The Seamy Side, Chapters XXXIII-XXXVI [pp. 321-339]

money. Quite the other way about and contra- with crape home yesterday-ho! ho!-and there's
riwise. You've got to give it up, and go away on the black band round my hat-ho! ho! ho! a pound a week for the rest of your life.'' Am and there's the tablet in the church-ho! ho!
I?' says Stephen.' You are,' says Augustus. ho! ho! What a game it will be! You'll have
' Don't you wish you may get it?' says Stephen. to pay the bill for everything but your own funer' I do,' says Augustus,'or else-'' Else what?' al. I wish we could hire a mourning-coach for
says Stephen.' Else,' says Augustus,'we shall us to go home in-I wonder if my pocket-money
have to remind you of six little bits of paper would run to it?"
bearing a dead woman's signature. Her sister The boy, who was half hysterical by this time,
will prosecute for forgery- for-ge-ry, Stephen; broke into inextinguishable laughter, which natu and it means fourteen years' quod, with skilly rally led to choking and to tears.
and cold water. How will you like that, Cousin " Come, Uncle Anthony." He wiped his
Stephen?' Then they all chimed in, like a cho- eyes, and put his uncle's hat on for him. "What
rus in a play,' How will you like that, Cousin a shocking bad hat!" He took him by the hand
Stephen?' I thought of joining in myself, but and led him unresisting into the street. "I've
didn't. Stephen took it quite comfortably. He's got three shillings in my pocket, that will take us
a desperate wicked chap, that Stephen. Fancy to Clapham Common. We will walk up to the
going about with six forgeries on your conscience door. I will smuggle you into the study. Then
-a most awful wicked chap. He never said he I will go away and bring you-" His voice broke
was sorry; never said he wished he hadn't done again into a sob. "Poor Alison!" he cried;
it-not at all. He only growled; and then he then he brushed away his tears. "First thing
said something about going abroad on a pension; you must do, is to put on a pair of new boots.
and then he put on his hat and walked out of the Any other man but myself would be ashamed to
room." be seen walking in company with such beasts of
Is it possible?" boots. I always used to keep you respectable
"So now you see. You ran away: you left in the old time, and I mean to again, remember
me, your little comforts, and your home, in order that."
to save Alison from finding that her father wasn't
you at all, but the other fellow, and from learning CHAPTER XXXVI.
what a desperate bad lot he is. And now she
will learn it all, and there will be the most ter- HOW YOUNG NICK ACHIEVED GREATNESS.
rific row that ever was heard of. Stephen Hamblin will very likely be charged with forgery- WHEN Stephen Hamblin saw his daughter
that's a very pretty thing to happen in the family fairly out of the room, and got through those
-and Alison Hamblin will learn'that he is her manifestations of joy of which we have spoken,
father. That's what has been brought about by he began, once more, to reconsider everything.
your running away, to say nothing of the awful Now, the message which Miss Nethersole sent
expense in crape." him, by means of his daughter, was nothing short
Anthony stood irresolute. of an evangel, a blessed gospel, to him. It re "What shall I do?" he cried. "The very lieved him, at one stroke, of all anxiety on the
worst has come to pass-the very thing that one side where his armor was weak; and, even
most I dreaded. I thought to avert this blow. while he thought of the opportuneness of this
I thought that my own death would do it. I truly Christian message, a way occurred to him
thought that sorrow was better than disgrace; by which he might, even without it, face the
and Alison has had the sorrow, and now will world and challenge his enemies to do their
have the disgrace." worst.
"She need not, if you will return, because "Augustus and the crew," he thought, "rethen Uncle Stephen will be coopered, and Aunt joiced to have that trump card in reserve. They
Rachel can be squared. You can stop the prose- knew that I did not suspect its existence, and
cution. Come, Uncle Anthony; they won't mind was not prepared to answer it. They played it
your boots." fairly well, considering. But not so well-no,
"It isn't the boots I am thinking of," said not so well as I mean to play my trump card,
Anthony, gravely. presently. It is not only forgiveness, but justifi " Is it the feeling that you will look such an cation."
ass?" asked the boy with ready sympathy. "No This message of Rachel's, too, showed him
one could look a bigger donkey-that's true-if how wrong he had been in his treatment of Alihe was to try with all his might. But never mind son. He should not have met her approaches
that; the servants are all in mourning still-ho! with coldness: he should not have received her
ho! and the old lady's got a new cap trimmed timid advances with a snub: he should have
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APPLETONS' JO URNAL.