you think to bully me out of money by trotting at my heels, you mangy and disreputable cur? Get along with you-vanish this instant, else I shall hand you over to the police ! "

"Ah, for the love of God, Mr Speedwell, do have compassion on me!" said the man, in a humble and very piteous voice. "Give me a little charity, but a shilling or two, please, for this one night, and I won't trouble you again-indeed, I will not. It's but little I ask, Mr Speedwell; and you know I never begged from you before, nor would I do so now, were I not driven almost mad by misery. My poor wife is ill with ague, lying on straw in a garret; and three children are crouching beside her, shivering with cold, and without a morsel to put into their mouths. Ah, dear sir, do have a little mercy !"

"Curse you!" replied Speedwell, savagely. "Don't stand there whimpering about your wife and brats! It is such fellows as you that swell the poor-rates. You can't earn bread for yourselves, and yet you must needs beget paupers. No-I'm wrong in one thing. You can earn bread, and something better; but you won't do it, though employment is thrown in your way. You see, Flusher, I know a little more about you than you were probably aware of.”

"I am sure, Mr Speedwell,” replied the other, "I would do anything—that is, anything that is right and honest for the mere fraction of a wage. God knows, I am not idly inclined. If I could only maintain my wife and children, I would work harder than any slave

in the United States of America-and I often wish that I was one, for the slave is fed and tended, while the freeman rots and starves."

"A very pretty sentence," said Speedwell, sneeringly, 'which you had better reserve for your next Chartist harangue. I tell you it is of no use bothering me. I shall not give you one penny even to get rid of you, which I freely confess I am anxious to do, because the odour exhaled from your garments, now that they are wet, is most infernally nauseous. So be off without further ado! You know as well as I do that you can have a job if you choose to accept it. If you are obstinate, and if your brats perish from starvation, you alone are responsible."

"Then God help me!" cried the unhappy supplicant, "for never was man in a sorer strait ! Will you not give me one shilling-but one, Mr Speedwell, that I may take home a loaf of bread to my children?"

"Not a stiver," replied the Jew. "You have, I understand, been very eloquent upon the subject of the big loaf-you will be all the better of a practical lesson as to the difficulty of finding the means to buy one, whether it be big or small. And the shilling, which you have so pathetically requested, shall go to the driver of that cab, who has just responded to my signal. Go home, Mr Flusher, and reflect seriously upon your duties as a husband and a father."

So saying, Mr Speedwell rushed towards the arrested vehicle.

The men of our country are not much given to pan

tomime. They do not express by outward gestures their inward emotions, as is the case with the French and Italians; and, owing to that peculiarity, it has sometimes been alleged that the Saxon race is deficient in sympathy and in feeling. That is a vast mistake; for quietism is the characteristic of deep and genuine passion. It is no proof of a man's sincerity or of his affection for the lost, that he shall tear his hair, beat his breast, or give any other violent manifestation of affliction. The sorrow which lies heavy on his heart is too profound for histrionic display; and the sorelystricken man, with the instinct of the wounded deer, retires from the company and shuns the observation of his fellows. I caught, however, a glimpse of this poor man Flusher's face, and never did I see agony more strongly depicted. I laid my hand upon his shoulder. My friend," I said, "there is a heaven above us all, and God sends aid to those who believe and trust in him. I know nothing about you, but I have heard enough, though from no curiosity, of your conversation with the man who has just gone away, to satisfy me that you are in grievous necessity. Take this coin, and go home and comfort your family."

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I gave him a sovereign; and however well the poor man might have sustained denial, the gift was almost too much for him, for he broke into a paroxysm of

tears.

"Not a word more to-night," said I. "No thanks -you cannot contain yourself. Come to-morrow, if you will, or next day, to my rooms-here is my card

and perhaps I may be able to do something for you. Meanwhile, hie home. Wife and children are beyond all the riches of the universe."

"God's blessing be upon you, whoever you are!" cried the man. 'My dear wife-my poor children— they will not perish from want. Oh, sir!-if you only

ing now. I can hear your history hereafter."

He seized and wrung my hand with a force which I hardly should have expected from a man of so attenuated a frame, and then darted from the Arcade.

CHAPTER XVII.

HISTORY OF A CLEVER MAN.

A DAY or two afterwards, Flusher presented himself at my rooms. The appearance of the poor fellow was somewhat altered for the better; at all events, there was nothing about him to excite disgust, though much to awaken compassion. Evidently he was no habitual beggar, for he used none of that lugubrious cant which is the language of confirmed mendicity. He told me that, since our meeting in the Arcade, he had been successful in recovering a small debt, which had enabled him to get better covering for his wife, whose health, he thought, was improving; and he spoke as if he regarded the future, not cheerfully perhaps, but, at any rate, without despondency.

There was something in the man's manner that gave me a favourable impression. He was neither obsequious nor forward, but expressed himself with the ease of a person who had seen a good deal of the world, and had associated with people of education. Some of his remarks, which were shrewd and sensible, evinced