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Sawn Off: A Tale of a Family Tree

by George Manville Fenn · English · Gutenberg #40674 · 332,616 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Sawn Off: A Tale of a Family Tree

Author: George Manville Fenn


        
Release date: September 5, 2012 [eBook #40674]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40674

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAWN OFF: A TALE OF A FAMILY TREE ***

Sawn Off
A Tale of a Family Tree
By George Manville Fenn
Published by Henry and Co, London.
This edition dated 1891.

Sawn Off, by George Manville Fenn.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
SAWN OFF, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER ONE.

NABOTH AND HIS VINEYARD.

"Well, I'm--"

"Papa!"

"Hi! don't, Very.  Let me breathe," cried Doctor Salado, removing a very
pretty little hand from over his mouth, and kissing the owner, as pretty
a little girl as ever stepped; though just then her pretty creamy face
was puckered into the most lovable of dimples, and there was trouble in
her great dark eyes, over which were lashes and brows as black as the
great clusters and waves of luxuriant hair.

"You shall not."

"I was only going to say `blessed.'"

"You were not, papa.  You were going to use that dreadful word again."

"So I was, Very, and enough to make me," said the Doctor, passing his
hand over his high bold forehead and crown.  "Why, it completely cuts
off our view of the park and the manor-house at the end of the beautiful
vista of oaks."

"Never mind, dear; we'll take to the drawing-room, and look out at the
back at the grand old pines."

"Well, upon my soul," said the Doctor again.  "Of all the malicious bits
of impudence!  They must have been at it all night."

"Yes, papa; I heard them knocking, and I could not sleep."

"Hang me if I don't take an axe and cut the old thing down," cried the
Doctor again, as he stood gazing out of his breakfast-room window at
where--just across the road, and exactly opposite his delightful little
cottage--half a dozen carpenters and labourers were rapidly completing a
great range of hoarding fifty feet long and full twenty high.

"You mustn't, papa.  We are not in South America now."

"No.  I wish it was.  But--Well, that beats all!  Well, I _am_--Very, my
pet, let me swear once.  I shall feel so much better then."

"You shall not, papa.  But what a shame!"

"Worse than that, my darling.  It's all a confounded planned insult, got
up by my lord and that sneaking scoundrel of an agent," he continued, as
he watched a bill-sticker busy at work pasting placards on the new raw
deal boards just nailed on the rough pine poles.  "Selling off, etc.  To
be sold by auction," read the Doctor, "Guy Bunting's boots."

"Oh! is this a land of liberty, where one is to be insulted like this,
and not even allowed the British prerogative of a good honest--"

Veronica's lips were pressed upon the speaker's lips, as near as they
could get for the crisp, grey, shaggy hair of an enormous moustache, and
said,--

"You shall not say it, papa; and you are too proud and dignified to
notice such contemptible treatment.  Now come and have your breakfast.
The cutlets are getting cold."

"Then Teddington Weir him!" said the Doctor.

"What do you mean, dear?"

"Never mind.  Hah!  I am hungry.  But look here, Pussy--more sugar,
please--and milk.  It's all your fault."

"It is not, papa," said Veronica, colouring a little.  "It was through
your buying this cottage."

"Well, how was I to know he wanted it?  Suppose the grounds do run like
a wedge into the estate.  Hang the blackguardly Ahab!  Can't a poor
miserable Naboth like myself have his own vineyard without his wanting
it for a garden of herbs?  Bitter herbs I'll make them for him!"

"No, you will not, papa."

"Yes, I will, tyrant.  The next thing will be his confounded Jezebel of
a wife setting him to--"

"Papa!  I cannot sit here and listen to you," cried Veronica, flushing
deeply now.  "Lady Pinemount is a sweet, lovable woman."

"How do you know?"

"Everybody says so."

"Including her son?"

"Papa dear!" cried the girl, with her eyes filling with tears.

"There, my dear, I don't want to hurt your feelings; but the old man
will never consent to it, and I'm going to forbid Mr Rolleston the
house."

Veronica was silent, but such a look of hopeless misery came into her
face that the Doctor got up from his chair and went and knelt on one
knee by his child's chair, drawing her beautiful head down on his
shoulder and softly stroking her cheek.

"And you--after turning up this pretty little nose at all the gallant
young Spanish dons and settlers about the Pampas--to come and strike
your colours like this, Very!  I say, are you so very fond of him?"

"I--I think so, papa; I can't help it."

"Humph!  But he's an Englishman born and bred, and you're half a
Spaniard, Very."

"But you are an Englishman, papa."

"I suppose so.  But thirty years in South America seem to have altered
me.  Yah! hammer away.  What a blackguardly trick of his father!"

"Don't talk about it, papa.  Mr Rolleston said Lord Pinemount was
furious with his steward for not bidding higher and buying this estate."

"More fool he!  I'd have bid his head off.  He'd never have got it."

"And he was very angry, too, because you refused his offer afterwards to
take it off your hands."

"I don't care for his anger.  I came over to England to end my days in
peace.  I bought the Sandleighs, and I mean to keep it."

"Papa!"

"There, then--there, don't cry, and I will not make use of bad language
about that hoarding; but if this is the behaviour of an English
nobleman, I'm glad I'm plain Doctor Salado.  Now breakfast; and my
coffee's cold."

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWO.

HIS LORDSHIP IS ANGRY.

"I say it's a shame, father, and a disgrace to you."

"And I say you are a confounded insolent young puppy; and if you dare to
speak to me again like that--"

"Oh, hush, Edward dear!  Denis, my boy, pray don't!"

"But I shall be ashamed to go about the place, mamma.  It is so mean and
petty."

"How dare you, sir! how dare you!" cried Lord Pinemount.  "Don't dictate
to me.  I've put up with too much, and I mean to end it all.  How dare
he--a confounded Yankee!"

"Doctor Salado is an English gentleman, father."

"Nothing of the sort, sir.  Look at his name.  Comes here from nobody
knows where."

"Yes, they do, sir.  He comes here from Iquique, and he is one of the
most famous naturalists of the day."

"I don't care what he is.  Comes here, I say; and just as at last that
wretched old woman dies, and the Sandleighs is in the market--a place
that ought by rights to belong to the manor--he must bid over that idiot
Markby's head, and secure the place.  I told Markby distinctly that I
wanted that cottage and grounds.  Went at such a price, he said.  Fool!
And then, when I offered this miserable foreign adventurer five hundred
pounds to give it up, he must send me an insulting message."

"It was only a quiet letter, my dear," said Lady Pinemount, "to say that
he had taken a fancy to the place, and preferred to keep it."

"You mind your own business," said his lordship, his florid face growing
slightly apoplectic of aspect.  "I'm not blind.  But I won't have it.
You write and ask the Elsgraves here; and you, Denis, recollect that I
expect you to be civil to Hilda Elsgrave.  The Earl and I quite
understand each other about that."

"If you expect me to begin paying attentions to a girl whom I dislike,
and who dislikes me, sir," said the young man firmly, "I'm afraid you
will be disappointed."

"No, sir: look here--"

"Edward, my love--"

"Hold--your--tongue.  I'm master while I live, and I'll have my way.
You, Denis, you've got to marry Hilda; and if I hear of your hanging
about the Sandleighs again, and talking to that half-bred Spanish
hussy--"

"Look here, father: when you insult Miss Salado, you insult me."

"Silence, sir!" roared his lordship.  "Listen to what I say.  Insult
you!  Puppy!  How dare you!  The father's an adventurer, and you're mad
after a big-eyed adventuress."

"She is a lady, sir."

"Silence!  And as for you, Lady Pinemount, you must have been mad to
call upon them.  That was the beginning of the mischief."

"Miss Salado is a very sweet, refined girl, Edward," said her ladyship
quietly, "and it was a social duty to call."

"Then you've done your duty, and there's an end of it.  I won't have it,
and I won't have the fellow staring over into my park.  Coming and
sticking himself there!  Won't sell the place again, won't he?  Never
another inch of timber or head of beasts does that auctioneer sell for
me."

The Honourable Denis Rolleston was about to speak, but a meaning look
from handsome, dignified Lady Pinemount silenced him, and the angry head
of the family rose from his half finished lunch and paced the room.

"Taken a fancy to the place, has he?  I'll make him take a fancy to go.
The sooner he's out of Lescombe the better.  Like to buy the manor,
perhaps?  But I'll make it too hot for him.  And you, Denis, understand
me at once.  I can't interfere about the title; but look here, sir, you
marry as I wish you to,--keep up the dignity of our family tree.  You
are the head, sir, but if you don't do as I tell you, sir, not a penny
do you have to support the title, for I'll disinherit you.  Yes, sir,
you think you're a devilish fine branch, no doubt, but damme, I'll saw
you off!"

As his lordship spoke, he bounced out of the dining-room, banged the
door, and directly after mother and son saw him going straight across
the fields to inspect the hoarding he had ordered to be put up.

"I am very sorry, Denis, my dear," said Lady Pinemount.

"Can't be helped, mother dear," said the young man, passing his arm
round her and walking up towards the window, where they stood watching
his lordship's diminishing figure.  "I want to be a good son, and I
never kick against the dad's eccentricities, except when they are too
bad.  That is such a petty, ungentlemanly trick--an insult to as fine a
fellow as ever breathed, and--"

"You do love Veronica, my boy?" said Lady Pinemount, gazing wistfully at
her son.

"Love her?" said the young man, with his frank, handsome English face
lighting.  "Mother dear, could I pick out a sweeter wife?"

Lady Pinemount sighed, and kissed her son.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER THREE.

HOW THE DOCTOR HIT.

"Down again, Very!" cried the Doctor, a week later, as he came in from a
botanical ramble to breakfast.  "Why, eh?--yes--no: it has been burned."

"Yes, papa: didn't you see the flames?"

"Not I.  Slept like a top, and I went out through the sandpits and among
the fir trees this morning."

He hurried out of the French window, and out into the road, and looked
over the hedge into the park and then returned.

"Seems to have been splashed with petroleum or paraffin.  Twice cut
down, and once burned.  Well, somebody else does not like the hoarding."

"But, papa, you gave orders for it to be destroyed!"

"I?  Hang it all, Very, am I the sort of man to do such a shabby thing?"

"No, papa: I beg your pardon."

"Granted, pet.  Some one in the village thinks it's a paltry thing to
do, and has constituted himself our champion.  Confound his insolence!
What did he say in his letter?"

"That if you dared to destroy his property, he would prosecute you,
papa," said Veronica.

"Yes, and he has sent me a summons."

"Oh, papa!"

"Fact, my dear; and I shall be puzzled as to how to defend myself and
prove my innocency.  I say, Very, my dear, this looks bad for you."

The girl sighed, and bent over her cup.

"Wouldn't be a pleasant alliance, my dear, even if it could come off,"
continued the Doctor, watching his child furtively.  "Ah, dear me! how
strangely things do work!  Who'd have thought, when we landed in
England, that there was the heir to a baron bold waiting to go down on
bended knee to my little tyrant, and make her an offer of his heart and
hand?"

"Oh, papa, how you do delight in teasing me!"

"Teasing you?  Well, isn't it a fact?  You shot him through and through
first time we were at church, and your victim has been our humble
servant ever since."

"But, papa, do you think Thomas could have destroyed the hoarding?"

"Well, I don't know, my dear.  He was very indignant about it, and said
if this was his place he would soon down with the obstruction."

"Then it must have been he.  You ought to scold him well."

"What, for getting rid of a nuisance?"

"No: for getting you into such trouble with Lord Pinemount."

"Hah!" said the Doctor dreamily; "it's a strange world, Very.  Perhaps
we had better go back to Iquique."

"Oh, papa!" cried the girl in dismay.

"Don't you want to go?"

"What, leave this lovely place, where it is always green, and the
flowers are everywhere, for that dreadful dry desert place where one is
parched to death?  Ah, no, no, no!"

"Humph!" said the Doctor--"always green.  Don't seem so, Very:
something, to my mind, is getting ripe at a tremendous rate."

"I don't know what you mean, dear," said the girl consciously.

"Don't you?  Ah well, never mind.  But you need not be uneasy,--I do not
mean to go back: this place will just suit me to write my book, and I'm
not going to stir for all the Lord Pinemounts in England."

"I wonder how you could ever leave so beautiful a country as England,
papa," said Veronica, as the breakfast went on.

"You wouldn't wonder, if you knew all," said the Doctor thoughtfully.

"All, papa?--all what?"

The Doctor was silent, and his child respected his silence.  The
breakfast was ended, and the paper was thrown down.

"I don't see why you should not know, my dear.  You are a woman now, and
thinking about such things."

Veronica looked across at him wonderingly.

"You asked me why I left England, or some such question.  It was because
of the woman I loved, my dear."

"Mamma?  To join her at Iquique?"

"No," said the Doctor thoughtfully; "it was before I knew of her
existence."

"Ah, papa!"

"Yes, my dear.  I was desperately in love with a lady before I knew your
dear mother."

Veronica rose with wondering eyes, and knelt down beside her father,
resting her elbows on his knees and gazing up in his face.

"Do people--?  You loved mamma very dearly, papa?" she whispered.

"Very, my child; and we were very happy till it pleased Heaven to take
her away.  She taught a poor, weak, foolish man what a good woman really
is."

There was a long pause, and then Veronica said,--

"Do people love more than once, papa?"

"I don't know, dear," he said, smiling.  "I loved here in England very
desperately, and when the lady I worshipped threw me over for another, I
swore I would never look a woman in the face again with the idea of
wedding; and in utter disgust left England, and all I knew, to roam for
a time in the Malay Archipelago; and from thence I went to South
America, following out my natural history tasks.  Then I found out I had
been a fool."

"I do not understand you, papa."

"I found, my darling, that I had wasted the strength of a young man's
first love upon a miserable handsome coquette."

"How did you find that out, papa?"

"By meeting your dear mother, who was everything a true woman should be;
and instead of my life proving to be a miserable state of exile, it was
all that joy could give till the day of the great pain."

There was another long pause, and then the Doctor said cheerfully,--

"And that's why Doctor Salado went away from England.  By the way, Very,
I'm not a regular doctor, though I studied medicine after I left England
very hard."

"How can you say so, dear, when you know how all the poor people cried
at your going away?  They said no one would ever cure them of the fever
again as you did.  Why, they always called you the great doctor."

"Yes, my dear: but people here would call me the great quack.  There,
I'm going for my walk round.  But--hullo! here's his lordship to see the
burnt hoarding."

For just at that moment Lord Pinemount's loud, harsh voice floated in at
the window.

"Disgraceful!" he cried.

Then there was a murmur of another voice, and again of another, as if
two men were respectfully addressing his lordship.

"An old scoundrel!" came in at the window again.

"He means me!" cried the Doctor excitedly, rising.

"No, no, papa--please, please!" whispered Veronica, clinging to him.

"But I'm sure he does, Very."

"I mean, don't go out, papa dear: you would be so angry."

"Would be?  I am!--furiously angry.  How dare he call me an old
scoundrel!"

"Pray, pray don't quarrel with him, dear."

"I'm not going to, pet; but I'll knock his head off for him."

"No, no; you shall not go out, dear.  I will not have my dear father
disgrace himself like that."

"I declare, Very, you are worse than your poor mother used to be.  I
must go and hit him, or I shall explode."

"Then please explode here, papa dear, at me."

"You're a strange girl, Very, 'pon my soul," cried the Doctor.

"Yes, papa dear," she said quietly, but clinging tightly to his arm.

"How dare he come and damage my property!" floated in through the
window.

"Buzz-buzz-buzz," from another voice.

"But I will, sir.  How dare he?  I'll lay the horsewhip across the
scoundrel's back!"

"Buzz-buzz--buzz-buzz."

"Law or no law, he shall have the horsewhip first and the fine or
imprisonment afterwards.  These foreign rowdy ways shall not be
tolerated here."

"Let go, Very.  I can't stand it, I tell you," said the Doctor.  But
Veronica threw her arms now about his neck, and laid her head close to
his cheek, and clung there.

"Will you let go?"

"No, papa."

"Do you want me to hit you?"

"Yes, papa dear."

"Hang it, Very, it's too bad!  You're a coward.  You know I can't."

"Yes, papa dear; I know you'd sooner cut off your hand."

"A blackguardly old scoundrel!" floated through the window.

"Yes? my lord."

"Ah!  I am, am I?" cried the Doctor.  "Let go, Very."

"No, papa dear: never."

"Out, I suppose?" came, as if shouted for the inmates of the cottage to
hear.

"I will be directly, you pompous, titled bully," muttered the Doctor.

"Buzz-buzz--buzz-buzz," in two different keys.

"Yes, I suppose so," cried his lordship; "but if he thinks he is going
to defeat me he is sadly mistaken."

"Yes, my lord."

"Very! will you untie those wretched little arms of yours from about my
neck?"

"No, papa dear; and I'm not afraid of your hitting me."

"Then, if you don't let go, I'll hit myself."

Veronica raised her head a little, and kissed him.

"No: at home, and dare not show his face!" roared Lord Pinemount.

"There!" cried the Doctor.  "Every word is a stinging blow in the face,
Very."

"Yes, papa; but I'm kissing the places to make them well," said
Veronica, suiting the action to the word.

"But I'll let him see."

"Buzz-buzz-buzz,--boozz-boozz-boozz," and the sound of horse's hoofs
slowly dying away.

"Gone!" cried the Doctor passionately.  "Very, you've made me seem like
a miserable cowards that man will despise me, and insult us more than
ever."

"You are angry, papa dear; but when you grow calm you will tell me I've
done quite right."

"Humph!  I'll tell you so now, my darling," said the Doctor, kissing her
affectionately; "but my fingers itched to knock him down."

"And when you had done so, you would have been very sorry, papa dear;
for you would have hurt yourself."

"What, my knuckles?"

"No, papa--your dignity as a gentleman; and you would have hurt me, too,
very much."

"You're a witch, Very," said the Doctor, drawing a long sigh.  "What an
overbearing brute it is! and I'll be bound to say that son of his will
develop into just such another animal."

"Papa!"

"Hallo! what have I said?" cried the Doctor, with his eyes winking.

"Hit me after all," said Very to herself, as she ran sobbing out of the
room, but only to be caught upon the stairs and tenderly kissed and
petted till her eyes grew dry, and the hysterical sobs which would rise
to her lips had cleared.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FOUR.

STOP!

About a couple of hours later the Doctor was down in his garden with a
large note-book in his hand, a pen behind his ear, and an exciseman's
ink-bottle suspended by a piece of silk ribbon to his button-hole.
Every now and then, as he walked up and down the gravel walk, he stopped
to gaze away south at the lovely prospect, his eyes resting longest on a
magnificent clump of fir trees which grew just beyond the bottom of the
grounds, and hid from sight some very, shabby sand pits, which had
something to do with the place being called "Sandleighs."

They were splendid old trees, every one having grown straight and clean,
for the sandy soil suited them, and a timber merchant would have looked
at them longingly, and thought what fine sticks of timber they were, and
what fine broad planks they would make if borne to a saw-mill.

Veronica was busy too, but not too busy to run to her father from time
to time, as she saw that he took his pen from behind his ear, dipped it,
and carefully wrote some note for his work.  This note he would read
aloud to her, and ask her opinion; after which Veronica hurried back to
her work, pricking her fingers in spite of her thick gloves, as she
carefully went over her rose trees to free them from the enemies with
which they swarmed.

Close at hand, upon his knees, which were protected by an old mat, was
Thomas, the old gardener, who was diligently extracting little tufts of
weed from the gravel walk, and making observations to his young mistress
as he went on.

"Make a deal o' fuss at the Manor 'bout her ladyship's roses; but they
ain't nowt to yourn."

"Indeed!"

"Nowt, miss.  You see that this guaney jooce as I waters 'em with is
reg'lar hessence, and I saves it up.  Seven gard'ners, 'cloodin' a boy,
they keeps there; but they can't touch us in roses, miss."

_Chod_!

"What's that?" said Veronica, looking up as a peculiar sound struck her
ear.

_Chud_!  Then _chad_! and directly after, _chod_!

Thomas was kneeling bolt upright now, and took off his very shabby cap,
and began from habit to scratch his head with the blunt point of the old
weed knife.

"Don't you hear, Thomas?" cried Veronica, keeping a rose grub in
suspense between her finger and thumb; and as she spoke the sounds came
at regular intervals.

"Ay, miss: sounds like some 'un a choppin' 'ard."

"Ah!" ejaculated Veronica, as she caught sight of a couple of men
through an opening in the shrubbery at the bottom of the lawn, and she
ran to where her father was busily writing down a note, speaking aloud
as he went on.

"In the half-ruined capsule--"

"Papa!"

"One moment, my dear.  `The sun causes the outer covering to contract,
and assume the form of a shiny and--'"

"Papa, they're cutting down those beautiful old trees."

"What!" cried the Doctor, turning in the direction of the clump.  "Oh
no; it must be a mistake."

_Chod_!  A tremendous chop.

"By Gladstone!" he roared; and, thrusting his book into his pocket, he
ran down the lawn, and, leaping the hedge, passed through to the open,
furzy piece of land, where, full in view now, two men were plying their
woodmen's axes rapidly, and making the white chips fly as a ghastly
notch began to appear in the side of one of the outer trees.

"Hi! what are you doing?" roared the Doctor, just as Veronica reached
the bottom and looked over.

The two men stopped, and rested the heads of their axes on the ground as
they grinned.

"Cuttin' down the trees, sir," said one of the men.

"What!  By whose orders?"

"Lordship's, sir.  Sent us up, and he's comin' hisself soon."

"Do you mean to say that his lordship gave orders for this beautiful
clump of trees to be cut down?"

"Yes, sir."

"But it will disfigure the estate horribly."

"Well, sir, my mate and the head gardener said as it were a pity."

"Oh, it's a mistake, man.  You are cutting down the wrong trees."

"Nay, sir; these here's right.  Lordship said bottom o' the Sandleighs
garden.  Can't be no mistake about that."

"Then it's an insult to me," said the Doctor furiously; "and it shall
not be done.  Here, come away directly."

The men looked at one another, and smiled uneasily.

"Do you hear?  I say it shall not be done."

"But his lordship said--"

"Something his lordship!" roared the Doctor.  "You strike a blow, either
of you, again on one of those trees, and I'll strike you.  There!"

"Papa!" cried Veronica from the garden; but the Doctor was too angry to
hear that or anything else.

"Beg pardon, sir, here is his lordship," whispered one of the men; and
Lord Pinemount came cantering up over the short turf and furze.

"Here, what's the meaning of this?" he cried.  "Why are you not going on
with your work?  Two of these trees ought to be down by now.  Who is
this man?"

He had so far ignored the Doctor; and as Veronica saw the impending
collision she tried to get through the hedge, but stuck fast.

The Doctor flushed, but spoke very quietly, as he raised his hat.

"Lord Pinemount, I believe?" he said.

"Yes," said Lord Pinemount.  "Who the devil are you?  How dare you
trespass on my grounds and delay my workpeople?"

The Doctor's lips worked under his stiff beard, and he could not speak
for a moment.

"Do you hear me, sir?  Be off!" cried his lordship, who was pale with
rage.  "You men get on with your job."

The men touched their hats, spat in their hands, and swung up their
axes; and Veronica saw things through a mist, but started as much as
Lord Pinemount did, for the Doctor roared, in a voice of thunder,--

"Stop!"

And the men stopped.

"How dare you!" cried his lordship, white now with fury.  "What the
devil do you mean?  Of all the insolence!  Go on, men, at once; and as
for you, sir, I have already instructed the police for your destruction
of my property.  Now I shall proceed against you for trespass."

"Stop!" roared the Doctor again, as the men swung up their axes; and
Veronica turned cold, and felt as if her delightful love-dream was at an
end.

Lord Pinemount dragged his horse's head round, and rode closer to the
Doctor.

"What do you mean, fellow?" he roared.

"Have the goodness to recollect that you are addressing a gentleman.
Stop those men.  I will not have my property disfigured by these trees
being cut down."

"Oh, papa, papa!" sighed Veronica.

"What, you dare!" cried his lordship.  "Your property--disfigured!"

"Then I will not have the Manor disfigured by that timber being taken
down."

"Are you mad?" yelled his lordship.

"No, sir; but from your display of temper, and your insulting language,
I presume that you are," said the Doctor, who grew more cool and
dignified as his lordship became incoherent with passion.  "Have the
goodness to remember that you hold this estate upon certain conditions,
and that you have no right to impoverish or destroy.  I say that your
action now would injure this property as well as mine beyond that hedge.
Cut down a single tree more, and I'll make you smart for it in a way in
which you little expect.  Now order your workpeople off home, and--No:
cut down that disfigured tree now, and grub up the stump.  But if you
touch another, Lord Pinemount, you will have to reckon with me.  Go on,
my lads, and be quick and get your hateful job done."

For a few minutes his lordship could not speak.  Then, growing more
incoherent minute by minute,--

"Where is Mr Rolleston?" he cried.

"Went round with the head-keeper, my lord," said one of the men.

"Blue cap spinney, I think, my lord," ventured the second man.

"Are we to cut down one tree, my lord?" said the first man, touching his
hat.

Lord Pinemount said something decidedly strong, drove his spurs into his
horse's side, and went off at a furious gallop; while the two men
grinned, and, as if moved by one spirit, wiped their noses on their bare
arms.

"This here's a rum game," whispered one to the other.

"Come, my lads," cried the Doctor, "down with that tree, get the stump
cut down and the chips cleared away by to-night, and I'll give you five
shillings for beer."

"Thankye, sir," they cried in duet, and then set to work vigorously;
while the Doctor, who looked very knowing and severe, went slowly back
to where Veronica stood, pale and troubled.

"Oh, papa dear!" she whispered, "what have you done?"

"Given Lord Pinemount a lesson that he has needed for a long time, my
dear.  I thought I could cow him."

"Yes, papa; but how can you ever be friends at the Manor now?"

"Eh?  Denis?  Humph!  I never thought of that," said the Doctor, passing
his arm round his child, and walking with her slowly up the lawn,
passing Thomas, who, as soon as the encounter was over, slipped back
from where he had been watching it, and was now extracting weeds at a
furious rate, chuckling to himself, and with his opinion of his master
wonderfully heightened, while he thought of how he would tell them at
the "Half-Moon" at night about the way in which the Doctor had taken his
lordship down.

"Humph!" muttered the Doctor, "how can we be friends at the Manor now?
Very, my dear, have I made a mistake?  No.  I must bring him to his
senses.  This has been too much to bear."

Veronica looked wonderingly at the stern, commanding face before her;
but she could not help her own trouble, and the countenance of Denis
Rolleston creeping in like a dissolving view, which grew plainer and
plainer, and then died out again, her vision being blurred by tears.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FIVE.

DENIS APOLOGISES.

"Eh, Miss 'Ronica, but the master ought to ha' been a lord!" said old
Thomas some days later, as he was nailing up some loose strands of
clematis against the house; and he stopped for a moment to take a couple
of garden nails from his mouth, for they hindered his speech, though he
had removed a third from his lips when he began.

He was up on the ladder, ten feet from the ground, and kept looking down
at Veronica for instructions.

"Nonsense, Thomas!" she said, rather pettishly; "and raise that long
spray higher; I want it to go close up by my window."

"You shall have him just where you like, miss; and I'll give him some
jooce at the roots to make him run faster.  Hallo! what, have I got you,
my fine fellow?" he continued, as he pounced upon a great snail which
was having its day sleep after a heavy night's feed, close up under the
window-sill.

He descended the ladder slowly with his prize, and was about to crush it
under his heel on the gravel path, when Veronica interposed.

"No, no!" she cried; "don't do that.  It is so horrid.  I hate to see
things killed."

"But sneels do so much mischief, miss."

"Never mind; throw it out into the field."

"To be sure," said the Doctor, coming along.  "Do you know what Uncle
Toby said, Thomas, to the fly?"

"Your Uncle Toby, sir?  Nay."

"Everybody's Uncle Toby.  He told the fly there was room enough for both
of them in the world."

"Mebbe, sir," said Thomas, scratching his head with the claws of his
wall-hammer; "and I doan't say nowt again flies; but if Uncle Toby had
grown lettershes and strorbrys he wouldn't ha' said as there was room
for sneels and slugs in his garden."

The Doctor laughed, and went on down his favourite path, while, after
jerking the snail over the hedge, Thomas returned to the ladder.

"Let him eat his lordship's stuff," he said, with a chuckle.  "An' the
master ought to ha' been a lord, miss.  The way he put down his
lordship's amazen.  They do nowt but talk about it every night at the
`Half-Moon.'"

"Now, nail up that long loose strand, Thomas," said Veronica hastily.

"Ay, miss, I'll nail him," said the man, climbing the ladder once more;
"but would you mind asking the master, miss, to give me something for my
back?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself?"

"I did, miss, four times over; and he always says the same.  `Go to the
properly qualified doctor,' he says,--just as if there was any one in
these parts o' such guid quality as he is.  Nay, miss, you might speak
to him for me: he did me a wonderful lot o' guid once.  Mint iles is
nothing to that tincture as he gives me.  I say it, and I'll say it
agen--Wo ho!"

(This to the ladder, which shifted a little, and had to be rearranged
against the wall.)

"--Agen anybody," continued Thomas, with a shred in his lips.  "The
master's a wonderful doctor, and he ought to ha' been a lord."

Just then the Doctor called his child.

"Coming, papa."

"Here's young Master Rolleston coming along the road, miss," continued
Thomas, hammering away at his bines.  "Not much like his father, he
ain't.  Wouldn't ha' ketched him sticking shutter-boards up in the very
front o' people's houses, and wanting to cut down the trees.  Nice young
gent, he is, as ever stepped, miss.  Very different to my lord, and--
Hullo, when did she go?" said the gardener, looking round to find that
his young mistress had gone.

"Ah!  I see.  Gone into the house 'cause Mr Rolleston's coming.  Tck!
Shouldn't be a bit surprised to hear them two asked in church some day;
and a very pretty pair they'd make.  Mum! here's the master."

Thomas went on hammering away; for the Doctor, who had been to the gate
to meet his visitor, had received him coldly, and slowly led him into
the room where Veronica was seated.

"Well, Mr Rolleston, may I ask the meaning of this visit?" he said,
after a conscious greeting between the young people.

"Doctor Salado, pray, pray don't take that tone with me!" cried Denis
appealingly.

"What other tone can you expect, after the treatment I have received?"

"I know, sir.  It has been most painful; but I have come to apologise."
As he spoke he glanced at Veronica, who was seated, looking pale and
troubled, with her eyes cast down.

"Oho!  An apology?  That alters the case.  Then his lordship is
apologetic, and acknowledges that he is in the wrong?"

The young man flushed.

"I--I regret to say, sir, that my father does not know of my visit."

"Then you have came to apologise for him without his leave?"

"No, sir; I have come to apologise for myself, and to ask you not to
think ill of my father."

"Humph!  Very right of you to defend your father, young man."

"He is a little hasty and irritable, sir.  He has been put out ever
since you took this place, for he had set his mind upon it for years.
It was a disappointment to him, sir."

"I had set my mind upon having the place, and it would have been a
bitter disappointment to me to have missed it.  Let me see, Mr
Rolleston: with the paddock, garden, and orchard there are about six
acres."

"So I have heard, sir."

"And your father has thousands of acres?"

"Yes, sir."

"And he grudges me my little bit.  Hardly fair, eh?"

"I can make no defence, sir.  I only throw myself upon your mercy.  My
father is too unwell and irritable to see the matter in the light I do."

"Ah! you are a prejudiced observer," said the Doctor drily.

"I hope not, sir: I wish to be just; and I ask you not to think ill of
us for this affair."

"Humph!  And are you apologising for Lady Pinemount too?"

"For my mother, sir?  There is no need."

"Oh!  Why, I thought when Ahab coveted Naboth's vineyard, the queen--"

"Doctor Salado!" cried Denis, springing from his seat with flashing
eyes, "how dare you.  It is an insult to my dear mother, who is as
pained and grieved as I am."

"I beg her ladyship's pardon humbly," said the Doctor, as he saw Denis
glance again at Veronica, and that she made him an imploring sign.

"I--I beg yours, sir," faltered Denis.

"What for, my lad?  Defending your mother?  It was quite right.  Shake
hands."

Denis caught the Doctor's hand, and Veronica uttered a sigh of relief.

"There now, sit down, and let's talk sensibly; and next time a man
insults Lady Pinemount like that, knock him down.  So you have come to
apologise, eh?"

"Yes, sir.  It is most painful to me.  I have no authority, but I know
you to be a straightforward English gentleman who sees my position, and
I ask you to be lenient with my father and forbearing towards him."

"But you see this is all selfishness, Denis Rolleston."

"Yes, sir; but you don't know all."

"All what?  That you have a silly, boyish liking for my child."

"Silly! boyish!" cried the young man, flushing.  "Don't you be hard upon
me too."

"It's the simple truth," said the Doctor drily; "and very simple too.
Here are you, son of the nobleman who holds this handsome estate, with a
right to look very high in a matrimonial alliance, and yet you come
hanging about here after a young lady, daughter of such a nobody as an
eccentric old naturalist who has spent the past thirty years abroad.
You must be very weak-minded, young man."

"Words, sir," cried Denis eagerly.  "You know in your heart you think I
am as wise as I know I am."

His eyes met Veronica's again, and there was a proud look of happiness
in his glance.

"Bah--bah--bah!  Heroics, sentiment.  Rubbish!" cried the Doctor.
"Come, be frank.  Your father knows of your inclinations?"

"Yes, sir."

"And he flew into a rage when he found it out?"

Denis was silent.

"Of course he did, and threatened to disown you, eh?  There, you need
not answer: I know it all by heart.  Quite natural.  You expect to be
Lord Pinemount some day, and must choose a suitable wife."

"You told me not to indulge in heroics, sir, so I will remain silent."

"Quite right.  It will not do.  Your father threatened to disown you,
disinherit you, and all that sort of thing, eh?"  Denis made no answer.

"There, you see, Veronica, my child.  You have done wrong in encouraging
this young man so far.  You don't want to blight his prospects?"

"Ah, no, papa," cried Veronica, with the tears slowly welling over from
her eyes.

"Then you are quite ready to forget what has passed?"  Veronica slowly
covered her eyes with her hands, and was silent, while Denis stepped to
her side and took her hand.

"Let me answer for her, sir," he said firmly.  "I have never spoken out
plainly to her in the happy days I have known your daughter.  It has
seemed enough to be near her, and to feel that I might hope; but I do
speak out now, and say--`Veronica, I love you dearly: let me tell your
father that you care for me, and will never change.'"

"Very pretty and sentimental," said the Doctor coldly, "but I cannot let
this go on.  I believe your father would disinherit you if you persisted
in this--this--this _mesalliance_."

"On your child's part, sir?" said Denis, smiling, and then giving her a
loving look.

"No, the other way, sir.  I'm not going to let my child stoop to enter a
family where they look down upon her; and I'm not going to let a young
fellow in your position ruin himself with his father for her sake.  No,
no: no more--that will do.  Lord and Lady Pinemount must come and ask
for the alliance; so now you had better go."

"Yes, sir, I'll go," said the young man quietly, as he raised Veronica's
hands to his lips,--"I'll go, for I don't feel downhearted.  I tell you
this, though, that I will never give her up.  I'm going to wait."

"Humph!"

"And now, before I go, sir, I want to apologise again for the annoyance
I have given you."

"You? none at all.  Always were civil enough."

"You don't know, sir, so I will confess.  It was I who destroyed those
hoardings."

"You!" cried the Doctor; and Veronica started.

"I was so annoyed, sir, that I came twice over and sawed the supports,
and let them down; and as they were put up again, I came last night,
deluged the hateful boards with spirits, and set fire to them."

"And a pretty mess you have got me in, sir," cried the Doctor angrily.
"Do you know I am summoned to appear before the magistrates?"

"That's all over, sir, for I shall tell my father it was my doing.
Good-bye, Veronica: I shall wait.  You will shake hands, sir?"

"Humph! oughtn't to, after such a scampish trick.  Well, there,
good-bye, my lad.  Don't come here again till you are asked."

There was a sad and long pressure of two hands directly after; and Denis
went off back towards the Manor, while Veronica, after kissing her
father, stole up to her room for the maiden's consolation--salt and
water, warm, shed copiously into a piece of cambric.

"Can't help liking the young dog," said the Doctor.  "Humph!" he added,
laughing: "nice son to destroy his father's ungodly works!  So it was
he?"

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SIX.

SAWN OFF.

Lord Pinemount was seated in his library, biting his nails mentally, as
he lay back in his easy chair glaring at his steward, who stood before
him wishing he could get another post, where his master would not be a
tyrant, and thinking that, if it had not been for the fact that he had a
large wife and a small family at home, he would resign at once.

"And you are sure?"

"Oh yes, my lord--quite."

"Went straight there?"

"Yes, my lord; and I hope your lordship considers I have done my duty in
telling you according to your orders."

"I consider, sir, that you have behaved like a miserable, contemptible
sneak."

"But your lordship told me to--"

"Don't talk to me, sir.  Leave the room."

The steward left the room, and as he closed the door he turned round,
showing his teeth, and shook his fist.

"Old beast!" he said aloud: "I'll serve you out for this some day."

Then his countenance changed, his jaw dropped, and he drew to one side
to allow Lady Pinemount to pass, fully conscious that she must have
heard his words and seen the expression on his face.

"It's all over," he groaned, as her ladyship passed into the library.
"I'm a ruined man.  She'll tell him, and--oh dear, oh dear!  The
workhouse stares us all in the face."

But Lady Pinemount did not tell her husband, for she knew that the
unfortunate steward must have been smarting from one of the injuries his
lordship knew so well how to inflict.  In fact, if she had felt so
disposed she would not have had the opportunity, for the moment she had
closed the door she was addressed.

"Ah, here you are!" cried her lord.  "I hope you are satisfied."

"Satisfied, dear?"

"Dear?  Bah!  You've encouraged and sided with that scoundrel of a boy,
till he is in open rebellion against me; and then you call me dear."

"I have not encouraged him," said Lady Pinemount.  "I have always tried
to set you two at one.  What is the matter now?"

"Why, I've found out this morning that Denis himself cut down and burned
that hoarding."

"Over whose destruction you insulted Doctor Salado."

"I made a mistake," said his lordship.  "I daresay even angels make
mistakes sometimes."

"I don't know," said her ladyship quietly.  "Of course you will
apologise to the Doctor?"

"The Doctor?  The quack!  No, madam, I am not going to stoop to that."

Lady Pinemount sighed.

"And that's not the worst of it.  I forbade the young scoundrel to go
near those people again.  Did I, or did I not?"

"You did, dear, emphatically.  But if Denis really cares for Miss
Salado--"

"He sha'n't have her--there!  I forbade him to go there; and, not
content with insulting me by grubbing down and burning the hoarding I
erected to keep off obnoxious people, he has gone there again and again,
encouraged by the adventurer of a father."

"I am very sorry, dear."

"Sorry?  What good does that do?  And he's there now."

"No, my dear," said Lady Pinemount; "he is just coming across the park."

"Ah! is he?" cried Lord Pinemount, leaping up and running to the window.
"Here,--hi!  Denis!  Come here!"

The young man came calmly enough up to the window.

"Ah, mamma!" he said.  "You want me, sir?"

"Yes.  Where the devil have you been?"

"Over to Sandleighs, sir.  And have the goodness to remember, in
addressing me, that I am not one of the grooms."

"Denis!"

"All right, mamma.  I am not a child now, and if his lordship addresses
me in that tone I shall resent it."

"Ah, indeed!" said the father sarcastically.  "May I respectfully
inquire, then, why you have been over to Sandleighs?"

"To apologise to Doctor Salado for causing him so much annoyance."

"Say Don Salado, my dear son," cried his lordship: "and may I ask how
you have annoyed him?  By making eyes at the adventurer's daughter--bah!
wench!"

The young man's eyes flashed, but he spoke quite calmly.

"I apologised for causing him to be suspected of destroying that
hoarding which I cut down and burned."

"Yes, I know you did, sir."

"I am not surprised, father.  I thought one of your spies would be
watching me."

"Oh, Denis, Denis!" cried Lady Pinemount appealingly.  "Right, mother
dear.  I'll speak and act quite calmly; but I will not be treated as a
schoolboy."

"Then you have apologised to Doctor Salado, the Spanish-American
adventurer, and you are going to espouse his daughter, I presume?"

"Yes, father.  I love her very dearly, and--"

"That will do, thank you," said his lordship quietly, though he was pale
with suppressed fury.  "I have no time to listen to silly sentiment.
Good morning: there is the door."

Lady Pinemount ran to her son's side.

"Don't quarrel, Denis, for my sake," she whispered; and he pressed her
hand.

"Did you hear me, Mr Rolleston?  Have the goodness to go.  Of course
you will get the title when I die, and the estate.  But not a penny do
you have from me beside; and the estate will nearly ruin you, without
money to keep it up.  You say you are a man: act like one, and go."

"You wish me to leave your house finally, sir?"

"Wish?  I order you to go; and until you come over humbly and ask leave
to pay your addresses to the Lady Jenny, never darken my doors again."

"Very well, sir.  I will see you again, mother, before I go."

"Denis!  Husband, pray, pray do not let this trouble come upon us."

"Mr Rolleston, being angry makes me ill.  I wish to behave politely and
calmly to you.  Please to go."

Denis caught his mother to his breast, and then hurried out of the room,
to go and order the valet to pack up his portmanteau and send it across
to the station; and then he went off across the park, to see the Salados
and say good-bye.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SEVEN.

GOOD-BYE.

"Back again so soon, Mr Rolleston?" said the Doctor, as Denis presented
himself before the father and daughter; Veronica having risen from her
seat and laid her hand upon her father's shoulder, reading at once in
their visitor's eyes that something serious was the cause of his visit.

"Yes, sir: I have come to say good-bye to you both."

"For good?" said the Doctor, taking his child's hand and pressing it
warmly.

"I hope for good," said Denis, smiling encouragingly at Veronica.  "I am
going abroad."

"What for?"

"The same reason that others go for, sir.  To make my fortune."

"You!  I thought you were Lord Pinemount's heir."

"So I am, sir; but my father may live twenty or thirty years,--I hope he
may,--and I have nothing now except what I earn."

"Humph! then you have come to an open rupture with him?"

"No, sir; he has come to an open rupture with me."

"Because you come here?"

"Because I refuse to obey him and make matrimonial overtures to a lady I
dislike."

"Overture to a very bad opera, eh?"

"I could not do it, sir.  It would be base, contemptible, and--There--
you know."

"Humph!  Then you have beggared yourself because you think you care for
Veronica?"

"No, sir; I am ordered away till I go and beg pardon and promise to
marry as my father orders; so there is a breach that will never be
healed."

"Better go and heal it.  This is all very fresh.  Very will soon forget
you, and you'll forget her."

"Doctor Salado!"

"Well, I know the world, sir.  Sad thing for a young man like you to
sacrifice his prospects."

"I don't agree with you, sir.  It is the best thing that could have
happened, and will make a man of me.  I shall go to Canada or Vancouver,
I think; and in justice to Miss Salado I have come to say that I bind
her by no promise,--I only trust in her faith.  Some day I shall return
to ask her to be my wife.  Till then--"

He could not finish, but stood with his lips compressed.

"Humph!  Well, I think you are quite right, sir.  Come, Very, be a
woman.  How much capital have you to take with you?"

"None, sir."

"Then you'll want some five hundred or a thousand.  I have the latter
amount, and no particular use for it.  I'll lend it to you at five per
cent."

"Thank you, sir," said Denis warmly, "but I must decline.  I'll go and
fight the battle for myself, and prove to my father that I am not the
weak boy he thinks."

"Quite right.  Go and fight the battle for yourself."

"Papa!" whispered Veronica, with a look of agony in her eyes.

"Yes, my dear; it's the best thing he can do.  You both feel a bit sore,
but you will soon forget the trouble.  Good-bye, Denis Rolleston.
You're more of a man than I thought you.  Write to me now and then, and
let me hear how you are getting on.  We shall both be very pleased to
hear of your welfare.  It's a pity your father is so severe; but there--
all fathers are.  I am.  Good-bye, my lad.  I'd select a good ship, and
I wouldn't go steerage."

"Why not?" said Denis, through his set teeth.  "Better begin at the
bottom, sir."

"Well, yes, my lad, perhaps you had.  Now, Very, my dear, say good-bye
to him like a woman, and wish him well.  Some day in the future you two
will meet at dinner and laugh at this rosy-posy boy-and-girl love
business.  And by the way, Rolleston, my lad, keep your eyes open, and
send me any little natural history specimen you find."

"Good-bye, Veronica," said Denis, who did not seem to hear the Doctor's
words.

"Good-bye," she said, giving him a wistful look; and her voice was
almost inaudible, while her eyes looked dull and her cheeks ashy pale.

He took her cold limp hand, held it for a few moments in his, then
turned and rushed out of the house.

"Papa!  Father!"

Only two words; but their tone was enough for the Doctor, who caught her
to his heart, then placed her in a chair and turned to the window.

"Hi!  Denis!" he roared; and the young man turned, coming back in
obedience to the signals the Doctor made, and standing once more in the
room.

"Look here, sir, you had better have that money: you'll want it over
yonder."

"Did you call me back for that, sir?" said the young man bitterly--"to
go through this agony again?  No: I will make the money I want myself."

"Bravo!" cried the Doctor, seizing his hand.  "But you sha'n't go!"

Denis stared.

"Do you think I am going to have my little pet here die of a broken
heart, for the sake of you, you ugly young scoundrel?  No! you sha'n't
go.  Here: you stop and comfort Very, and I'll go over to the Manor and
bring my Lord Pinemount to his knees."

"Doctor Salado!" cried Denis excitedly.  "No, no: it is impossible.  You
must not go.  You would be insulted."

"Then I'll insult him.  Here, Very, my pretty: I'm not to let this boy
go, am I?"

For answer the girl flung herself upon Denis' breast, and clung there
sobbing.

"This--this is too hard, sir!" cried Denis passionately.

"I am only man, after all."

"Well, what do you want to be, boy?  There, I don't like you, and I
don't like your father; but I'm not going to let that stand in the way.
I'm going over to the Manor to bring my lord to his knees."

"You don't know what you are saying," cried Denis.  "Veronica, he must
not go."

"I do know what I'm saying.  Am I not Doctor Salado--a moral magician in
my way?  Did I not make him give up cutting down the trees?"

"Yes, sir; but you cannot make him retract from driving me off the
family tree for a time," said Denis, with a sad smile.  "I am only a
beggar now, and I must go."

"Indeed you will not.  And as for being a beggar, Very here will have
plenty for you both."

"Which I could not take."

"Then, confound you, sir!" cried the Doctor, with mock fury, "I'll bring
an action against you for breach of promise of marriage.  There, pet,
don't cry: you shall have your pretty boy."

"Doctor Salado, you must not go.  You don't know my father."

"Thoroughly, my lad.  There--take heart, both of you.  Denis, my lad,
you sha'n't be a pensioner on my bounty.  Come, I'll bet you five pounds
that your father and mother dine here with us to-night, and talk to my
Very here as if she were their child, as she has to be."

"Doctor Salado, are you mad?"

"Yes, my lad.  I have been all my life, but I'm not at all dangerous.
God bless you, my lad!  I believe in you, and when I come back you'll
believe in me."

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER EIGHT.

DOCTOR SALADO'S MAGIC.

"Take the good the gods provide you," seemed to be Denis Rolleston's
motto, for he was very happy with Veronica, while the Doctor made off
across the park, gave the bell at the open door a tremendous tug, and
then waited till a serious-looking butler came to the front.

"Tell his lordship I want to see him directly."

"Not at home, sir," said the man stolidly.

"Tell his lordship I want to see him directly," cried the Doctor
sternly.  "He's in the library: I heard his laugh as I came up to the
house."

"But--"

"Stand aside, fellow!" cried the Doctor; and he marched in, flung open
the library door, and shut it sharply, as Lord Pinemount rose from his
chair pale with rage.

"Morning," said the Doctor.  "Sit down.  I want a chat with you."

He took a seat coolly, and looked critically at the angry man before
him, who was breathless with passion.

"How dare you!" he said at last--"how dare you force your presence here!
Go, sir, before I send for the police."

"Don't make a fool of yourself, sir: sit down.  You must know that the
business is important, or I should not act like this."

"You are a madman, sir!"

"Yes, perhaps: sit down."

There was such a tone of authority in the Doctor's words that his
lordship dropped back in his chair wondering at his own action.

"That's better.  Now then, Pinemount, let's look the state of affairs in
the face.  Your boy loves my child."

"I have no son, sir.  I have cut him off."

"Humph!  All talk, sir.  Can't be done.  He loves my girl, and she loves
him.  He is up at my house now; and after I have talked to you I want
you to bring her ladyship over to the young people, and make things
comfortable."

"Yes, you are mad," said his lordship, reassuring himself.  "How dare
you presume like this!  Leave my house, sir!"

"Don't raise your voice, man, and let all the servants know you are in a
passion."

"The insolence--the presumption!  Look here, sir: if you are not mad,
who and what are you, that you dare to come and make such a proposition
to me?"

"Ah!" said the Doctor, as Lady Pinemount entered, looking anxiously from
one to the other, while the visitor advanced to meet her, took her hand,
kissed it with courtly grace, and led her to a chair.

"I repeat, sir, who and what are you, that you presume to come and sow
dissension in my peaceful village--heartburnings in my home?  Who are
you?"

"Your cousin Richard, who died abroad."

"What!" roared his lordship.  "Impostor, you lie!"

"No, sir: you are the impostor, or rather usurper.  I grieve to say,
madam--Mrs Rolleston--that I am Lord Pinemount, and that your husband
has no right whatever here."

"I--"

"Silence, sir!" said Lord Pinemount, with dignity.  "Accept the
position, and hear what I have to say."

"Is this true, sir?" faltered the lady.

"You will know if you listen, madam.  Nay, you both must know, by the
inquiries that were made before your husband succeeded to the title and
estates.  I saw all the papers with the advertisements; but I was happy,
was rich, and detested England for an old association, and I preferred
to remain dead to all who had known me.  When at last I did return to
England, for my child's sake--a widower--I came down here.  The
Sandleighs was for sale, and I bought it."

There was something like a groan here, and the lady gazed wildly at her
husband.

"Of course I thought of claiming the title; but I met you and your son,
and I said to myself, `Why should I make his family wretched?'  Then, as
you know, while I was in doubt, Love came and cleared away the
difficulty and decided me.  If I had claimed the title it would have
been for Veronica's sake.  Well, Denis loves her; and in due time--a
long time hence, if your husband will study his health and not cut his
life short by passion and apoplexy--Denis will be My Lord,--my child My
Lady.  That is enough for me.  I am contented to be the Doctor and go on
as the naturalist still."

"But--but--" faltered the lady.  "My husband--Mr Rolleston, if what you
say is true--"

"He knows it is true.  But not Mr Rolleston,--Lord Pinemount still.
Madam, I tell you I am very rich, and my wants are very few.  The title
is nothing to me.  Yes, it is--it is my one secret.  There, Pinemount,
am I an impostor now?"

"I am stunned," faltered the bearer of the title.

"Bah! that will soon go off.  Lady Pinemount, our esteem, I am sure, is
mutual, and I believe you like your son's choice."

"Indeed, indeed I do!" cried Lady Pinemount eagerly.

"You would not be a woman if you did not," said the Doctor warmly.
"There, Pinemount, you may take my word--the more easily that you see I
want nothing from you but your cousinship.  Still the family lawyers can
see papers that would convince the greatest sceptic living.  Let bygones
be forgotten.  Give me your hand."

The said hand was raised doubtingly, but it was seized and warmly
grasped.

"Now then," said the Doctor, "I promised your son to bring you up to ask
my child to be your son's wife."

"Is this some dream?" said Lord Pinemount, in a subdued voice.

"No, sir--the broad sunlight of fact.  There, my dear cousin, Lady
Pinemount, is eager to take my darling in her arms, and you are as eager
to grasp the hand of as true and brave a young fellow as ever stepped.
Will you order the carriage, Lady Pinemount?"

"But--but," faltered Lord Pinemount, "do I understand that you will not
ask me to give up the title--the estate?"

"Only when the great end comes, and your son reigns in your stead--and
ours, sir.  God bless him! for I love him as if he was my son.  Lady
Pinemount--cousin, sister--you will come on at once?"

She could not speak, but pressed the hand he gave her and held it to her
lips.

"But what magic is this?" whispered Denis two hours later, when he had
felt the warm grasp of his father's hand, and seen him kiss and bless
Veronica, who was now seated on a couch with Lady Pinemount's arm round
her waist "Doctor Salado's magic, my dear boy.  Some day I will give you
the recipe.  There--never mind now.  You will represent the family tree,
and its finest limb is not sawn off."

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER ONE.

THE GILDED PILL--A HOMELY COMEDY.

DOVE AND DAWS.

"Richard Shingle, Shoemaker.  Repairs neatly executed."

This legend was written in yellow letters, shaded with blue, upon an
oval red board.  Red, blue, and yellow form a pleasing combination to
some eyes; but when the yellow is drab, the blue dirty, and the scarlet
of a brick-dusty tint, the harmony is not pleasing.  Moreover, the
literary artist could not be complimented upon his skill in writing in
pigment with a camel-hair brush; for, not content to be staid and
steadfast in Roman characters, he had indulged in wild flourishes, which
gave the signboard the appearance of a battle-field, upon which certain
ordinary letters were staggering about, while three or four tyrannical
capitals were catching them with lassoes, which twined wildly, round
their heads and legs.

For instance, the first "d" was in difficulties, the "g" was pulled out
of place, the "h" and "o" tied tightly together, while just below, the
"repairs" seemed to be neatly executed indeed, for the "r" had a yellow
rope round its neck, having been hung by "Richard," beneath which word
it was suspended, with the rest of the letters kicking frantically
because that initial was at its last gasp.

But this idea, probably, did not present itself to the inhabitants of
Crowder's Buildings, a pleasant _cul de sac_ in the neighbourhood of the
Angel at Islington.  Crowder, once upon a time, bought two houses in a
front street, between and under which there was an entrance like a
tunnel, leading to the back gardens and back doors of the said houses;
and Crowder--now dead and numbered with the just--being a man of frugal
mind, gazed at the gardens of his freehold messuage and tenements, and
saw that they were useful as cat walks, to make beds growing oyster and
other shells, and vegetables of the most melancholy kind.  He let the
fact dawn upon his understanding that the vegetables grown might be
bought better for sixpence per annum, and resolved that he would utilise
the space.

To do this, he built up two rows of staring-eyed, four-roomed tenements,
sixteen in all, separated by twelve feet of pavement, whitewashed them
as they stood staring at one another, and turned the two garden deserts
into a busy, thrifty hive, where some twenty or thirty families
flourished and grew dirty.

The occupants of the two houses in the street complained, and left; but
Crowder let the houses at a higher rent without the gardens--let the
little tenements each at ten shillings a week, and turned out those who
did not pay; and for the rest of his life collected his own dues, did
his own painting and whitewashing--even plastered upon occasion; and at
last, while repairing a chimney-stack and putting on a new pot, at the
age of seventy-five, like a thrifty soul as he was, he slipped from the
ladder, rolled off the roof of Number 10, fell into the open paved
space, with his head in the centre gutter, where the soapsuds ran down,
and his heels on a scraper--every house had a scraper, to make it
complete--and was so much injured that Nature gave him notice to quit
his earthly habitation, evicted him, and, save in name, the buildings
knew him no more.

For they passed into the hands of Maximilian Shingle, "broker and
setrer," as his brother said--a most worthy member of society: a
sticky-fingered man, who, through this last quality, was enabled to lay
up honey in store.  In fact, he was so well off that, when Crowder's
Buildings were brought to the hammer by Crowder's heirs, executors,
administrators and assigns, the hammer that knocked them down knocked
them into Max Shingle's possession, and they were paid for with Mrs
Fraser's money--a certain amount in thousands which she bestowed, with
her two sons Fred and Tom--upon the man who re-won her heart six months
after Fred Fraser senior's death.

It was a retired spot after passing through the tunnel, and hence it
became the popular playground of the children of the neighbourhood, who
chalked the pavement, broke their knees and heads upon its harsher
corners, and made it the scene of the festive dance when a dark-visaged
organ-man came down to grind the last new airs of the day.

By a great act of benevolence, Maximilian Shingle, who was a lowly, good
man, a shining light at his chapel, where he was deacon, had, though
inundated with applications for Number 4 when it became empty, let it to
his unlucky brother Richard, who flourished under the sign that heads
this chapter, made boots and shoes, and neatly executed the repairs in
the dilapidated Oxonians and strong working-men's bluchers that came to
his lot.

It was first-floor front-room cleaning-up day at Richard Shingle's; and
Mrs Shingle--familiarly spoken to as "mother"--was in her glory, having
what she called "a good rummage."  Had her home possessed a back yard or
a front garden, every article of furniture would have been turned out;
but as there was not an inch of back yard, and the front garden was very
small, being limited to six flowerpots behind a small green fence on the
upstairs window-sill, Mrs Shingle was debarred from that general
clearance.

But she did the best she could to get at the floor for a busy scrub
while her husband and daughter were away; and the consequence was that
the side-table had its petticoats tucked up round its waist, thereby
revealing the fact that its legs were not mahogany, but deal; the
hearthrug was rolled up, and sitting in the big-armed Windsor chair; the
fender had gone to bed in the back room; and the chairs seemed to be
playing at being acrobats, and were standing one upon the other; while
the chimney ornaments--shepherds and shepherdesses for the most part--
were placed as spectators on the top of the little cupboard to look on.

Mrs Shingle finished her task of cleaning up before descending,
carrying a pail which had to be emptied and rinsed out before her hands
were dried.

Mrs Shingle was a pleasant, plump woman, who had run a good deal to
dimple; in fact, the backs of her hands were full of coy little pits,
where the water hid when she washed, and her wedding ring lay in a kind
of furrow, from not having grown with her hands.

She gave a few touches with a duster to the lower room, which was half
sitting, one-fourth kitchen, and one-fourth workshop, inasmuch as there
was a low shoemaker's bench, with its tools, under the window, beneath
which, and secured to the wall by a strap, were lasts, knives, awls,
pincers, and various other implements of the shoemaker's art.  On a
stand close by stood a sewing machine, and on the table were patches of
kid and patent leather, evidently awaiting the needle.

Mrs Shingle had finished her hurried cleaning, and the furniture was
put back; had been to the glass and arranged her hair, and finished off
by taking out three pins, which she stuck in her mouth, as if it were a
cushion, giving herself a shake, which caused her dress, that had been
round her waist, to fall into its customary folds; and then, sitting
down she was busy at work binding boot-tops, when the open door was
darkened, and a fashionably dressed young man, of five-and-twenty,
tapped on the panel with the end of his stick, entered with a languid
walk, said, "How do, aunt?" and seated himself on the edge of the table.

The visitor's clothes were very good, but they had a slangy cut, and
might have been made for some Leviathan of a music-hall, who intended to
delineate what he termed "a swell."  For the cuffs of the excessively
short coat nearly hid the young fellow's hands, even as the ends of his
trousers almost concealed his feet; his shirt front was ornamented with
large crimson zigzag patterns, and his hat was so arranged on the back
of his head that it pressed down over his forehead a series of unhappy,
greasy-looking little curls, which came down to his eyebrows.

Mrs Shingle nodded, and stabbed a boot-top very viciously as the young
man saluted her.

"Old man out?" he said.

"You know he is," retorted Mrs Shingle, "else you wouldn't have come."

"Don't be hard on a fellow, aunt.  You know I can't help coming.
Where's Jessie?"

"Out," said Mrs Shingle, sharply.

"She always is out when I come," drawled the young man, tapping his
teeth with his cane.  "I believe she is upstairs now."

"Then you'd better go up and see," exclaimed Mrs Shingle.  "Look here,
Fred, I'm sure your father don't approve of your coming here."

"I can't help what the governor likes," was the reply.

"I'm not going to ask him where I'm to go.  Is Jessie out?"

"I told you she was, sir."

"Don't be so jolly cross, aunt.  It's all right, you know.  The old man
will kick a bit, but he'll soon come round.  Don't you be rusty about
it.  You ought to be pleased, you know; because she ain't likely to have
a chance to do half so well.  I shall go and meet her."

As he spoke, the young man--to wit, Frederick Fraser, step-son of
Maximilian Shingle, Esq, of Oblong Square, Pentonville--slowly descended
from the table, glanced at himself in the glass, and made for the door.

"She's gone down the Goswell Road, I know," said the young man, turning
to show his teeth in a grin.

"No, no," exclaimed Mrs Shingle hastily.

"Thank ye, I know," said the young fellow, with a wink, and he passed
out.

"Bother the boy!" exclaimed Mrs Shingle petulantly.  "Now he'll meet
her, and she'll be upset, and Dick will be cross, and Tom look hurt.
Oh, dear, dear, dear, I wish she'd been as ugly as sin!"

There was an interval of angry stitching, as if the needle was at enmity
with the soft leather, and determined to do it to death, and then Mrs
Shingle cried, "Here she is!"

"Ah, my precious!" she added, as a trim, neat little figure came
hurrying in snatched off her hat and hung it behind the door.

She was only in a dark brown stuff dress, but it was the very pattern of
neatness, as it hung in the most graceful of folds; while over all shone
as sweet a face as could be seen from east to west, with the bright
innocence looking out of dark grey eyes.

"Back again, mother," accompanied by a hasty kiss, was the reply to Mrs
Shingle's salute.

Then, brushing the crisp fair hair back from her white temples, the girl
popped herself into a chair, opened a packet, drew close to the sewing
machine, and in response to the pressure of a couple of little feet,
that would have made anything but cold crystallised iron thrill, the
wheel revolved, and with a clinking rattle the needle darted up and
down.

"Have I been long?"

"No, my dear--quick as quick!" said Mrs Shingle, watching her child
curiously.

"I wanted to get back and finish this, so as to take it in," said the
girl, making the machine rattle like distant firing.

"Did you meet Mr Fred?"

"Fred?  No, mother," was the reply, as the girl started, coloured, and
the consequence was a tangle of the threads and a halt.  "Has he been
here?" she continued, as with busy fingers she tried to set the work
free once more.

"Yes, just now, and set out to meet you.  I wonder how you could have
missed him."

There was a busy pause for a few minutes, during which some work was
hastily finished; and while Mrs Shingle kept watching her child from
time to time uneasily, the latter rose from the machine, and began to
double up the jacket upon which she had been at work, and to place it
with a couple more lying close by on a black cloth.

"I hope you don't encourage him, Jessie," said Mrs Shingle at last.

"Mother!" exclaimed the girl, and her face became like crimson--"how can
you?"

"Well, there, there, I'll say no more," exclaimed Mrs Shingle--"only it
worries me.  Now, make haste, there's a dear, or you'll be late.  Don't
stop about, Jessie; and, whatever you do, don't come back without the
money.  Your uncle'd sure to come or send to-day, and it's so unpleasant
not being ready."

"I'll be as quick as I can, mother," said Jessie briskly.

"And you won't stop, dear?"

"I don't know what you mean, mother," said the girl, with a tell-tale
blush on her cheek.

"How innocent we are, to be sure!" exclaimed Mrs Shingle, tartly.
Then, smiling, she continued, "There, I'm not cross, but I don't quite
like it.  Of course, Tom don't know when you go to the warehouse, and
won't be waiting.  There, I suppose young folks will be young folks."

"I can't help it, mother, if Mr Fraser meets me by accident," said
Jessie, blushing very rosily, and pouting her lips.

"But he mustn't meet you by accident; and it oughtn't to be.  Uncle Max
would be furious if he knew of it, and those two boys will be playing at
Cain and Abel about you, and you mustn't think anything about either of
them."

"Mother!" exclaimed Jessie.

"I can't help it, my dear; I must speak, and put a stop to it.  Your
father would be very angry if he knew."

"Oh, don't say so, mother!" pleaded Jessie, with a troubled look.

"But I must say it, my dear, before matters get serious; and I've been
thinking about it all, and I've come to the conclusion that it must all
be stopped.  There! what impudence, to be sure!  I believe that's him
come again."

"May I come in?" said a voice, after a light tap at the door.  And a
frank, bearded face appeared in the opening.

"Yes, you can come in," said Mrs Shingle sharply.  But, in spite of her
knitted brows, she could not keep back a smile of welcome as the owner
of the frank face entered the room, kissed her, and then turned and
caught Jessie's hands in his, with the result that the parcel she was
making up slipped off the table to the ground.

"There, how clumsy I am!" he exclaimed, picking up the fallen package,
and nearly striking his head against Jessie's, as, flushed and agitated,
she stooped too.  "Well, aunt dear, how are you?"

"Oh, I'm well enough," said Mrs Shingle tartly, as she stretched a
piece of silk between her fingers and her teeth, and made it twang like
a guitar string.  "What do you want here?"

"What do I want, aunt?  All right, Jessie--I'll tie the string.  Thought
I'd come in and carry Jessie's parcel."

"Oh, there!" exclaimed the girl.

"Now, look here, Mr Tom Fraser," said Mrs Shingle, holding up her
needle as if it were a weapon of offence: "you two have been planning
this."

"Mother!" cried Jessie.

"Oh no, we did not, aunt," cried the young man; "it was all my doing.
No, no, Jessie--I'll carry the parcel."

"No, no, Tom; indeed you must not."

"I should think not, indeed!" cried Mrs Shingle, who, as she glanced
from one to the other, and thought of her own early days, plainly read
the love that was growing up between the young people; but could not see
that her first visitor, Fred, had come back, and was standing gazing,
with a sallow, vicious look upon his face, at what was going on inside,
before going off with his teeth set and an ugly glare in his eyes.

"Tom Fraser," continued the lady of the house, "I mean Mr Tom--Mr
Thomas Fraser--you ought to be ashamed of yourself, to behave in this
way.  You quite the gentleman, and under Government, and coming to poor
peopled houses, and wanting to carry parcels, and all like a poor
errand-boy!"

"Stuff and nonsense, aunt!--I'm not a gentleman, and I'm only your
nephew; and whilst I'm here I'm not going to see Jessie go through the
street carrying a parcel, when I can do it for her."

"But you must not, indeed, Tom--I mean Mr Fraser," said Jessie,
half-tearful, half-laughing.  "I'm going to the warehouse, and I must
carry it myself."

"I know you are going to the warehouse," said Tom, laughing; "but you
must not carry the parcel yourself."

"But, my dear boy," said Mrs Shingle, who was evidently softening,
"think of what your father would say."

"I can't help what he would say, aunt," said the young man, earnestly;
"I only know I can't help coming here, and I don't think you want to be
cruel and drive me away."

"No--no--no," said Mrs Shingle, "but--"

"Do you, Jessie?"

"No, Tom--Mr Fraser," faltered Jessie.  "But--"

"But--but!" exclaimed the young man impatiently.  "Bother Mr Fraser!
My dear Jessie, why are you turning so cold here before your mother?
Are you ashamed of me?"

"No--no, Tom," she cried eagerly.

"And you know how dearly I love you?"

"Yes, Tom," faltered Jessie sadly; "but it must be only as cousins."

"And why?" said the young man sternly.

"Because," said Jessie, laying her hand upon his arm, "I'm only a very
poor girl, Tom, and half educated."

"What a wicked story, Jessie!" cried Mrs Shingle, who had her apron to
her eyes, but now spoke up indignantly--"why, you write beautiful!"

"And," continued Jessie, "your father--my father would never consent to
it; for I'm not a suitable choice for you to make."

"Why, Jessie," cried the young man, "you talk like a persecuted young
lady in a book.  What nonsense!  Uncle Richard, if he felt sure that I
should make you a good husband, would consent.  And, as to my
step-father--"

"Now, look here, you two," said Mrs Shingle, "it's important that
Jessie should get to the warehouse with those things, and you're
stopping idling.  It's late as it is."

"Come along, then," cried Tom, seizing the parcel.

"No, no," cried Jessie, who looked pale, and trembled.

"No, indeed; he must not go with you," said Mrs Shingle.

"Don't be cruel, aunt," said Tom appealingly.  "I don't like Jessie to
go by herself."

"There, then, she's not going by herself; I'm going with her," exclaimed
Mrs Shingle.

"Then let me go instead."

"No, no," cried Jessie, getting agitated; "you must not."

"You have some reason, Jessie," said Tom, looking at her suspiciously.

"No, no, Tom.  Don't look at me like that," she cried.

"Then tell me why," he said, sternly.

"The man at the warehouse made remarks last time you came," said Jessie,
hesitating.

"I'll make marks and remarks on him, if he does," cried Tom.  "Aunt," he
continued angrily, "I can't bear it.  It's not right for Jessie to go
alone; and I don't believe you were going.  It makes me half mad to
think that she may be insulted by some puppy or another, and I not be
there to knock him down."

"But no one will insult her, my boy," said Mrs Shingle, looking at him
admiringly.

"But people do, and have," cried Tom, grinding his teeth.  "She has told
me so.  Because she goes with a parcel through the streets, every
unmanly rascal seems to consider she is fair game for him; and--hang it,
aunt, I can't help it!--if any scoundrel does it again, I'll half kill
him!"

"Oh, Tom, Tom!" whispered Jessie, as he strode up and down, with the
veins in his forehead starting, and then uttered a sob.

"I can't help it," he cried; "it's more than a fellow can bear.  I'm not
ashamed to own it.  I love Jessie dearly; and if she'll be my little
wife I don't care what anybody says.  Poor girl, indeed!  Where's the
lady in our set that can stand before her?"

"Not many, I know," said Mrs Shingle proudly.

"She can't help uncle being poor, and I can't help my step-father being
rich.  Come, aunt, you'll let me go?"

"I mustn't."

"Then it's because that brother of mine has been here," cried Tom
angrily.

"No, no, no!" cried Mrs Shingle; "indeed it isn't, my dear boy.  But I
mustn't allow it--I mustn't indeed.  Your father will never forgive me."

"Jessie dear," cried the young man, taking her hand, "you know I love
you."

"I know you say you do," she faltered.

"And I think you care for me--a little."

"Oh no, I don't think I do--not a bit," she said, half archly, half with
the tears in her sweet eyes, as they would look tenderly at him, and
seemed to say how much she would like him to come and protect her.

"I do not believe you, my darling," he cried impetuously.  "I'm quite
satisfied about that.  Aunt dear, you'll let me go with her?"

"I don't like it," said Mrs Shingle; "and I'm sure it will lead to
trouble."

"Not it.  Come, Jessie!"

"No, no, no!" cried Jessie.  "Indeed you ought not to come, Tom."

"Tom!  Well, I must come after that," he cried.

"Oh no: I did not mean it."

"Well, look here," said the young fellow.  "Listen, both of you.  If you
will not let me walk with you side by side, I'll follow like a shadow."

"Shadows can't carry parcels," said Jessie merrily.

"This one can, and will."

"There, go along, do, both of you," said Mrs Shingle, whose eyes
twinkled with pleasure as she looked on Tom's eager face.  "You'll be
dreadfully late."

"All right," cried Tom joyfully; "we'll make haste, and if we are going
to be late we'll take a cab."

"Because we are ashamed of the parcel," said Jessie demurely.

"Ashamed!" cried Tom.  "Why, if you'll come with me I'll take the parcel
under one arm and you under the other, and walk all round the quadrangle
at Somerset House when the clerks are leaving, just to make them all
envious."

"Go along, do!" cried Mrs Shingle.  And she stood gazing after them as
there was a playful struggle for the parcel at the door; while, as they
disappeared, the plump little woman took up her shoe-binding, began
stitching, and sighed--

"Heigho!  I'm afraid I've done very wrong."

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWO.

HOPPER--SHIP'S HUSBAND.

"Halloa, you sir!" said a snarling voice; "mind where you're running
to."

"Beg pardon!  Halloa, Mr Hopper, is it you?" exclaimed Tom.

"Eh?  What?  Yes, it is me, you rough, ill-mannered cub.  Tom Fraser, if
you were my son, hang it, sir, I'd thrash you, sir--trying to knock down
a respectable wayfarer who is getting old and infirm."

The speaker shook the ugly stick he carried at the young man as he
spoke, and his great massive head, with its unkempt grizzled hair and
untended beard and whiskers, looked anything but pleasant; for from
beneath his shaggy, overhanging brows his eyes seemed to flash again.

"I didn't try to knock you down," shouted Tom, putting his face close to
that of the old fellow, who looked as if his seventy years had been
spent in gathering dirt more than in cleaning it off.

"Don't shout.  I'm not so deaf as all that, you ugly ruffian.  Pick up
those boots."

Tom stooped, and picked up a very old pair of unpolished boots that the
other had been carrying beneath his arm, and had let fall on the
pavement in the collision.

"There you are, Mr Hopper, and I beg your pardon, and I'm very sorry,"
said Tom, smiling pleasantly.  "There you are," he continued, tucking
the boots under his arm.  "It's all right now."

"What are you halloaing like that for, you ugly young bull-calf?"
snarled the old fellow, shaking his stick.  "Do you think I want all the
people in the Buildings to come out and listen?  Don't I tell you I'm
not so deaf as all that, hang you?  What are you going to do with that
girl?"

"Only going down into the City," replied Tom.

"Hey?" said the old fellow.

"City!" shouted Tom.

"Oh!  Does your father know you're going with her?" cried the old
fellow, with a malevolent grin beginning to overspread his countenance.

"No," said Tom, flushing slightly; while Jessie began to look troubled.

"Hey?"

"No!" shouted Tom.

"Does her father know you've come?" said the old fellow, pointing at
Jessie with his stick.

"No!" said Tom stoutly, and beginning to grow indignant.

"Then," continued the old man, chuckling, and rubbing his hands
together, and dropping first his stick and then his boots, which Jessie
hastened to pick up, "I'll go and see Mr Shingle to-night, and tell
him; and I'll wait here till Richard Shingle comes home, and I'll tell
him; and there'll be the devilishest devil of a row about it that ever
was.  You've no business here, and you know it, you scoundrel.  She
isn't good enough for you.  You're to marry the fair Violante--the
violent girl.  There'll be a storm for you to-night, young fellow; so
look out."

"I'll trouble you to mind your own business, Mr Hopper," exclaimed Tom
hotly.

"Hey?" said the old fellow, holding a boot up to his right ear, like a
speaking trumpet.

"I say, if you get interfering with my affairs, Mr Hopper," cried Tom
angrily, and paying no heed to a whispered remonstrance from Jessie,
"I'll--"

"I can't hear a word you say: try the right side."

As he spoke, he held the other boot to his left ear, and leaned forward
in an irritating manner, grinning the while at the speaker.

"I say that if you dare to--"

"Tchsh!  I can't hear a word if you mumble like that.  Oh, be off with
you: I've got no time to waste.  I'm seventy, and if I'm lucky I've got
ten years to live.  You're five-and-twenty, and got fifty-five, so you
are wasteful of your time, and spend it in running after girls who don't
want you--like your beautiful brother Fred.  Bless him! if I had any
money to leave I'd put him down in my will for it--an artful, designing
scoundrel!"

"Look here, Mr Hopper," cried Tom hotly, "you can abuse me as much as
you like, and tell tales as much as you like, and play the sneak; but
because you've known me from a child I won't stand here and hear my
brother maligned."

"There, it's no use, I can't hear a word you say," grumbled the old
fellow; "but it don't matter,--I can see by your manner that you are
abusing a poor helpless old man, the friend of your mother and that
girl's father, and you are keeping her back, so that she'll be late with
her parcel, and make her lose the work, and then you'll be happy."

"Confound--" began Tom.  "Here, come along, Jessie," he cried, snatching
her arm through his; and the old man stood chuckling to himself as he
watched them out through the tunnel, before he made for the door with
the red sign, and giving a sharp rap with his stick entered at once,
nodding quietly at Mrs Shingle.

"Here, I've brought Dick a job," he said, carrying the old pair of boots
to the bench.  "He's to do them directly, and they're to be sixpence--I
won't pay another penny.  Are you listening?"

Mrs Shingle nodded, and went on with her work.

"He's to put a good big corn on the last of the left-hand foot, and then
cut away the leather, well beat a patch and put it on.  My left foot
hurts me horrid."

"You ought to have a new pair," said Mrs Shingle.

"Hey?"

"You ought to have a new pair," she continued, a trifle more loudly.

"Have a new pair?"

Mrs Shingle nodded.

"Bah!  How can I afford a new pair?  Times are hard.  Ships' husbands
don't make money like they used.  New pair, indeed!  They're good enough
for me.  Tell him to mend 'em well, and they are to be sixpence, d'yer
hear?"  Mrs Shingle nodded, with her silk in her mouth, gave it a
twang, and went on.

"You'll break your teeth one of these days," said the old fellow, taking
off his hat, placing it on his stick, and standing it in a corner.
Then, going in a slow, bent way to the well waxed and polished Windsor
chair, he gave the chintz cushion a punch, took a long clay pipe off the
chimney-piece, made it chirrup, reached an old leaden tobacco-box from
the same place, set it up on the table, and sat down.

"My teeth are used to it," said Mrs Shingle, smiling pleasantly, as if
she were quite accustomed to the old fellow's proceedings.

"Hey?"

"I say my teeth are used to it," repeated Mrs Shingle.

"Oh!--Don't shout.--I say, this tobacco's as dry as a chip," he
continued, filling his pipe.

Mrs Shingle sighed.

"Dick's been going it awfully," grumbled the old fellow; "there was
nearly half an ounce here last night."

Mrs Shingle rose, took the matches from the chimney-piece, struck a
light, and held it to the bowl of the pipe; the visitor puffed the
tobacco into a state of incandescence, and then subsided into his chair
with a satisfied grunt, and sat staring straight before him, while Mrs
Shingle sighed and went on with her stitching.

"I met those two," said the old fellow, after a pause.

Mrs Shingle looked up sharply.

"Won't do," said her visitor.

"What won't do?"

"Hey?"

"I say, what won't do?" said Mrs Shingle, colouring, and looking at him
anxiously.

"I can hear you--don't shout," said the old fellow.  "I say that won't
do.  Has Tom been here much?"

"No, not much," said Mrs Shingle.

"I don't quite understand Tom," said the old fellow.  "But I think he's
a scamp."

"Indeed, I'm sure he's not!" cried Mrs Shingle excitedly.  "Sure he's
not?" chuckled the old fellow.  "Of course.  Just like you women.  You
take a fancy to a man, and the blacker he is the more you say he's
white."

"I'm sure Tom is a very good, gentlemanly young fellow."

"Of course.  But it won't do, Polly--it won't do."

"I don't see why it shouldn't do," said Mrs Shingle, tossing her head.
"They're both young and nice-looking."

"Bah! will that fill their insides?"

"And they're getting very fond of each other."

"More shame for you to let 'em," said the old man composedly.  And his
eyes twinkled with malicious glee as he saw the little woman begin to
grow ruffled, like a mother hen, and the colour come into her wattles
and comb.

"And pray why?" said Mrs Shingle loudly.

"Don't shout," said the old fellow.  "Why, indeed!  What will Max say
when he knows of it?"

"Ah!" sighed Mrs Shingle, "what indeed!"

"He'll boil over in his confounded sanctified way, and kick Tom out of
the house without a shilling of his mother's money."

"Oh, dear, dear, dear," said Mrs Shingle, letting her work fall into
her lap and wringing her hands; "that's what I've been thinking, and
I've tried all I could to stop it; but the more I try, the fonder they
get of one another."

"Of course they do.  That's their way--the young fools!" snarled the
visitor; "and if you let 'em alone, Jessie will marry the young noodle,
fill his house full of children, and make him a poor man all his life."

"That wouldn't matter much if they were happy," sighed Mrs Shingle.

"Same as you've kept poor old Dicky?"

"Indeed! and we never had but one little one," said Mrs Shingle
indignantly.

"Hey?"

"I say we never had but one little one--Jessie," said Mrs Shingle
indignantly.

"Gross piece of extravagance, too.  You couldn't afford children."

"No, indeed," sighed Mrs Shingle.

"And now you're encouraging that pretty young baggage, who coaxes and
carneys round you, to get herself in the same mess, and then you'll be
happy."

"Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear me!  I wish I knew what to do," sighed Mrs
Shingle.

"What to do!" chorused the old fellow.  "No business to have married.  I
didn't, and I've saved just enough to live on with strict economy; and
see how happy I am."

"You don't seem to be," said Mrs Shingle tartly; "for you're always
finding fault."

"Finding fault?"

Mrs Shingle nodded.

"Makes me happy.  Then I come and smoke a pipe here one day, and one at
Max's another day; and you're both so glad to see me that that makes me
happy too.  Ha! you've spoiled that girl of yours, or she wouldn't go on
like she does."

"I'm sure Jessie couldn't |be a better behaved girl!" exclaimed Mrs
Shingle.

"Stuff!  You never whipped her well, and Max never trained those boys.
Good thing flogging!  Makes the skin soft and elastic.  Gives room to
grow.  Where's Dick?"

"Gone to his brother's."

"Gone to his brother's?"

Mrs Shingle nodded.

"What's he gone there for?"

"Take home a pair of new boots."

"What! did Max give Dick an order for a new pair?"  Mrs Shingle nodded.

"Wonderful!  Max is getting more virtuous than ever.  I'll praise him
next time I go."

"No, don't--please," said Mrs Shingle earnestly.  "Every little does
help so just now; and we can't afford to offend Max."

"So you make traps, and put Jessie in for a bait, and try to catch his
wife's two boys, eh?"

"Indeed I did not," cried Mrs Shingle; "it was all Tom's own doing."

"Ah, I dare say it was; but young Fred's always hanging about here too;
and as soon as-ever Max hears of it, there will be no end of a row.  I
shall put him on his guard."

"Pray say nothing!" cried Mrs Shingle imploringly.  "Why not?  Best for
both the young noodles to be brought to their senses."

"No, no; it would make them so unhappy.  Let matters take their course.
It will be quite time enough for the trouble to come when Maximilian
finds it out for himself.  Hush! here's Dick."

"Hulloa!  What's that?  The old game.  Woman all over.  Keeping secrets
from your husband.  Glad I never married!"

Mrs Shingle darted an indignant look at him, and no doubt a sharp
retort was on her lips; but it was checked by a voice outside, and
Richard Shingle, the occupier of the house, the mechanic who made boots
and shoes and neatly executed repairs, entered the room, followed by his
boy, with "Hallo, Hoppy, old man, how are you?  Glad to see you.  Too
soon for the B flat yet; but you stop all day, and we'll polish that bit
off to rights."

"How are you, Dick--how are you?" said the old man quietly.  And then
refilling his pipe, he lit up, half turned his back, and seemed to
ignore that which followed, and to be totally ignored, on account of his
deafness.

Richard Shingle was not an ill-looking man of forty; but he had a rather
weak, vacillating expression of countenance, over which predominated a
curious, puzzled look, which was due to something you could not make
out.  One moment you felt sure it was his eyes, but the next you said
decidedly it was his mouth, while just as likely you set it down to his
fair hair or his rather hollow cheeks, or the turn of his chin.  The
fact was, it was due to all his features, his figure, and his every
attitude; for Richard Shingle, as he stood before you, seemed as if he
had just taken you by the button-hole and said in full sincerity, as
applied to the general scheme of life and man's position on earth: "I
say, what does it all mean?"

For he was one of those men who had never "got on."  He said he wanted
to get on, and he worked very hard; but the world was too much for him,
and he was always left behind.  If he had lived at the equator, where it
is hot, and man naturally feels inert, while the world races round at
the rate of a thousand miles an hour, it is only natural to suppose that
he might have been left behind; but it would have been just the same if
Richard Shingle's existence had been upon the very Pole itself, north or
south, where he would only have been called upon to turn once round in
twenty-four hours.  As he lived in that part of the temperate zone known
as Islington, where the medium rate of progress is in force, it remained
then, that not only could poor Dick never get ahead, but was always, in
spite of his misplaced efforts, getting a little more and a little more
behind.

And yet he looked a sharp, animated man, full of action, as on this
occasion, when he turned to his wife with "Well, mother, here we are
again, boots and all!"

"But you've not brought them back again, Dick?" said Mrs Shingle,
looking anxiously up from her work.

"What do you call that, then?" said Dick, taking a blue bag from the
doleful-looking, thin, white-faced boy with very short hair, and turning
the receptacle upside down, so that the contents fell out on the floor
with a bang.

"Oh, Dick!"

"He said they were the wussest-made pair of boots he ever see.  After
all the pains as I took with 'em," said the speaker, gloomily picking up
the freshly polished leather, and examining it.

"Oh, Dick--how tiresome!"

"And swore he couldn't get his feet into 'em,--leastwise," he added
correctively, "he didn't swear--Max is too good to swear--he said as he
couldn't get his feet in 'em."

"Tut--tut--tut!" ejaculated Mrs Shingle, stitching away at her work.

"He blowed me up fine; said I wasn't fit to shoe a horse, let alone a
Christian man.  When--look at 'em.  Did you ever see a prettier pair--
eh, Hoppy?" he shouted.

The old man glanced at the boots and grunted, turning away again
directly.

"Look at 'em, mother--rights and lefts, and the soles polished off
smooth; and see how prettily they put out their tongues at you, all
lined with a bit o' scarlet basil.  Called me a cobbler, too, he did;
and after laying myself out on the artistic tack, so as to get his
future patronage, and that of Mrs S.'s two boys."

"Oh, Dick, Dick!"

"Yes, it is `Oh, Dick, Dick!'  Bad, too, as we want the money.  Wouldn't
fit you, I suppose, Hoppy?"

"Hey?"

"I say they wouldn't fit you, would they?  You should have 'em cheap."

"Bah, no!  I couldn't wear boots like these.  Couldn't afford it--
couldn't afford it.  There's a pair for you to mend."

"All right, old man--all right; I'll do 'em.  Of course they wouldn't do
for you," he continued; "bad, too, as we want the money.  Said it was
what always came of employing relatives; but he did it out of charitable
feeling--so as to give me a lift.  Called me a bungler, too, when, look
here, mother, how nicely I made a little mountain on that side to hold
his bunion, and a little Greenwich-hill on that side to accommodate his
favourite corn.  That's working for relations, that is.  Dressed up a
bit, too, this morning to take 'em home, so as not to disgrace him by
looking too shabby, and made Union Jack walk behind to carry the blue
bag, same as if I was a sooperior kind of tradesman, and his servants
shouldn't look down on me.  Said I was Mr Richard Shingle, too, when
the maid opened the door.  But it was all no go.  Another of my
failures, old gal.  Tell you what it is, mother, it'll be what the
drapers call a terrific crash if it goes on like this."

"But, Dick dear, you don't mean that he won't have the boots at all?"

"That's just what I do mean.  He's shied 'em on my hands.  'Taint as if
he'd shied 'em on my feet."

"Oh, dear, dear, dear!" ejaculated Mrs Shingle.  "Dear!" said Dick,
trying to raise a feeble laugh.  "That's just what they are.  I can't
afford to wear a pair of handsome boots like them.  Only look at 'em.
Leather cost me nine shillings before I put in a stitch."

"I declare, it's too bad, Dick," whimpered Mrs Shingle; "and us so
badly off too.  Brother, indeed!  He's worse than--"

"There, that'll do," said Dick, taking off his coat, "Don't you get
letting on about him, mother, because he is my brother, you know.  Blood
_is_ thicker than water."

"I don't see what that's got to do with it, Dick, if it's ten times as
thick," said Mrs Shingle, stabbing away at her boot-binding as if the
kid leather were Maximilian Shingle's skin.

"No, you don't," said Dick, rolling up his sleeves, and tying on his
leather apron, before going to the chimney glass, and putting a piece of
ribbon round his rather long hair, apparently to embellish his
countenance, but really to keep the locks out of his eyes when he bent
down over his work.  "No, mother; that's because you're put out, and
cross, and won't see it; but blood is thicker than water, ain't it,
Hoppy?"

"Hey?" said the old fellow, taking his pipe out of his mouth.

"I say blood is thicker than water, ain't it?"

"Ever so much," growled the old fellow, going on with his smoking; while
Dick, glancing over his shoulder, and seeing that his wife's attention
was taken up with the binding, slipped a half-ounce packet of tobacco
into his old friend's hand, with a nod and a wink, to indicate that the
strictest secrecy must be observed.

"Yes," continued Dick, retiring towards his bench; "that's what I always
say--brothers is brothers, and blood's thicker than water.  And as to
Max--well, it's a way he's got, and he can't help it."

"Stuff!" ejaculated Mrs Shingle sharply.

"No, no, mother, it ain't stuff neither; so don't talk like that.  Here,
you sir," he cried to the boy, who was standing staring from one to the
other, "get to work, you luxurious young rascal.  That ain't the way to
improve your shining hours.  Wax up and get ready a pair of fine points
to mend them old shoes."

"All right, master," said the boy.  And, slipping off his threadbare
jacket, he sat down on a stool, and began to unwind a ball of hemp.

"I don't believe in such brothers," said Mrs Shingle bitterly.
"Brothers, indeed!"

"No, that's it, mother; it's because you are a bit put out.  But you'll
see it in the right light soon."

"Ah!" he continued, rearranging the band round his forehead; and then,
catching sight of a letter tucked behind the glass, "Now, if old Uncle
Rounce's money--or present, as he calls it--would drop in now, it would
be welcome."

As he spoke he opened the often-perused letter, which was written on
thin paper and bore Australian postmarks, and began to read aloud:

"`Thinking that a little money might be useful, I have sent you a
present'--and so on.  Now, I wonder when that money's coming."

"Never," said Mrs Shingle tartly.

"Now, there's where you are so wrong, mother," said Dick.  "It's very
kind of the old fellow, who must have got on famously to be able to send
us a few pounds--it's sure to be pounds when it does come."

"And it won't never come," said Mrs Shingle; "for you've had that
letter nine months."

"Well, if it don't, mother, it don't--that's all; but what I say is,
blood is thicker than water, or else old Uncle Eb--as I never see, only
heard o--wouldn't have said he'd send me a present--would he, Hoppy?"

"Hey?"

"I say Uncle Rounce wouldn't have said he'd send me a present if blood
warn't thicker than water."

"No.  Have you got it yet?" said the old fellow.

"No, not yet.  I asked Max about it, and he said he didn't believe it
would come."

"He said that, did he?"

"Yes, he said that," replied Dick, doubling the letter again, and
replacing it behind the old looking-glass.  "I dessay it'll come,
though, some day."

"You had better try and sell those boots at once," said Mrs Shingle
rather impatiently, and as if she had not much faith in the coming
money.

"Sell 'em?  Yes; but who's to buy 'em?  There's only two feet in London
as will fit 'em, and they're Max's."

"I declare it's too bad, Dick dear, and we so pressed for money.  The
rent's due, you know.  Rolling in riches, as he is, and to behave so to
his poor brother, who works so hard."

"Gently, mother, gently: it's only a way he's got.  But I do work pretty
hard, don't I?--only I'm so unlucky."

"Why don't you make a good dash at something, instead of plodding,
then?" said Hopper suddenly.

"Come, now," cried Dick, with an ill-used look and tone, "don't you turn
round on me, Hoppy, old man.  We're too good friends for that.  It's
what Max always says; and I ain't clever, so how can I?"

Hopper relapsed into silence.

"There, there, I shall get over it," continued Dick, working away; "and
as to rolling in riches, why, Max can't help rolling in riches, any more
than I can help rolling in nothing.  It's his way.  But I say, mother,
if we had riches, I think I could roll in 'em with the best."

"Don't talk nonsense, Dick," said Mrs Shingle, "when we're so worried
too.  There," she added, in a whisper, as their visitor rose, "we're
driving him away."

"Going, Hoppy, old man?" said Dick, as their visitor rose and laid aside
his pipe.

"Yes, going now," said the old fellow.  "I'll drop in, perhaps, in the
evening."

"We haven't put you out, have we?" said Dick.

"No, no, my lad; it's all right.  Dick, just lend me sixpence.  My money
is not due till Monday."

Dick's countenance fell, and he glanced at his wife.

"Have you got a sixpence, Polly?" he said.

"Not one," was the reply.

"I'm very sorry, Hoppy, old man," said Dick, looking more puzzled than
ever, and as if this time he really could not understand why he should
be so poor and his brother so rich--"but really I haven't got it."

"Never mind," said the old fellow--"never mind; I dare say I can do
without."

And, grumbling and muttering, he took up his hat and stick, and went
off.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER THREE.

A POOR JUDGE ON THE BENCH.

"Now he's put out," said Dick, looking puzzled at his wife.  "I did not
mean to upset him; but a man can't lend another man what he hasn't got,
can he, mother?"  There was no answer--only the clicking of Mrs
Shingle's needle against her thimble.

"I say a man can't lend what he hasn't got, can he, mother?" said Dick
again, as he bent over some strange performance that he was achieving
with an awl and some wax-end.

"I wasn't thinking of that, Dick," said his wife, with a sigh, "but of
the money for the boots."

"There, you needn't fidget about that," said Dick, throwing out his arms
so as to draw the hemp tight; "for we shouldn't have had the money if he
had kept the boots."

"Not had the money?"

"No--he meant to keep it for the rent.  He said so."

"There!" exclaimed Mrs Shingle.  "Well, that comes of having your
brother for your landlord.  He's as hard again as any one else."

"Well, Max always was a hard one, certainly, my dear.  Ever since we
were boys together, `Merry, merry boys--since we were boys together,'"
he sang.  Then, descending once more to everyday-life conversation, he
went on, "He was a hard one, Max was; and as to money, he'd always have
a penny or twopence when I had none, even if he borrowed it of me."

"And never paid it again," said his wife contemptuously.  "Well, it was
a way he had," said Dick.

"I haven't patience with him."

"No, my dear, you never did have patience with Max.  Clever chap too.
Marries his widow with lots of tin and a pair of boots--boys I mean--
ready made.  Why didn't I?"

"Ah! why indeed?" said Mrs Shingle sharply.

"Because I was a fool," said Dick, smiling pleasantly.  "Fools are best
off too, mother.  I say, fancy me with a wife like Max's!"

The idea seemed to please Dick so that he laughed and wiped one eye.

"There are worse women than Mrs Max," said Mrs Shingle.

"Yes, and there's better ones than you, I suppose, mother.  But I'm
contented, and never wanted a divorce yet."

"Dick, how can you talk so before that boy?"

"All right! but I say, mother--Here, go on with your work, you young
rascal.  Keeping your ears staring wide open like that!"

"Please, master, I couldn't help hearing," said the boy dolefully.  "I'm
a-learning my trade, and trying to obey my pastors and masters as hard
as ever I can."

"Now, lookye here," said Dick, taking up his hammer and gazing
threateningly at the boy, "I never have given it to you yet, John
Johnson, or, as I familiarly call you, from where you came and the
stripes you had on you when you came, Union Jack--"

"No, master," whined the boy, "you've been very kind indeed to me."

"I have, you hungry young alligator," said Dick.  "So look here, I won't
have it; I'm as bad as Mr Hopper that way,--I hate people to preach and
sling catechism at me so don't you do it again."

"No, master; please, I'll try very hard indeed, and obey you, as it is
my dooty to."

"Will you leave off?" roared Dick, striking his bench with the hammer,
so that the tools and nails jumped almost as much as the boy.  "You're
at it again, talking in that canting, whining, tread-underfoot,
workhouse style; and I won't have it.  What did I tell you you was?"

"A free-born Briton, please, master."

"Then why don't you act as such, and say `Yes, sir,' and `No, sir,'
outright and down straight?--not whine and grovel like a worm without
any sting in his tail."

"Please, master, I'll try and order myself lowly and reverently to all
my betters."

"Now, just hark at him!" cried Dick to his wife.

"Please, master, I'm very--"

"Ah!" shouted Dick.

"All right, master," said the boy; and he bent to his work.

"I say, mother;" said Dick, "Max is a bit put out with us."

"So it seems," said Mrs Shingle, biting her silk and stitching away.
"I think he'd be glad if we starved to death."

"Well, I don't know about that, my girl, because it wouldn't be nice to
look at, and he never liked unpleasant things; but he's a bit put out
about our Jess."

"What?" said Mrs Shingle, turning very red.

"About our Jess," said Dick, hammering away very viciously at an
inoffensive-looking bit of leather.  "He's got to know about those boys
being so fond of coming here."

"Our Jessie's as good as his boys," said Mrs Shingle sharply, and ready
to stand her ground, now that the truth was out.

"So she is, my gal--so she is, every bit; but she's only copper, and
they're silver-gilt in his eyes, if they ain't gold.--Here, you sir,
you're listening again, instead of working," he shouted to the boy, who
began to gum his hands liberally with wax and roll the threads on his
lath-like knees.--"But Max has been on to me about it, and he says he
won't have it; and I always told them so, 'specially Tom.  `Tom,' I
says, `your governor won't like your coming here,' I says; `and he'll
think all sorts of things about it.'"

"Just as if money need make any difference!" exclaimed Mrs Shingle.

"It needn't, my gal," said Dick, grunting over his work; "but it do--it
makes all the difference; you see if it don't.  For if you don't go off
with that bit of shoe-binding of yours, and bring back the money, we
sha'n't get any dinner, and that's very different to having it.  But
where's Jessie?"

"Gone to the warehouse."

"What, all-alone!  Now, look here, mother--I won't have it.  She's too
young and pretty to go there all alone, and I won't have her left to be
followed and annoyed by counter-jumpers, and that fellow as gives out
the work.  You know she came home crying on Friday.  Why didn't you go
with her?"

"I had this to finish, Dick."

"You've always got _this_ to finish," said Dick testily.  "Then you
should have kept her till I came back."

"But it would have been too late, Dick.  Where are you going?" she
cried, as he rose and began to untie his apron.  "To meet her," he
exclaimed angrily.

"But she hasn't gone alone, Dick," said the wife softly.

"If you've let her go there with that Fred Fraser, Polly, I'll never
forgive you," cried Dick.

"She's gone with Tom, dear."

"Tom, dear, indeed!  It isn't `Tom, dear,' and it isn't going to be
`Tom, dear,'" exclaimed Dick, re-tying his apron viciously.

"But he came, dear, just as she was starting, and he begged so hard that
I was obliged to let him take her."

"There you go!" cried Dick, hammering again at the piece of unoffending
leather.  "You'll ruin me before you've done.  Here's Max says only this
morning, says he, `I won't have that gal of yours hanging about after my
wife's sons.'  He said `_gal_' and `my wife's sons.'  And I, feeling a
bit up, says back, `Lookye here, Max, I can't help your _boys_ coming to
my house.  I'm not going to send my _daughter_ away.'  I think that was
pretty sharp on him, you know; when, `Damn your impudence,' he says.--
Look here, Jack," continued Dick, pointing at the boy with his hammer,
"I promised the workhouse authorities as I'd bring you up moral, so
don't you go telling anybody as your master swears, because that was
some one else."

"All right, master," said the boy smartly.

"That's better," cried Dick; "don't whine.  Well, mother, then he gets
in a towering rage, and showed me what was the matter with the boots.
They'd got Jessie in 'em; that's where they wouldn't fit.  `How dare you
speak to me in that familiar way, sir!' he says, sticking himself out
and looking big, like a poor-law guardian.  `When I employ you, sir, as
an humble tradesman, I desire you pay me proper respect.'  And now,
mother, you've been and made worse of it.  Hang me, if I don't turn
burglar, or something to make money, if things don't mend!  I'm sick of
being poor."

"No, don't, please, master," said the boy, with a whine.  "Honesty's the
best policy.  And he who steals comes to a bad end."

"Now, just look here, young fellow," cried Dick, with a serio-comic look
on his face, as he raised his hammer once more, "burglary's bad enough,
but killing's worse.  There was a man once who had a boy from a workus,
just as I've had you, to teach you a trade--"

"Yes, master," said the boy, with eyes and mouth wide open.

"Well, he killed him with ill-usage, that's all.  I shouldn't like to
kill you, you know, so don't you get chucking any more of your copy-book
texts at me again."

"All right, master," said the boy, wiping his eyes.

"Now, look here, mother: once for all, I won't have it.  I'm as poor as
I can be to get along; and though we've swallowed my watch, and the
sugar-tongs and spoons, I haven't swallowed my little bit of pride; and
the next time that Tom or that Fred comes here, see if I don't call him
a son of a purse-proud, stuck-up father, and slam the door in his
face.--Now, you be off."

"Yes, Dick," said his wife meekly; and she rose and gathered together
her work.  "But, Dick, you're not very cross with me?"

"Well, perhaps not," he said; and his eyes endorsed his words.

"But, look here, Dick: if Tom comes back with Jessie, you won't say
anything unkind to him--for her sake?"

"Won't I?" cried Dick sharply.  "I'll shy the lapstone at him!  If he's
too good for my Jessie, she's too good for him."

"But don't hurt their feelings, Dick," she whispered, so that the boy
should not hear.

"I don't want to hurt her feelings," said Dick, yielding to his wife's
influence.  "But there, you're trying to come the soft on me again, as
you always do, and I won't have it.  Now be off."

"Yes, Dick--I'm going," she said quickly, as she put on her bonnet and
shawl.  "But I know you won't be unkind."

"Won't I?" said Dick, as the door closed.  "I'll show some of them yet!
I can be a regular savage when I like--can't I, Jack?"

"Please, what did you say, master?" whined the boy.

"I can be a regular savage when I like--can't I?" shouted Dick.

"Yes, master.--Please, master, I'm so hungry."

"So what?"

"So hungry, please, master."

"Hungry?  Why, the boy's mad!" cried Dick, looking up in mock
astonishment.  "How dare you, sir?  Hungry, indeed!  There, take that
wax-out of your mouth.  You're always trying to ruin me by eating the
wax or chewing leather."

"I can't help it, master," said the boy.  "Please, I'm so hungry."

"Hungry!" exclaimed Dick, with mock heroic diction.  "Brought up, too,
as you were, at one of the first workhouses in the kingdom!"

"Please, master, I can't help it," said the boy.  "I feel so hollow
inside."

"Hollow?  Nonsense, sir!  It's bad tendencies, or desire for gluttony
and wine-bibbing.  And after I've been such a good master to you!"

"Yes, master; and I'll never, never, never--"

"`Never, never, never shall be slaves,'" sang Dick, in his musical tenor
voice.  "But don't you say that, Jack, my boy; because if you keep on
running out of your trousers as you do, and looking like something
growing out of two beans, which is your boots, and then joining in the
middle and running up to a head, I sha'n't want you, specially if you're
going to be hollow, and want filling out."

"But I don't want filling out, master, only just a little sometimes.  I
can't help feeling hollow, and as if something was gnawing me."

"Gnawing?  Yes, that's it," cried Dick.  "I always told you so.  That's
it.  You will devour your food in such a way that it don't digest; and
that's what you feel, sir--gnawing pains.  There, fix up them bristles.
You ain't hungry."

"It feels very much like as I used to feel at the House, master," said
the boy.  "We all of us used to feel hollow there sometimes on rice
days.  I can't help it, please."

"Now, look ye here, my fine fellow, it won't do, so I tell you.  I'm
your master, ain't I?"

"Yes, please," said the boy, making a scoop with his hand.  "Leave off!
I won't have it!" cried Dick.  "You ain't to bow to me.  I say as your
master I ought to know best, and I say you ain't hungry; and, look here,
don't you chew wax and leather any more, because they're my property,
and you'll be tempted to swallow them, when it will not only be petty
larceny, but they'll disagree with you.  Now, go on sorting out the best
o' them bits o' leather."

"Yes, master," said the boy.

Dick rose from his bench, and went to the cupboard to see if there was a
crust of bread and some butter to give to the boy; but it was quite
empty, and he began to walk up and down, talking to himself.

"It's very hard," he muttered dolefully; "but the more I try to get on
the more I don't, and if things don't mend God knows what's to become of
us.  Poor Polly! she frets a deal, only she hides it; and as for
Jessie--There, there, there, I can't bear to think of it!" he groaned.
"I must have been a fool, and so can't get on."

He scuffled back to his seat, for a familiar step was heard in the
court; and, taking up his work, he began to sing merrily, after adjuring
the boy to go on ahead.

"Hollo, mother!" he cried, as his wife entered the room: "brought the
money?"

"No, Dick," said Mrs Shingle sadly; "they don't pay till next week."

"Don't pay for a week!" said Dick, letting his hands drop, but
recovering himself directly.  "All right!" he cried,--"so much in
store.--`Cheer up, Sam, and don't let your spirits go down,'" he sang.
"I say, mother, ain't it time that Jessie was back?"

"Yes," said Mrs Shingle sadly; "she'll be back soon.  It's very hard,
though, and it seems as if it never rained but it poured."

"Never does," said Dick cheerily; "`So put up your gingham and drive
away care,'" he sang.  "Hang it, mother, I hope it won't really rain
before she comes back.  Did she take the big umbrella?"

"No, father."

"Ah! bad job; but never mind--perhaps it won't rain.  Go along, Jack, my
lad: you don't feel hollow inside now, do you?"

"Yes, please, master--ever so much hollower," said the boy pitifully.

"I never see such a boy," cried Dick.  "Here, open the door, mother,--
it's Jessie.  Hollo!" he cried, jumping up; "what's the matter?"

"Oh, father, father!" sobbed the girl, running to his arms.

"Why, my precious!" he exclaimed, patting her cheek, "what is it?  Has
any one dared?  Oh, that's it, is it?" he muttered; for his brother,
closely followed by his younger step-son, entered the room.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FOUR.

A BROTHERS' QUARREL.

Maximilian Shingle was a heavy, broad-faced man, very cleanly shaven,
and with grey hair very smoothly brushed.  His black suit was as glossy
as a first-class undertakers, and he always wore an old-style bunch of
seals beneath his vest, with which he played as he spoke, spinning them
round, while his other hand flourished a black ebony stick, with a gold
top and a good deal of tassel.

Metaphorically speaking, there was a good deal of tassel all about
Maximilian, for he swung and flourished about in his words and deeds,
and always seemed to be more showy than substantial; and even now, when
he was very white, and evidently in a towering passion, he flourished
his seals and stick, and turned threateningly upon his brother; whilst
the boy, who seemed to see in him a workhouse official or Poor-law
guardian, softly stole into the back room, and surveyed the proceedings
through the crack of the door.

In fact, the moment you saw Max Shingle, you said to yourself, "What a
splendid man for a beadle!"  And so he was: put him in uniform, and he
would have been simply perfect--from the soft roll of fat under his chin
to the well-rounded calf of his leg, which showed so prominently through
his well-cut trousers.  His very appearance aggravated you, and caused
an itching beneath the nail of your right toe; for he was one of those
men whom nature out of pure beneficence moulded to be kicked as a relief
to abnormal irritation.  His appearance at every turn suggested it,
inasmuch as he was padded with tissue of the most elastic nature, such
as would yield easily to the foot; and thus the kicker would run no
risks either of hurting himself or committing homicide, while he
obtained the satisfaction all the same.

"Now, sir," began Max, fiercely addressing his brother, "what have you
to say?"

"Well, I don't know yet," said Dick, looking in a puzzled way from one
to the other.  "What is it?"

"Don't know!" cried Max.  "Didn't I speak to you, sir, an hour or two
back?"

"Was it an hour or two back?" said Dick, who still held and soothed
Jessie, as she clung to him.

"Yes, it was, sir!" cried Max, who was surprised that his brother did
not cower, according to his wont.  "I told you an hour or two ago that I
would not have these disgraceful proceedings."

"What disgraceful proceedings?" said Dick sullenly.

"These," cried Max, pointing with his stick first at Jessie and then at
Tom.  "I speak to you, and warn you--"

"Let me say a word," began Tom.

"Hold your tongue, sir!" cried Max, holding up his stick; but the young
man did not flinch.  "I say, I speak to you and warn you, and directly
after I find your girl arm-in-arm with this foolish son of mine in the
open street, sir--in the open street."

"Well, Max, you can't have the streets shut up," said Dick quietly.

"How dare you address me, sir, like that?" cried Max.  "Will you listen,
Mr Shingle?" cried Tom, who was losing patience--"it was all my fault."

"Silence, sir!  I will not hear a word.  Your conduct is disgraceful,
and after the Christian example that has been set you--"

"I don't see anything unchristianlike in loving a good, sweet girl,
sir," said the young man stoutly.  "I cannot stand here and let you
speak like this."

"Then go, sir, go; and never dare to enter beneath this roof again while
these people are here," cried Max.  "I suppose you have had baits set to
coax you into the trap, you silly pigeon?"

"Indeed--"

"But let me tell them all," said Max, looking round with supreme
disgust, "that if their nefarious scheme had succeeded, you would not
have received a shilling from me."  Dick broke in here.  He had been
ready to explode several times, but had been kept back by wife and
child.  Now he could contain himself no longer.

"Here, let me say a word," he exclaimed.  "He hasn't been coaxed here,
nor anything of the sort, Mr Max.  We don't want him, and won't have
him; so there now."

"Oh, father!" exclaimed Jessie.

"You hold your tongue, miss," cried Dick, "and just try and have some
pride in you."

"How dare you speak to me like that, sir!" cried Max, frowning
portentously--"how dare you!  You, whom I've tried to raise out of the
mud, but who always would persist in grovelling!"

"I shouldn't have had to grovel so much if people paid me for the boots
they ordered," said Dick.

"You contemptible wretch!" cried Max.  "You cloven-hoofed viper, who
persists in turning and biting the hand that helped you!  And after all
we meant to do for you to try and raise you!--to endeavour to clothe and
educate your neglected child, whose conduct as a work-girl is most
reprehensible."

"Look here," cried Dick, whose face was working with anger.

"Silence, sir!" cried Max, thumping his stick upon the floor.  "You grow
lower and lower year by year, and now try to reward me by making this
despicable plan to drag yourself up to my level.  Now, look here.  I've
warned you, and it has been of no use.  I have let you occupy this
house, when I might have had a better tenant, and you have got in
arrears."

"Only two weeks," cried Mrs Shingle indignantly.

"Silence, woman!" cried Max.

"Don't bully her, Max, or there'll be a row," exclaimed Dick fiercely.

"Silence, both of you!  I say I've let you get in arrears of rent for my
property; and now you shall leave it.  I'll let the house to honest
people who will pay--"

"Oh, Mr Max!" cried Mrs Shingle imploringly.

"And then I shall see the last of you, and have no more of these
disgraceful meetings."

"Mr Shingle, this is too bad," cried Tom.

"Silence, boy!" said Max, placing one hand in the breast of his glossy
frock-coat, and scowling round at all in turn.  "Does any one here think
I'd disgrace my honourable wife by permitting such an alliance?"

"Nice brotherly behaviour, this!" cried Dick indignantly.

"Brotherly?" cried Max.  "Sir, I disown all relationship with you.
You've hung on to my skirts too long, and now I'll be free of you.
Miserable, grovelling beggar!"

"I never begged or borrowed of you," said Dick.

"No; because I checked the impulse, or I should have had to keep you.
And now you want to disgrace me and mine."

"I'm sure no man could have been more industrious," put in Mrs Shingle.

"Industrious?" cried Max, looking round at the shabby half workshop,
half sitting-room.  "Industrious?  Yes, always idling in his wretched
slough, instead of trying to improve his position--to get on.  But I'll
have no more of it: leave this place you shall at once."

"Oh, Mr Shingle--Uncle Max!" cried Jessie piteously, "it was all my
fault: I ought to have known better.  Don't turn poor father and mother
out.  They work and try so hard."

"Bah!" ejaculated Max contemptuously; while Tom made for Jessie, but a
heavy arm was laid across his chest.

"Don't--pray don't," sobbed Jessie, joining her hands and looking
piteously up in the smooth, smug face.  "Don't do that, and I'll promise
never to see--never to see Tom.  No, no: I can't--I can't--I can't!" she
cried, bursting into an agony of weeping.

"You shall promise no such thing, Jessie--dear cousin," cried Tom, in a
manly way, as, extricating himself, he stepped up to her side and tried
to take her hand; but she shrank from him and clung to her mother.
"Jessie," he exclaimed, "as I'm a man, I'll be true to you in spite of
everything."

"This is your work," cried Max furiously, as he turned to his brother.
"Do you see now what you have done?"

"That was well spoke, Tom, and I never thought better of you than I do
now," said Dick, rousing himself, though his face looked more perplexed
than ever.  "But I've had enough of this here.  You and your father
belong to the swells, and I'm a poor working man.  You two are ile, and
floats on the top--we're only water, and goes to the bottom.  But
p'r'aps the water's got as much pride in it as the ile; and so's my poor
girl, when she's got her bit of sorrow over.  You're no match for her."

Max gave a loud, contemptuous laugh, which made Mrs Shingle look up as
if she would wither him.

"Not," continued Dick, "but what she's the best girl in the whole world,
though I as her father says it."

Dick took up his hammer in a helpless, meaningless way, and turned it
over and over, examining the handle and the head, and gazed from one to
the other, as if asking their opinion about the quality of the tool.

"I don't think I was ever so hard up in my life," continued Dick--"and
mother here will bear me out if I don't speak what's good as Gorspel;
but afore I'd stay under your roof I'd try the workus.  You needn't be
afraid, Mr Maximilian Shingle, as your poor shoemaker of a brother, as
has been unlucky all his life, a and never see the way to get up the
ladder without shouldering and pulling some one else down--which wasn't
his way--will ever trouble you again, nor let your wife's boys come
hanging about after his poor dear gal.  I never encouraged it, and never
shall.  Some day, p'r'aps, you'll come yourself and ask for it to be."

"I ask!" cried Max--"a common sempstress, an impudent drab!"

"Mr Shingle!" cried Tom furiously.

"Silence, sir!" shouted Max, who, roused by the opposition he had
received, struck at his step-son with his tasselled cane.  "I said an
impudent, bold-faced drab!"

"Stop!" roared Dick, from whose face the puzzled look seemed to have
departed, to give place to one of angry decision; and he stepped, hammer
in hand, close up to his brother.  "Look here, Max," he cried, in a low,
hoarse voice, "I don't want to play Cain, and there ain't much of the
Abel about you; but my poor gal here,"--he placed his arm round her as
he spoke, and she hid her hot, indignant face upon his shoulder--"my
poor gal here, I say, once read to me when she was a little un about a
blacksmith knocking a man down with his hammer because he insulted his
daughter.  Now, you've insulted my dear, sweet gal, as the very poorest
and lowest labourer about here has a respectful word for, and even the
very costers at the stalls; and you've made my blood bile--poor, and
thin, and beggarly as it is.  So, now then, this is my house till I
leaves it.  I ain't Wat Tyler, and you ain't a tax-gatherer, but if you
ain't gone in half a moment I'll give you what for."

"You scoundrel--you shall repent this!" cried Max.

But Dick made at him so menacingly that he hurried out of the house.

"Uncle," began Tom, who had stopped behind.

"Off with you!" cried Dick sternly.  "I won't hear a word.  No: nor you
sha'n't touch her.  Jessie, say good-bye to him, and there's an end of
it.  We'll emigrate."

"Oh, father, what have I done?" cried Jessie.

"Nothing, Jessie, but what is right, my own darling; and here, before
your father and mother--"

"Tom!" shouted Max from without.

"I swear," continued Tom, "that I'll never give you up."

"That'll do," said Dick, uncompromisingly.  "He's calling you.  Out of
my house!"

"Uncle," said Tom, "when you are cooler you'll think better of me, I
hope.  I can't help this.  I do love Jessie dearly."

"I won't hear a word," cried Dick.

"But you'll shake hands with me?"

"No: I'm a poor shoemaker, and you're a gentleman.  Be off!"

"Oh, father! father!" cried Jessie; and she flung her arms round his
neck.

"No, I won't give way," cried Dick; but he was patting and soothing his
child as he spoke.

"Shake hands with him, Dick," whispered Mrs Shingle.  "It ain't his
fault."

"I won't!" cried Dick.  "It _is_ his fault.  He had no business to
come."

"No, father, it was my fault," sobbed Jessie.  "Shake hands with him--
please do!"

All this while Tom was standing with extended hand; and at last Dick's
went out to join it for a moment, and was then snatched away.

"Good-bye, dear Jessie," said Tom then; "but mind, I shall keep to my
word."

"Is that scoundrel coming?" said Max from without.  Dick made a vicious
"offer," as if to throw his hammer at the door; but Mrs Shingle took it
from his hand.

"I'm coming," said Tom loudly; and then, taking Jessie's hand, he kissed
it tenderly, and, as the poor girl began to sob piteously, he hurried
out of the house and was gone.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIVE.

FRED IS BUSY.

The offices of Maximilian Shingle were on the first-floor, in a narrow
turning close to the Royal Exchange; and, though they were dark and
inconvenient, they were handsomely furnished, as befitted a suite of
three rooms for which a heavy rent was paid.  The outer room was
occupied by four clerks, the second room was allotted to his wife's
elder son, and the inner sanctum was Max's own.

A morning or two after the visit to Crowder's Buildings, Fred was seated
at his table, with a small open book before him--one which evidently had
nothing to do with stock-broking; but he was studying it so hard that
the lines were deeply marked upon his effeminate face.

Twice over he started, and closed it hastily, as he heard a step
outside; but, after listening for a few moments, he resumed his task,
and kept on with his study for some time.  Then he closed the little
memorandum book with a sigh, placed it carefully in his pocket, and
opening a drawer, took out some doubled blotting paper, between which,
on opening it, lay a piece of tracing paper and an old bill of exchange.

Placing this convenient to his hand, he also took a large blotter,
arranged in it a sheet of paper, and wrote in the date and some
half-dozen lines, before moving blotter and letter into a handy
position.

This done, he listened for a few moments, and then taking the tracing
paper and bill, began to go over the signature very carefully, writing
it again and again, beginning at the top of his tracing paper, and
forming a column of signatures.

Then there was a knock at the door; and as Fred cried "Come in!" the
blotter was drawn deftly over the tracing paper, and he went on writing.

A clerk brought in a couple of letters to be signed, and this being done
he retired; when Fred resumed his task, working away patiently, and
always going over the writing again.

This went on for half an hour or so, until the young man started, and
hastily drew the blotter over his work; for the door was being opened
very slowly and quietly, and in a heavy, noiseless way, old Hopper
entered the room.

"How do, Fred?" he said, approaching the table slowly.

"How do?" was the short, sharp reply.  "What does he want?" he muttered.

"Hey?"

"I say what hot weather."

"Don't shout: I'm not so deaf as all that," said the old fellow hastily.
"Father in his room?"

"Yes," said Fred; "he's in there."

"Hey?"

"I say he's in there," roared the young man.

"I wish you wouldn't shout so, my lad," said the old man sourly.  "I
don't want the drums of my ears split.  I could hear what you said.  And
how is the dear, good man, eh?"

"Same as usual," replied Fred, with a grin.

"Ah!" said Hopper, "you ought to be a very good young man, having such a
step-father."

"I am," replied Fred.

"Hey?"

"I say I am," shouted Fred.

"So I suppose," said the old fellow, chuckling, and looking at him with
a strange expression of countenance.  "Well, tell him I want to see
him."

_Ting_!

There was the sharp sound of a gong heard in the next room, and Fred
rose to answer it.  He glanced first at the old man, and then down at
his letter; but a second stroke on the gong made him hurry to the inner
door, which he opened, and stood with his head half inside; but a few
sharp peremptory words were heard, and he went in and closed the door,
leaving Hopper waiting.

Fred was not gone many minutes; and when he returned it was to find the
visitor had taken a chair, and was busy over the contents of a bulky
pocket-book, which he secured as the young man appeared, and returned to
the pocket in the breast of his ugly, ill-cut dress-coat.

"He says you can go in, but he can only give you ten minutes," said
Fred.

"Won't see me for ten minutes?" said the old fellow.

"Says you may go in for ten minutes," shouted the young man; and then,
in a whisper, "Confounded old nuisance!"

Old Hopper turned half round, and gave him a peculiar leer, shaking his
head and chuckling to himself as he went slowly towards the door of Max
Shingle's office, putting down his stick heavily in the recurring
pattern of the floorcloth, closely followed by Fred, who showed him in.

"What the governor has that deaf old beetle hanging about him for, I
can't make out," said the young man, returning to his seat; and he was
about to continue his task when a fresh knock at the door made him
hastily thrust his papers into the drawer of the table, lock it, and
take out the key.

"Ah, my dear Hopper, how are you?" said Max, smiling amiably, and making
his eyes beam upon his visitor.

"Hey?  How am I?" snarled the old fellow, giving his stick a thump on
the floor.  "What's that to you?  I'm not dying yet.  Ain't you sorry?"

"Sorry?  Heaven forbid!" said Max unctuously, as he shook his head
reproachfully at his visitor, and then, taking hold of his watch-ribbon,
threw himself back in his chair and began to spin the seals round and
round.

"Don't!  Be quiet!" cried Hopper, thrusting out the point of his stick,
so that the seals struck upon it and were arrested in their motion.
"Think I'm not bilious enough with looking at you, without having that
thing spun round in my face?"

Max laughed, but looked annoyed; while the old fellow took a seat
unasked.

"What can I do for you?" said Max at last, smiling blandly.

"Give me a glass of wine.  I'm hot and tired."

"Really, I--" began Max.

"It's in that stand," said the old fellow, chuckling, as he pointed with
his stick at a handsome mahogany cellarette at one end of the room; when
Max, whose smile was tempered a good deal with a look of annoyance,
rose, sighed, secured the door with a little bolt, and then unlocked the
cellarette and took out a decanter and glass.

"No, thank you--I don't smoke cigars," said the old fellow, as he
watched the sherry poured into the glass.  "Hey!  You weren't going to
offer me one?  Ho!  I was afraid you were."

Max had not spoken; but he winced as he heard these words--preserving
his smile, though, when he turned his face to his visitor and passed the
wine.

"Not bad, Max--not bad," said the old fellow, tasting the sherry and
smacking his lips before pouring the rest down his throat.  "How you
must mug yourself here!  Lucky dog, lucky dog!  Now, if I had taken to
stock-broking instead of ship's husbanding, I might have been as well
off as you."

"Oh dear, no; I'm not well off," said Max.

"Hey?"

"I say I'm not well off," said Max, more loudly.

"That's a pity," said the old fellow.  "Never mind, I'll have another
glass, all the same.  Fill it full this time."

Max shut his teeth with a snap, but he filled the glass brimming full,
and then restopped the decanter.

"So you're not well off, hey?" said Hopper.

"Very, very short," said Max, with his mouth close to his visitor's ear.

"Humph!  Sorry to hear it, because I want to borrow five pounds of you,"
said Hopper.  "You've got that, I suppose?"

"Indeed, no.  I'm very sorry," began Max.

"So am I," said the old fellow shortly.  "Hah, Max Shingle, how you'd
have liked to stick a dose of poison in that wine, wouldn't you?"

"Really, Mr Hopper," began Max indignantly, and he half rose.

But the old man laid his stick upon his shoulder like a sceptre, and
forced him down.

"Sit still, stupid!" cried the old man.  "I know what you are going to
say.  Surprised at my making such remarks, and so on.  But you would
like to, and I believe you'd do it if it was not for the fear of the
law.  I say, Max," he chuckled, "it would take a strong new rope to hang
you."

Max laid his hands upon the arms of his handsome, well-stuffed easy
chair, and turned of a pale dough colour, as he glared at his visitor.

"I don't wonder at it," chuckled Hopper.  "It must be very unpleasant to
have a man come to see you, and invade the sanctity--sanctity, yes,
sanctity, that's the word--of your home and private office, who knows
what a scoundrel you are."

"For Heaven's sake, speak lower!" cried Max, in a hoarse whisper.

"All right," said Hopper, nodding.  "Especially to a man like you, who
goes in for the religious dodge, and is so looked up to and respected by
every one.  Ha! ha! ha!" he chuckled--"what a wonderful deal is done in
this world, Max, by humbug!"

Max began to wipe his wet face with his handkerchief, glaring the while
helplessly at his tormentor.

"You're such a good man, too, now," said Hopper, laughing, and evidently
enjoying the other's discomfiture.  "I saw you coming from service last
Sunday, with the wife, and that dear youth in the next room, Fred, all
carrying limp hymn-books.  I say, Max, your prayers must be precious
limp, too."

"Say what you have to say, and then go, for Heaven's sake!" gasped Max.

"Hey! say what I have to say?  How I can read your fat lips, Max!  I
never feel my deafness when you are speaking.  Well, I am saying what I
have to say.  I don't often speak out like this."

"Only when you want money," muttered Max.

"Only when I want money?  Right.  There, I told you I could read off
your lips every word you say, so don't begin to curse me, and wish I was
dead, because it will only make me want more.  Think it, if you like.  I
say, you must look sharp after that boy Fred, or he'll go to the bad."

Max frowned.

"If he was half such a lad as Tom!"

"Tom's a scoundrel--a vagabond!" exclaimed Max furiously.

"Yes, yes, of course.  To be sure he is.  Every one is who doesn't do as
you wish, Max Shingle.  I'm a horrible old scoundrel, and yet you're
obliged to put up with me.  You can't afford to offend me, and I come to
your house as often as I like; and I shall keep on doing so, because
it's good for you.  I'm like a conscience to you, and a devilish ugly
old conscience, eh?--a deaf conscience--and I keep you from being a
bigger scoundrel than you are.  I say, Max, you'd give a thousand pounds
down, now, to hear I was dead, wouldn't you?"

"What is the good of talking like this?" said Max, leaning over to
whisper to his visitor.

"Hey?  What's the good?  A deal--does you good.  I say, Max, I've often
thought that you might be tempted to get me killed--by accident, of
course.  It is tempting, I know.  You'd feel as if the old slate with
the nasty writing on was wiped clean with a sponge.  But it would be so
ugly for such a good man to be exposed to such a temptation, and uglier
still to add the crime of side-blow murder to his other sins.  So do you
know what I've done to save you from temptation?"

There was a curious malignity of expression in the old man's face as,
with a chuckling laugh, he asked his question and saw its effect.

"No!  What?" exclaimed Max, in agony.

"Well, I've written it all down neatly on paper--not on a slate; and
I've deposited it with my will."

"Where?"

"Ah, yes, that's another thing.  Where it would be opened and read
directly I was dead.  Ha! ha! ha!  Max, what an _expose_ that would be!
But don't be nervous, man, and look so white.  It wouldn't be a hanging
matter."  Max stretched across the table, and laid his hand upon his
visitor's lips; but the old man thrust his chair back, gave the hand a
sharp rap with his stick, and Max shrank back in his chair.

"It isn't, I say, a hanging matter.  But I say, Max, old fellow, I
should look sharp after that boy Fred.  Don't let him get into
temptation.  Like father, like son.  Now, Tom--"

"Curse Tom!" cried Max, biting his nails.

"Not I," laughed the old man.  "He isn't so bad; and you curse him quite
often enough, you know.  Ah, Max, what a blessing and relief it must be
to you that you have reformed so, and become such a good, pious man!"

Max raised his hands.

"One of those dear, good creatures," chuckled the old fellow, "who go
through life saying `Have mercy upon us miserable sinners,' and then
feel so happy.  Not a bit of the Pharisee about you, Max--all humble
Publican.  I say, why don't you build a church or a chapel?  That's the
proper thing to do.  `Publican' put me in mind of it.  It's what the
brewers and distillers do.  Make fortunes out of the vice and misery of
the people, and then buy a seat in the heavenly Parliament by building a
church--"

"My dear Hopper," began Max.

"And endowing it."

"Will you listen to me, Hopper?"

"They think they can cheat God with their sham repentance.  Ha! ha!
ha!--it's a rare joke, 'pon my word.  Now, you know, Max, I'm just such
a fool in my way, for I get thinking He'd have more respect for an
honest old reprobate like me.  But we shall see, Max, when we die--when
we die; when you die, and the gravedigger puts you to bed with a
shovel."

A spasm seemed to shoot across the other's face at these last words.

"I am an out-and-out bad one, you know, Max.  I never go to chapel and
hold the plate--never dip a little out of it, Max, in the vestry!"

"Man, are you the Devil?" muttered Max.

"Yes, if you like."

"Then you are not deaf!" cried Max triumphantly.

"Honestly; but I can read your lips as well as your heart, my dear
friend.  Devil?  Because I know about that ugly bit of forgery for which
you ought to have served your time."

"Will you be silent?" cried Max, with an agonised look at the door.

"No," said the other coolly.  "Devil because I saw through the Uncle
Rounce business?  Perhaps I am," he continued, as he saw Max wince, "for
I never believed in the Excelsior game--to go up higher--because it's so
cold.  I'm not a pure-minded man, Max, but would rather stay in the
valley, and lay my head on the nice, pleasant, plump young woman's
breast--so comfortable and cosy and warm.  Eh, you dog--eh?"

He poked Max with his stick as he spoke, and then chuckled at the
other's horrified air.

"I'm no cackle-spinner, like you, Max; I never went through the world
saying it was all vanity and vexation of spirit, and a vale of tears;
and howled hymns, declaring that I was sick of it, and wanted to die and
get out of it as soon as I could, because it was such a wicked, wretched
place.  I never told people I had a call, like you did; and played
shepherd in a white choker, and went and delivered addresses to the lost
lambs outside the fold."

"They'll hear you in the outer office," cried Max vainly, for Hopper
went on:--

"Because I was always a wolf, and liked the world, and thought it very
beautiful, and loved it; and when I caught a lost lamb I took him and
ate him right off, because it was my nature.  Not like you, my gentle
shepherd, who, of course without any vanity or self-interest, coaxed the
lambs into the fold; and when you killed one, you had him nicely dressed
with mint sauce.  Eh, Max? mint sauce--the tap out of the barrels that
they take into the bank."

"Are you mad?" exclaimed Max, at last.

"Mad as a hatter," said the old fellow, grinning; "that's why I chose
the wrong way.  Not like you.  Ah, Max, when we both die, what a
beautiful plump cherub you'll make up aloft there, and what an ugly old
sinner I shall be down below!  How sorry you'll be for me, won't you?"

"Pray, let us bring this interview to an end," gasped Max.

"No hurry," said Hopper.  "I told you I was bilious when you were
spinning that bunch of seals of yours.  This is all bile.  I'm getting
rid of it.  I shall be better afterwards.  I have not had a go at you
for a twelvemonth.  I haven't half done yet.  I'm not a pithy man, like
you--more pith than heart--but long-winded.  Ah, I'm a wicked old
wretch, ain't I, and always turned a deaf ear to what was good?"

"But I am busy," pleaded Max.

"So am I," said Hopper, chuckling, and giving a box on the table a poke
with his stick--"busy giving you a taste of my bile.--What have you got
there, my pious old saint?  `Donations for the debt fund of St Ursula's
Church.'  Ah! that's a pretty respectable way of doing things--that is.
Church in debt.  Built up, I'll be bound, with fal-lals and fancy work
and stained glass, and a quire inside--twenty-four sheets to wrap up
singing men and boys.  Now, look here, Max: if I built a place and
hadn't money to pay for it, you'd call me a rogue."

"Shall we try and transact the bit of business you came about?" said Max
humbly.

"Presently," said Hopper, who was now wound up, and determined to go on.
"Ah, Max, you don't know what a wicked old man I've grown," he
continued, with a sly twinkle in his eye.  "But you see I can preach
morality--my fashion."

"We shall never agree upon such points," said Max wearily.

"Of course not, till you convert me, Max.  I'm a brand for the burning,
Max.  Why don't you try and save me?  Teach me to sing some of those
nice hymns you know by heart--`Fain would I leave this weary world.'
Bah!  How many would fain?  Who made it weary?  Who filled the beautiful
world full of diseases and death and wickedness?  Humbugs, sir--humbugs.
I'm an old worldling, and I was put here in the world, and the longer I
live the more beautiful I find it; and I don't want to leave it, even to
carry your secret with me, friend Max Shingle.  I mean to live as long
as I can, taking my share of the bad as bitter to make the good sweet;
and when it's time to set sail for the other land, I mean to go like a
man, and say `Thank God for it all.  Amen!'  There's a wicked old
reprobate for you, Max.  Why don't you try to convert this old
scoundrel, eh?  Ah!  I'm a bad one--a regular bad one--hopelessly lost.
And now I've got rid of all my bile, and feel better, get out your
cheque-book."

Max rose with a sigh, unlocked the iron safe in the corner, and took out
a cheque-book and laid it upon a table.

"I can very ill spare this, John Hopper," he said.  "Five pounds are
five pounds now."

"Always were, stupid!" said the old fellow.  "Dear me, how much better I
can hear to-day!  Got rid of all that bile," he added, considering.
"But don't you draw that for five pounds.  Make it ten."

"Ten pounds!" gasped Max.

"Yes.  Five extra for your conscience.  You don't suppose your poor
conscience is going to preach to you, as it has to-day, for nothing?"

"But--" commenced Max.

"Ten pounds, you goodly saint--you man after Heaven's own heart--you
halo-promised piece of piety and man of heavenly manna!" cried Hopper.
"Make it ten pounds directly, O smooth-faced piece of benignity, or I
shall want twenty in less than a minute."

Max Shingle hastily drew a cheque for ten pounds, blotted it, and passed
it over; for he knew only too well that his visitor would keep his word,
and that he should be obliged to obey.

"That'll do--for the present," said Hopper, grinning, as he folded the
cheque and placed it in his gouty pocket-book.  Then he rose to go.

"Good-bye: God bless you, Max!  What a good thing it is for me that I
have a wealthy saint who can relieve my necessities!  Thank you, my
dearest and best friend.  I sha'n't give you any acknowledgment, because
I know you mean this for a gift.  Good-bye."

"Good-bye," said Max, who could hardly contain his rage.

"Good-bye.  And a word more from your conscience.  Good advice, mind.
Look after Master Fred.  Don't let him go your way."

"You've got your money.  Now be silent!" cried Max, savagely.

"All right," said the old fellow; and he walked out, making his stick
thump the floor, and nodding at Fred as he passed through to the outer
office; while Max, as soon as he was alone, ground his teeth with rage,
as he heaped a series of very unchristianlike curses upon his visitor's
head.

"Yes," he said in a hoarse whisper, "he must be a devil, or he couldn't
have known about Uncle Rounce."

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SIX.

THE FLY ON THE WALL.

"Well, mother, it might have been worse," said Richard, sitting down to
his humble dinner about a week later.  "Here, Jessie, pull my ears."

Jessie, who looked very pale and red-eyed, as if with weeping, went
behind her father's chair, took hold of his ears playfully, and pulled
them, while he drew one hand before his face.

"Will that do, dear?" she said, drawing his head back so that she could
kiss his puzzled forehead.

"Beautiful, my darling!  Nothing like it.  Tightens the skin, and takes
out all the wrinkles.  Keeps you young-looking, and makes your wife fond
of you.  Don't it, mother?"

Mrs Shingle sighed, but looked at him affectionately, as she placed a
spoon in the potatoes.

"That's right," said Dick.  "Smiles is human sunshine, and don't cost
anything.  You both look as bright again to-day.  Hallo! old fellow," he
continued, thrusting a spoon into some hash.  "Now, it won't do, you
know.  You can't deceive me, in spite of your brown gravy.  You're that
half-shoulder of mutton we had on Sunday."

"Yes, it is, Dick," said Mrs Shingle.

"I knew it.  Didn't he gape wide open as soon as I cut into him, and
pretend that three people had been helped?  Oh, I knew him again!  Come,
look bright, both of you: things might be worse.  See how I'm trying to
shine!  Come on: the best side of the looking-glass, both of you.  The
glue and wood will do for old Max."

In spite of his endeavours, the dinner was a sorry repast, the only one
who enjoyed it being the boy; and as soon as it was cleared away, Dick
and the others resumed their work.

"Do you really mean to go, Dick?" said his wife at last, after making
three or four efforts to speak.

"Yes, certain!" he said; and he glanced at Jessie, who was just then
looking at him, when both lowered their eyes directly.

"But how can we leave without paying?"  Mrs Shingle ventured to say at
last.

"Sell the furniture," said Dick bitterly.  "There--it's no use, mother,
I won't humble myself to him no more.  I've as good as took a couple of
rooms off St John Street, and go we will--for many reasons," he added.

"But, Dick dear--"

"Hold your tongue, mother!" he cried sternly.  "I'm going to turn over a
new leaf.  Other folks make money; I'm going to make some now--somehow.
But I don't know how," he added to himself.  "Now, you sir, get on--
we've got to make a fortune yet," he continued, hammering away; while
Jessie's sewing machine clicked musically, and her little
white-stockinged feet seemed to twinkle as they played up and down.

Mrs Shingle looked very much in trouble, for every now and then she
wiped a furtive tear from her eye.

"How much money did you bring from the warehouse this morning, my gal?"
said Dick suddenly, as he looked up from playing cat's-cradle over a
boot.

Jessie gazed at him in a frightened manner, and then dropped her head
lower over her machine, while her hands trembled so that she could
hardly direct her work.

"I say, Jessie, my gal, how much did you draw this morning?"

"None, father," said Jessie, with a sob.  And then, covering her face
with her hands, she burst into a passion of weeping.

"Why, Jess, my gal--Jess!" cried Dick, dropping stirrup-leather and
boot.  "Here, you sir: here's a penny.  Go down to Wilson's and get a
pen'orth o' wax."

"But here is plenty, master," said the boy.

"Go down to Wilson's and get a pen'orth o' wax," said Dick sternly.

"Hadn't I better go to Singley's, sir? it ain't half so far."

"Go and get a pen'orth o' wax at Wilson's," said Dick angrily.  And he
saw the boy off the premises before he crossed to Jessie.

"Why, what's the matter, my pretty one?" he said tenderly.

"Oh, father dear, don't be cross with me," she sobbed.  "I couldn't tell
you before."

"Just as if your poor stoopid old goose of a father could be cross with
you!" he said, fondling her and drawing her close to his heart.  "At
least," he added, "I could be cross, but not with anything you'd go and
do.  Now, then, what's the matter?"

"Oh, father, I can never go to the warehouse again."

"What?" said Dick; "not go--"

"No, father," she sobbed: "that man--"

She stopped short, and Dick, with his face working, patted her tenderly
on the shoulder, and then rolled up his sleeves.

"It's only father, my precious: tell him all about it," he whispered.

As he spoke he made a sign to Mrs Shingle to be silent.  "That man,
father," she sobbed hysterically--"several times lately--insulted me--
dare not say anything--the money--you so poor, dear!"

"Jessie," cried Dick, in a choking voice, "my poor darling,--if I'd
known!"

"Yes, father dear, I know," she cried, placing her arm round his neck
and kissing him tenderly; "but you wanted the money so badly, I would
not speak."

"But it was wrong, my darling," he said angrily.  "But tell me--all."

"This morning--I went," she faltered, "and there was no one in the room,
and he caught me in his arms--and kissed me," she sobbed, with her face
like crimson.  Then, indignantly, "I screamed out, and Tom--"

"Was Tom there?" cried Dick reproachfully.

"Yes, father; I could not help his being there.  We had never spoken
since that dreadful day, when Uncle Max--"

"Yes," said Dick hastily: "go on."

"But he has come and watched me every day, father, at a distance, and
seen me go to and from the warehouse."

"Bless him!" muttered Dick.

"And when I shrieked out," continued Jessie, with a look of pride
lighting up her face, "Tom rushed in; and, oh, father, it was very
dreadful!"

"What was?" said Dick hoarsely, for he was evidently suffering from
suppressed passion.

"Tom!"

"Mr Thomas Fraser, my gal?"

"Mr Thomas beat him dreadfully," continued Jessie, "till he cried for
mercy; and dear Tom--"

"Mr Thomas, my gal," said Dick, correcting.

"Made him go down upon his knees and beg my pardon, and then he brought
me away."

"God bless him!" said Dick fervently, "But it's Mr Thomas Fraser, my
dear; and he's nothing to you but a brave, true young fellow, who acted
like a man.  But, that it should come to this!" he groaned, striding up
and down the room.  "This is being a poor man, and having to eat other
people's bread.  Oh, it's dreadful, dreadful!  If she'd been rich Max's
daughter, mother, no one would have dared to insult her; and as for this
blackguard, I'll--"

He caught up the hammer, and had reached the door, when Jessie and her
mother ran and clung to him, Mrs Shingle locking the door till he
promised to be content with the castigation the fellow had received.

"Mr Tom would be sure to beat him well, father," said Mrs Shingle.

"Well, that is one comfort," said Dick, cooling a little.  "I should
have nearly killed any blackguard who had touched you.  Well, mother,"
he continued, "when things comes to the worst they mends; but it don't
seem to be so with us any more than with shoes, unless some one mends
'em, I mean to mend ours somehow.  `Why don't you try?' every one says.
Well, I do try."

Just then the boy came back, and making a sign to Jessie and his wife
not to let him see their trouble, all tried to resume their work, but in
a despairing, half-hearted manner, in the midst of which, in a doleful,
choking voice, Dick began to sing over his sewing, while the boy seemed
to keep time with the hammer with which he was driving in nails.

  "For we always are so jolly, oh--
  So jolly, oh--so jolly, oh--so jolly--"

sang Dick; but he had soon done, and his voice trailed off into a dismal
wail, as, unable to contain themselves, Jessie's face went down over her
sewing machine and Mrs Shingle hid hers in her apron.

"My God! what can I do?" the poor fellow moaned, as, with a catching in
his breath, he glanced at those most dear to him.  "I hav'n't a shilling
in the world, and the more I try--the more I try--"

He caught up a hammer savagely, and began to beat vigorously at the
leather, forcing himself to sing again, as if he had not seen the
trouble of his wife and child--

  "To get his fill, the poor boy did stoop,
  And, awful to state, he was biled in the soup."

"Oh, master, please, master, don't sing that dreadful song," cried Union
Jack, with a dismal howl.  "I can't bear it: please, master, I can't
bear it, indeed."

"Hold your tongue, you young ruffian," cried Dick, with a pitiful
attempt at being comic.  "It's a good job we've got you in stock; for if
things do come to the worst, you'll make a meal for many a day to come."

"Oh, please, don't talk like that, master," cried the boy.

"Dick, dear," whispered his wife, "don't tease the poor lad: he half
believes you."

"I'm not teasing of him, mother," said Dick aloud; "only it's a pity to
have to boil him all at once, instead of by degrees.  Here, get out the
cold tea, mother, and let's take to drinking--have a miserable day, and
enjoy ourselves.  Jessie, my gal, you'll rust that machine raining on it
like that.  Come, mother, rouse up; it'll all come right in the end."

"I was not crying, Dick," said Mrs Shingle,--"not much."

"Yes, you were," he cried, with a rollicking air of gaiety.  "I saw two
drips go on your apron and one in that child's shoe.  Come, cheer up."

There was a pause then, during which all again tried hard to work; but
the knowledge that they were about to turn out of the little home, and
that their prospects were so bitter, combined with sorrow for their
child, made a sob or two burst from Mrs Shingle's breast, while even
the boy kept on sniffing.

"Here, I can't stand this," groaned Dick at last, getting up and walking
about the room.  "I don't spend no money, mother--only a half-ounce or
two of tobacco for myself, and one now and then for poor old Hopper, who
seems to be cutting us now we are so down.  You don't spend much,
mother: and it's as true as gorspel about shoemakers' wives being the
worst shod; while as for me, I haven't had a real new pair this ten
years."

"Don't take on about it, Dick," said Mrs Shingle, making a brave effort
to smile.  And she took and patted her husband's hand affectionately.

"I wouldn't care, mother, if things were better for you two; and I can't
see as it's my extravagance as does it."

"Oh, no, no, Dick dear."

"One half-pint of beer this month, and it's the beer as is the ruin of
such as me," he said, with a comical look--"and one screw of tobacco
this week, and the paper as was round it, for thickness, why, it was
like leather."

"Don't, don't mind, Dick," whispered Mrs Shingle.  "We'll sell the
things, and clear ourselves, and start free again."

"It's all right, mother," he cried, with a kind of gulp.  "It's got to
the worst pitch now--see if it ain't.  Don't make it rain indoors," he
added, in a remonstrating tone; "'specially when we've only one umbrella
in the house, and it's broke.  Here, Jessie, my gal, what's that song
you sing about the rain?"

"`There's sunshine after rain,' father," said Jessie, looking up in so
piteous a way that Dick had hard work to keep back a sob; but with
another struggle to drive off his cares, he cried--

"To be sure.  `There's sunshine after rain, my boys; there's sunshine
after rain,'" he sang, making up words, and a peculiar doleful tune of
his own, as he set-to again and hammered vigorously at a piece of
leather.  "Work away, Union Jack, and sing, you dog--`There's sunshine
af--aft--after--'"

The hammer fell at his feet, and he rose once more.

"Go away, Jack, my boy," he said, in a different tone of voice.

"No, no, master: don't send me back," cried the boy passionately.  "I'm
very sorry; and I'll try so--so very hard not to be hungry."

"Hush, my boy, hush!" said Dick softly.

"And when I am, master, I'll never--never say I am.  Don't send me
away."

"Tell him--tell him, mother," whispered Dick, who had been so near
breaking down before that the boy's passionate appeal completely
unmanned him.

"There's nobody to care for there, master, and it's all whitewash.  Miss
Jessie, please ask him not to send me away."

"Come here, Jack," said Mrs Shingle.

"No, no, missus; I'll stop here on bread and water--I will, missus.
Please let me stay!"

"I--I only want you to go outside for a bit, Jack," said Dick, with his
lips quivering.  "Go out and play, my boy."

"But," said the boy suspiciously, "you won't cut off, master, and leave
me.  Fain larks, you know."

"No, no, no, my lad.  Go and stop out in the court."  The boy gazed
keenly in his face, and then, with a suspicious look in his eyes, went
outside.

"It seems to me as the poorer people is the fonder they get of you,
mother," said Dick pitifully.  "Oh, my gal, what have we done, that we
should be so poor?  Here have I worked early and late for the few pence
we drag together, and can't get on.  It's because I'm a wretched
bungler, and it would have been better if I'd never been born."

"Dick, dear Dick," whispered his wife, as he sat down despairingly, and
leaned his head upon his hand, while she bent over him.  "Don't give
way.  I can bear anything but that."

"I do try, my gal, harder than you think," he groaned; "and when I'm
making most of a fool of myself, and laughing and singing, it's because
I've got such a gnawing here."

He raised his hand to strike his chest, but it was caught by Jessie, who
drew it round her neck as she knelt at his feet.

"And I've been so much trouble instead of a comfort, father; and it's
all my fault," she sobbed.

"Your fault, my precious!" he cried, as he took her piteous face in his
hands and kissed it a dozen times over--"your fault!  Why, you've been
like sunshine in the place ever since you used to sit on your little
stool there, and play with the bits of leather, and build houses with
mother's cotton-reels.  Your fault, my darling!  There--there--there!
It's all over, mother, and the sun's coming out again.  It won't rain
any more to-day."

There was a pause here, and the little place was very silent as the
cries of the children at play floated in.

"There, we'll have Jack in again.  And, look here: it's cowardly and
mean of me to give up like that; but it's the last time.  So there,
mother," he said, smiling, as he rose and stood between them, "as a
respectable tradesman I object to swearing, as is only allowable when
you want to take an oath.  I'm going to take an oath now, when I says
I'll be cussed if I give way again, and--"

"Here's a letter, master!" cried the boy, rushing in.

"A letter?" said Dick, taking it with his apron.  "Who's been a-writing
to me?  Perhaps it's about that money, mother, and we shall--Here, my
eyes are all of a swim.  Did the postman give it to you, Jack?"

"Yes, master, at the door," said the boy eagerly.

Mrs Shingle took the letter, and opened it, to find a clean, new
ten-pound note inside, which she spread out and held to her husband.

Dick took it, turned it upside down, over, round and round, and held it
up to the light.

"It's--it's a duffer, mother," he said at last, with his voice
trembling; "it's a flash note, like--like they are at the races.  Bank
of Elegance."

"`For the Governor and Company of the Bank of England,'" read Jessie
slowly.

"No!  Does it say so?" cried Dick excitedly.  "Then it's a good one, and
it's a mistake.  It isn't for me.  Give me the envelope."

He took it hastily, and read aloud, "Mr Richard Shingle, Shoemaker,
Crowder's Buildings, Lower Street, Islington."

"That's me, mother," he said, looking from wife to daughter, "ain't it?"

"Yes, Dick, it is for you."

"Let's look inside.  What does it say in the letter?"

"Nothing!  There, we've only the blank sheet of paper in which the note
was wrapped.  Yes, on one corner, the words--`For you, Richard
Shingle.'"

"Then, it's from that Tom Fraser," cried Dick, plucking up; "and I won't
take it."

"No, father," cried Jessie eagerly; and she trembled, too, as she took
the paper.  "It is not his writing; and he would have said `_Mr_.
Richard Shingle.'"

"So he would, my gal," said Dick, nodding.  "Then it's from Max; and
he's sorry he's been so hard on me--dear old Max!  And he wants to be
friends again.  Blood is thicker than water, after all, mother; and I
always said it was.  There, I'm as pleased as if it was a hundred from
any other man."

The tears stood in his eyes, as he looked from one to the other; but to
read no sympathy in the countenance of wife and child.

"That's five times, you know, the money's come like that," said Dick,
"and always when we've been in great trouble.  It is from Max, mother;
and his roughness is only the way he's got."

A faint flush of hope illumined Jessie's face as she tried to believe
her father's words; but it died out directly.

"Why, mother," cried Dick joyously, "we can clear all off, and have some
money to go on with; and- But, I say, if Max sent this, he wouldn't like
us to go."

"Max did not send it," said Mrs Shingle decidedly.  "Eh?"

"I am sure of it," she said.

"Then you know who did?"

"If I knew who sent it, Dick," said the poor woman, laying her hand upon
his arm, "you'd have known too."

"So I should, mother--so I should," he said quietly, as he nodded his
head.  "Who could it be, then?"

"Some good, true friend, who don't want to be known," said Mrs Shingle.

"It would be a bitter pill to swallow," said Dick thoughtfully, "if it
was done in charity--a gilded pill, mother, wrapped up in that bit of
paper.  Oh, mother, mother!" he cried, stamping up and down the room,
"I'm only a poor, miserable fellow, but I've got my pride, like better
men.  I don't like this beggarly dependence on other people--this taking
money in charity.  If I could only hit a bright--invent some new thing
that all the world would buy!"

"Watts was an inventor, and made the steam engine," said the boy softly.

"Hang Watts!" cried Dick impatiently.  "Here, you be quiet.  I don't
want your union-school copy-books here."

"All right, master," said the boy, with a sniff.

Dick walked up and down the room in an excited way, with the bank-note
in his left hand, while a bluebottle fly came in at the window and
buzzed round the room, now up, now down, its loud hum rising and
falling, as, apparently taken off from his previous thoughts, the man
followed it, and as it settled he twice made ineffectual efforts to
catch it.

"_Buzz_--_uzz_--_buzz_!  _Um_--_um_--_um_!" went the fly; while Jack
stood with open mouth and an old slipper, ready to hit at the insect if
it came his way; Mrs Shingle and Jessie glancing at one another, and
then following Dick in a troubled fashion with their eyes, as he still
pursued the great bluebottle.

"You've a fine time of it, you have," he said, "you great, lazy
wind-flitter!"

"_Buzz_--_buzz_!--_um_--_um_--_um_!" went the fly, round and round.

"Ah," said Dick, "some men hit bright ideas, and make fortunes, but I
don't; and it seems (ah!  I nearly had you that time)--seems, mother, as
if we go on as we are that we may toil on (well, he is a sharp one, but
I'll have him yet)--toil on till we get to the workhouse!"

"Oh, don't, please, master--don't go there," cried the boy.  "Now,
master--quick, quick.  He's settled on the edge of the last shelf."

"I see him," said Dick, going cautiously up, with hand ready to catch
the fly.

But, before he reached it, away it went round and round the room again.

"_Buzz_--_uzz_!--_um_--_um_--_um_!"

"There's nothing done without trying, mother," continued Dick, who was
excited now over his chase.  "Try again, try again till you succeed's
the way.  Now, you know, if I was to--was to--(Ah, gone again; but I'll
have you yet)--you see, I might--"

"Now, master, there he is," whispered Jack; "you'll have it now."

"Yes," said Dick, "I shall get it now.  You see, mother, shoemaking and
cobbling's all very well, but it means starvation to us, though it's a
thing in common demand.  If I could invent--(Ah!  I shall have you
directly)."

He went cautiously across the room.

"Invent a pair o' boots as won't never wear out, master," whispered the
boy.  "Now look, master--there, on the wall!"

The buzzing had ceased, and all was very still in the low, shabby room,
as the bluebottle settled on the centre of a figure in the common
wall-paper; and Dick went forward, on tiptoe, while, somehow drawn into
a keen interest in the pursuit, they knew not why, Mrs Shingle and
Jessie still looked on.

Slowly and cautiously, as if determined to make up this time for his
many failures, Richard Shingle advanced closer and closer, just as a ray
of sunshine fell on the wall, making the fly, which was cleaning and
brushing itself, stand out plainly before them all.

It was as if the capture of that fly had something to do with their
future in life, and the activity that Dick threw into the pursuit was
shared by all present.

Would he catch it?  Would he fail?

That was the mental question asked, as he made a scoop of his hand, drew
just within the required distance, paused for a moment, and then--

There was a rapid dash of a hand across the sunlit patch, and Dick stood
up, with outstretched arm and closed fist.

"_Bizz_--_izz_--_izz_" went the captured fly, within the tightened hand,
as Jack gave his knee a delighted slap.

"At last--at last!" shouted Dick.  "I've got it, mother, now.  Do you
hear, Jessie?  I've got it."

"Got what?" they cried.

He paused for a moment or two, turned to them with a curious look upon
his face, and then said quietly--

"The fly on the wall."

"Jessie, my darling--he's mad," whispered Mrs Shingle, running to him.
"Oh, Dick, Dick!"

"No, mother," he cried, "I'm not mad; and I've made my fortune."

As he spoke he held his hand to the window, unclosed it, and the fly
darted into the sunshine--free.

"At last!" said Dick softly.  "`Hit a bright,'" Max said, "and--I've let
it go."

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SEVEN.

WHO WAS THAT?

"Got your Australian money yet, Dick?" said Hopper the next day, when he
dropped in as usual.

"No," said Dick; "but I've got this," and he flourished the ten-pound
note before his old friend.

"Hey?  Got that," said Hopper, putting on a pair of tortoiseshell-rimmed
spectacles, and taking the note in his fingers.  "Why, it's--it's a
ten-pound note.  It's a bad one."

"No," said Dick triumphantly; "it's a good one.  I asked our grocer."

"Hey?  A good one!  Come by it honestly, Dick?"

"Of course he did," cried Mrs Shingle indignantly.

"Ah!  I don't know--I don't know," said the old fellow.  "There's a deal
of trickery in the world.  If it's a good one, then, Dick, and you did
come by it honestly, you'll lend me a few shillings, Dick, eh?  Say
ten."

"Hopper, old man," said Dick, "you shall have a pound if you like.  And,
look here, I've hit a bright idea at last."

"No--have you?" said Hopper, whose hearing seemed wonderfully good.

"Yes, old chap; and a fortune will come of it.  And, look here: we've
been best friends when it was hard times,--there's an easy chair in the
corner for you when it's soft times.  None of your turning proud, you
know."

"Hey?  Turn proud?  No; I sha'n't turn proud.  You will.  Won't he,
Jessie?"

"No," said Jessie, speaking up.  "Father will never alter--never."

"Well, I don't know about that," said Dick, with a peculiar smile, which
he seemed to wipe off directly by passing his hand across his mouth.
"Perhaps I may alter, you know, and a good deal too.  But, look here,
old Hopper, you stop to-day, and we'll have a holiday--the first I've
had for years."

"Hey?  Holiday?  What, go out?"

"No," said Dick, "stay at home.  We'll have a bit of supper together,
and drink the health of him as sent me that money--bless him.  I can't
work to-day.  I'm ripening up something, and I can do it best over the
old fiddle.  We haven't had a scrape for weeks."

"Scrape?  No," said the old fellow, "we haven't;" and, getting up, he
toddled to the corner cupboard, from which he drew out a violoncello in
its faded green baize bag, and, patting it affectionately, brought it
out into the middle of the room.  "I was going to take it away to-day,"
he said.  "It's too valuable to be lost."

"Thought we were going to be sold up, eh, Hopper, old man?" said Dick,
taking down a violin that hung by the eight-day clock.

"Hey?"

"Thought we were going to be sold up, eh?  I should have taken care of
your old bass," said Dick, with a nod and a smile.  "It should not have
come to harm, Hopper, anyhow.  Now, missus, and you, Jessie, give us a
cup of tea, with srimps and creases, and a nice bit of supper about
eight.  We'll have a happy day in the old house for the last one."

"Last one, Dick!"

"Yes, mother, the last one.  I shall move into better premises
to-morrow."

"Dick dear," cried Mrs Shingle imploringly--while Hopper seemed to be
busying himself over the strings of the 'cello--"what does all this
mean?  What are you going to do?"

"Do!" said Dick, making his violin chirrup: "throw away wax-end and
leather.  They say, let the shoemaker stick to his last; but I've stuck
to it too long.  Mother, I'm going to make a fortune."

"But how, Dick--how?"

"Wait and see."

"You'll tell me what you are going to do?" said Mrs Shingle, half
angrily.

"I sha'n't tell a soul," replied Dick firmly; and then, seeing the
effect his words had upon his wife, he kissed her, tuned up his violin,
and began to turn over the leaves of some very old music with the bow.
"Here's the note, mother; and don't spare expense--as far as five
shillings go.  Get a drop of whiskey, too."

"Hey! whiskey?  Who said whiskey?" exclaimed Hopper.  "Going to have a
drop of whiskey to-night, Dick?"

Dick nodded.

"That's good," said the old fellow, laughing and nodding his head.
"We'll drink success to the new venture, Dick."

"We will.  Now, then, what's it to be, eh?  Here we go: `Life's a
bumper!'  That'll do, for it is; and many a bump and bruise it has given
me."

Hopper's head went down over his 'cello, Dick's cheek on his violin; and
the oddly assorted couple began to solemnly scrape away, sometimes
melodiously, sometimes getting into terrible tangles over the score,
consequent upon its being set for three voices or instruments, and Dick
having to dodge up and down, from the treble to the tenor and back;
while Hopper, with half-closed eyes, and his head moving to and fro like
a snag on an American river, kept on sawing away, regardless of
everything but the deep tones he evolved from the strings.

From "Life's a Bumper" they went on to "Vital Spark," and from "Vital
Spark" to the "Hallelujah Chorus," and from the "Hallelujah Chorus" to
"Forgive, blest Shade;" and then Dick tried a solo known as "The
Cuckoo."  But it was a failure; for though he managed the first note of
the bird, the second would not come--all owing to want of practice,--so
he gave way to Hopper, who, with knitted brows, played his solo, "Adeste
fideles," with variations; the effect upon the boy being absolutely
painful, causing him to thrust his legs up under the stool, and head
down, with his arms crossed over his person.  His face, too, was drawn;
and had it not been for the variations, it seemed probable that he would
have had a fit of sobbing.  These latter, being more lively, saved him;
though he had a painful relapse during the third variation, which was
_largo_, and in A minor, his face during the performance being a study.
However, he became convalescent during the _allegro finale_, and all
ended well.

Tea being declared ready, the musicians ceased their toils for the time
being, and feasted on watercress and shrimps; and though the "creases,"
as Dick called them, were a little yellow, and the shrimps dull in hue,
and too crumby and soft for crustaceans, the meal was a great success,
and Hopper actually made a joke.

Like giants refreshed, Dick and he returned to their instruments, and
sawed away until supper, which was luxurious, consisting, as it did, of
a highly savoured rump-steak pudding, with so much pepper in it, in
fact, that both took off their coats, and perspired in peace.

"Ha!" said Hopper suddenly--"I like this; it's better than eating curry
in company at your brother's, where you can't scratch your head."

"Yes, nice pudding," said Dick, with his mouth full.  "You've put a good
lot of salt in it, Jessie."

"Lot!" chuckled Hopper.  "I had one bit that tasted as if Jessie had put
in Lot's wife as well--the whole pillar.  But, never mind, my dear;
that's the best pudding I ever ate in my life.  I could taste your
fingers in the crust."

The table being cleared, half a bottle of whiskey and the pipes were
placed, with hot water, on the table by Jessie, whose eyes were always
wandering nervously towards the door, as if expecting to see some one
come in.

Hopper was the first to help himself to whiskey, which he did liberally,
apparently not being able to judge the quantity on account of the
foreshortening effect of the tumbler.

"That boy Fred been about here lately?" he said, taking his pipe from
his mouth, and poking at the lump of sugar in his glass with a spoon, as
if he were offended with it, or looked upon it as Fred's head.

"Not for some days," said Dick, puffing out a cloud of smoke, while he
glanced at Jessie, whose forehead contracted, and she turned slightly
away.

"Don't have him here: he's a bad one," said Hopper.  "I don't like him.
Look at his moustaches."

"Ain't here."

"Hey?  Ain't here?  Who said he was?  Just look at his moustaches,
stretching straight out on both sides, and worked into a point with
wax."

"Well, they ain't pretty, certainly."

"Pretty?  Did you say pretty?"

Dick nodded.

"Look as if they were fixed there as handles to open his mouth with, or
to steer him.  I don't like that boy.  You, Jessie, if you let that chap
make love to you--Heyday, what's the matter now?"

The matter was that Jessie had darted an indignant look at him and gone
upstairs to her bedroom.

"Look at that now!" said Hopper.

"Well, you shouldn't speak to her like that," said Mrs Shingle
indignantly.

"Oh, if it's coming to pride, I'm off," said Hopper.

"This is getting on in the world."  And, laying down his pipe, he
prepared to go.

"No, no, no--what nonsense!" cried Dick and his wife.  And together they
forced the old fellow back into his chair, where, becoming somewhat
mollified after another glass of whiskey and water, he began to talk.

"She oughtn't to have huffed off like that," he said.  "But I like
Jessie: she's a sensible girl, wears her own hair, and doesn't turn her
boot-heels into stilts and walk like a hen going to peck the ground with
her beak; though how she expects to get on without being more
fashionable I don't know.  Ah! it's a strange world, but it's a great
nuisance that we shall all have to die some day.  Max won't mind it a
bit," he chuckled, "he's such a good man."

"You leave Max alone," said Dick gruffly.

"Hey? what say?"

"I say you leave Max alone.  He's my brother; and blood is thicker than
water after all--ain't it, mother?"

"Hush!" said Hopper, suddenly removing his pipe and making signs with
the stem.

"What's the matter?"

"There's some one outside, under the window," he said, in a whisper.

"Why, you can't hear," said Dick, in the same low voice.

"Can't hear?  No; but I can feel some one there."

"It's the boy," said Dick.

"No; he's gone to bed this hour," said Mrs Shingle nervously.

"Let's go and see," whispered Hopper.

"Stop a moment," said Dick, frowning; and, getting up, he opened the
door that led upstairs, when a low whispering was plainly heard from
above.

Dick shut the door quickly, and turned to his wife.

"Mother," he said huskily, "I wouldn't have believed this if I'd been
told.  Did you know of it?"

"No, dear--no," she cried agitatedly.  "But pray--stop.  What are you
going to do?"

"Put an end to it!" he cried fiercely.  "My gal's going to be a lady;
and do you think I'm going to let her be the talk of the town?"

"Don't do anything rash, Dick, old chap," said Hopper, laying his hand
upon the other's arm.

"Rash!" cried Dick, bitterly.  "I've been waiting for prosperity to come
all my life; but, curse it, give me poverty again, if riches are to be
like this."

A complete change seemed to have come over the man, as he darted to the
door and swung it open, just as there was the rush of rapid footsteps
along the paved court, and he ran off in pursuit; while Mrs Shingle and
Hopper followed.

They met Dick at the entrance, coming back panting; and he motioned them
into the house, and closed the door.

"Mother," he panted, in a voice that trembled with grief and passion,
"I've left it to you to train our girl while I earned--no, tried to
earn--the bread; and it's been my pride through it all to hold up my
head and point to our Jessie, and say to folks, `Look at her--she's not
like the rest as go to the warehouse for work.'"

"But, Dick--dear Dick, don't, pray don't judge hastily," cried Mrs
Shingle.

"I won't," said Dick hoarsely.  "All I say is there was a man out there,
and she was talking to him on the sly.  Is that right, Hopper?  I say,
is that right?"

The old man looked at him vacantly, and seemed not to hear.

"Curse him! whoever he was," cried Dick hoarsely; "he was ashamed to
meet me.  It was Tom Fraser, I'll swear; and he's not the man I thought
him.  Here," he cried, swinging open the door that led upstairs,
"Jessie--Jessie, come down!  Hopper, old man, you're like one of us--you
needn't go."

The visitor, with a sorrowful look upon his face, had already reached
the door, where he stood, leaning upon his stick, as Jessie slowly
descended, looking very pale, and glancing anxiously from one to the
other.

Mrs Shingle was crossing--mother-like--to her child's side; but Dick
motioned her back.

"Stop there!" he said fiercely; and then, taking a step
forward--"Jessie, you were talking to some one outer window just now?"

She did not answer for a moment, but gazed at him in a frightened way.

"I say you were talking to some one outer window?"

"Yes, father," she faltered.

"It was to Tom Fraser," he said, in a low, angry voice.  "And he's a
sneak."

There was no answer.

"I say it was--to Tom Fraser."

"No, father, it was not," said Jessie, in a low clear voice.

"Who was it, then?" cried Dick.

There was no answer.

"I say, who was it, then?"

"It was to his brother Fred, father," said Jessie, almost in a whisper.

But all the same Tom Fraser had stood at the entrance to the court, and
been a witness of the scene.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER EIGHT.

AFTER A LAPSE.

Max Shingle lived in the unfashionable district of Pentonville; but he
had a goodly house there, and well furnished, at the head of a square of
little residences that some ingenious builder had erected to look like a
plantation of young Wesleyan chapels, growing up ready for transplanting
at such times as they were needed to supply a want.

Mrs Max, relict of the late Mr Fraser, was a tall, bony, washed-out
woman, with a false look about her hair, teeth, and figure; large ears,
in each of which, fitting close to the lobe, was a large pearl, looking
like a button, to hold it back against her head.  She was seated in her
drawing-room, but not alone; for opposite to her, in a studied, graceful
attitude, sat Max's ward, Violante, daughter of a late deacon of his
chapel--a rather good-looking girl in profile, but terribly disfigured,
on looking her full in the face, by a weakness in one eye, the effect of
which was that it never worked with its twin sister, but was always left
behind.  Thus, whereas her right eye turned sharply upon you, and looked
you through and through, the left did not come up to its work until the
right had about finished and gone off to do duty on something else.  The
consequence was that when talking to her you found you had her attention
for a few moments; and then, just as you seemed to have lost it, eye
Number 2 came up to the charge, and generally puzzled and confused a
stranger to a remarkable extent.

"Dear me!  Hark at the wind!" said Mrs Max; "and look at it.  Give me
my smelling bottle, Violante.  I'm always giddy when the wind gets under
the carpet like that."

The smelling bottle was duly sniffed; and then, changing her position so
that her fair hair and white eyebrows and lashes were full in the light,
Mrs Max looked more than ever as if there had been too much soda used
in the water ever since she was born; and she sighed, and took up her
work, which was a large illuminated text on perforated cardboard.

In fact, Max Shingle's house shone in brightly coloured cards and
many-tinted silken pieces of tapestry, formed to improve the sinful
mind.  Moral aphorisms about honesty and contentment looked at you from
over the hat-pegs in the hall; pious precepts peeped at you between the
balusters as you went upstairs, and furnished the drawing-room to the
displacement of pictures.  Many of them lost their point, from being
illuminated to such an extent that the brilliancy and wondrous windings
of the letters dazzled the eye, and carried the mind into a mental maze,
as you tried to decipher what they meant; but there they were, and Mrs
Max and the ward spent their days in constantly adding to the number.

The hall mat, instead of "Cave canem," bore the legend "Friend, do not
swear; it is a sinful habit," and always exasperated visitors; while, if
you put your feet upon a stool, you withdrew them directly, feeling that
you had been guilty of an irreverent act; for there would be a line
worked in white beads, with a reference to "Romans xii." or "2
Corinthians ii."  If you opened a book there was a marker within bidding
you "flee," or "cease," or "turn," or "stand fast."  If you dined there,
and sat near the fire, a screen was hung on your chair, which was so
covered with quotations that it made you feel as if you were turning
your back on the Christian religion.  But still, look which way you
would, you felt as if you were in the house of a good man.

Pictures there were, of course.  There was a large engraving of Ruth and
Boaz, to which Mrs Max always drew your attention with--

"Would not you suppose that Mr Shingle had sat for Boaz?"

And when you agreed that he might, Violante always joined in, directing
one eye at you, and saying--

"People always think, too, that the Ruth is so like Mrs Maximilian."
Then the other eye came slowly up to finish the first one's task, and
seemed to say, "Now, then, what do you think of that?"

The place was well furnished, but, from the pictures to the carpets,
everything was of an ecclesiastical pattern; and when Max came in, with
a white cravat, you felt that you were in the presence of a substantial
rector, if he were not a canon, or a dean.

In a wicked fit, Dick had once dubbed his brother and sister-in-law
"Sage and Onions"--the one from his solid, learned look; the other from
her being always strangely scented, and her weakness for bursting into
tears.

Upon the present occasion, she sat for a few minutes, and then, taking
out her handkerchief, began to weep silently.

"Your guardian is always late for dinner, my dear; and everything will
be spoilt.  Where is Tom?"

"Gone hanging about after Miss Jessie, I suppose," said Violante, with a
roll of one eye.  "And Fred as well," she added, with the other.

"It is a strange infatuation on the part of my two sons.  Your dear
guardian's Esau and Jacob," said Mrs Max, wiping her eyes.  "I wonder
how it is that poor creature, Richard Shingle, makes his money."

"I don't know," said Violante.  "They've set up a very handsome
carriage."

"Dear me!  It is a mystery," said Mrs Max, still weeping.  "Two years
ago Richard was our poor tenant; now he must be worth thousands.  I hope
he is honest."

"Perhaps we had better work him some texts," said Violante, maliciously.
Then, raising her other eye, "They might do him good."

"I don't know," sighed Mrs Max; "we never see them now they have grown
so rich.  It is very shocking."

Violante did not seem to see that it was shocking, for she only tossed
her head.

"Has Tom been any more attentive to you lately, my dear?"

"No, not a bit," said the girl spitefully, and one eye flashed at Mrs
Max; "nor Fred neither," she continued, bestowing a milder ray with the
other.

"The infatuation will wear off," said Mrs Max, wringing her hands, but
seeming as if wringing her pocket-handkerchief, "and then one of them
will come to his senses."

"I shall never marry Tom," cried the girl decidedly.  "Don't speak so,
my child," said Mrs Max.  "You know your guardian has so arranged it;
and he can withhold your money if you are disobedient."

"Yes," cried Violante, "money, money, money--always money.  That's why I
am kept for the pleasure of those two scapegraces, and mocked at by that
saucy hussy of a Jessie.  I wish I hadn't a penny."

"Hush, hush!" cried Mrs Max, "here is your guardian."  As she spoke she
hastily wiped her eyes--pretty dry this time--and put away her
handkerchief, for voices were heard below.

In fact, half an hour before, Max Shingle had been rolling grandly along
from the City, looking the full-blown perfection of a thick-lipped,
self-inflated, sensual man, when he encountered Hopper, who hooked him
at once with his stick.

"Hullo, Max Shingle!" he cried: "been doing good, as usual?  Here: I'll
come home to dinner with you," he continued, taking his arm.

Max swore a very ugly oath to himself; but he was obliged to put up with
the annoyance--a feeling modified, however, by his curiosity being
excited.

"I've just come from your brother Dick's," said Hopper, winking to
himself.

Max was mollified directly, for reasons of his own; for, though over two
years had passed, Dick had kept his own counsel so well that not a soul,
even in his own family, knew the full secret of his success.  Hopper was
as ignorant as the rest; but he assumed a knowledge in Max's presence
that he did not possess.

"Is--is he doing well?" said Max, in an indifferent tone.  "Hey?"

"I say, is he doing well?" shouted Max.

"Wonderfully!  Keeps his brougham, and a carriage besides, for his wife
and daughter."

"Ah!" said Max.  "Is he civil to you?  No music now, I suppose?"

"Only three nights a week," said Hopper, winking to himself.  "Fine
princely fellow, Dick.  Ah! here we are.  Very glad--I'm hungry.  He
wanted me to stay, but I would not."

Max opened the front door with his latchkey, and drew back for Hopper to
enter which that worthy did, and began to wipe his feat upon the mat,
which said in scarlet letters, "Friend, do not swear," etc.

"Damn that mat!" exclaimed Hopper loudly, as he caught one toe in the
long pile, and nearly fell headlong, while Max gazed at him in horror.

"Couldn't help it," said Hopper apologetically.  "Didn't swear, did I?"

"Indeed, sir, you did."

"Hey?  What say?"

"You did, sir," shouted Max.

"Did what?"

"Swore--at the mat."

"Hey?" said Hopper, who had grown wonderfully deaf since he had been in
the hall.

"I say you--swore--at--the--mat."

"I swore at the mat?  Did I?  Tut, tut, tut!  How hard it is to break
oneself of bad habits!  Now, I'll be bound to say you never did such a
thing as that, Max?"

Max shook his head.

"No, of course you would not.  Ah, Max, I wish I was as good a man as
you.  It's wonderful how some men's minds are constituted."

Hopper took off an unpleasant-looking respirator that he had been
wearing more or less--more when he was speaking, less when he was not;
and when it was in its place it seemed to have the effect of sticking
his grey moustache up into his nostrils, like a fierce _chevaux de
frise_.  Then he put his hat on his hooked stick, and his great-coat on
a chair, so as not to confront the moral aphorisms that were waiting to
catch his eye, and followed Max up into the drawing-room, where the
ladies looked horror-stricken at the sight of the guest.

But there was no help for it; and Mrs Max, at a sign from her lord, put
on her most agreeable air, though Violante gave him, uncompromisingly,
an ugly look with one eye, which seemed to pierce him, while she
clinched the shaft with the other, Hopper replying with his lowest bow.

The brothers Tom and Fred came in directly after,--Tom to offer his
hand, while Fred gave a supercilious nod and went up to his mother.

Hopper nodded, and as soon as the dinner was announced, offered his arm
to Mrs Max, and they went down to the dining-room.

A well-ordered house had Max Shingle, and his dinners were nicely
served; and since he was obliged to receive the visits of Hopper, he
made a virtue of necessity, trying all the dinner-time to lay little
traps for him to fall into about his brother Richard.  But as Hopper saw
Tom lean eagerly forward, and Fred turn sharply to listen to his
answers, while a frown passed between the two brothers, he misunderstood
every word said to him as the dinner went on.

"So Richard is doing uncommonly well, is he?" said Max.

"Hey?  You're not doing uncommonly well?  So I heard in the City.  Some
one told me your house was quite shaky."

"Who told you that?" cried Fred fiercely.

"Hey?"

"I say who told you that?" cried Fred, more loudly.

"I can't hear a word you say, young man," replied Hopper; "you must come
round.  This, is a bad room of yours for sound, Maximilian--I'd have it
altered."

There were several little encounters of this kind during the repast; for
Hopper, as soon as he saw the object of his host, strove religiously to
frustrate his efforts, and with such success that Max gave up in
disgust, and tried another tack, after making up his mind to call on his
brother and become reconciled.  This he was the more eager for, since it
was a fact that he had lost very heavily of late, and his house was
tottering to its fall.

"Ah!" said Max at last, as the dinner progressed slowly, "it's a pity,
Hopper, that you have no money to invest."

"Hey?  Money to invest?  No, thank you.  But don't talk shop, man.  I
wonder so good a creature thinks so much of money.  But you keep a
carriage?"

"Oh yes," said Max, smiling good-humouredly at his wife, as if to say,
"You see, he will have his joke!"

"And horses?"

"Of course," said Max, smiling.

"There, don't put on that imbecile smile," cried Hopper.  "There's only
been one decent dish on the table yet, and I've got some of it now.  You
don't send your horses out to work in their nosebags? so don't make me
work when I've got on mine.  I'm hard of hearing, but I'm fond of my
digestion.  Don't treat your guest worse than your horses."

"You always did like a joke, Hopper," said Max.

"Joke!--it's no joke," cried Hopper, pointing at a pie before him.
"Look at that--there's a thing to eat!  Look at the crust: just like the
top of a brown skull, with all the sutures marked, ready to thrust a
knife in and open it,--only it's apple inside instead of brains."

Mrs Max gave a horrified glance at Violante.

At last the dessert was placed on the table, and in due time the ladies
rose, Tom following them shortly, and Fred, with a sneering look at his
brother, rising, and saying he should go and have a cigar.

"You don't smoke, I suppose, old Hopper?"

"Hey?  Not smoke?  Yes, I do; but I shall have a pipe."  Left alone, the
visitor condescended to talk about Richard, and gave Max a full account
of his handsomely furnished house; growing so confidential that, when he
took his cup of coffee, he drew nearer and nearer, gesticulating as he
described the rich Turkey carpets.

"He must be very rich," said Max at last, as he tapped the mahogany
table with his fingers.

"Not saved much, I should say," replied Hopper; "but he's making money
fast.  So are you."

"Um--no.  I'm very heavily insured, though."

"Not in the Oldwives' Friendly?" said Hopper, with a curious look,
though he knew the fact well.

"Well--er--er--yes, I am," said Max.

"They'll go to smash," said Hopper eagerly.  "Haven't you heard the
rumours?"

"Ye-es," faltered Max.

"The scoundrels!  And you such a good man, too, who has saved up and
toiled for his family.  I tell you what I'd do," he said earnestly.

"What?" cried Max, turning to him with the eagerness of one in peril.

"They must last another twelvemonth, and pay up liabilities till then."

"Yes, they must do that, I should say," said Max.

"Then die at once, and let your people draw the money!" cried Hopper,
slapping him in the breast, and gazing at him with the most serious of
aspects.  "So good and self-denying!  You all over."

Max started back, with horror in his countenance, and glared at Hopper,
whose countenance, however, never for a moment changed; and he hastily
poured himself out a glass of port and tossed it off.

"Very hard upon you, Max.  I wish I was rich, and could help you.  For
you have been hit hard, of course.  Never mind: you've that violent
girl's money in hand--six thousand.  Make one of your boys marry her,
and that'll be all right."

Max winced visibly.

"Haven't spent it, have you?" continued Hopper, watching him from the
corners of his eyes.  "No, you're too good a man for that? and it would
be ugly."

"Shall we go up to the drawing-room?" said Max, rising.

"Hey?  Go upstairs?  No, not to-night, thankye.  Say good-bye to the
ladies.  I'll be off now.  Thankye for a bad dinner.  More wine?  No,
I'm going to my lodging, for a quiet pipe and a glass of toddy before
bed.  Wretched weather, ain't it?  All right: I can get my coat on.
Thankye, Max, thankye.  I sha'n't die yet, you know; your secret's all
right.  Stop till I put on my respirator, so as to keep my lungs all
right for your sake.  Now my hat and stick.  Thankye."

He buttoned his coat tightly, looped the elastic of his respirator over
his ears, and then stumbled to the door, gave the mat an ugly stab with
his stick, nodded, did not shake hands, and went stumping down the
street, talking to himself the while.

"I wonder whether that Tom is a trump at bottom?" he said.  "I don't
know yet, but there's a bit of a mystery over it all; and about Fred and
that girl Jessie.  She's a puzzle, too.  I wouldn't have thought it of
her; but I never did understand women.  And so old Max is hit hard.
Well, it's the old saying, `Money got over old What's-his-name's back's
spent under his chest;' and I'm sure of it.  I'd swear it.  He's spent
every penny of that violent girl's fortune, as sure as my name's Hopper,
which it really is."

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER NINE.

A GREAT CHANGE.

Richard Shingle was seated in his study--his own special room, tabooed,
as he said, to every one but the specials--the specials being those whom
he admitted.  The place had a gay bachelor look about it, with a
smoking-cap putting out a fiery bronze Amazon, and the green shade of a
gas globe perched on one side, giving it a rakish air, as if it had been
out all night.  Cigars were in a box on a table, a handsome soda-water
and spirit stand was on a sideboard, ready for use.

The furniture of the room was handsome, and in excellent taste; but it
seemed as if finishing touches had been put by the owner himself, the
said touches not being in keeping with the rest of the arrangements.
There was an absence of books, too, in the place, which certainly had
not a studious air.  There were, however, plenty of newspapers and
reviews; and it was observable that while the _Saturday_ and _Spectator_
were in an uncut state, _Reynold's_ and _Lloyd's_ were crumpled with
much reading.

Richard Shingle, Esquire, was lolling idly back in a comfortable easy
chair, in a rather loud-patterned shawl dressing-gown; one leg was
thrown negligently over the chair-arm, a good cigar was in his lips, and
as he smoked he diligently read the _Times_.

There was an appearance about Richard Shingle of having been dressed and
had his hair brushed by somebody else, with the result that he was not
quite comfortable; and every now and then he looked at the stubby
fingers of his right hand, and had a bite at the hard skin at the sides,
as if to help them to grow soft and genteel; for though as clean as if
he had boiled them every day, to get them rid of old stains, they looked
as thorough a pair of workman's hands as it was possible to encounter in
friendly grasp or clenched in warfare unpleasantly near your nose.

"Phew! this is hard work," said Dick, pulling out a crimson silk
handkerchief and wiping his forehead.

Then, laying down the paper, he rose, crossed the room, and poured
himself out a little brandy from a decanter, before taking up a bottle
of soda-water.

There was a sharp explosion: the cork struck a gas g

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