Newcome, whom he met in the street, he appeared still as Charlie's chosen and dear friend, ready for his holiday and rejoicing in the prospect of the coming meeting; to his professors he appeared still the same steady, hard-working student, bent on making his way in his profession. But to himself, alas! how altered, how degraded he appeared!

In the midst of his duties his thoughts ran continually—now back to the strange experience of last evening, now forward to the doubtful events of this.

The recollection of the past had lost a good deal of its repulsiveness after twelve hours' interval, and although he still felt it to be low and harmful, he yet secretly encouraged his curiosity to revisit the place of his temptation.

"After all, it did me no harm," said he to himself; "it's not interfered with my work, or made me feel worse than before. What harm in going again to-night? When Charlie comes, and we get away from town, I shall easily be able to break it off; and besides, Charlie's sure to help to put me square; he always does. Yes; I think I'll just go and see what's on there to-night; it can't be worse than it was. Besides," thought he, glad to seize on any straw of excuse, "I'm bound in honour to play Gus a return match; it would be ungentlemanly to back out of that."

But why sicken you, dear reader, and myself, with recapitulating the sad workings of this poor fellow's mind? The more he tried to convince himself he was doing only a slight wrong, the more his conscience cried out he was running to his ruin. But he stopped his ears and shut his eyes, and blindly dared his fate. He went that evening to the music- hall. He met Gus and Mortimer, and two other friends. He had taken care to get himself up in a nearer approach to his companions' style. He bought some cigars of his own on the way, and offered them with a less awkward swagger than he had been able to assume the night before. He found himself able to nod familiarly to the barmaid, and fancied that even Mortimer must have approved of the way in which he ordered about the billiard-marker.

In the match with Gus for half-crowns he lost, though only narrowly—so narrowly that he was not content, without a further trial of skill, to own himself beaten, and therefore challenged his adversary to a second meeting the next evening. Then he watched the others play, and betted with Mortimer on the result—and alas! for him, he won.

It was Tom himself who said, at nine o'clock,—

"And now, suppose we see what's going on below."

It was the same stupid, disgusting spectacle, but to Tom it seemed less repulsive than he had found it the night before. True, he at times felt a return of the old feeling of shame; the blush would occasionally suffuse his face; but such fits were rare, and he was able to carry them off more easily with joke and laughter.

"Jack," said Gus in a whisper to Mortimer, as Tom, after accepting a very broad hint to treat the party to spirits, was turning to go, "that fellow will be a credit to you and me. Did you see how he smacked his lips over the play, and yet all the while wanted to make us think he saw that sort of thing every day of his life, eh? He's a promising chap, eh, Jack?"

"Wathah," replied Jack, laughing.

Meanwhile Tom, glad enough to get out into the pure air, though in not so desperate a case as the night before, shouldered his way among the loitering company towards the door. He was just emerging into the street, when the sound of voices arrested him.

"That's one of our men, isn't it?" said one.

"Why, so it is; I fancied he was anything but a festive blade. Yes; and upon my word he's half seas over!"

Tom had no difficulty in discovering that these hurried words had reference to him, and turning instinctively towards the voices, he found himself face to face with two, reputedly, of the wildest of his fellow- students.

Gladly would he have avoided them; gladly would he have shrunk back and lost himself in the crowd, but it was too late now; he stood discovered.

"How are you?" cried one of the two, as he passed; "isn't your name Drift?"

Tom stared as if he would have denied his name; but the next moment he put on his lately acquired swagger, and said, "Yes."

"Ah! I thought so; one of the Saint Elizabeth men. Hullo! he's in a hurry, though," added he, as Tom made a dive forward and strode rapidly down the street.

It was but a step deeper. Well he knew that by to-morrow every one of his fellow-students would know of him as a frequenter of that wretched place. Well he knew that, as far as they were concerned, the mask of shyness and reticence under which he had sheltered in their midst was for ever pulled away. "One of us," indeed! So truly the very worst of them might now speak and think of him. Oh, if he had but considered in time; if he had but stemmed this flood at its source! But it was too late now.

And he strode home reckless and hardened.

The next day, as he expected, every one seemed to know of his visits to the music-hall. The two who had seen him accosted him with every show of friendship and intelligence. He was appealed to in the presence of nearly a dozen of his fellow-students as to the name of one of the low songs there given; he was asked if he was going to be there to-night, and he was invited to join this party and that in similar expeditions to similar places. And to all these questions and greetings he was constrained to reply in keeping with his assumed character of a gay spark. How sick, how vile he felt; yet in that one day how hardened and desperate he became!

It was not in Tom Drift to cry "I have sinned! I will return!" No, once loose from his moorings, he let himself float down the stream, watching the receding banks in mute despair, raising no shout for succour, venturing no plunge for safety.

You, who by this time have given him up, disgusted at his weakness, his vanity, his low instincts, his cowardliness—who say let him wallow in the mire he has prepared for himself, who know so glibly what you would have done, what you would have said, what you would have felt, remember once more that Tom Drift was not such as you; and unfortunately did not know you. He was not gifted with your heroic resolution or your all- penetrating wisdom. He was an ordinary sinful being of flesh and blood, relying only on his own poor strength; and therefore, reader, try to realise all he went through before you fling your stone.

The toils were closing round him fast. His will had been the first to suffer, his conscience next. Then with a rush had gone honour, temperance, and purity; and now finally the flimsy rag, his good name, had been torn from him, and he stood revealed a prodigal—and a hypocrite.

Even yet, however, help might have been forthcoming.

"I say, you fellow," said one of his fellow-students this same day, "I've never spoken to you before, and perhaps shall never do so again; but don't be a fool!"

"What do you mean?" said Tom sharply.

"Only this, and I can't help it if you are angry, keep clear of these new friends of yours, and still more, keep clear of the places they visit. If you've been led in once, rather cut off your right hand than be led in again, that's all!"

What spirit of infatuation possessed Tom Drift, that he did not spring for very life at the proffered help, that he did not besiege this friend, however blunt and outspoken, and compel his timely aid? Alas, for his blindness and folly!

Scowling round at the speaker, he muttered an oath, and said, "What on earth concern is it of yours who my friends are and where I go? Mind your own business."

And so, thrusting rudely away the hand that might, by God's grace, have saved him, he swept farther and farther out towards the dark waters.

One final and great hope was still reserved for him, and that was Charlie's visit. But to Tom that prospect was becoming day by day mere distasteful. As the days wore on, and Tom sunk deeper and deeper into the snare prepared for him, the thought of a week in the society of one so upright and pure as Charlie became positively odious. The effort to conceal his new condition would be almost impossible, and yet to admit it to him would be, he felt, to shatter for ever the only friendship he really prized. He racked his brain for expedients and excuses to avert the visit, but without avail. If he pleaded illness Charlie would be the first to rush to his bedside; if he pleaded hard work Charlie would insist on sharing it, or improving its few intervals of rest; if he pleaded disinclination Charlie would devise a hundred other plans to please him. In short, Charlie's visit was inevitable, and as he looked forward to it he writhed in misgiving and anxiety.

His visits to the music-hall were meanwhile continuing, and his circle of acquaintance at that evil haunt enlarging. He was duly installed as one of the "fast set" at Saint Elizabeth's, and under its auspices had already made his debut at other scenes and places than that of his first transgression. He was known by sight to a score of billiard- markers, potmen, blacklegs, and lower characters still, and was on nodding terms with fully half of them. He had lost considerably more than he had gained at billiards, and was still further emptying his purse at cards. Quick work for a few weeks! So quickly and fatally, alas! Will the infection, once admitted, spread, especially in a patient whose moral constitution has undergone so long a course of slow preparation as Tom's had.

The day came at last. Tom had carefully hidden away his worst books and his spirits; he had bathed his face half a dozen times, to remove the traces of last night's intemperance he had gathered together from the corners where they had for so long lain neglected the books and relics of his Randlebury days, and restored them to their old places; he had brightened me up, and he had taken pains to purify his room from the smell of rank tobacco; and then he sauntered down to the station.

How my heart beat as the train came into the platform! His head was out of the window, and his hand was waving to us a hundred yards off; and the next minute he had burst from the carriage, and seized Tom by the hands.

"How are you, old Tom? I thought we'd never get here; how glad I am to set eyes on you! Isn't this a spree?" And not waiting for Tom's answer he hauled his traps out of the carriage in a transport of delight.

Still the same jovial, honest, fine-hearted boy.

"Hi! here! some of you," he shouted to a porter, "look after these things, will you, and get us a cab. I tell you what, Tom, you've got to come up home with me first, and we can have dinner there; then I'll come on to your den, and we can pack our knapsacks and sleep, and then start by the five train to-morrow morning."

Thus he bustled, and thus he brought back the old times on poor Tom Drift. Without the heart to speak, he helped his friend to collect his luggage, and when they were fairly started in the cab he even smiled feebly in reply to the boy's sallies.

"Tom, you rascal, didn't I tell you you weren't to knock yourself up, eh? Why can't you do what you're told? Why, I declare you're as thin as a hurdle, and as black under the eyes as if you had been fighting with a collier. You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Look at me; do all I can I can't get up an interesting pallor like you, and I've fretted enough over those conic sections (comic sections Jim always calls them). Never mind! Wait till I get you down to the sea."

And so he rattled on, while Tom leaned back in his seat and winced at every word.

When they reached Mr Newcome's of course there was a scene of eager welcome on one side and boisterous glee on the other. Tom, as he looked on, sighed, as well he might, and wished he could have been spared the torture of this day.

Charlie tore himself away from his mother, to drag his friend into the house.

"Look at this object!" he cried; "did you ever see such a caution to students? If we do nothing else in Kent we shall scare the crows, eh, Tom?"

"Charlie!" exclaimed his mother; "you have come home quite rude! I hope you'll excuse him, Mr Drift."

Mr Drift said nothing, and looked and felt extremely miserable.

"He looks really ill, poor fellow!" said Mrs Newcome to her husband. "I wonder they allow the students to overwork themselves in that way."

And then they sat down to dinner—a meal as distasteful to Tom as it was joyful to Charlie and his parents.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

HOW TOM DRIFT PARTED WITH HIS BEST FRIEND.

Charlie could not fail to discover before long that there was something wrong with my master.

Never before had he known him so silent, so spiritless, so mysterious. No effort could rouse him into cheerfulness or conversation, and for the first time for three years Charlie felt that Tom was sorry to see him. Naturally, he put it all down to the results of overwork. Tom in his letters had always represented himself as engrossed in study. Even the few hurried scrawls of the past few weeks he had excused on the same ground. It never once occurred to the simple-minded schoolboy that a chum of his could possibly be struggling in the agonies of shame and temptation and he know nothing of it; he who knew so little of evil himself, was not the one to think or imagine evil where any other explanation was possible.

And yet Tom's manner was so strange and altered, that he determined, as soon as they should find themselves alone, to make an effort to ascertain its cause.

The opportunity came when the two youths, having bid farewell to Mr and Mrs Newcome, found themselves at last in Tom's lodgings in Grime Street.

"Well," said Charlie, with all the show of cheerfulness he could muster, for his spirits had been strangely damped by the irresponsive gloom of his old schoolfellow—"well! here's the den at last. Upon my word, old man, I've seen livelier holes! Why don't you explore and find some place a trifle less dead-alive? But I dare say it's convenient to be near the Hospital, and when a fellow's working, it doesn't much matter what sort of a place he's in, as long as there's not a row going on under his window—and I don't suppose there's much chance of that here," said Charlie, looking out into the black street with a kind of shudder.

Tom said nothing; he wished his friend would not everlastingly be talking of hard work and study in the way he did. However Charlie intended it, it was neither more nor less than a talking at him, and that he could not stand.

Charlie took no notice of his silence, but continued his inspection of the dismal apartment, lighting up with pleasure at the sight of the old Randlebury relics.

"My old rod!" exclaimed he, taking down the very rod with the lance-wood top which had figured so conspicuously in a certain adventure three years ago; "how jolly to see it again! I'm afraid you don't get much use for it here. And our fencing-sticks, too; see, Tom, here's the very place where you got under my guard and snipped a bit out of the basket. Ha, ha! what a crack that was! And here's the picture of old Randlebury, with you at your window, and me lying on the grass (and looking uncommonly like a recently felled tree). Look here, Tom, this window here is where Jim and I hang out now. It used to be Callaghan's. By the way, do you ever see Call? He's in London, articled to a solicitor. A pretty lawyer he'll make! Have you seen him yet, Tom?"

Tom, during this rattle, had been looking listlessly out of the window. He now turned round with a start and said—

"Eh? what did you say?"

The look which accompanied the words was so haggard and miserable, that Charlie's pity was instantly touched. He stepped across the room and put his arm in Tom's as he stood, and said,—

"Tom, old boy, what's wrong?"

Tom said nothing, but walked away and leaned against the mantelpiece.

"What is it, Tom? Are you ill, or in trouble? You'll tell me, won't you?"

Tom still remained silent, but his flushing face and restless lips showed that the appeal had at least been heard.

"Old boy," continued Charlie, venturing again nearer, "we never used to have secrets. I'm sure something's the matter. Mayn't I know what it is? Very likely I can't help you; but I could try."

Tom's lips quivered. The old influence was fast coming back. Already in his mind he was picturing himself telling Charlie all and with his help extricating himself from the slough into which he had sunk. How could he stand unmoved with that voice, familiar by many a memory of simple courageous goodness, again falling on his ear; and that appealing face, one so loved and delighted in, again turned to his?

"I'm afraid it's something more than ill health, old boy. You've something on your mind. Oh! why won't you at least tell me what it is?"

Tom could stand it no longer. He must speak. Whatever the confession cost him, whatever its effect would be on his old schoolfellow's friendship, Charlie must know all. To him at least he could not play the hypocrite or the deceiver. He had turned from the mantelpiece, his hand was held out to take that of his friend's, he was just about to speak, when the door of his room opened, and there entered Gus, Mortimer, and two companions.

"Here he is!" cried Gus, not noticing that Tom had company. "Tommy, old man, you're in luck. Old Owl has got a supper on to-night, no end of punch, my boy, and he's expecting you; and afterwards we're going for a regular night of it to the— Hullo! who's your friend?"

He caught sight of Charlie at this moment, and for an instant failed to recognise in Tom's companion the boy whom he had treated so shamefully at Gurley races. But he remembered him in a moment.

"What, surely—yet upon my honour so it is, our young sporting friend. How are you, Charlie, my boy? Here's a game! You'll come too, of course? Mortimer, this fellow is Drift's special—up to all the wrinkles, no end of a knowing blade."

During this brief and rapid salutation Tom and Charlie, I need hardly say, were speechless. One in utter despair, the other in utter rage and astonishment. In both the revulsion of feeling caused by the interruption was almost stupefying, and they stood for a moment staring at the intruders in simple bewilderment.

Tom was the first to find words. His cheeks were white, and his voice almost choked as he said to Gus,—

"I wish you'd go. I'm engaged."

"So you are," said Gus, with a sneer; "but I say. Tom, old man, I wish you'd come. It's too good a thing to miss."

"Go away!" almost gasped Tom.

"Oh, of course an Englishman's house is his castle," said Gus, offended at this unusual rebuff; "you're a fool, though, that's all. We were going to have a spree to-night that would make all sprees of the past month look foolish. Come along, don't be an ass; and bring young mooney-face; I dare say by this time he knows what's what as well as you or me, Tom; eh, Jack?"

"Lookth tho," replied the amused Jack.

By this time Charlie had found words. The truth of course had all flashed in upon him; he knew the secret now of Tom's strange manner, of the neglected letters, of the haggard looks, of the reluctant welcome.

And he knew, too, that but for this untimely incursion he would have heard it all from Tom himself, penitent and humble, instead of, as now, hardened and desperate.

And he recognised in the miserable little swaggering dandy before him the author and the promoter of his friend's ruin; on him therefore his sudden rage expended itself.

"You little cowardly wretch!" he exclaimed, addressing Gus, "haven't you done mischief enough to Tom already? Go out of his room!"

Poor Charlie! Nothing could have been more fatal to his hopes than this rash outbreak. The words had scarcely escaped his lips before he saw the mischief he had done.

Tom's manner suddenly altered. All signs of shame and penitence disappeared as he stepped with a swagger up to Charlie and exclaimed,—

"What business have you to attack my friends? Get out yourself!"

"Bravo, Tom, old man," cried the delighted Gus. "Do you hear, young prig? walk off, you're not wanted here."

Charlie stood for one moment stunned and irresolute. Had there been in Tom's face the faintest glimmer of regret, or the faintest trace of the old affection, he would have stayed and braved all consequences. But there was neither. The spell that bound Tom Drift, his fear of being thought a milksop, had changed him utterly, and as Charlie's eyes turned with pleading look to his they met only with menace and confusion.

"Go!" repeated Tom, driven nearly wild by the mocking laugh in which Mortimer and his two companions joined.

This, then, was the end of their friendship—so full of hope on one side, so full of promise on the other.

It was a strange moment in the lives of those two. To one it was the wilful throwing away of the last and best chance of deliverance, to the other it was the cruel extinction of a love and trust that had till now bid fair to stand the wear of years to come.

"Get out, I say!" said Tom Drift, once more goaded to madness by the pitying sneers of Mortimer.

Charlie stayed no longer. Half stunned, and scarcely knowing what he did, with one wild, mute prayer at his heart, he turned without a word and left the room.

Tom's friends followed his departure with mocking laughter, and watched his slowly retreating figure down the street with many a foul jest, and then returned to congratulate Tom Drift on his deliverance.

"Well," said Gus, "you are well rid of him, at any rate. What a lucky thing we turned up just when we did! He'd have snivelled you into a shocking condition. Why, what a weak-minded fellow Tom is; ain't he, Jack?"

"Wathah," replied Jack, with a laugh.

Meanwhile Tom had abandoned even himself. He hated his friends, he hated himself, he hated Charlie and cursed himself for having ever allowed him within his doors. He took no notice of Gus's gibes for a long time. At last, "Ugh!" said he, "never mind if I'm weak-minded or not, I'm sick of all this. Suppose we go off to the supper, and I'll stand treat afterwards at the music-hall?"

And crushing his hat on his head, he dashed out of the house utterly reckless and desperate.

Need I say my thoughts were with the poor injured boy, who, stung with ingratitude, robbed of his friend, and ill with mingled pity, dread, and sorrow, walked slowly down the street away from Tom's lodgings? Ah! when should I see his face or hear his voice again now?

At the supper that evening Tom drank often and deeply, and of all the party his shout rose highest and his laugh drowned all the others. They led him staggering away among them, and brought him to their vile resort. Even his companions wondered at his reckless demeanour, and expostulated with him on his extravagant wildness. He laughed them to scorn and called for more drink. After a while they rose to depart, leaving him where he was, noisy and helpless.

How long he remained so I cannot say, for suddenly and most unexpectedly I found myself called upon to enter upon a new stage in my career.

As my master leaned back hopelessly tipsy in his seat, a hand quietly and swiftly slipped under his coat and drew me from my pocket; as swiftly the chain was detached from its button-hole, and the next thing I was conscious of was being thrust into a strange pocket, belonging to some one who was quitting the hall as fast as his legs would carry him.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

HOW I FOUND MYSELF IN VERY LOW COMPANY.

My capturer was a boy, and as remarkable a specimen of a boy as it has ever been my lot to meet during the whole of my career. His age was, say, fourteen. He stood four feet one in his slipshod boots.

The hat which adorned his head was an old white billycock, which in its palmy days might have adorned noble brows, so fashionable were its pretensions. Now, alas! it had one side caved in, and the other was green with wear and weather. The coat which arrayed his manly form was evidently one not made recently or to wearer's measure, for besides showing cracks and rents in various parts, its tails were so extravagantly long for its small occupant that they literally almost touched the ground. His nether garments, on the other hand, although they resembled the coat in their conveniences for ventilation, being all in rags and tatters, appeared to have been borrowed from a smaller pair of legs even than those owned by my present possessor, for they—at least one leg—barely reached half way below the knee, while the other stopped short very little lower. Altogether, the boy was as nondescript and "scarecrowy" an object as one could well expect to meet with.

As he left the hall he gave a quick look round to assure himself no one was following him; then he darted across the road and proceeded to shuffle forward in so extremely leisurely and casual a way, that very few of the people who met him would have imagined he carried a stolen watch in his pocket.

Such a hole as it was! As soon as I had sufficiently recovered from my astonishment to look about me, I became aware that I was by no means the sole occupant of the receptacle he was pleased to designate by the title of a pocket, but which other people would have called a slit in the lining of his one sound coat-tail.

There was a stump of a clay pipe, with tobacco still hot in it. There was a greasy piece of string, a crust of bread, a halfpenny, a few brass buttons, and a very greasy and very crumpled and very filthy copy of a "penny awful" paper. I need hardly say that this scrutiny did not afford me absolute pleasure. In the first place, my temporary lodging was most unsavoury and unclean; and in the second place, there was not one among my many fellow-lodgers who could be said to be in my position in life, or to whom I felt in any way tempted to address any inquiry.

This difficulty, however, was settled for me. A voice close beside me said, in a hoarse whisper, "What cheer, Turnip? how do you like it?"

I looked round, and perceived that the speaker was the clay pipe, who happened to be close beside me as I lay.

I held my nose—so to speak (for watches are not supposed to be gifted with that organ)—the tobacco which was smouldering in him must have been a month old, while the pipe itself looked remarkably grimy and dirty. However, thought I, there would be no use in being uncivil to my new comrades, unpleasant though they were, and I might as well make use of this pipe to assist me to certain information I was curious to get. So I answered, "I don't like it at all. Can you tell me where I am?"

"Where are you, Turnip? Why, you're in young Cadger's pocket, to be sure; but you won't stay there long, no error."

I secretly wished this objectionable pipe would not insist on addressing me as "Turnip," but on the whole the present did not seem exactly the time to stand on my dignity, so I replied,—

"Why, what's going to become of me?"

"What's going to become of you, Turnip! Why, you'll go to Cadger's uncle. Won't he, mate?"

The mate addressed was the piece of string, who, I should say, was by no means the latest addition to the Cadger's collection of valuables. He now grinned and wriggled in reply to the pipe's appeal, and snuffled,—

"That's right, mate; that's where he'll go. Do you hear, Turnip? that's where you'll go—to Cadger's uncle."

It occurred to me that Cadger's uncle would have to be vastly more respectable and fragrant than his nephew to make the change at all advantageous to me.

"Is young Cadger a thief?" I next inquired.

The pipe laughed.

"Why, what a funny chap you are, Turnip!" it said.

"Does it look like it? Cadger a thief!—oh, my eye! not at all. Eh, mate?"

The greasy string took up the laugh, and snivelled in chorus.

"Ho, ho! ain't he a funny chap? Do you hear. Turnip? ain't you a funny chap? Oh, my eye! not at all."

It was disgusting! Not only was I cooped up in an abominably filthy tail-coat pocket, with a motley rabble of disreputable associates, but every time I opened my lips here I was insulted and laughed at for every word I spoke.

However, I gathered that the purport of the reply to my last inquiry was that the young Cadger was a thief, and I made one more attempt to gain information.

"Where are we going to now?" I asked.

"Going!" cried the pipe, with his insulting jeer.

"What, don't you know where you're a-going, old Turnip? You're a-going wherever he takes yer; ain't he, mate?"

It was positively painful to see how that vile piece of string wriggled as he replied,—

"Do you hear, Turnip? You're a-going wherever young Cadger takes yer. Now what do you think of that?"

It was impossible to continue a conversation with such low, ill-mannered creatures, and I therefore abandoned the attempt, having at least ascertained that I was at present located in a thief's pocket, that my immediate destination was vague, and that ultimately I might expect to become the property of a near relative of my present possessor.

Noticing that I became silent, the pipe and the string between them began to question me. But I was neither in the mood nor the desire to gratify their curiosity. They therefore contented themselves with cracking jokes at my expense, and thus we journeyed together a mile or two towards our unknown destination.

Presently a dirty little hand came groping down into our place of retreat. It first fumbled me and my chain, with a view, I suppose, to ascertain if we were all safe, and then proceeded among the other occupants of the pocket to secure and draw forth the half penny which I have before mentioned.

I was relieved to have even one of my unpleasant companions removed, and could not refrain from expressing my feelings by a sigh.

"What are you snivelling at, Turnip?" asked the pipe.

I did not deign to reply.

"Suppose yer think that there sou," (fancy the stump of a clay pipe speaking French!) "is gone for good, and good riddance, do yer? You wait a bit, that's all."

"Boh, boh!" chimed in the string. "Do you hear, Turnip? Wait till you see the soldier; then see how you'll laugh!"

"What soldier?" I inquired, my curiosity for a moment getting the better of my reserve. I could not imagine what possible connexion there could be between the military and the disreputable copper I had so lately seen depart.

I was not long in suspense, however, for before my two vulgar companions could answer my question, the "soldier" made his appearance.

The dirty little hand again entered our quarters, and let fall in our midst a red herring! At the sight and smell of him I turned sick with disgust. Fancy a silver watch sat upon, squeezed, and besmeared by a reeking red herring. He came sprawling right on the top of me, the brute, his ugly mouth wide open and his loathsome fins scraping along my back. Ugh!

"That there's the soldier, Turnip; ain't it, mate?" called out the pipe.

"Do you hear, Turnip? this here's the soldier. How do you like him?" snuffled the string.

It was enough! I felt my nerves collapse, and my circulation fail, and for the remainder of that dreadful night I was speechless.

I was not, however, blind, or so far gone as to be unable to notice in a vague sort of way what happened.

The young gentleman rejoicing in the name of Cadger (but whose real cognomen I subsequently ascertained to be Stumpy Walker) proceeded on his walk, whistling shrilly to himself, exchanging a passing recognition with one and another loafer, and going out of his way to kick every boy he saw smaller than himself, which last exertion, by the way, at twelve o'clock at night he did not find very often necessary.

I observed that he did not go out of his way to avoid the police; on the contrary, he made a point of touching his hat to every guardian of the peace he happened to meet, and actually went so far as to inform one that "he'd want his muckintogs before morning"—a poetical way of prophesying rain.

He proceeded down a succession of back streets, which it would have puzzled a stranger to remember, till he came into a large deserted thoroughfare which was undergoing a complete renovation of its drainage arrangements. All along the side of the road extended an array of huge new pipes, some three feet in diameter, awaiting their turn underground. Into one of these Master Walker dived, and as it was just tall enough to allow of his sitting upright in its interior, and just long enough to allow his small person to lie at full length without either extremity protruding; and further, as the rain was just beginning to come down, I could not forbear, even in the midst of my misery, admiring his selection of a lodging.

Greatly to my relief, the "soldier," the crust, and the pipe were all three presently summoned from the pocket, and with the help of the first two and the consolation of the last, Master Walker contrived to make an evening meal which at least afforded him satisfaction.

Before making himself snug for the night he pulled me out, and by the aid of the feeble light of a neighbouring lamp-post, made a hasty examination of my exterior and interior. Having apparently satisfied himself as to my value, he put me and the pipe back into his dreadful pocket, from which, even yet, the fumes of the "soldier" had not faded, and then curled himself up like a dormouse and composed himself to slumber.

He had not, however, settled himself many moments before another ragged figure came crawling down the inside of the pipes towards him. Stumpy started up at the first sound in a scared sort of way, but instantly resumed his composure on seeing who the intruder was.

"What cheer, Stumpy?" said the latter.

"What cheer, Tuppeny?" replied my master. "Where've yer been to?"

"Lunnon Bridge," replied Mr Tuppeny.

"An' what 'ave yer got?" asked Stumpy.

"Only a rag," said the other, in evident disgusts producing a white handkerchief.

"That ain't much; I've boned a turnip."

"Jus' your luck. Let's 'ave a look at him."

Stumpy complied, and his comrade, lighting a match, surveyed me with evident complacency.

"Jus' your luck," said he again. "Where did yer git 'im?"

"At the gaff, off a young cove as was reg'lar screwed up. I could 'ave took 'is nose off if I'd a wanted it, and he wouldn't have knowed."

"Then this 'ere rag might 'a been some use," replied the disconsolate Tuppeny. "'Tain't worth three'a'pence."

"Any marks?" inquired my master.

"Yees; there is so. C.N. it is; hup in one corner. He was sticking out of the pocket of a young chap as was going along with a face as long as a fooneral, and as miserable-lookin' as if 'e'd swallowed a cat."

C.N.! Could this handkerchief possibly have belonged to poor Charlie Newcome? His way home from Grime Street I knew would lead by London Bridge, and with the trouble of that afternoon upon him, would he not indeed have looked as miserable as the thief described?

And these two boys, having thus briefly compared notes, and exhibited to one another their ill-gotten gains, curled themselves up and fell fast asleep.

Dear reader, does it ever occur to your mind that there are hundreds of such vagrants in this great city? Night after night they crowd under railway arches and sheds, on doorsteps and in cellars. They have neither home nor friend. To many of them the thieves' life is their natural calling; they live as animals live, and hope only as animals hope, and when they die, die as animals die; ignorant of God, ignorant of good, ignorant of their own souls. Yet even for such as they, Christ died, and the Spirit strives.

The pipe, and his friend, the string, that night had a long conversation as their master lay asleep. They evidently thought I was asleep too, for they made no effort to conceal their voices, and I consequently heard every word.

It chiefly had reference to me, and was in the main satirical.

"Some coves is uncommon proud o' themselves, mate, ain't they?— particular them as ain't much account after all?"

"You're right, mate. Do you hear, Turnip? you ain't much account; you're on'y silver-plate, yer know, so you don't ought to be proud, you don't!"

"What I say," continued the pipe, "is that coves as gives 'emselves hairs above their stations is a miserable lot. What do you think?"

"What don't I?" snuffled the string. "Do you hear, Turnip? you're a miserable cove, you are. Why can't you be 'appy like me and my mate? We don't give ourselves hairs; that's why we're 'appy."

"And, arter all," pursued the pipe, "that's the sort of coves as go second-hand in the end. People 'ud think better on 'em if they didn't think such a lot of theirselves; wouldn't they now, mate?"

"Wouldn't they just! What do you think of that, Turnip? You're on'y a second-hand turnip, now, and that's all along of being stuck-up and thinking such a lot of yourself! You won't go off for thirty bob, you won't see!"

"Mate!" exclaimed the pipe, presently (after I had had leisure to meditate on the foregoing philosophical dialogue), "mate, I'll give you a riddle!"

"Go it!" said the mate.

"Why," asked the pipe, in a solemn voice, "is a second-hand pewter- plate, stuck-up turnip, like a weskit that ain't paid for?"

"Do you hear, Turnip? Why are you like a weskit that ain't paid for? Do yer give it up? I do."

"'Cos it's on tick!" pronounced the pipe.

I could have howled to find myself the victim of such a low, villainous joke, that had not even the pretence of wit, and I could have cried to see how that greasy string wriggled and snuffled at my expense.

"My eye, mate! that's a good 'un! Do you hear, Turnip? you're on tick, you know, like the weskit. Oh, my eye! that'll do, mate; another o' them will kill me. Oh, turn it up! do you hear? On tick!— hoo, hoo, hoo! Do you hear, Turnip? tick!"

Need I say I spent a sad and sleepless night? When my disgust admitted of thought I could not help reflecting how very happy some vulgar people can be with a very little sense, and how very unhappy other people who flatter themselves they are very clever and superior can at times find themselves.

By the time I had satisfied myself of this my master uncurled himself and got up.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

HOW I CHANGED MASTERS TWICE IN TWO DAYS, AND AFTER ALL FOUND MYSELF IN PAWN.

It was scarcely four o'clock when my lord and master arose from his brief repose, and sallied through the rain and darkness back in the direction of the city. He was far less anxious to salute the police now than he had been a few hours ago. He slunk down the back streets, and now and then darted up a court at the sound of approaching foot steps; or retreated for some distance by the way he had come, in order to strike a less guarded street.

In this manner he pursued his way for about an hour, till he reached a very narrow street of tumble-down houses, not far from Holborn. Down this he wended his way till he stood before a door belonging to one of the oldest, dingiest, and most decayed houses in all the street. Here he gave a peculiar scrape with his foot along the bottom of the door, and then sat down on the doorstep.

Presently a voice came through the keyhole, in a whisper.

"That you, Stumpy?" it said.

"Yas," replied my master.

"All clear?"

Stumpy looked up and down the street and then hurriedly whispered, "No."

Instantly the voice within was silent, and Stumpy was to all appearance sleeping soundly and heavily, as if tired nature in him had fairly reached its last strait.

The distant footsteps came nearer; and still he slept on, snoring gently and regularly. The policeman advanced leisurely, turning his lantern first on this doorway, then on that window; trying now a shutter-bar, then a lock. At last he stood opposite the doorstep where Stumpy lay. It was a critical moment. He turned his lamp full on the boy's sleeping face, he took hold of his arm and gently shook him, he tried the bolt of the door against which he leaned. The sleeper only grunted drowsily and settled down to still heavier slumber, and the policeman, evidently satisfied, walked on.

"Is he gone?" asked the voice within, the moment the retreating footsteps showed this.

"Yas, but he'll be back," whispered the boy.

And so he was. Three times he paced the street, and every time found the boy in the same position, and wrapped in the same profound slumber. Then at last he strode slowly onward to the end of his beat, and his footsteps died gradually away.

"Now?" inquired the voice.

"Yas," replied Stumpy.

Whereat the door half-opened, and Stumpy entered.

It was a dirty, half-ruinous house, in which the rats had grown tame and the spiders fat. The stairs creaked dismally as Stumpy followed his entertainer up them, while the odours rising from every nook and cranny in the place were almost suffocating.

The man led the way into a small room, foul and pestilential in its closeness. In it lay on the floor no less than nine or ten sleeping figures, mostly juveniles, huddled together, irrespective of decency, health, or comfort. Stumpy surveyed the scene composedly.

"Got lodgers, then," he observed.

"Yes, two on 'em—on'y penny ones, though."

Just then a sound of moaning came from one corner of the room, which arrested Stumpy's attention.

"Who's that?" he asked.

"Old Sal; she's bad, and I reckon she won't last much longer the way she's a-going on. I shall pack her off to-day."

Stumpy whistled softly; but it was evident, by the frequent glances he stole every now and then towards the corner where the sufferer lay, that he possessed a certain amount of interest in the woman described as "Old Sal."

The man who appeared to be the proprietor of this one well-filled lodging-room was middle-aged, and had a hare-lip. He had an expression half careworn, and half villainous, of which he gave Stumpy the full benefit as he inquired.

"What 'ave yer got?"

"Got, pal?" replied Stumpy; "a ticker."

"Hand it up," said the man, hurriedly.

Stumpy produced me, and the man, taking me to the candle, examined me greedily and minutely.

Then he said,—

"I shall get fifteen bob for him."

"Come, now, none of your larks!" replied Stumpy, who had produced the pipe, and was endeavouring to rekindle its few remaining embers at the candle; "try ag'in."

"Well, I don't see as he'll fetch seventeen-and-six, but I'll do it for you."

"Try ag'in," coolly replied Stumpy.

The man did try again, and named a sovereign, which my master also declined.

In this manner he advanced to twenty-four shillings.

"Won't do," said Stumpy.

"Then you can take 'im off," said the man, with an oath; "he ain't worth the money."

"Yas 'e is, an' a tanner more," put in Stumpy.

The man uttered a few more oaths, and again examined me. Then he dropped me in his pocket, and slowly counted out the purchase-money from a drawer at his side.

Stumpy watched the process eagerly, doubtless calculating with professional interest how the entire hoard of this thieves' broker could at some convenient opportunity be abstracted. However, for the present he made sure of the sum given him, and dropped the coins one by one into his tail pocket.

"Now lay down," said the man, "and make yourself comfortable."

I fancy Stumpy was a good deal more comfortable in his drain-pipe an hour or two ago than in this foul, choking lodging-room; however, he curled himself up on the floor near the dying woman, and did his share in exhausting the air of the apartment.

I should offend all rules of good taste and decency if I described the loathsome room; I wish I could forget it, but that I shall never do. Suffice it to say daylight broke in at last on the squalid scene, and then one by one the sleepers rose and departed—all but Stumpy and she whose groaning had risen ceaselessly and hopelessly the livelong night.

"Old Sal's very bad," said Stumpy to his host.

"Yas, she'll have to clear out of here."

"She's nigh dying, I reckon," said the boy.

"Can't help that; she ain't paid a copper this three weeks, and I ain't a-going to have her lumbering up my place no longer."

"Where's she a-going to?" asked Stumpy.

"How do I know?—out of 'ere, anyways, and pretty soon, too. I can tell yer."

"Pal," said the boy, after a long pause, "I charged yer a tanner too much for that there ticker; here you are, lay hold."

And he tossed back the sixpence. The man understood quite well the meaning of the act, and Old Sal lay undisturbed all that day.

Stumpy took his departure early. I have never seen him since; what has become of him I know not; where he is now I know still less.

But to return to myself. I spent that entire day in the man's pocket, too ill to care what became of me, and too weak to notice much of what passed around me. I was conscious of others like Stumpy coming up the creaking stairs and offering their ill-gotten gains as he had done; and I was conscious towards evening, when the last rays of the setting sun were struggling feebly through the dingy window, of a groan in that dismal corner, deeper than all that had gone before. Then I knew Old Sal was dead. In an hour the body was laid in its rude coffin, and had made its last journey down those stairs: and that night another outcast slept in her corner.

The night was like the one which had preceded it, foul and sickening. I was thankful that my illness had sufficiently deadened my senses to render me unable to hear and see all that went on during those hours. Morning came at length, and one by one the youthful lodgers took their departure. When the last had left, my possessor produced a bag, into which he thrust me, with a score or more of other articles acquired as I had been acquired; then, locking the door behind him, he descended the stairs and stepped out.

Oh, the delight of that breath of fresh morning air! Even as it struggled in through the crevices and cracks of that old bag, it was like a breath of Paradise, after the vile, pestilential atmosphere of that room!

As we went on, I had leisure to observe the company of which I formed one. What a motley crew we were! There were watches, snuff-boxes, and pencils, bracelets and brooches, handkerchiefs and gloves, studs, pins, and rings—all huddled together higgledy-piggledy. We none of us spoke to one another, nor inquired whither we were going; we were a sad, spiritless assembly, and to some of us it mattered little what became of us.

Still I could not help wondering if the man in whose possession I and my fellow-prisoners found ourselves was Stumpy's "uncle," referred to by that miserable clay pipe. If he was, I felt I could not candidly congratulate that youth on his relative. What he could want with us all I could not imagine.

If I had been the only watch, and if there hadn't been half a dozen scarf-pins, snuff-boxes, and pencils, it would not have been so extraordinary. It would have been easy enough to imagine the person of Stumpy's "aunt" decorated with one brooch, two bracelets, and three or four rings; but when instead of that modest allowance these articles were present by the half-dozen, it was hardly possible to believe that any one lady could accommodate so much splendour. How ever, I could only suppose the superfluous treasures were destined for Stumpy's cousins, masculine and feminine, and occupied the rest of the journey in the harmless amusement of wondering to whose lot I was likely to fall.

The man walked some considerable distance, and strangely enough bent his steps in a direction not far removed from Saint Elizabeth's Hospital. Surely he was not going to restore me to Tom Drift! No; we passed the end of Grime Street. There were milkmen's carts rattling up and down; servants were scrubbing doorsteps; and a few sleepy-looking men, with their breakfasts in their hands, were scurrying off to work. It was all the same as usual; yet how interesting, all of a sudden, the dull street had become to me. It was here I had last seen poor Charlie, outraged and struck by the friend he strove to save, creeping slowly home; it was here Tom Drift still dwelt, daily sinking in folly and sin, with no friend now left to help him. Poor Tom Drift! How gladly would I have returned to him, even to be neglected and ill-used, if only I might have the opportunity once again of fulfilling that charge put upon me by my first master, and which yet ever rang in my ears,—

"Be good to Tom Drift."

But it was not to be yet. The man walked rapidly on down a street parallel with Grime Street, at the farthest corner of which stood a small private house.

Here he knocked.

The occupant of the house evidently knew and expected him, for he at once admitted him, and led the way upstairs into a private parlour. Here the thieves' broker emptied the contents of his bag, laying the articles one by one on the table.

The man of the house looked on in an unconcerned way while this was taking place, picking up now one, now another of the objects, and examining them superficially. When the bag was empty, and the whole of the ill-gotten booty displayed, he remarked, "Not so much this time, Bill."

"No; trade's bad, sir," replied he who owned the bag.

"Well, I'll send the most of 'em down to the country to-day," resumed the master of the house.

"When shall I call, sir?" inquired Stumpy's friend.

"Monday. But look here, Bill!" said the other, taking me up, "it's no use leaving this; I shall be able to manage the gold ones, but this is no good."

I had long lost the pride which in former days would have made me resent such a remark, and patiently waited for the result.

Stumpy's friend took me back. "Well," he said, "if you can't, you can't. I'll see to him myself. Well, good-day; and I'll call on Monday."

And he turned to depart, with me in his hand. In a minute, however, he came back. "Would yer mind lending me some togs, sir, for a few minutes?" said he; "I don't want no questions asked at the pawnshop."

And he certainly did not look, in his present get-up, as the likeliest sort of owner of a silver watch. The man of the house, however, lent him some clothes, in which he arrayed himself, and which so transformed him that any one would have taken him, not for the disreputable thieves' broker he was, but for the unfortunate decayed gentleman he professed to be. In this guise he had no difficulty in disposing of me at the nearest pawnbroker's shop, which happened to be at the corner of Grime Street.

The pawnbroker asked no questions, and I am sure never suspected anything wrong. He advanced thirty shillings on me and the chain, gave the man his ticket, and put a corresponding one on me.

Then Stumpy's friend departed, and my new master went back to his breakfast.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

HOW TOM DRIFT GETS LOWER STILL.

Two years passed.

They were, without exception, the dullest two years I, or, I venture to say, any watch made, ever spent. There I lay, run down, tarnished and neglected, on the pawnbroker's shelf, never moved, never used, never thought of. Week followed week, and month month, and still no claimant for me came.

Other articles on the shelves beside me came and went, some remaining only a day, some a week, but I survived them all. Even my friend the chain took his departure, and left me without a soul to speak to.

None of the hundreds of tickets handed in bore the magic number 2222, which would have released me from my ignoble custody, and, in time, I gave up expecting it, and settled down to the old-fogeydom of my position, and exacted all the homage due to the "father of the shop" from my restless companions.

My place was at the end of a long shelf, next to the screen dividing the shop from the office, and my sole amusement during those two dreary years was peeping through a crack and watching my master's customers. They were of all sorts and all conditions, and many of them became familiar.

There was the little girl, for instance, the top of whose bonnet just reached as high as the counter, who, regularly every Monday morning, staggered in under the weight of a bundle containing her father's Sunday clothes, and, as regularly every Saturday evening, returned to redeem them. It was evident her respectable parent did not attend many evening parties between those two days, for I never remember his sending for them except at the regular times.

Then there was the wretched drunkard, who crept in stealthily, with now a child's coat, now a picture, now a teapot; and with the money thus raised walked straight across the road to the public-house. And there was his haggard, worn wife, who always came next day with the ticket, and indignantly took back her household goods. There was the young sailor's wife, too, with her baby in her arms, who came rarely at first, but afterwards more often, to pawn her few poor treasures, until at length a glad day came when the brawny tar himself, with his pockets full of cash, came with her and redeemed them every one.

I could tell of scores of others if I wished, but I have my own life to record, and not the transactions of my master, the pawnbroker.

One day, towards the end of the first year, the door opened softly and quickly, and there entered into the office a youth, haggard and reckless-looking, whom, I thought, surely I had seen before. I looked again.

Was it possible? Yes! this was none other than Tom Drift! But oh, how changed! A year ago, erring and wayward as he had been, he was yet respectable; his dress was the dress of a gentleman; his bearing was that of a gentleman too; his face had been naturally intelligent and pleasant; and his voice clear and cheerful. But now! There was a wild, restless roll about his eyes, a bright flush on his hollow cheeks, a dulness about his mouth, a hoarseness in his voice, which seemed to belong to another being. He was dissipated and seedy in appearance, and hung his head, as though ashamed to meet a fellow-being's look, and, instead of one, looked at least ten years older than he had.

Such a wreck will evil ways make of a youth! He looked eagerly round, to see that no one but he was in the office, and then produced from his pocket a scarf-pin.

"What will you give me for this?" he whispered.

The pawnbroker took it up and turned it over. It was a handsome pin, with a pearl in the front.

"Ten shillings," said the pawnbroker.

"What!" exclaimed Tom; "do you know what it's worth?"

"Ten shillings is all I can give you," curtly replied the pawnbroker.

Tom gulped down a groan. "Give me the money, then, for goodness' sake," he said.

The pawnbroker coolly and deliberately made out the ticket, while Tom stood chafing impatiently.

"Be quick, please!" he said, as though fearful of some one detecting him in a crime.

"Don't you be in a hurry," said the pawnbroker.

"Here's the ticket."

"And the ten shillings?" broke in Tom.

"You shall have it," said my master, going to his drawer.

To Tom it seemed ages while the silver was being counted, and when he had got it he darted from the shop as swiftly as he had entered it.

"That fellow's going wrong," muttered the pawnbroker to himself, as he laid the pin on the shelf beside me.

I recognised it at once as having often been my companion on Tom's dressing-table at nights, but I myself was so discoloured and ill that it did not at first know me. I was too anxious, however, to hear some thing about Tom to allow myself to remain disguised.

"Don't you know me, scarf-pin?" I asked.

He looked hard at me. "Not a bit," he said.

"I'm Tom Drift's old watch."

"You don't say so! So you are! How ever did you come here? Did he pawn you?"

"No; I was stolen from him one night at the music-hall, and pawned here by the thief."

"Ah, that music-hall!" groaned the pin; "that place has ruined Tom Drift."

"When I left him," I said, "he was just going to the bad as hard as he could. He had broken with his best friend, and seemed completely—"

"Hold hard! what friend?" interposed the pin.

"Charlie Newcome, my first master; they had a quarrel the day I was stolen."

"That must be nearly two years ago?" said the pin.

"Just," said I. "Do tell me what has happened since then."

"It's a long story," said the pin.

"Never mind, we've nothing else to do here," I said encouragingly.

"Well," said the pin, "the night you were lost Tom never turned up at home at all."

"He was utterly drunk," I said, by way of explanation.

"Don't you interrupt," said the pin, "or I won't tell you anything."

I was silenced.

"Tom never turned up at all until the next morning; and he sat all that day in his chair, and did nothing but look at the wall in front of him."

"Poor fellow!" I could not help saying.

"There you go!" said the pin; "be good enough to remember what I said, and if you can't endure to hear of anybody sitting and looking at a wail, it's no use my going on with my story."

"I only meant that I could imagine how miserable he was that day," said I; "but go on, please."

"Two or three days after, Charlie Newcome called. Tom was alone, but he refused to see him. He cursed to himself when he heard the name. Charlie went back disappointed, but Tom made a great boast to his 'friends' that same night of his 'cold shoulder to the prig,' as he called it, and they highly applauded him for his sense.

"Again, a week later, Charlie called once more, but with the same result. He wrote letters, but Tom put them in the fire unread; he sent books, but they were all flung into a corner. In a thousand different ways he contrived to show Tom that, though ill-used and in suited, he was still his friend, and ready to serve him whenever opportunity should offer.

"All this while Tom was sinking lower and lower in self-respect. He was contracting a habit of drinking, and in a month or two after you had left he rarely came home sober."

"And what about his bad friends?" asked I.

"There you are! why can't you let me tell my story in peace? His bad friends visited him daily at first, made a lot of him, and praised him loudly for his resolution in dismissing Charlie, and for his 'growing a man at last.' They lent him money, they lost to him at cards and billiards, and they made his downward path as easy for him as possible.

"At last, about six months ago, Tom was found tipsy in the dissecting- room at the hospital, and cautioned by the Board. A fortnight later he was found in a similar state in one of the wards, and then he was summarily expelled from the place, and his name was struck off the roll of students."

"Has it come to that?" I groaned.

"Come to that? Of course it has; I shouldn't have said so if it hadn't," replied the testy pin, who seemed unable to brook the slightest interruption. "He took a fit of blues after that; he went to the Board, and begged to be allowed to return to his studies, representing that all his prospects in life depended on his finishing his course there. They gave him one more chance. In his gratitude he resolved to discard his companions, and actually sat down and wrote a letter to Charlie, begging him to come and see him."

"Did he really?" I exclaimed, trembling with eagerness.

"All right, I shall not tell you of it again. Stop me once more, and you'll have to find the rest of my story out for yourself."

"I'm very sorry," said I.

"So you ought to be. When it came to the time, however, Tom's resolutions failed him. Gus and his friends called as usual that evening and laughed him to scorn. He dare not quarrel with them, dare not resist them. He crumpled up the letter in his pocket and never posted it, and that night returned to his evil ways without a struggle.

"For a week or two, however, he kept up appearances at the hospital; but it could not last. A misdemeanour more serious than the former one caused his second expulsion, and this time with an intimation that under no circumstances would he be readmitted. That was three months ago. He became desperate, and at the same time the behaviour of Gus altered. Instead of flattering and humouring him, he became imperious and spiteful. And still further, he demanded to be repaid the money he had advanced to Tom. Tom paid what little he could, and borrowed the rest from Mortimer. He got behindhand with his rent, and his landlady has given him notice. As usual, everybody to whom he owes money has found out his altered circumstances, and is down on him. The keeper of the music-hall, the tailor, the cigar merchant, are among the most urgent."

"And your being here is a result of all this, I see," said I, knowing the story was at an end, and considering my tongue to be released.

"Find out!" angrily retorted the pin, relapsing into ill-tempered silence.

I had little enough inclination to revert to the sad topic, and for the rest of that day gave myself up to sorrow and pity for Tom Drift. One thing I felt pretty sure of—it would not be long before he came again; and I was right.

In two days he entered the office, wild and haggard as before, but with less care to conceal his visit.

This time he laid on the counter the famous lance-wood fishing-rod which Charlie had given him months ago, and which surely ought to have been a reminder to him of better times.

He flung it down, and taking the few shillings the pawnbroker advanced on it, hurried from the shop.

The next time he came some one else was in the shop. A passing flush came over Tom's face on discovering a witness to his humiliation; but he transacted his business with an assumed swagger which ill accorded with his inward misery. For even yet Tom Drift had this much of hope left in him—that he knew he was fallen, and was miserable at the thought. His self-respect and sensitiveness had been growing less day by day, and he himself growing proportionately hardened; but still he knew what remorse was, and by the very agony of his shame was still held out of the lowest of all depths—the depths of ruthless sin.

The stranger in the shop eyed him keenly, and when he had gone said to the pawnbroker, "He's a nice article, he is!"

"Not much good, I'm thinking," observed the pawnbroker, dryly.

"So you may say; I know the beauty. He banged me on the 'ed with a chair once, when he was screwed. Never mind, I know of two or three as is after him."

And so saying, the disreputable man departed.

After that Tom came daily. Now it was an article of clothing, now some books, now some furniture, that he brought. It was soon evident that not only was he miserable and destitute, but ill too; and when presently for a fortnight he never passed the now well-known door, I knew that the fever had laid him low.

Poor Tom Drift! I wondered who was there now to nurse him in his weakness and comfort him in his wretchedness. He must be untended and unheeded. Well I knew his "friends" (oh, sad perversion of the sacred title!) would keep their distance, or return only in time to quench the first sparks of repentance. If only Charlie could have seen him at this time, with his spirit cowed and his weary heart beating about in vain for peace and hope, how would he not have flown to his bedside, and from those ruins have striven to help him to rise again to purity and honesty.

But no Charlie was there. Since the last appealing letter so scornfully rejected, Tom had heard not a word of him or from him. What wonder indeed if after so many disappointments and insults, the boy should at length leave his old schoolfellow to his fate?

With returning health there came to Tom no returning resolutions or efforts. The friends who had deserted his sick-bed were ready, as soon as ever he rose from it, with their temptations and baneful influence. One of his first visits after his recovery was to my master with a pair of boots. He looked so pale and feeble that the pawnbroker inquired after his health—a most unusual departure from business on the part of that merchant.

"Hope you're feeling better," he said.

"Yes; so much the better for you," replied Tom with a ghastly smile. "What can you give me for these, they are nearly new?"

"Five shillings?"

"Oh, anything you like; I've to pay two pounds to-morrow. What you give me is all I shall have to do it with—I don't care!"

The pawnbroker counted out the five shillings, and handed them across the counter.

"Good-bye!" said Tom, with another attempt at a smile; "I shall have to change my address to-morrow."

And with that he turned on his heel. I watched him through the window as he left the shop. He walked straight across the road and went in at the public-house opposite.

And that glimpse was the last sight I had of Tom Drift for many, many months.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

HOW I WAS KNOCKED DOWN BY AN AUCTIONEER, AND PICKED UP BY A COUNTRYMAN.

One day, about two years after my arrival at the pawnbroker's shop, an unusual circumstance happened to break the monotony of my unruffled existence. This was nothing more nor less than a Clearance Sale. I must tell you how it happened.

For a week, every night, I saw my master poring over a big account-book in his parlour, comparing the entries in it with those of his pawn- tickets, and marking off on one list what articles had been pawned and redeemed, and on another what had been pawned and still remained unredeemed. So lengthy and complicated a process was this that it consumed the entire week. The next week further indications of a coming change manifested themselves. A printer came to the office with a bill for approval, worded as follows:—

"Great Clearance Sale! The entire valuable and miscellaneous unredeemed stock of a pawnbroker will be sold by auction at the Central Mart, on Monday next, by Mr Hammer. Sale to commence at twelve o'clock precisely. Catalogues will be ready on Saturday, and may be had on application."

Thus I, and one or two of my neighbours on the shelf, read as we peeped through the crack at the printer's proof-sheet.

"'Entire valuable and miscellaneous unredeemed stock!' that's a good bit of writing," observed a pair of silver sugar-tongs near me; "that means you and me and the rest, Ticker. Who'd have thought of us getting such a grand name!"

"Well, it strikes me we, at least I, have been lying here idle long enough," said I; "it's two years since I came here."

"Bless you, that's no time," said the tongs. "I knew a salt-spoon lay once ten years before he was put up—but then, you know, we silver things are worth our money any time."

"Yes," said I, "we are."

The tongs laughed. "You don't suppose I meant you when I talked of silver things, do you?"

"Of course I am a silver watch."

"You're a bigger muff than I took you for," replied the aristocratic tongs, turning his hall-mark towards me. It was humiliating. Of course I ought to have known I was not solid silver, and had no claim to class myself of the same metal as a genuine silver pair of tongs.

It was but one of many painful lessons I have had during my life not to give myself airs beyond my station.

These solid silver goods certainly constituted the "upper ten thousand" of our valuable and miscellaneous community. When the time came for cataloguing us all, they separated themselves from the rest of us, and formed a distinct society, having their several names recorded in full at the head of the list.

What a scene it was the day the catalogue came to our department! I suffered a further humiliation then by being almost entirely overlooked. A great tray of silver watches lay on the bench, brought together from all parts of the shop; and, to my horror, I found I was not among them.

"That's the lot," said the pawnbroker.

"Very good," said the auctioneer, who was making the catalogue; "shall we take leather bags next?"

"As you please," said my master.

"Hold hard," said the auctioneer, hastily counting the watches on the tray and comparing the number with a list he held in his hand, "there's one short."

"Is there? I don't know how that can be."

"You've got twenty-two down here and there's only twenty-one on the tray."

The pawnbroker looked puzzled.

"Better call over the number," said the auctioneer. So my master called out the number attached to each watch, and the auctioneer ticked it off on his list. When the last had been called, he said,—

"Where's Number 2222?"

"Ah, to be sure, that's the one," said the pawnbroker, reaching up to where I lay, and taking me down; "this one. I'd forgotten all about him."

Flattering, certainly! and still more so when the auctioneer, surveying my tarnished and dingy appearance, said, "Well, he's not much of a show after all. You'd better rub him up a bit, or we shan't get him off hand at all."

"Very good," said the pawnbroker, and I was handed over forthwith to an assistant to be cleaned. And much I needed it. My skin was nearly as black as a negro's, and my joints and muscles were perfectly clogged with dust. I had a regular watch's Turkish bath. I was scrubbed and powdered, my works were taken out and cleaned, my joints were oiled, my face was washed, and my hands were polished. Altogether I was overhauled, and when I took my place on the tray with my twenty-one companions I was altogether a new being, and by no means the least presentable of the company.

How we quarrelled and wrangled, and shouldered one another on that tray! There was such a Babel of voices (for each of us had been set going) that scarcely any one could hear himself speak. Nothing but recriminations and vituperations rose on every hand.

"Get out of the way, ugly lever," snarled one monstrous hunter watch near me, big enough for an ordinary clock. "Who do you suppose wants you? Get out of the way, do you hear?"

"Where to?" I inquired, not altogether liking to be so summarily ordered about, and yet finding the excitement of a little quarrel pleasant after two years' monotony.

"Anywhere, as long as you get out of my way. Do you know I'm a hundred years old?"

"Are you, though?" said I. "People must have had bigger pockets in those days than they have now!"

This I considered a very fair retort for his arrogance, and left him snorting and croaking to himself, and bullying some other little watches, whom, I suppose, he imagined would be more deferential to his grey hairs than I was.

I was not destined, however, to be left in peace.

"Who are you?" I heard a sharp voice say. Looking round, I saw a creature with a great eye in the middle of his face, and a long, lanky hand spinning round and round over his visage.

"Who are you, rather?" I replied.

It was evidently what he wanted, for he began at once: "I'm all the latest improvements—compensation balance and jewelled in four holes; perfect for time, beauty, and workmanship; sound, strong, and accurate; with keyless action, and large full-dial second hand; air-tight, damp- tight, and dust-tight; seven guineas net and five per cent, to teetotalers. There, what do you think of that?"

"I think," said I, with a laugh, in which a good many others joined, "that if you're so tight as all that teetotalers had better do without you."

It will be observed the scenes and company I had been in of late years had tended to improve neither my temper nor my manners.

In this way we spent most of the day before the auction, and it was quite a relief early next morning to find ourselves being removed to the "Central Mart."

It was impossible, however, to resist the temptation of another quarrel in our tray while we were waiting for the sale to begin. The culprit in this instance was a certain Queen Anne's shilling attached to the chain of an insignificant-looking watch.

"What business has that ugly bit of tin here?" asked a burly hunter.

"Who calls me an ugly bit of tin?" squeaked out the coin.

"I do; there!" said the hunter; "now what have you got to say?"

"Only that you're a falsehood. Why, you miserable, machine-made, wheezing, old make-believe of a turnip—"

"Draw it mild, young fellow," said the hunter.

"Do you know that I was current coin of the realm before the tin mine that supplied your carcass was so much as discovered? I'm a Queen Anne's shilling!"

"Are you, though? And what good are you now, my ancient Bob?"

The shilling grew, so to speak, black in the face.

"I won't be called a Bob! I'm not a Bob! Who dares call me a Bob?"

"I do, Bob; there, Bob. What do you think of that, Bob? What's the use of you, Bob, eh? Can you tell the time, Bob, eh, Bob, Bob, Bob?"

And we all took up the cry, and from that moment until the time of our sale every sound, for us, was drowned in a ceaseless cry of "Bob!" in the midst of which the unlucky Queen Anne's shilling crawled under his watch, and devoutly wished he were as undoubtedly dead as the illustrious royal lady whose image and superscription he had the misfortune to bear.

In due time the sale began. Among the earliest lots I recognised my acquaintance the solid silver sugar-tongs, which went for very nearly his full value, thus confirming me in my belief that, after all, there's nothing like the genuine thing all the world over.

After the disposal of the silver goods—for which comparatively few people bid, and that with little or no competition—the real excitement of the auction began.

"I have here, ladies and gentlemen," said the auctioneer, "a remarkably fine and superior lot of silver watches, all of which have been carefully cleaned and kept in order, and which, I can safely say, are equal to, if not better than, new. In many cases the watches are accompanied by chains of a very elegant and chaste description, which appendages considerably enhance their value. When I inform you that we value the contents of this tray, at the very lowest, at L90, being an average of L4 per watch, you will see I am not presenting to you any ordinary lot of goods. I will put up the watches singly in the order in which they are described in the catalogue."

Some of the company looked as if they were not sure whether they ought not to say "Hear, hear!" after this very elegant and polished speech, but they restrained their admiration, and reserved their energies for the bidding.

As I was last on the list I had full opportunity of noticing how my fellows fared, and was specially curious to see how the three or four watches whose acquaintance I had chanced to make went off.

The common-looking watch with the unlucky "Bob" attached to its chain was knocked down for L3 5 shillings, which, on the whole, was a triumph to the mortified coin, for it is certain without him the lot would not have fetched nearly so much, and his triumph was further enhanced by the fact that the hunter with whom he had had his altercation fetched only L2 17 shillings 6 pence. However, there was no time for jeers and recriminations at present, we were all too deeply absorbed in watching the fate of our fellows and speculating on our own.

The compensation balance, keyless, air-tight, seven-guinea grandee was the next to be put up, and the first bid for him was L1 10s.

"That I should have lived to hear that!" I heard the poor creature gasp.

"And if he's a teetotaler," I murmured, by way of encouragement, "that only means L1 8 shillings 6 pence!"

"Scoffer! be silent and leave me to my misery," said the keyless one, in a solemn tone.

The bidding improved considerably. He was run up to L2, L2 10 shillings, L3, L3 10 shillings, and finally to L4.

"Nothing more for this very magnificent watch?" said the auctioneer; "I positively cannot let him go for a song."

No answer.

"I wish gentlemen would take the trouble to look at it," continued the persevering official; "they could not fail to see it was worth twice the money bid."

Still no answer.

"Did I understand you to bid four five, sir?" said the auctioneer to an innocent-looking stripling near the door. "Thank you."

The stripling, however, disclaimed the soft impeachment, and looked very guilty as he did so.

"Well, there seems no help for it. I wish I were down among you gentlemen. I'd take good care not to lose this chance."

No answer.

"Then I must knock it down. Going, going, gone, sir; it's yours, and dirt cheap, too."

All this was encouraging for me. If a seven-guinea watch goes for four pounds, for how much will a three-guinea one go?

This was a problem which I feebly endeavoured to solve as I lay waiting my turn.

It came at last. I felt myself lifted on high, and heard my merits pronounced in the words of the catalogue.

"Lot 68. London made, lever, open-face watch, capped and jewelled, in very fine order."

"Look for yourselves, gentlemen."

The gentlemen did look for themselves, and complimented me by a preliminary bid of 15 shillings.

The auctioneer laughed a pleasant laugh, as much as to say, "That is a capital joke," and waited for the next bid.

It was not long in coming, and I advanced rapidly by half-crowns to thirty shillings. Here I made sure I should stop, for this was the figure at which the pawnbroker himself had valued me. But no; such are the vagaries of an auction, I went on still, up to L2, and from that to L2 10 shillings. Surely there was some mistake. I looked out to see who they were who were thus bidding for me, and fancied I detected in that scrutiny the secret of my unexpected value.

It was a countryman bidding—endeavouring in his downright way to become my possessor, and wholly unconscious of the array of Jews against him, who bid him up from half-crown to half-crown until I had nearly reached my original value.

"Three pounds," at last said one of the Jews.

The countryman had evidently come to the end of his tether, and did not answer the challenge.

"Three pounds," said the auctioneer; "you're not going to stop, sir?"

The countryman said nothing.

"Try once more," said the auctioneer; but the rustic was silent.

"Three pounds; no more? Going, going—"

"Guineas!" roared the countryman, at the last moment.

"Thank you, sir; I thought you were not going to be beaten. Three guineas, gentlemen; who says more? Nobody? Going, then, to you, sir; going, going, gone!"

And so, once more, I changed masters.



CHAPTER NINETEEN.

HOW, AFTER MUCH CEREMONY, I FOUND MYSELF IN THE POCKET OF A GENIUS.

Muggerbridge is a straggling, picturesque little midland village, with one principal street, an old church, a market-place, and a pound. Its population, all told, does not number a thousand, the majority of whom are engaged in agriculture; its houses are for the most part old- fashioned and poor, though clean; and altogether its general character and appearance combine to proclaim the village an unpretending English hamlet, with nothing whatever but its name to distinguish it from a hundred others like it.

It was here I found myself duly installed in the window of the village jeweller's—held out as a bait to the purses of Muggerbridge. The countryman who had purchased me was a big enough man in his own place, though very little had been made of him in the "Central Mart." He was jeweller, silversmith, church warden, postmaster, and special Muggerbridge correspondent to the London Thunderbolt all in one here, and appeared to be aware of his accumulated dignities!

It was his custom twice a year to visit London for the purpose of replenishing his stock. It was the common talk of the place that he always returned from such expeditions with prodigies of bargains, which went far to encourage the popular tradition as to the prodigal wealth of the metropolis. People who knew him in town, on the other hand, always laughed at him, and were unkind enough to hint that he never by any chance bought an article at less than its full price, and often paid an extremely fanciful ransom for his purchases.

The churchwarden and postmaster of Muggerbridge would have been very indignant had such an insinuation ever reached his ears. It never did, happily, and the worthy man was consequently always well satisfied with his purchases; which—whatever he gave for them—he always contrived to sell at a very respectable profit.

It was with a view to this profit that I found myself looking out of Mr Argent's window, in the High Street of Muggerbridge, with a ticket round my neck, conveying the (to me) very gratifying information that "this superb watch was to be disposed of for the moderate amount of L4 10 shillings only," and a parenthesis below further indulged my vanity by volunteering the information that I was worth L6. It did occur to me to wonder why, if I was worth L6, Mr Argent should be such a donkey as to sell me for only three-quarters of that sum. Either he was a very benevolent man, or he was in immediate want of L4 10 shillings, or he had his doubts as to my alleged value. I somehow fancied the last was the true reason, and was half afraid he was right too.

Well, I looked out of Mr Argent's windows for two months, and by that time became acquainted with nearly all the inhabitants of Muggerbridge.

On my first arrival I was an object of a good deal of curiosity and admiration, for any change in a country shop window is an excitement, and when that change takes the form of a L6 "superb" watch offered for L4 10 shillings, it was no wonder the honest Muggerbridgians gaped in at me and read my label.

But in a very little time familiarity had bred contempt, and I lay almost unheeded by the outside world. The grocer opposite, with his triumphal arch of jam-pots monopolised all the wonder, and most of the admiration, and I had the mortification of seeing passers turn their backs on me, and step over the way to contemplate that vulgar structure.

I had, however, one or two constant admirers. One of these was a youth, scarcely more than a boy, with a very pale, thoughtful face. He was poorly dressed, but respectable. A book was generally tucked under his arm, and very often I could see his lips moving, as if repeating something to himself.

He paid me more attention than anybody. Every time he passed the shop he halted and looked at me, as I thought, wistfully, and usually appeared relieved to find me still in my place.

"George Reader's took a fancy to the new watch, I can see," I heard Mr Argent say one day to his wife.

He spoke, let me observe, in a very broad country dialect, which I do not feel equal to reproducing here.

"Poor lad!" said Mrs Argent; "I dare say he'd like to have it in his pocket when he goes to college."

"He is going, then?"

"Yes, for certain; the clergyman says it would be a sin for a boy of his cleverness not to go, and so I think."

"Well, learning's a great thing; and when a gamekeeper's son does take a fit of it, I suppose it's all right to humour it. But you and I, wife, can get on very well without it."

"Speak for yourself," retorted Mrs Argent; "I wish you had half as much in your head as that boy has got, that's all!"

"And I suppose you wish you'd got the other half, eh? Stuff!"

And after this little tiff the worthy couple were silent for a while. Presently Mrs Argent again spoke. "I wonder what they'll do about the church organ when George's gone?"

"Ah! you may say so," said the husband, with a touch of importance in his voice which became a churchwarden when speaking of church matters; "it'll be hard to fill his place there."

"So it will. Did you stay after the service on Sunday?"

"No; you know I had to go round to the curate's. Why?"

"Just because if you'd heard him play you'd have been glued to your chair, as I was. It was beautiful. I couldn't have got up from that chair if I'd tried."

"Good job you didn't try, if you were glued down, especially in your Sunday gown. I shouldn't care to have to buy many of them a month."

"Now, John, you know I've not had a new gown for nearly a year."

And then the talk took a departure over a range of topics to which I need not drag my unoffending reader. This short conversation sufficed to satisfy my curiosity in part as to the boy who was paying me such constant attention; and another event which shortly happened served to bring me into still closer acquaintance with George Reader. One day there entered the shop a party consisting of half a dozen persons. One of them was a young man in the dress of a clergyman, and the others I knew well by sight as respectable and respected villagers.

"Good-morning, Mr Argent," said the curate, for the clerical gentleman was none other; "we've come to see you on a little matter of business."

"Hope there's nothing wrong with the heating stoves in the church, sir," said Mr Argent, with an anxious face, "I was always against them being used at all."

"The stoves are quite well, I believe," said the curate, smiling; "our business is of quite a different kind. We've come to make a purchase, in fact."

Mr Argent's face brightened considerably, partly at the assurance as to the salubrity of the gas-stoves and partly at the prospect of business.

"What can I do for you, sir?" he said, no longer with his churchwarden's voice, but as the Muggerbridge silversmith.

"Well, we have been asked to select a small present to be given by the choir and congregation of our church to George Reader, who, I suppose you know, is going next week to college."

"I have heard tell of it, sir," said Mr Argent, "and my wife and I were only wondering the other day what was to become of the music at the church when he's gone."

"We don't like to think of it," said one of the party. "It would want a good one to take his place," said another.

"We shall all miss him," said the curate; "and we are anxious before he leaves us to present him with some little token of our regard. We have kept the thing from you, Mr Argent, as of course we should have to come to you to procure whatever we decided on getting, so your contribution to the gift will have to be some good advice on the matter we are still undecided about—what to get."

"I shall be very glad to help—have you decided—er—I mean—has anything been said—that is—about what—"

"About how much? Well, we have nearly four pounds—in fact, we might call it four. What have you about that price that would be suitable?"

Oh! how my heart fluttered, for I could guess by this time what was coming.

Mr Argent looked profound for a minute, and then said, "There's one thing, I think, would do."

"What?" asked the deputation.

He pulled me out of the window and laid me on the counter.

"A watch! Dear me! we thought of all sorts of things, but not once of that!"

"It would be a suitable present," said one of the party; "but this one is L4 10."

"That needn't matter," said Mr Argent; "if you like it my wife and I will settle about the difference."

"That's very kind of you, Mr Argent. Does any one know if George has a watch?"

"I know he hasn't," said one of the party. "And what's more, I've heard him say he wishes he had one."

"And I can answer for it he's been looking in at my window at this very one every day for the last month," said the silversmith.

"Well, what do you say to getting this, then? We needn't ask you if it's a good one, Mr Argent."

"No, you needn't, sir," replied the smiling Mr Argent, who, as I had remained run down since the day he bought me, could not well have answered the question more definitely.

"You'll clean it up, will you, and set it going, and send it to me this afternoon?" said the curate;—"and perhaps you would like to come with us to Reader's cottage this evening, when we are going to present it?"

Mr Argent promised to form one of the party, and the deputation then left.

I was swiftly subjected to all the cleaning and polishing which brushes, wash-leather, and whiting could give me. I was wound up and set to the right time, and a neat piece of black watered ribbon was attached to my neck, and then I waited patiently till the time came for my presentation to my new master.

The gamekeeper's cottage to which I was conducted in state that evening was not an imposing habitation. It boasted of only three rooms, and just as many occupants. George, the hero of the occasion, was the son of its humble owner and his wife, and, as will have been gathered, had turned out a prodigy. From his earliest days he had displayed a remarkable aptitude for study. Having once learned to read at the village school, he became insatiable after books, and devoured all that came within his reach.

Happily he fell into the hands of a wise and able guide, the clergyman of the parish, who, early recognising the cleverness of the boy, strove to turn his thirst for learning into profitable channels, lent him books, explained to him what he failed to understand, incited him to thoroughness, and generally constituted himself his kind and helpful adviser.

The consequence of this timely tuition had been that George had grown up, not a boisterous, over bearing prig, showing off his learning at every available chance, and making himself detestable, and everybody else miserable, by his conceited air, but a modest, quiet scholar, with plenty of hidden fire and ambition, and not presuming on his talents to scorn his humble origin, or be ashamed of his home and parents—on the contrary, connecting them with all his dearest hopes of success and advancement in the world.

They, good souls, were quite bewildered by the sudden blaze of their son's celebrity. They hardly seemed to understand what it all meant, but had a vague sort of idea that they were implicated in "Garge's" achievements. They would sit and listen to him as he read to them, as if they were at an exhibition at which they had paid for admission, and it is not too much to say "Garge" was, in their eyes, almost as dreadful a personage as the lord of the manor himself.

Among his fellow-villagers George was, as the reader will have gathered, somewhat of a hero, and not a little of a favourite. This distinction he owed to a talent for music, which had at a very early age displayed itself, and had been heartily encouraged by the rector. In this pursuit, which he followed as his only recreation, he had made such progress that, while yet a boy, he became voluntary organist at the church, and as such had won the hearts of the neighbours.

They didn't know much about music, but they knew the organ sounded beautiful on Sundays, and that "Garge" played it. And so it was a real trouble to them now that he was about to leave Muggerbridge.

You may imagine the state of excitement into which this unexpected visit threw simple Mr and Mrs Reader. The good lady was too much taken aback even to offer her customary welcome, and as for the gamekeeper, he sat stock still in his chair, with his eyes on his son, like a hound that waits the signal for action.

"We are rather an invasion, I'm afraid," said the curate, squeezing himself into the little kitchen between a clothes-horse and a dresser.

"Not at all," said George, looking very bewildered.

"Perhaps you'll wonder why we've come?" added the curate, turning to the gamekeeper.

"Maybe you've missed something, and thinks one of us has got it," was the cheerful suggestion.

The curate laughed, and the deputation laughed, and George laughed, and George's mother laughed, which made things much easier for all parties.

"No, we haven't missed anything, Mr Reader," replied the curate, "but we expect to miss somebody—George, and that is the reason of our visit."

And then the curate explained what the business was, and one of the churchwardens made a speech (the composition of which had kept him awake all the previous night), and then I was produced and handed over. And George blushed and stammered out something which nobody could understand, and George's mother began to cry, and George's father, unable otherwise to express his sense of the occasion, began to whistle. And so the little business was satisfactorily concluded, and the deputation withdrew, leaving me in the pocket of a new master. Three days afterwards both of us took our departure for Cambridge.



CHAPTER TWENTY.

HOW MY NEW MASTER MADE TRIAL OF A PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

But now let us follow Reader. My master's rooms at Saint George's College were of the poorest and meanest description; in fact it would not be too much to describe them—the bedroom and study—as being like a pair of big cupboards under a great staircase. They looked out on nothing more picturesque than a blank wall. They were carpeted with nothing better than an old drugget; and as for paper, the place would have looked better simply whitewashed. They were suffocating in summer and draughty in winter, and at nights afforded rendezvous to a whole colony of rats. Every step on the staircase above thundered down into the study; the loosely-hung windows rattled even in a light breeze, and the flavours of the college dustbins, hard by, appeared to have selected these chambers, above all others, for their favourite haunt. I am told Saint George's College has recently undergone renovation. It so, it is probable "the Mouse-trap"—for this was the designation by which George Reader's classical domain was familiarly styled—has disappeared. Let us hope so, for a more miserable, uncomfortable, and uninviting couple of rooms I never saw.

But they had one merit, and that a great one: they were cheap, which to George Reader meant everything. He had gained a small entrance scholarship, by the help of which he hoped, with the most rigid economy, to support himself during his college career. Most other young fellows would have shrunk from the prospect, but such was my master's ambition that I believe he would have endured life in a stable if only he could have there enjoyed the advantages and encouragements of a college course.

It was, at any rate, a fine sight to see him settle down in his new dispiriting quarters, determined to make the best of everything, and suffer nothing to damp his ardour for work. He unpacked his few precious books and laid them on the shelf; he hung up the likenesses of his father and mother over the chimney-piece; he produced the cheese which the latter had insisted on his bringing with him, and, as a crowning-effect, set me up on the mantel-shelf with as much pride as if I had been a marble clock.

"That looks something like!" he said to himself. "Now for a little tea, and then—grind!"

The little tea, however, was "sooner said than done." It involved a prolonged hunt for the "gyp," or attendant, and a still more prolonged conference on the subject of hot water, tea, and bread. The suggestions thrown out by the college official, too, were so very lordly and extravagant—such, for instance, as ham and eggs, chicken, marmalade, and chocolate—that poor George's heart fluttered as much as his mouth watered while he listened. Chicken and chocolate for a poor student who had barely enough money to afford so much as the luxury of living in the "Mouse-trap" of Saint George's! Well he might be scared at the idea! He politely declined the grand offer of his scout, and asking him to light a small fire and procure him a loaf, sallied out himself into the town and purchased a small and very cheap quantity of groceries. With these he returned in triumph to his rooms, and, with the utmost satisfaction, partook of his first college meal, with a Euclid open on the table beside him.

Then pouring out a final cup of tea to enjoy, cold, later on, he "cleared the decks for action," as he called it, which meant putting away the tea, butter, sugar, and bread in a cupboard, and folding up the table cloth. Poor George! he had no false pride to forbid such menial offices; he had not the brag about him which would have led another to stand on the staircase and howl "Gyp" till every one far and near should be made aware that he had had a meal which required clearing away. No; he was only a gamekeeper's son, in a hurry to get at his books; and to him it was far more natural to wait on his own frugal table than sit in state till a servant should come and clear it.

"Now," said he to himself, "I shall get a good quiet time for work. After all it's not bad to be one's own master where reading is concerned."

And without more ado he set himself down to his books, with me on the table at his elbow, and his cup of tea within reach, when such refreshment should be desirable. It was a fine thing to see this young fellow plunging straight into his work.

Assuredly he had not come to college to fritter away his time—to row, play cricket, give wine-parties, or drive dog-carts; he had not even come because it was "the thing," or afforded a "good introduction into the world." No, he was here for one purpose, and one alone. That was work. To him the days were as precious mines, and every minute a nugget. It mattered nothing to him who won the cricket-match this year, who occupied the rooms next his, how many bumps the Saint George's boat made on the river; far more important was the thought that perhaps the oil in his lamp would run short before the night was out, or whether the edition of Plato his friend the Muggerbridge clergyman had given him was the best, and contained the fullest notes. In short, George Reader was in earnest.