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"Good-morning, ma'am," said the swell politely. "Have I the honour of speaking to Mrs. Dawe?"

"Ye 'ave," said Mrs. Dawe. "What can I serve ye with?” "It is mine to serve," returned the swell, smiling. "I am your slave, madam.”

At these enigmatic words Mrs. Dawe's heart began to flutter. It could not be a declaration of love, she felt that her affection for her late husband precluded that possibility. But then, what meant

those gallant words?

"Will you kindly ask your son to step in here?” he continued. "What d'yer want of him? Ye can talk to me, can't yer? I don't allow 'im to interfere in my private affairs." "Quite right!" said the swell cheerfully. private. Your son is in, isn't he?"

66

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"But this isn't

'Well, you've got a lot of sense, ain't ye?" cried Mrs. Dawe angrily. D'yer suppose a man as 'as just come out of small-pox and brain-fever by the skin of 'is teeth can walk about like you, as never 'ad a face worth sp'ilin', nor a brain worth feverin'? Y'ought to be ashamed o' yerself arxing sich questions!"

"Then I wish to speak to Mr. Dawe," said the swell, raising his voice. "And worth two of 'im any day."

"I ham Mr. Dawe," she cried. At this moment, Jack, who had overheard the conversation, appeared at the kitchen door. He darted an anxious look at the stranger, but, failing to recognise him, his face resumed its expression of vague worry. The swell quickly drew a document rom an inner breast pocket, and made a dash towards the painter. But Mrs. Dawe, rushing round the edge of the counter, intercepted him, and interposed her bulky form between the intruder and his prey.

No, yer don't," she cried, panting heavily, with her hand to her heart. "Y'ain't goin' to break into a honest woman's 'ouse like that. My son ain't in

"

"Nonsense! That is your son.

through illness."

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Nothing o' the sort.

You said he couldn't go out

I arxed ye if ye thought he could walk about like you? Ye wouldn't think it but 'e can. D'yer expect a man as 'as 'is bread to earn can afford to lay up like you? Y'ought to know better."

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"I know better than to believe you," he muttered. "I speak to Mr. Dawe, do I not?" he said, craning his head over the old lady's shoulder. The painter hesitated.

"Don't y' answer, Jack," she cried magisterially, rising on tiptoe to intercept the stranger's view of her son.

With a smile of triumph, the stranger slipped the paper through the arch of Mrs. Dawe's right arm. Jack, overcome by the rush with which the swell carried the position, accepted it passively; and, before his mother could turn round, the document was in his hand and the deliverer thereof gone.

"Ye unnateral villain!" she shrieked, staggering against the counter. "Ye're no son o' mine. I disowns yer. Get out o' my 'ouse or I'll brain yer!"

She seized a frying-pan and flourished it frantically. The painter took his hat meekly and tottered into the street.

CHAPTER VIII.

A COOL TWO THOUSAND.

PEOPLE stared at the strange figure walking feebly along the Bethnal Green Road, absorbed in the perusal of a double sheet of paper, folio size, the outside of which, carelessly displayed by the unconscious reader, bore the insignia,

QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION.

BATHBRILL

121

DAWE.

Writ of Summons.

an

and the inside of which informed him that VICTORIA, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, commanded him to cause Appearance to be entered for him in an Action at the suit of Elizabeth Bathbrill, within eight days after the service of the Writ upon him. He was also bidden take notice that in default of his so doing, the Plaintiff might proceed therein, and judgment might be given in his absence.

Such of the passers-by as knew him of old hardly recognised him. To them, as to Eliza, he seemed the shadow of his former self. His head was almost bald, and his light sombrero sank down over his eyes. His eyes alone retained their brightness, offering a startling contrast to the deadness of the rest of his countenance. He wore his white work-a-day coat, smeared with red and blue stains, and his feet were clad in gaily-embroidered slippers.

His

acquaintances turned aside from him as from a being of another world; some, who were willing to forgive the cut direct with which he had lately treated them, would have spoken, but an unaccountable repulsion from this ghastly, muttering form froze the words on their lips.

Half-way up the road he came to a standstill, at the corner of a street. "How can I engage a lawyer," he cried, "when the girl is right? Surely I ought rather to engage one for the plaintiff.”" This revolting heresy, which if it were to spread would soon cause Justice to disappear from the earth, was no whimsical play of fancy, and he paused to consider it.

Opposite to him was a waistcoatless man leaning against a post, with his hands in his pockets and an extinguished clay pipe in his mouth. The unconscious force of example induced Jack to adopt a similar posture, and the two men stood at their posts like sentries guarding the entrance to the dingy defile.

For some time each was silent, immersed in his own reflections. At last the bare-chested idler looked up and perceived the slippered lounger. The affinity of vagabondage drew their eyes together.

"Got a light, mate?" inquired the man.

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Jack thanked him with a glance for the sympathetic remark. "Only a feeble glimmer," he replied. And, like the dying Goethe, I crave for more. Unfortunately, you cannot tell me what to do."

"Can't I replied the man with a stare.

"You do not know the circumstances,” he continued sadly, “so you certainly can't tell me what I ought to do."

'I don't want to know the circumstances," answered the man, with good-humoured tolerance, "but the fust thing ye've got to do is to chuck over the bloomin' match."

It was now Jack's turn to stare. He left his post and went over to his fellow-fainéant.

"Who are you?" he said. "How do you know my affairs?" The man winked mysteriously to himself, as if to apprise himself that he was going to have some fun.

"Arx no questions, and ye'll hear no lies,” he responded with a chuckle.

There was a sense of power in the quiet chuckle that made Jack uneasy. The man with his hairy breast seemed to have grown strange in the sunlight, and his smokeless pipe to be charged with the secret things of destiny.

"I have already taken your advice," said the painter. "I have thrown over the match-not blooming now, as you metaphorically express it, but withered and leafless-and now my perplexities have only increased."

"Off his chump!" muttered the man. "Ye must 'umour them beggars."

"Never mind, mate!" he said cheerfully. "A pint o' bitter'll put ye right."

Jack made a gesture of disgust. walked on quickly.

"Retro Horati!" he cried, and

"Could he have known?" he reflected. "Was it not rather a deduction from my manifest trouble, that I was involved in some distressing affair, and not improbably one connected with love? Yet there was an air of sincerity in the man, and it is regrettable that he has embraced the principles of Horace. To whom can I now look for light? My own conscience is the only oracle, and it tells me that the responsibility for all this suffering is mine, and mine only. And as far as possible I ought to remedy it without calling on anybody else. And if one of the victims can be solaced by money, I ought to be grateful for the opportunity of plastering her wounds with bank-notes. Would to God all the other wounds could be healed as easily. But do I say easily? I foresee some difficulty in getting the £2,000, but I shall manage it if she will only wait a little, and I sincerely trust it will bring her more happiness than it would have brought me." Arriving at this determination and the post office simultaneously, he turned into the latter to carry out the former.

He took a telegraph form and began to write upon it with an unsteady pen.

Miss Eliza Bathbrill,

"Stop proceedings at once

II, Beech Street, Old Ford.

"

He paused. "Man is at once the cunningest of knaves and the most credulous of fools," he cried. "He perpetually deceives himself, yet never learns to distrust himself. Did I not persuade myself a moment ago that I was acting from a pure sense of justice, though my real motive now reveals itself as an invincible repugnance to publicity?" A shudder traversed his frame, and he went on writing.

"You shall receive the £2,000 when Parliament dissolves, at latest. Jack Dawe." He handed it to the clerk, who read it, looked curiously at the sender, and whispered something to one of his fellows, who passed the whisper on till the eyes of all the employés were bent upon the painter with amused pity.

one.

"He's got Parliament and Politics on the brain," whispered

"He's always ordering things in a hurry," smilingly replied another. "Abandon Irish Policy at once-stop proceedings at once I wonder what the next message will be."

"How long has he been like that?" inquired the first.

"You are a Rip Van Winkle, Johnny. I thought all the world knew all about it. He used to be a decent sort of chap till lately, full of life and fun-a sort of pal of my brother Tom; they used to bike together, don't you know? but the first thing that ruined him was getting engaged to this Eliza Bathbrill (and it's as plain as

a pikestaff that there's a breach of promise on-didn't you see the writ in his hand?) At first he was clean gone on her (you could see with half an eye it was too good to last), and then he cooled a bit and tried to back out and he couldn't, and he went in for politics ten times worse than before, but it was no go. He was as miserable as ever, and at last he took to drink, and it gained upon him so much that after a bit he chucked up work altogether-ain't you jealous, Johnny?-and boozed all day long. He's lost all his old customers-lucky for him the old woman don't know it or there'd be the devil to pay. The scamp used to go out with his paint-pots in the morning, leave 'em somewhere all day, go on the spree, or moon about; and I wasn't a bit surprised the other day that he had been laid up with D.T. And now the girl is bringing an action against him and serve him right, though it's a dam cheek of her to ask for £2,000. And mind you the vagabond offers her it, though if he's got £200 I'm a Dutchman. And what the devil the money

can have to do with the Dissolution of Parliament

"

"Confound it, sir! Am I to wait all day for that post office order?" growled a choleric old gentleman who had written a pamphlet on Liberal Organisation in Bethnal Green. "The incapacity and imbecility of these Government officials is something astounding. That's what comes of having a Tory like Floppington in power!"

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WITH a lighter heart the notorious lounger in the embroidered slippers began to retrace his steps. Temporarily free from the incubus of the lawsuit, his thoughts turned again to his almost finished article. He remembered with pleasure the progress he had made that morning and he promised himself that he would work steadily for the rest of the day, and the prospect filled his soul with a calm delight. He even began to feel hungry, which reminded him that he had eaten no breakfast. In this internal condition, the fleshless cheeks and trembling palm of an unpicturesque beggar-woman who held up three boxes of "lucifers," appealed more intensely to him.

"Four a penny," she chanted in hoarse, cracked tones.

"Your stock is very small," he observed, fumbling in his pocket.

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Oh, sir," pleaded the woman, "I ain't 'ad a bit o' bread for three days, and five famishing little 'uns, and a widow." "Well, I will purchase all your stock."

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