keej) it all to yourself; I honour vou 
 for it, my dear bov. Antl |)erhaj)s 1 had better tell you. 
 Alma is to be marriotl in January. After that, same as 
 before, won't it be.'* — Have a jrliiss of wine with me.? 
 No time ? We must have a (juict dinner tot^ether some 
 evening; one of the old cho|) houses. — There was some- 
 thing else I wanted to speak about, but I see you Ve in 
 a hurry. All right, it'll do next time."" 
 
 He waved his hand and was gone. When next they 
 encountered Mr. Warbcck made bold to borrow ten 
 shillings, without the most distant allusion to his out- 
 standing debt. 
 
 Thomas liird found comfort in the assurance that 
 Mrs. ^\^•lrl)e(•k had kejtl }u'r secret as the borrower kept 
 hhs. 
 
 Alma's father was not utterly dishonoured in his 
 sight. 
 
 One dav in January, Thom.as, pleading indisposition, 
 left work at twelve. He had a cold and a headache, 
 and felt more miserable than at any time since his 
 school-days. As he rode home in an omnibus Mr. and 
 Mrs. Warbeck were entertaining friends at the wedding- 
 breakfast, and Thomas knew it. For an hour or two 
 in the afternoon he sat patiently under liis landlady's 
 talk, but a fit of nervous exasperation at length drove 
 him foi th, and he did not return till supj)er-time. Just 
 as he .sat down to a basin of gruel, Mrs. Hatty admitted 
 a boy who biought him a message. ' Mother sent me 
 round, Mr. liird,' said the mesK?nger, 'and she wants to 
 know if you could just come and .see her; it's something
 
 THE SALT OF THE EARTH 277 
 
 about father. He had some work to do, but he hasn't 
 come home to do it/ 
 
 AVithout speaking Thomas ecjuipped himself and walked 
 a quarter of a mile to the lodgings of a married friend 
 of his — a clerk chronically out of work, and too often in 
 liquor. The wife received him with tears. After eight 
 weeks without earning a penny, her husband had obtained 
 the job of addressing five hundred envelopes, to be done 
 at home and speedily. Tempted forth by an acquaintance 
 'for half a minute'' as he sat down to the task, he had 
 been absent for three houis, and would certainly return 
 unfit for work. 
 
 ' It isn't only the money,' sobbed his wife, ' but it 
 might have got him more work, and now, of course, he's 
 lost the chance, and we haven't nothing more than a 
 crust of bread left. And ' 
 
 Thomas slipped half- a- crown into her hand and 
 whispered, ' Send Jack before the shops close.' Then, to 
 escape thanks, he shouted out, ' Where 's these blessetl 
 envelopes, and where 's the addresses ? All right, just 
 leave me this corner of the table and don't speak to me 
 as long as I sit here.' 
 
 Between half-past nine and half-past twelve, at the 
 rate of eighty an hour, he addressed all but half the five 
 hundred envelopes. Then his fiiend appeared, dolefully 
 drunk. Thomas would not look at him. 
 
 'He'll finish the rest by dinner to-morrow,' said the 
 miserable wife, ' and that 's in time.' 
 
 So Thomas Bird went home. He felt better at 
 heart, and blamed himself for his weakness during 
 the day. He blamed himself often enough for this or 
 that, knowing not that such as he are the salt of the 
 earth.
 
 THE PIG AND WHISTJ.E 
 
 • I POSSESS a caj)ital ot" tliirtv tliousand pounds. One- 
 third of this is investt-'d in rail way shares, wliich bear 
 interest at three and a haiC per cent, ; another third 
 is in Government stock, ami produces two and tliree- 
 (juarters per cent. ; the rest is lent on mortgages, at 
 three per cent. Calculate my incon)e for the present 
 year/ 
 
 This kind of problem was constantly being giveri out 
 by Mr. Ruddiman, assistant master at Longmeadows 
 School. Mr. Itutldinian, who had reached the age of 
 five-and- forty, and who never in his life had possessed 
 five-and-forty pounds, u.sed his arithmetic lesson as an 
 opportunity for flight of imagination. When dictating 
 a sum in which he attributed to himself enormous wealth, 
 his eyes twinkled, his slender body struck a dignified 
 attitude, and he smiled over the class with a certain 
 genial condescension. When the calculation proposed 
 did not refer to personal income it generally illustrated 
 the wealth of the nation, in which Mr. J{uddiinan had 
 a proud delight. He would bid his youngsters compute 
 the proceeds of some familiar tax, and the vast sum it 
 represented rolled from his lips on a note of extraordinary 
 satisfaction, as if he gloried in this evidence of national 
 prosperity. His salary at Longmeadows just sufficed to 
 keep him decently clad and to support him during the 
 
 278
 
 THE PIG AND WHISTLE 279 
 
 holidays. He had been a master here for seven years, 
 and earnestly hoped that his services might be retained 
 for at least seven more ; there was very little chance of 
 his ever obtaining a better position, and the thought of 
 being cast adrift, of having to betake himself to the 
 school agencies and enter upon new engagements, gave 
 Mr. Ruddiman a very unpleasant sensation. In his time 
 he had gone through hardships such as naturally befall 
 a teacher without diplomas and possessed of no remark- 
 able gifts ; that he had never broken down in health was 
 the result of an admirable constitution and of much 
 native cheerfulness. Only at such an establishment as 
 I.ongmeadows — an old-fashioned commercial ' academy,' 
 recommended to parents by the healthiness of its rural 
 situation — could he have hoped to hold his ground 
 against modern educational tendencies, which aim at 
 obliterating Mr. Ruddiman and all his kind. Every one 
 liked him ; impossible not to like a man so abounding 
 in kindliness and good humour ; but his knowledge was 
 anything but extensive, and his methods in instruction 
 had a fine flavour of antiquity. Now and then Mr. 
 Ruddiman asked himself what was to become of him 
 when sickness or old age forbade his earning even the 
 modest income upon which he could at present count, 
 but his happy temper dismissed the troublesome reflec- 
 tion. One thing, however, he had decided ; in future 
 he would find some more economical way of spending his 
 holidays. Hitherto he had been guilty of the extrava- 
 gance of taking long journeys to see members of his 
 scattered family, or of going to the seaside, or of amus- 
 ing himself (oh, how innocently !) in I>ondon. This kind 
 of thing must really stop. In the coming summer 
 vacation he had determined to save at least five sovereigns,
 
 280 THE PIG AND WHISTLE 
 
 and he fancied he had discovered a sinij)le way of 
 tloing it. 
 
 On pleasant afternoons, when he was ' off dutv/ Mr. 
 Ruddinian liked to have a lonijj ramble by himself about 
 the fields and lanes. In solitude he was never dull; had 
 you met him during one of these afternoon walks, more 
 likely than not you would have seen a gentle smile on 
 his visage as he walked with head bent. Not that his 
 thoughts w(M'e definitely of agi-eeable things ; consciously 
 he thought perhaps of nothing at all ; but he liked the 
 sunshine and country cjuiet, and the sense of momentary 
 independence. Every one would have known him for 
 what he was. His dress, his gait, his countenance, 
 declared the under-master. Mr. Huddiman never carried 
 a walking-stick ; that would have seemed to him to be 
 arrogating a social position to which he had no claim. 
 Generallvhc held his hands toirether behind him; if not 
 so, one of them would dip its fingers into a waistcoat 
 pocket and the other grasj) the lapel of his coat. If 
 anything he looked rather less than his age, a result, 
 perhaps, of having always lived with the young. His 
 features were agreeably insignificant ; his body, though 
 slight of build, had something of athlitic outline, due to 
 long pi'actice at cricket, football, and hockev. 
 
 if he had rather more time than usual at his disposal 
 he walked txs far as the Pig and Whistle, a picturesque 
 little wayside inn, which stood alone, at more than a 
 mile from the nearest village. 'I'o reach the Pig and 
 W^histle one climbed a long, slow a.scent, and in warm 
 weather few pedestrians, or, for the matter of that, folks 
 driving or riding, could resist the suggestion of the ivy- 
 shadowed porch whi.'h admitted to the (piaint parlour. 
 So long wiis it since the swinging sign had been painted
 
 THE PIG AND WHISTLE 281 
 
 that neither of Pig nor of Whistle was any trace now dis- 
 coverable ; but over the porch one read clearly enough 
 the landlord's name : William Fouracres. Only three 
 years ago had Mr. Fouracres established himself here; 
 Ruddiman remembered his predecessor, with whom he 
 had often chatted whilst drinking his modest bottle of 
 ginger beer. The present landlord was a very different 
 sort of man, less affable, not disposed to show himself to 
 every comer. Customers were generally served by the 
 landlord's daughter, and with her Mr. Ruddiman had 
 come to be on very pleasant terms. 
 
 But as this remark may easily convey a false impres- 
 sion, it must be added that Miss Fouracres was a very 
 discreet, well-spoken, deliberate person, of at least two- 
 and- thirty. Mr. Ruddiman had known her for more 
 than a year before anything save brief civilities passed 
 between them. In the second twelvemonth of their 
 acquaintance they reached the point of exclianging 
 reminiscences as to the weather, discussing the agricultural 
 prospects of the county, and remarking on the advantage 
 to rural innkeepers of the fashion of bicycling. In the 
 third year they were quite intimate ; so intimate, indeed, 
 that when Mr. Fouracres chanced to be absent they spoke 
 of his remarkable history. For the landlord of the Pig 
 and Whistle had a history worth talking about, and 
 Mr. Ruddiman had learnt it from the landlord's own 
 lips. Miss Fouracres would never have touched upon 
 the subject with any one in whom she did not feel con- 
 fidence ; to her it was far from agreeable, and Mr. 
 Ruddiman established himself in her esteem by taking 
 the same view of the matter. 
 
 Well, one July afternoon, when the summer vacation 
 drew near, the under-master perspired up the sunny
 
 282 THE VIG AND WHIS'Jl.E 
 
 road willi juiother obiect than that of refrosliincr himself 
 at the familiar little inn. He entered bv the ivied 
 porch, and within, as usual, found Miss Fourarres, who 
 sat behind the bar sewing. Miss Fouracres wore a long 
 white apron, which protected her dross from neck to 
 feet, and gave her an apj)earance of great neatness and 
 coolness. She had a fresh complexion, and features 
 which made no disagreeable impression. At sight of 
 the visitor she rose, and, as her habit was, stood with 
 one hand touching her chiii, whilst .she smiled the dis- 
 creetest of modest welcomes. 
 
 ' Good day. Miss Fouracres,"* said the under- master, 
 after his usual little cough. 
 
 '(iood day, sir,' was the replv, in a country voice 
 which had a peculiar note of honesty. Miss Fouracres 
 had never yet learnt her acquaintance's name. 
 
 'Splendid weather for the cro])s. I '11 take a ginger- 
 beer, if you please.' 
 
 ' Indeed, that it is, sir. Ginger-beer; yes, sir."' 
 
 Then followed two or three minutes of silence. Miss 
 Fouracres had resumed her sewing, though not her seat. 
 Mr. Ruddiman si])pod his beverage more gravely than 
 usual. 
 
 'How is Mr. Fouracres.''' he asked at length. 
 
 'I'm sorry to say, sir,' was the subdued reph, ' that 
 he '8 thinking about the Prince.' 
 
 'Oh, dear ! ' sighed Mr. Jtuddiman, as one for whom 
 this mysterious answer had distressing significance. 
 ' 'I'hat 's a great pitv.' 
 
 ' Yes, sir. And I 'm sorry to say,^ went on Miss 
 Fouracres, in the same confidential tone, ' that the IVince 
 i-^ coming hcj-e. I don't mean here, sir, to the l*ig and 
 Whistle, but to Woodbury Manor. Father saw it in
 
 THE PIG AND WHISTLE 283 
 
 the newspa[)er, and since then he 's had no rest, day or 
 night. He 's sitting out in the garden. I don't know 
 whether you'd like to go and speak to him, sir?"" 
 
 'I will. Yes, I certainly will. But there's some- 
 thing I should like to ask you about first. Miss Fouracres. 
 I ""m thinking of staying in this part of the country 
 through the holidays"' — long ago he had made known 
 his position — ' and it has struck me that perhaps I could 
 lodge here. Could you let me have a room ? Just a 
 bedroom would be enough.'' 
 
 ' Why, yes, sir,' replied the landlord's daughter. ' We 
 have two bedrooms, vou know, and I \e no doubt my 
 father would be willing to arrange with you.' 
 
 ' Ah, then I '11 mention it to him. Is he in very low 
 spirits .'' ' 
 
 'He's unusual low to-day, sir. I shouldn't wonder if 
 it did him good to see you, and talk a bit.' 
 
 Having finished his ginger-beer, Mr. Ruddiman walked 
 through the house and passed out into the garden, where 
 he at once became aware of Mr. Fouracres. The land- 
 lord, a man of sixty, with grizzled hair and large, heavy 
 countenance, sat in a rustic chair under an apple-tree ; 
 beside him was a little table, on which stood a bottle of 
 whisky and a glass. Approaching, Mr. Ruddiman saw 
 reason to suspect that the landlord had partaken too 
 freely of the refreshment ready to his hand. Mr. Four- 
 acres' person was in a limp state ; his cheeks were very 
 highly coloured, and his head kept nodding as he 
 muttered to himself. At the visitor's greeting he looked 
 up with a sudden surprise, as though he resented an 
 intrusion on his privacy. 
 
 ' It 's very hot, Mr. Fouracres,' the under-master went 
 on to remark with cordiality.
 
 284 THE I'lG AND WHISTLE 
 
 'Hot? I daresay it is," rej)lied the landlord severely. 
 ' And what else do you exj)cct at this time of the year, 
 sir ? ' 
 
 ' Just so, Mr. Fouracres, just so ! ' said the other, jvs 
 good-humouredly as possible. ' You don't find it un- 
 pleasant .'' ^ 
 
 ' Whv should I, sir .'' It was a good deal hotter day 
 than this when His Royal Hij;liness called upon me; a 
 good deal hotter. The IViiue didn't conij)lain ; not he. 
 He said to me — I'm speaking of His Royal Highness, 
 vou understand ; I hope you understand that, sir.'*' 
 
 ' Oh, perfectly ! ' 
 
 ' His words were — " Very seasonable weather, Mr. 
 Fouracres."" I 'm not likely to forget what he said ; so 
 it 's no use you or any one else trying to make out that 
 he didn't say that. I tell you he did! " V^erv season- 
 able weather, Mr. Fouracres" — calling me bv name, just 
 like that. And it 's no good vou nor anybody else ' 
 
 The effort of repeating the Prince's utterance with 
 wliat was meant to be a princelv accent proved so 
 exhausting to Mr. Fouracres that he sank together in 
 his chair and lost all power of coherent speech. In a 
 moment he seemed to be sleeping. Having watched 
 bim a little while, Mr. Jtuddiman spoke his name, and 
 tried to attract his attention ; finding it useless he went 
 back into the inn. 
 
 ' I'm afraid I shall have to put it off" to another day, 
 was his remark to the latidlord's daughter. ' Mr. Four- 
 acres is — rather drowsy.' 
 
 ' Ah, sir ! ' sighed the voung woman. • I 'm sorry to 
 say lie's often been like that lately.^ 
 
 Tbeir eyes met, but only for an instant. Mi. Ruddi- 
 maii looked and felt unc(»mlortable.
 
 THE riG AND WHISTLE 285 
 
 •I'll come again very soon, Miss Fouracres,' he said. 
 * You might just speak to your father about the room."' 
 
 'Thank you, sir. I will, sir.' 
 
 And, with another uneasy glance, which was not 
 returned, the under-master went his way. Descending 
 towards Longmeadows, he thought over the innkeeper's 
 story, which may be briefly related. Some ten years 
 before this Mr. Fouracres occupied a very comfortable 
 position; he was landlord of a flourishing inn — called an 
 hotel — in a little town of sonie importance as an agri- 
 cultural centre, and seemed perfectly content with the 
 life and the society natural to a man so circumstanced. 
 His manners were marked by a certain touch of pomp- 
 ousness, and he liked to dwell upon the excellence of 
 the entertainment which his house afforded, but these 
 were innocent characteristics which did not interfere 
 with his reputation as a sensible and sound man of 
 business. It happened one day that two gentlemen on 
 horseback, evidently riding for their pleasure, stopped at 
 the inn door, and, after a few inquiries, announced that 
 they would alight and have lunch. Mr. Fouracres — 
 who himself received these gentlemen — regarded one of 
 them with much curiosity, and presently came to the 
 startling conclusion that he was about to entertain no 
 less a person than the Heir Apparent. He knew that 
 the Prince was then staying at a great house some ten 
 miles away, and there could be no doubt that one of his 
 guests had a strong resemblance to the familiar portraits 
 of His Royal Highness. In his excitement at the 
 supposed discovery, Mr. Fouracres at once communicated 
 it to those about him, and in a very few minutes half 
 the town had heard the news. Of course the host would 
 allow no one but himself to wait at the royal table — '
 
 286 THE PIG AND WHISTLE 
 
 which was spread in the inn's best room, guarded againi«t 
 all intrusion. In vain, however did he listen foi a word 
 from either of the gentlemen which might confirm his 
 belief; in their conversation no name oi title was used, 
 and no mention made of anything significant. They 
 remained for an hour. When then horses were brought 
 round for them a considerable crowd had gatiiered 
 before the hotel, and the visitors departed amid a 
 demonstration of exuberant loyalty On the following 
 day, one or two persons whc had been present at this 
 scene declared that the two gentlemen showed surprise, 
 and that, though both raised theii liats in acknowleilg- 
 ment of the attention they received, they rode away 
 laughing. 
 
 For the morrow brought d(»ubts. People began to 
 say that the Prince had never been near the town at all, 
 and that evidence could be produced ot his having passed 
 the whole day at the house where he was a visitor. Mr. 
 Fouracres smiled disdainfully ; no assertion or argument 
 availed to shake his j)roud assurance that he had enter- 
 tained the Heir to the Throne. From that day he knew 
 no peace. Fired with an extraordinary arrogance, he 
 viewed as his enemy every one who refused to believe in 
 the Prince's visit ; he (juarrelled violently with many of 
 his best friends ; he brought insulting accusations against 
 all manner of persons. Before long the man was honestly 
 convinced that there existed a conspiracy to rob him of 
 a distinction that was his due. Political animus had, 
 perhaps, something to do with it, for the Liberal news- 
 paper (Mr. Fouracres was a stout Conservative) made 
 more than one malicious joke on the subject. A few 
 townsmen stood by the landlorcPs side and used their 
 ingenuity in discovering plausible reasons why the Prince
 
 THE PIG AND WHISTLE 287 
 
 did not care to have it publicly proclaimed that he had 
 visited the town and lunched at the hotel. These 
 partisans scorned the suggestion that Mr. Fouracres had 
 made a mistake, but they were unable to deny that a 
 letter, addressed to the Prince himself, with a view to 
 putting an end to the debate, had elicited (in a secretarial 
 hand) a brief denial of the landlord's story. Evidently 
 something very mysterious underlay the whole affair, 
 and there was much shaking of heads for a long time. 
 
 To Mr. Fouracres the result of the honour he so 
 strenuously vindicated was serious indeed. By way of 
 defiance to all mockers he wished to change the time- 
 honoured sign of the inn, and to substitute for it the 
 Prince of Wales's Feathers. On this point he came 
 into conflict with the owner of the propei'ty, and, having 
 behaved very violently, received notice that his lease, 
 just expiring, would not be renewed. Whereupon what 
 should Mr. Fouracres do but purchase land and begin 
 to build for himself an hotel twice as large as that he 
 must shortly quit. On this venture he used all, and 
 more than all, his means, and, as every one had prophe- 
 sied, he was soon a ruined man. In less than three 
 years from the fatal day he turned his back upon the 
 town where he had known respect and prosperity, and 
 went forth to earn his living as best he could. After 
 troublous wanderings, on which he was accompanied by 
 his daughter, faithful and devoted, though she had her 
 doubts on a certain subject, the decayed publican at 
 length found a place of rest. A small legacy from a 
 relative had put it in his power to make a new, though 
 humble, beffinnino- in business ; he established himself 
 at the Pig and Whistle. 
 
 The condition in which he had to-day been discovered
 
 288 THE I'lG AND WHISTLE 
 
 by Mr. UiuKHiimn was not habitual witli liiin. Once 
 a month, perhaps, his niehincholv thoughts drove him 
 to the bottle ; for the most part he led a sullen, brood- 
 ing life, indifferent to the state of his affairs, and only 
 animated when he found a new and apj)reciative listener 
 to the story of his wrongs. That he hut! been grievously 
 wronged was Mr. Fouracres'' iunnutable conviction. Not 
 by His Royal Highness; the Prince knew nothing of 
 the strange conspiracy wliich had resulted in Fouracres" 
 ruin; letters acUh'cssed to His Royal Highness were 
 evidently intercepted by underlings, and never came 
 before the royal eyes. Again antl again had Mr. Four- 
 acres written long statements of his case, and petitioned 
 for an autlience. He was now resolved to adopt other 
 methods ; he would use the first opportunity of approach- 
 ing the Prince's person, and lifting up his voice where 
 he could not but be heard. He sought no vulgar gain ; 
 his only desire was to have this fact recognised, that he 
 had, indeed, entertained the Prince, and so put to shame 
 all his scornful enemies. And now the desired occasion 
 offered itself. In the month of September His Royal 
 Highness would be a guest at Woodbury Manor, distant 
 only some couple of miles from the Pig and Whistle. 
 It was the excitement of such a prospect which had led 
 Mr. Fouracres to undue indulgence under the aj)ple tree 
 this afternoon. 
 
 A week later Mr. Ruddiniun again ascended the hill, 
 and, after listening patiently to the narrative which he 
 hml heard fifty times, came to an .urangement with Mr. 
 Fouracres about the room he wished to rent for the 
 holidays. The terms were very moderate, and the under- 
 master congratulated himself on this prudent step. He 
 fell sure that a (ouple of months at the l*ig and Whistle
 
 THE PIG AND WHISTLE 289 
 
 would be anything but disagreeable. The situation was 
 high and healthy ; the surroundings were picturesque. 
 And for society, well, there was Miss Fouracres, whom 
 Mr. Ruddinian regarded as a very sensible and pleasant 
 person. 
 
 Of course, no one at Longnieadows had an inkling of 
 the under-niaster's intention. On the day of ' breaking 
 up "* he sent his luggage, as usual, to the nearest railway 
 station, and that same evening had it conveyed by carrier 
 to the little wayside inn, where, much at ease in mind 
 and body, he passed his first night. 
 
 He had a few books with him, but Mr. Ruddiman 
 was not much of a reader. In the garden of the inn, 
 or somewhere near by, he found a spot of shade, and 
 there, pipe in mouth, was content to fleet the hours as 
 they did in the golden age. Now and then he tried to 
 awaken his hosfs interest in questions of national finance. 
 It was one of Mr, Ruddiman 's favourite amusements to 
 sketch Budgets in anticipation of that to be presented 
 by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he always con- 
 vinced himself that his own financial expedients were 
 much superior to those laid before Parliament. All 
 sorts of ingenious little imposts were constantly occur- 
 ring to him, and his mouth watered with delight at the 
 sound of millions which might thus be added to the 
 national wealth. But to Mr. Fouracres such matters 
 seemed trivial. A churchwarden between his lips, he 
 appeared to listen, sometimes giving a nod or a grunt ; 
 in reality his thoughts were wandering amid bygone 
 glories, or picturing a day of brilliant revenge. 
 
 Much more satisfactory were the conversations between 
 Mr. Ruddiman and his host's daughter ; they were 
 generally concerned with the budgt't. not of the nation.
 
 290 THE PIG AND WHISTLE 
 
 but of the Pit; and Whistle. Miss Fouracres was a 
 woman of much domestic ability ; she knew how to get 
 the maximum of comfort out of small resources. But 
 for her the inn would have been a wretched little place 
 — as, indeed, it was before her time. Miss Fouracres 
 worked hard and prudentlv. She had no help; the 
 garilen, the ])oultrv, all the cares of house and inn were 
 looked after bv her alone — except, indeed, a few tasks 
 beyond her physical strength, which were disdainfully 
 performed by the landlord. A pony and cart served 
 chiefly to give Mr. Fouracres an airing when his life 
 of sedentary dignity grew burdensome. One after- 
 noon, when he had driven to the market town, his 
 daughter and her guest were in the garden together, 
 gathering broad beans and gossiping with nuuh con- 
 tentment. 
 
 ' I wish I could always live here ! "* exclaimed Mr. 
 Kuddiman, after standing for a moment with eyes fixed 
 meditatively upon a very large pod which he had just 
 picked. 
 
 Miss Fouracres looked at him as if in surprise, her 
 left hand clasping her chin. 
 
 ' Ah, you 'd soon get tired of it, sir."" 
 
 •I sliouldn''t ! No, Pm sure I shouldn't. I like this 
 life. It suits me. I like it a thousand times better than 
 teaching in a school.' 
 
 ''J'hat's yom- fancy, sir.' 
 
 As Miss Fouracres spoke a sound from the house drew 
 her attention ; some one had entered the inn. 
 
 ' A customer .'' ' said Mr. Kuddiman. ' Let me go and 
 serve him — do let me ! "■ 
 
 ' Hut you wouldn't know how, sir.' 
 
 'If it's beei-, and that 's most likely, I know well
 
 THE PIG AND WHISTLE 291 
 
 enough. I \'e watched you so often. 1 '11 go and 
 see.' 
 
 With the face of a schoolboy he ran into the house, and 
 was absent about ten minutes. Then he reappeared, 
 chinking coppers in his hand and laughing gleefully. 
 
 ' A cyclist ! Pint of half-and-half ! I served him as 
 if I 'd done nothing else all my life.'' 
 
 Miss Fouracres looked at him with wonder and admir- 
 ation. She did not laugh ; demonstrative mirth was 
 not one of her characteristics ; but for a long time there 
 dwelt upon her good, plain countenance a half-smile of 
 placid contentment. When they went in together, Mr. 
 Ruddiman begged her to teach him all the mysteries 
 of the bar, and his request was willingly granted. In 
 this way they amused themselves until the return of 
 the landlord, who, as soon as he had stabled his pony, 
 called Mr. Ruddiman aside, and said in a hoarse 
 whisper — 
 
 ' The Prince comes to-morrow ! "* 
 
 ' Ha ! does he ? ' was the answer, in a tone of feigned 
 interest. 
 
 ' I shall see him. It's all settled. I Ve made friends 
 with one of the gardeners at Woodbury Manor, and he 's 
 promised to put me in the way of meeting His Royal 
 Highness. I shall have to go over there for a day or 
 two, and stay in Woodbury, to be on the spot when the 
 chance offers.' 
 
 Mr. Fouracres had evidently been making his compact 
 with the aid of strong liquor ; he walked unsteadily, and 
 in other ways betrayed imperfect command of himself. 
 Presently, at the tea-table, he revealed to his daughter 
 the great opportunity which lay before him, and spoke 
 of the absence from home it would necessitate.
 
 ^92 THE PIG AND \V1I1ST1,E 
 
 ' Of course voiril do ;is you like, fatlier,' repliid Miss 
 Fouracres, with her usual deliberation, and quite good- 
 humouredly, ' but I think you >e going on a fool's errand, 
 and that I tell you plain. If you 'd just forget nil about 
 the Prince, and settle down quiet at the Pig and Whistle, 
 it 'ud be a good deal better for xou." 
 
 The landlord regarded her with surprise and scorn. 
 It was the first time that his daughter had ventured to 
 express herself so unniistakablv. 
 
 ' The Pig and Whistle ! ' he exclaimed. ' A jiothouse ! 
 I who have kept an hotel and entertained His Iloval 
 Highness. You speak like an ignorant woman. Hold 
 your tongue, and don''t dare to let me hear your voice 
 again until to-nioriow morning ! ' 
 
 Miss Fouracres obeyed him. She was absolutely mute 
 for the rest of the evening, save when obliged to ex- 
 change a word or two with rustic company or in the 
 taproom. Her features expressed uneasiness rather than 
 mortification. 
 
 The next day, after an eaily breakfast, Mr. Fouracres 
 set forth to the town oi' \Voodbury. He had the face of 
 a man with a fixed idea, and looked more obstinate, 
 more unintelligent than ever. 'J\) his daughter he had 
 spoken only a few cold words, and his hist bidding to 
 her was 'Take care of the j)othouse ! "* This treatment 
 gave Miss Fouracres nnich pain, for she was a soft- 
 hearted woman, and had never been anything but loyal 
 and afTectionate to her father all through his disastrous 
 years. Moreover, she liked the Pig and Whistle, and 
 could not bear to hear it spoken of disdainfully. 
 Before the soujid of the cart had died away she had 
 to wipe moistin'e from her eyes, and at the moment when 
 she was doing so Mr. Kuddiman came into the parlour.
 
 THE PIG AND WHISTLE 293 
 
 ' Has Mr. Fouracres gone ? "* asked the guest, with 
 embarrassment. 
 
 ' Just gone, sir,' replied the young woman, half turned 
 away, and nervously fingering her chin. 
 
 ' I shouldn't trouble about it if I were you, Miss 
 Fouracres,"" said Mr. Ruddiman in a tone of friendly 
 encouragement. ' He '11 soon be back, he '11 soon be back, 
 and you may depend upon it there '11 be no harm done.' 
 
 ' I hope so, sir, but I 've an uneasy sort of feeling ; I 
 have indeed.' 
 
 'Don't you worry. Miss Fouracres. When the Prince 
 has gone away he '11 be better.' 
 
 Miss Fouracres stood for a moment with eyes cast 
 down, then, looking gravely at Mr. Ruddiman, said in 
 a sorrowful voice — 
 
 ' He calls the Pig and Whistle a pothouse.' 
 
 ' Ah, that was wrong of him ! ' protested the other, 
 no less earnestly. ' A pothouse, indeed ! Why, it 's one 
 of the nicest little inns you could find anywhere. I 'm 
 getting fond of the Pig and Whistle. A pothouse, indeed ! 
 No, I call that shameful.' 
 
 The listener's eyes shone with gTatification. 
 
 * Of course we 've got to remember,' she said more 
 softly, ' that father has known very different things.' 
 
 ' I don't care what he has known ! ' cried Mr. Ruddi- 
 man. ' I hope I may never have a worse home than the 
 Pig and Whistle. And I only wish I could live here all 
 the rest of my life, instead of going back to that beastly 
 school ! ' 
 
 'Don't you like the school, Mr. Ruddiman?' 
 
 * Oh, I can't say I disWke it. But since I 've been 
 living here — well, it's no use thinking of impossi- 
 bilities.'
 
 9J)4' niE I'lG AND WHISTLE 
 
 Towards middav the pony and trap came back, driven 
 bv a lad from Woodbury, who had business in this direc- 
 tion. Miss Fouracres asked him to unharness and 
 stable the pony, and whilst this was being done Mr. 
 Ruddiman stood bv, studiously observant. He had 
 pleasure in everv detail of the inn life. To-day he 
 several times waited upon passing guests, and laughed 
 exultantly at the perfection he was attaining. Miss 
 Fouracres seemed hardly less pleased, but when alone 
 she still wore an anxious look, and occasionally heaved 
 a sigh of trouble. 
 
 Mr. Ruddiman, as usual, took an early supper, and 
 soon after went up to his room. By ten o'clock the 
 house was closed, and all through the night no sound 
 disturbed the peace of the Pig and Whistle. 
 
 The morrow passed without news of Mr. Fouracres. 
 On the morning after, just Jis Mr. Ruddiman wj\s finish- 
 ing his breakfast, alone in the parlour, he heard a loud 
 cry of distress from the front part of the inn. Rushing 
 out to see what was the matter, he found Miss Fouracres 
 in agitated talk with a man on horseback. 
 
 * Ah, what did I say ! ' she cried at sight of the 
 guest. ' Didn't I knoxv something was going to happen ? 
 I must go at once— I must put in the pony ' 
 
 ' I '11 do that for you,' said Mr. Ruddiman. ' Rut 
 what has happened?' 
 
 The horseman, a messenger from Woodbury, told a 
 strange tale. Very early this morning, a gardener walk- 
 ing through the grounds at Woodbury Manor, and pass- 
 ing bv a little lake or lishpond, saw the body of a man 
 lying in the water, which at this point was not three feet 
 in clej)th. He drew the corpse to the bank, and, in so 
 doing, recognised his accjuaintance, Mr. Fouracres, with
 
 THE PIG AND WHISTLE 295 
 
 whom he had spent an hour or two at a public-house in 
 Woodbury on the evening before. How the landlord of 
 the Pig and Whistle had come to this tragic end neither 
 the gardener nor any one else in the neighbourhood could 
 conjecture. 
 
 Mr. Ruddiman set to work at once on harnessing the 
 pony, while Miss Fouracres, now quietly weeping, went 
 to prepare herself for the journey. In a very few minutes 
 the vehicle was ready at the door. The messenger had 
 already ridden away. 
 
 ' Can you drive yourself, Miss Fouracres ? ' asked 
 Ruddiman, looking and speaking with genuine sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 ' Oh yes, sir. But I don't know what to do about 
 the house. I may be away all day. And what about 
 you, sir ? ' 
 
 ' Leave me to look after myself. Miss Fouracres. And 
 trust me to look after the house too, will you ? You 
 know I can do it. Will you trust me ? ' 
 
 ' It 's only that I 'm ashamed, sir- — — ' 
 
 ' Not a bit of it. I 'm very glad, indeed, to be useful ; 
 I assure you I am.' 
 
 ' But your dinner, sir ? ' 
 
 ' Why, there 's cold meat. Don't you worry, Miss 
 Fouracres. I '11 look after myself, and the house too ; 
 see if I don't. Go at once, and keep your mind at ease 
 on my account, pray do ! ' 
 
 ' It 's very good of you, sir, I 'm sure it is. Oh, I 
 knew something was going to happen ! Didn't I sa?/ 
 so?' 
 
 Mr. Ruddiman helped her into the trap ; they shook 
 hands silently, and Miss Fouracres drove away. Before 
 the turn of the road she looked back. Ruddiman was
 
 Ud6 THE PIG AND WJIISTI-K 
 
 still watching her; he waved his huiul, and the young 
 woman waved to him in rej)ly. 
 
 Left alone, the under-master took off' his coat and put 
 on an aj)ron, then a(hh*essed himself to the task of wash- 
 ing u|) his breakfast things. Afterwards he put his 
 bedroom in order. About ten o'clock the <ii*st customer 
 came in, and, as luck had it, the day proved a busier 
 one than usual. No less than four cyclists stopped to 
 make a meal. Mr. Ruddiman was able to supply them 
 with cold beef and ham ; moreover, he cooked eggs, he 
 made tea — and all this with a skill and exj>edition which 
 could hardly have been expected of him. None the less 
 did he think constantly of Miss Fouracres. About five 
 in the afternoon wheels sounded ; aproned and in his 
 shirt-sleeves, he ran to the door — as he had already 
 done several times at the sound of a vehicle — and with 
 great satisfaction saw the face of his hostess. She, too, 
 though her eyes showed she had been weeping long, 
 smiled with gladness; the next moment she exclaimed 
 distressfully. 
 
 ' Oh, sir! To think vou ^■e been here alone all day ! 
 And in an apion ! ' 
 
 ' Don't think about me, Miss Fouracres. Vou look 
 worn out, and no wonder. I'll get you some tea at 
 once. Let the pony stand heie a little; he's not so 
 tired as vou are. Come in and have some tea, Miss 
 Fouracres.' 
 
 Mr. Huddiujan would not be denied ; he waited upon 
 his hostess, got her a very comfortable tea, and .sat near 
 her whilst she was enjoving it. Miss Fouracres' story of 
 the day's events still left her father's death most n)ys- 
 terious. All that could be certainlv known was that the 
 landlord of the Fig and ^Vhistle had druuk rather freely
 
 THE PIG AND WHISTLE 297 
 
 with his friend the gardener at an inn at Woodbury, and 
 towards nine o'clock in the evening had gone out, as he 
 said, for a stroll before bedtime. Why he entered the 
 grounds of Woodbury Manor, and how he got into the 
 pond there, no one could say. People talked of suicide, 
 but Miss Fouracres would not entertain that suggestion. 
 Of course there was to be an inquest, and one could only 
 await the result of such evidence as might be forthcoming. 
 During the day Miss Fouracres had telegraphed to the 
 only relatives of whom she knew anything, two sisters of 
 her father, who kept a shop in London. Possibly one 
 of them might come to the funeral. 
 
 ' AVell,' said Mr. Ruddiman, in a comforting tone, ' all 
 you have to do is to keep quiet. Don't trouble about 
 anything. I '11 look after the business.' 
 
 Miss Fouracres smiled at him through her tears. 
 
 ' It 's very good of you, sir, but you make me feel 
 ashamed. What sort of a day have you had ?' 
 
 'Splendid ! Look here !' 
 
 He exhibited the day's receij)ts, a handful of cash, and, 
 with delight decently subdued, gave an account of all 
 that had hapjiened. 
 
 ' I like this business ! ' he exclaimed. ' Don't you 
 trouble about anything. Leave it all to me, Miss 
 Fouracres.' 
 
 One of the London aunts came down, and passed 
 several days at the Pig and Whistle. She was a dry, 
 keen, elderly woman, chiefly interested in the question of 
 her deceased brother's property, which proved to be in- 
 significant enough. Meanwhile the inquest was held, 
 and all the countryside talked of Mr. Fouracres, whose 
 story, of course, was published in full detail by the news- 
 papers. Once more opinions were divided as to whether
 
 298 THE riG AND WIIISTLK 
 
 the hapless landlord really luxd or had not entertained 
 His Roval Hii;hness. Plainly, Mr. Fouracres" presence 
 in the grounds of Wooilburv Manor was due to the fact 
 that the Prince happened to be staying there. In a state 
 of irresponsibility, jjartly to be explained by intoxication, 
 partly by the inijnilse of his fixed idea, he must have 
 gone rambling in the dark round the Manor, and there, 
 by accident, have fallen into the water. No clearer 
 hypothesis resulted from the legal incjuiry, and with this 
 all concerned had perforce to be satisfied. Mr. Fouracres 
 was buried, and, on the day after the funeral, his sister 
 returned to London. She showed no interest whatever 
 in her niece, who, equally independent, tisked neither 
 counsel nor help. 
 
 Mr. Ruddiman and his hostess were alone together 
 at the Pig and Whistle. The situation had a certain 
 awkwardness. Familiars of the inn — country-folk of 
 the immediate neighbourhood— of course began to com- 
 ment on the state of things, joking among themselves 
 about Mr. Kuddiman's activity behind the bar. The 
 under-master himself was in an uneasy frame of mind. 
 When Miss Fouracres' aunt had gone, he j)aced for 
 an hour or two about the garden ; the hostess was 
 serving cyclists. At length the familiar voice aiUed to 
 him. 
 
 ' Will you have your dinner, Mr. Ruddiman ?' 
 
 He went in, and, before entering the parlour, stood 
 looking at a cask of ale which had been tilted forward. 
 
 ' We must tap the new cask,' he remarked. 
 
 ' Yes, sir, I sujjjmse we must,' replied his hostess, half 
 absently. 
 
 ♦ I "11 do it at once. Some more cyclists might come.* 
 
 For the rest of the day they saw very little of each
 
 THE PIG AND WHISTLE 299 
 
 other. Mr. Ruddiman rambled musing. When he came 
 at the usual hour to supper, guests were occupying the 
 hostess. Having eaten, he went out to smoke his pipe 
 in the garden, and lingered there— it being a fine, warm 
 night — till after ten o'clock. Miss Fouracres' voice 
 aroused him from a fit of abstraction. 
 ' I 've just locked up, sir.' 
 ' Ah ! ' Yes. It 's late.' 
 
 They stood a few paces apart. Mr. Ruddiman had 
 one hand in his waistcoat pocket, the other behind his 
 back ; Miss Fouracres was fingering' her chin. 
 
 ' I 've been wondei'ing,' said the under-master in a 
 diffident voice, ' how you '11 manage all alone, Miss 
 Fouracres.' 
 
 ' Well, sir,' was the equally diflident reply, « I 've been 
 wondering too.' 
 
 ' It won't be easy to manage the Pig and Whistle all 
 alone.' 
 
 * I 'm afraid not, sir.' 
 
 ' Besides, you couldn't live here in absolute solitude. 
 It wouldn't be safe.' 
 
 ' I shouldn't quite like it, sir.' 
 
 ' But I 'm sure you wouldn't like to leave the Pig and 
 Whistle, Miss Fouracres ? ' 
 
 ' 1 'd much rather stay, sir, if I could any way manage 
 it.' 
 
 Mr. Ruddiman drew a step nearer. 
 ' Do you know, Miss Fouracres, I 've been thinking just 
 the same. The fact is, I don't like the thought of leav- 
 ing the Pig and Whistle ; I don't like it at all. This 
 life suits me. Could you ' — he gave a little laugh — 
 ' engage me as your assistant. Miss Fouracres ? ' 
 ' Oh, sir ! '
 
 300 
 
 TIIK PIG AND WIIISTLK 
 
 ' Vou coulchft ? "" 
 
 ' How can you think of such a thin<;, sir.' 
 
 ' Well, tlien, there's ojiiy one way out of tlie diilitulty 
 tiiJit I tiui see. Do you tliink ' 
 
 Had it not been dark Mr. Ruddinian would hanllv 
 have ventured to make the suj^geslion which fell from 
 him in a whisper. Had it not been dark Miss Fouracres 
 would assuredly have hesitated much lonj^er l)efore mviii(r 
 her definite reply. As it was, five minutes of conversa- 
 tion solved what had seemed a harder problem than any 
 the under-master set to his class at T.ongmeadows, ami 
 when these two turned to enter the l*ig and Whistle, 
 they went hand in hand. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by T. an<l A. Constabi.k, Printers to His Majesty 
 r.i the Kdinburgh University Press
 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
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