of stools, while on the other side of the fire, and lying against the wall, was a black shapeless heap, from which proceeded a sound of snoring, and plainly denoted the whereabouts of the person asleep hinted at y Sam. I did not advance many steps into the shed, nor did I make much noise; enough, however, to rouse a little dog that was lying with its master on the black heap. The dog growled and barked, and the boy awoke. "What do you want a-teasin' of him, Sam? he ain't hurtin' you, is he?" asked a figure black as the heap it rose from, except for the white eyeballs which the light of the fire revealed. "Shut the door, will yer? Ain't my rhumatiz bad enough, beggar you, but you must set the draught blowin' in upon me? Will you shut that door, cuss you?" I couldn't tell whether it was the voice of a man or a boy, it was such a strange-sounding one -half gruff and half whistling, and trembling with rage. Looking intently at the figure, I could now see that it had risen to its hands and knees, and looming in the ruddy duskiness, it certainly looked big enough for that of a man. As the figure raised its voice, the dog raised its; so that there was all at once a considerable uproar. "You make a mistake," said I, edging back towards the entry; "it ain't Sam-it's me.' "Cuss you! Now shut the door!" and at the same moment something that looked like an old Wellington boot shot past my face, and banged against the door-post just behind. Ir wasn't likely that I was going to shut the door, at least, from the inside, and so trap myself in with such an ugly customer. I, however, had no objection to shutting it from the outside, and this I was about to do when up came Sam, the light of his lantern showing his grinning face. "Halloa! I thought I seed you go into the kitchen a little while ago," said he; "why didn't you shove the door open, like I told you?" I briefly explained to Sam the events of the last few minutes. "Come on back," said he, laughing, and grasping one of my hands in his paw, black as ink; "there ain't no call to fear Spider; it would take him as long crawlin' off his bags as far as the door, as you might to get as far as the turnpike." "It wasn't the dog I was frightened of," said I, "it was the man what was layin' by the fire." Well, that's Spider," replied Sam; "that's what his name is. 'Man' you calls him! I never seed such a man. Come on; the guv'nor said you was to sit in the kitchen, don't you know?" 66 Sam pushed open the door and went in, and I followed, taking care this time to give the figure on the soot-bags no excuse for shying his other boot at me. "Who was that that was here just now, banging and slamming and letting in the wind, enough to blow a feller's bones out of their sockets?" demanded Spider, in the querulous voice of one who has long lain an invalid; "did you see him? Who was it, Sam ?" "Who was it? Why, a young swell, Lord Fluffum's youngest son, come to ask arter you, and bring you some jint ile. Tell you what, Spider, you'll get yourself into a row one of these days chuckin' them boots of yours about; you're alwis at it." "Oh! my poor bones!" groaned Spider, whining like a dog in pain; "then why don't they shut the door after 'em, Sam? How would they like the wind let into 'em, if their jints was all of a screw, like mine is? Who did you say it was, Sam? I didn't hit him, did I?" "Not werry hard; he's one of them swells as don't holler for nothing, as it happens, and so he ain't werry angry with yer. Here he is." And he stepped aside and held up the lantern, that the cripple might have a fair view of me. By the same means I got a fair view of him, poor fellow. He couldn't have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old, judging from his size; but, attired as he was in black rags, and crouching on his knees, with one hand resting on the soot-bags that were evidently his bed, and the other performing the double service of lifting his hair from his eyes and shielding them from the glare of the lantern-light, he might have passed for a decrepit old man of seventy. "I begs your pardon, sir," said he, humbly; "it's my pain as gets over me, and makes me forget myself at times. I hope I didn't hurt you, young gen'lman ?" Before I could, answer, Master Sam burst into an explosion of mirth. "That's beautiful, that is! that's rippin'! He took me in, Spider; but not so much as that. Why, he ain't no young swell, you jolly fool; he ain't nobody. He's on'y a new boy wot's a-comin' 'prentice or somethin' here; that's right, ain't it, old flick?" "Yes, that's right," I replied; "I've come to learn the trade of bein' a chimbley-sweep." "Come here to learn the trade !" repeated the Spider, the expression of pain momentarily vanishing from his puckered face in his astonishment. "Well, that's a rum start." "Hain't it? it's the rummest start as ever I heard on," giggled Sam. "How do yer mean?" I asked; "why can't I learn it? 'Course I ain't goin' to set about it in my best clothes. Mr. Belcher's goin' to find me some common sort of togs to work in." "Oh, there's no fear of spiling your togs !" observed Sam, whom the whole business seemed to highly amuse. "It mightn't spoil some sort of togs," I replied, with a scornful glance at poor Sam's wretched rags. "I shouldn't like to get the soot over my clothes wot I wears of Sundays, so I tell yer. I'm going to have another suit to follow my trade in." the other boys work at ?—what do you two work at ?" "Spider don't work at all-he's past it," explained Sam; "he'd ha' been sacked when the the others went, on'y he was bound for seven 'ears, and the parish would not take him off the guv'nor's hands. There used to be eight on us; but they're all gone 'cept me and Spider." "But you sweeps chimbleys, sometimes, don't you?" I remarked to Sam; ". you looks as though you did." "No, I don't," returned Sam, grinning; "I goes about a bit, of mornin's, with Ned Perks and the guv'nor to machine jobs; but that ain't nothink. It's night jobs wot keeps the concern goin'-night jobs down in the country. I goes with the gov'nor and Ned, and minds the cart.' "What sort o' jobs is them country jobs?" I inquired; is it climbin' up factory shafts ?" "I don't know what it's climbin' up," replied Sam; "fact, I don't think it's climbin' up anythink-do you, Spider?-'cos they take the machine and things with 'em." "And they don't bring home no sut! It's a rummy go to me altogether,” replied poor Spider, who, being at that moment seized with a fresh rheumatic pain, wriggled back to his bed, and there lay groaning and making whistling noises through his closed teeth. Before poor Spider could sufficiently recover from his rheumatic twinges to continue the conversation, (which had begun to grow very interesting to me,) the voice of Mr. Belcher was heard calling on me to come into the house; and, directed by Sam, I found my way to a back door, and was from thence conducted by my new master to the parlour. The same fat, blowsy woman whom I had rightly conjectured to be Mrs. Belcher was there, and on the table was a spread of bread-andcheese and onions. The lady's reception of me was not cordial. 'Here, young what's-yer-name ?" "Jim, ma'am." "There's some supper for you, if it's good enough. Taint the fat o' the land, with applesarce, such as some people have been feedin' you on, I'll be bound; but it's the best you'll get here." possible of the liberal hunch of bread-and-cheese, and in about five minutes was able to announce that I was done. 66 "Then toddle to bed as soon as you like," said Mr. Belcher. Can you find your way back?" "Back to where, sir ?" "Back to the kitchen. That's where you've got to sleep; that's where all my boys sleep. You'll find it wery warm and snug. Sam'll show yer how. Mind you have a bed to yourself, Jim; two in a bed ain't 'ealthy. There's sacks enough for all on yer. Good night. You've no 'casion to get up in the mornin' till you're called." "Has he got his workin' clothes?" sleepily asked Mrs. Belcher, who by this time had composed herself for a dose in her great easychair. "I was forgettin' them. Here they are," replied my master, giving me a black bundle from a corner. "The shirt you may as well keep on; likewise the boots; as for the rest, you'd better double 'em up careful, and bring 'em in here in the mornin'." Taking the bundle, I bade my master "Good night," and found my way back to the "kitchen." The fire was still burning, and the lantern suspended from a nail in one of the roof-beams, so that I was able to see pretty well about me; but I couldn't see Sam. I could see Spider, curled up with his little mangy-looking, dirty-white dog, (recognising me again, he uttered but the smallest of growls;) but Sam was nowhere visible. This was perplexing, and I was still looking about, when a voice right at my elbow exclaimed, in a sleepy whisper "Last into bed puts the candle out, don't yer know ?" It was Sam. He was in bed. He was lying atop of a heap of soot-sacks-lying in the top one, indeed-with a soot-sack doubled up under his head as a pillow, and his sooty cap pulled over his ears; so that, as I turned to see from whence the voice proceeded, all that was visible of Sam was his white teeth and his eyeballs. It is astonishing how rapidly one acquires the weakness of fastidiousness. The night before last, whilst shivering in the open cart in Bedford Mews, had anyone said to me, "It is just six miles from here to Camberwell; but if you choose to trudge the distance, you will find there a snug shed with a jolly fire in it, and any number of sacks-sooty, but soft-to bed on, and all at "And of all other sorts of wittles, I'll go bail. your disposal," I should have thanked my informant As if it wasn't enuff to have one lazy hound eat-in the heartiest manner, and started off there and in' our 'eads off, but that that stuck up marm must". “Thanky, ma'am; I'm werry fond of breadand-cheese, 'specially with a ingun," I replied, in as conciliatory a tone as I could assume. "There, that'll do," growled Mr. Belcher; "quite enough said. How should she know how we was sitiwated? If things was as they used to be, one boy, nor two boys, would have made any difference. P'r'aps you'd ha' liked me to ha' told her ?" "I'd be werry sorry," responded Mrs. Belcher, with peculiar emphasis, "I'd sooner suffer starwation than she should know." "It seems so when you sets on cacklin' at this 'ere rate afore he's been in the house half-anhour," replied Mr. Belcher, sneeringly. "You get your supper, Jim. The missus is the least bit cross to-night. It's arter her time for settin' up, and she's tired." Acting on this hint, I made as short work as then, my only fear being that matters might not turn out to be so brilliant as was promised. But since the night before last I had enjoyed the luxury of a comfortable couch; and the result was, that the snug shed, and the jolly fire, and the heap of soft sacks all ready and at hand, so far from filling me with satisfaction, caused me a pang of something very like disgust. "Which is my bed ?" I inquired, in a melancholy voice, of Sam. "You may have part of mine, if you like to, which it'll save you the trouble to make one," replied Sam, generously. "All you've got to do is to fetch two sacks off that heap-one to get into, and one for a piller; on'y be quick, and don't make a row so as to wake Spider, 'cos if you do, he'll begin to cough, and the cough shakes the rheumatics into his legs, and then it'll give you the mis'rables all night to hear him groanin' and crunchin' his teeth." and crept tediously and with many pauses after the dog. It was departing somewhat from the letter of "Oh, yes! you're in a great hurry, ain't yer? Mr. Belcher's injunction to accept Sam's pro- It's all werry well a-boundin' to the door and posal, but after all, since we slept in separate makin' a show of bein' willin', you wagabone! sacks, it was no worse than only sleeping two on but how can I trust yer? How did yer serve me a bedstead; so, gulping down my repugnance, I yesterday, you willin? Didn't yer go a-hookin' it undressed by the light of the coke fire, and put-off and leavin' me without a fire till nine o'clock ting on the grimy trousers out of Mr. Belcher's a'most? How do I know but as how you're arter bundle, I prepared a pillow and a sack ready for servin' me out agin just in the same way? Don't slipping into, and then, blowing out the candle in lick me, I tell yer. I shan't b'lieve yer a bit the the lantern, next minute was bedded on the black more for them sneakin' ways. If you warnt to bags, snug and warm, at any rate, and not parti- make friends, there's other ways of doin' it, cularly uncomfortable, only for the overpowering 'sides being a sneak. Here, smell o' this. Now odour of soot. It was an odour, however, with a go, and be quick back agin; if you don't, I'll soothing effect, and, combined with the fumes of just about smash yer. I'm always promisin' to the burning coke, sent me to sleep in a very lit- smash yer, but if you don't mind yerself this tle while. morning, I'll do it, I will, swelp me goodness! Now be off." It was not yet daylight when, awoke by the barking of Spider's little dog, I found that Sam was getting up to go to work, having been roused by Ned Perks, who, in spite of poor Spider's complainings and entreaty about the wind and its disastrous effects on his joints, persisted in standing with the shed door wide open, giving directions to Sam. Hearing the cripple talk in this strange way, I peeped cautiously over the edge of the heap of sacks on which I was lying to get a peep at him; but the place was so dark, and he was so black, that all I could make out was his dim figure crawling all fours towards the door, and the little white dog dancing and whining about him, and run"It'll be the death on me, I'm sure it will," ning to and fro between his master and the door, whined Spider, sitting up to cover up his tortur-expressing, as plainly as a dog could, his anxiety ed legs with more sacks. "I wish it would. I to be off. When Spider said, "Smell o' this," wish it would come all of a bust, and be the death | he held something out to the dog, though what on me." "And a good job too, for all the good of sich hawful!" (offal, I think he meant,) growled Ned Perks. "It's 'bout time you was sent to the knacker's, you precious snivillin' bag-o'-bones! You might be worth a flimsy then, and that's mor'n you are now." So saying, the brute went away, taking Sam with him, and banging the door. Bearing in mind Mr. Belcher's intimation that I need not get up until I was called, I lay still, and presently I heard Spider stirring. "You're like the rest on 'em," said he, presently, and in an impatient tone; "here you lay, just as though it was the middle of the night, instead of five o'clock in the mornin.' Your jints is all right, ain't they? hang you! What do you care whose jints ain't, and who warnts a fire and who don't?" I thought to be sure that Spider was addressing himself to me, and was about to tell him that if he wanted me to get up and light the fire he might at least have asked me in a civil manner. Before I could speak, however, he began again. "Don't get a-lickin' me. I don't want none of your lickin'. It's easier to lay here a-lickin' than to go and do what's wanted of yer, ain't it? You won't get up, eh? P'r'aps that'll make you, you lazy beggar! Ah! I thought it would." It was plain that Spider was talking to the little dirty-white dog previously alluded to as occupying part of his couch, for simultaneous with a smart thump a sudden whine was heard, then a scampering, and a scratching at the kitchen door. the th "That's havin' the use of your jints!" groaned Spider, in allusion, as I suppose, to the activity displayed by his canine friend. "I wish I was ekal to it. I wouldn't lay here wishin' myself dead, and everybody wishin' the same." And then, as I could hear, he shuffled off his sacks, it was, although I tried very hard, I could not possibly discern. He had dragged a sack along with him to the door; and when he had pushed it a little way open to let the dog out, and swiftly pulled it to again, he rolled himself in the sack, and squatted on one side to wait. He waited, and waited, uttering no other sounds but those expressive of his rheumatic pains, for fully a quarter of an hour, and until the daylight began to show through the dingy skylight in the roof of the shed. Then he began to grow fidgety and grumble under his breath, and once or twice he opened the door just a little way, and peeped out. "I wish I was behind him, cuss him!" exclaimed he presently, in a whining whisper; "I'd make him move hisself a little quicker. He's larkin'-that's what he's doin.' What does he care? His jints is all right. He's met with some other dawg, bust him! that's wot it is; and he's foolin' away his time while I'm layin' here freezin' to my marrer a'most. Cuss him! I wish I was behind him. All right! stop till he does come home. I'll give him one of my three slices for his brekfus, won't I? Oh yes! I'll give him the lot, bust him! I'll– Here he comes, at last!" As Spider spoke, first a swift pattering of canine feet, and then a scratching at the door was heard; and on Spider pushing open the door a little, in ran the little dirty-white cur, bearing in his mouth a clean shank of mutton bone. Such I saw it was instantly; not so poor Spider, whose vision was defective. The dog bolted past him, and made for the other end of the shed. "Come here! D'ye hear? Ain't yer had foolin' enough? cuss yer!-bein' gone all this while after a single stick. It's a good thick un, I think, though, and new: dropped out of somebody's bundle, I dessay. Here, Pinch! Pinch! good dawg! bring it here, Pinch." But Pinch didn't seem inclined to obey. He had retreated into a corner, and there he lay with his treasure. Poor Spider was furious. Finding that Pinch wouldn't come, he set out at a good all-fours' pace to rout him out and inflict summary vengeance on him; but before he had made three yards, control of his faithless "jints" failed him, and he slipped with one side of his face to the floor. Then, moved by rage and pain, he fell to abusing Pinch in terms so terrible, that had he been anything better than the conscienceless vagabond his master made him out to be, he would have been consumed with remorse. But the dog's timidity increased in proportion with the cripple's fury, and he wouldn't stir a peg. Strengthened by his passion, Spider got on all fours again, and reaching the corner where the dog was hiding, made a fierce grab at it, (which the animal was lucky enough to avoid,) and the next instant, had Spider been canine himself, and rabid, he couldn't have made a madder noise. "Hang you! cuss you! bust you!" he roared, catching up three different articles-to wit, a boot, an old earthenware jug, and a lump of coke —and hurling them along with each anathema at the retreating cur. "It ain't wood at all; it's a bone. You'll bring bones home when I sends you arter wood, will yer? Jest let me lay a fist on yer!" And he began to shuffle and wriggle along after the unlucky tyke with all his might. "How? Why, I'll go and ask Mr. Belcher for some. He'll let us have some, won't he?" "It ain't him; it's her. She's the one that won't let you have it," replied Spider, sinking his voice to a whisper. "Bless yer! if she know'd that I lit a fire more than a quarter of an hour afore brekfustime--which is ten, when the boys comes in from their mornin' sweepin' (leastways, that was the laws when we had boys to come in, and it's the same now there's on'y young Sam) she'd think no more of crackin' me over the head with the copper-stick or the fust thing that come handy, than she would of drinkin' a glass of gin. That's why I'm 'bliged to be so artful about gettin' in my wood, don't yer see?" Now, it happened that before I came away from Mrs. Winkship, the night before, she had slipped a sixpence into my hand. "You tell me where there's a shop open, and we'll jolly soon have a fire," said I. "I've got a a'penny." "What! do yer mean to say you're good to stand a a'penny bundle?" said Spider, so near a prospect of a fire lighting his dull eyes with joy. "Oh! I'll tell yer where, sharp enough: it's a chandler's shop just round to the right, outside the gate. I say" "What?" I inquired, seeing that Spider paused. There was such a noise that it was useless for me to pretend to be asleep any longer; so I sat up "You don't 'appen to have another a'penny and inquired of Spider what the row was about.'sides the one for the wood, do yer ?" "I'll show him when I ketch hold on him;" "Yes, I have got another, why?" replied he, still making after the dog, with the bone of contention in his hand. "I'll kill him with it. I've often threatened to smash him, and now I'll do for him. Hold him, that's a good feller!" "What's he been doin'?" I asked, as the delinquent bolted past me, and I made a pretence at stopping him. "I'll tell you what he's been doin'," gasped Spider, quite out of breath with his tremendous exertion a the last five minutes. "He's been makih" a fool of me. He knows werry well that I can't make a fire until he has gone and got me sticks enough. Werry well he knows that-cos it's his job every mornin', so there's no 'scuse for the beggar--and what does he do? Why, yesterday, he goes and gets about three bits, and all on it as wet as muck; and then he steps it off, and comes back when he likes. Well, I looks over that, and I send him agin this mornin', lettin' him smell a good wholesome bit of wood 'cos there shouldn't be any mistake; and agin, what does he do? Why, instead of thinkin' on what he's sent arter, and doin' what he's told to, he goes on his own hook, a-huntin' arter bones to pick; and he's got the cheek to bring 'em home, and 'spects he's goin' to pick 'em while I'm a-sittin' without a bit of fire till Sam comes home-which p'r'aps it'll be ten or eleven o'clock--and me all of a ager, and and not a still jint in me." Here the poor fellow's rage became subdued in grief, and he began to cry and rub his eyes on his sooty cuffs. "Cheer up, matey! We'll soon have a fire," said I, quite touched at sight of the poor helpless wretch's emotion. "I'll help yer." "How can yer? How can yer help me till that greedy 'umbug goes out and picks up some wood ?" "Wouldn't you like a drop of hot coffee, young un? Hot coffee is so lovely when yer jints feel all of an ager. I've got a pot we could boil it in; you can get half-a-nounce for a a'penny." Had the price of the half-ounce been the fivepence halfpenny remaining when the wood was bought, I don't think I could have resisted the beseeching look that accompanied his suggestion; so off I went, and in ten minutes returned, and in five times ten minutes afterwards the iron skillet was a cheerful spectacle: Spider gratefully crouching at one side of it, and I at the other, sipping our coffee, I from the bottom part of the yellow earthenware jug which was fractured when Spider threw it after his dog, and he from an old iron spoon, with which he dipped the comforting beverage from the bubbling coffee-pot as it stood on the fire-hot enough, I should think, to scare away the most obstinate ague that ever settled in poor mortal's "jints" to plague him. If it did not scare away the demon that tormented poor Spider, it at least charmed it quiet for a time, and he grew quite chatty. He told me how that being an orphan, and an inmate of the workhouse as long as he could remember, four years ago he was bound 'prentice to Mr. Belcher, the parish paying the person the liberal premium of seven pounds ten, in consideration of which the master-sweep agreed to instruct him, Tobias Chick, in the art and mystery of chimney-sweeping, to clothe him suitably, feed him liberally, and cherish him in sickness. For fully a year, trade being brisk, and Tobias proving industrious and active, (indeed, it was his marvellous agility in mounting a chimney that had earned for him the title of "Spider,") Mr. Belcher had faithfully fulfilled his terms of the contract, till there came an unlucky day in the depth of winter when Mr. Belcher was applied to to clear out a long disused steam-engine boiler, and being of a handy size for L "Why not? it ain't no secret that there is a brown horse, is it?" I asked. "It ain't no secret that there is a brown horse; oh no, that's right enough," returned Spider, with the same air of mystery. "Then, what is the secret ?" "Where he goes to," whispered Spider solemnly, from behind the bowl of his coffeespoon. such a job, it fell to the lot of the Spider to de- "He goes to them night jobs, what pays so well, don't he? didn't you just say that he did ?” "Yes! them jobs what pays so well; them country chimbleys wot so werry often want sweepin', and which ain't got no soot in 'em-not a common sort of soot anyways," returned Spider, chafing his sooty nose with the spoon-bowl, and shaking his head dubiously. And at this moment, Sam came in, putting an end to the queer con CHAPTER XXVII. OF THE MYSTERIOUS SOOT. offered seven pounds ten to take the burden off IN WHICH SAM ENLIGHTENS ME AS TO THE SECRET his hands, but the parish was much too wideawake to do anything of the sort; with three years yet unexpired of the term of the apprenticeship contract, and the tolerable certainty that poor Spider would die within that period, and require burying, they preferred that Mr. Belcher should go on cherishing Tobias Chick in sickness as he promised to do. "Do you get plenty of grub ?" I asked him. "Well, cert'ny, not so much as I could eat; but Lor', it ain't for me to grumble, bein' a dead weight, and not so much as earnin' my salt, don't yer see? not, as far as I can make out, and from what Sam tells me, there'd be much for me to do if I was ever so hearty. Why, Sam tells me as how sometimes they don't take a pound among 'em all the week through. That's bad, you know." "I s'pose it's them night jobs in the country that tells up," I remarked. "Yet, I'm jiggered if I can make it out," continued Spider, not heeding my observation; "here's only a pound bein' earnt, and yet there 's new drab coats, and new sating gownds, and a pony not enough but there must be a new horse bought, not a knacker's sort of horse, mind yer, but a regler clipper; a chestnut; goes like steam, Sam ses it do." "Well, I s'pose he don't keep the horse for a ornyment; I've heard of people makin' a werry tidy thing by having' horses and carts." "Ah! but s'pose they keep 'em and don't work 'em," said Spider, lowering his voice to the softest of whispers; "s'pose they keeps their horse shut up in the stable all day?" It was not long before I discovered that Spider and Sam had told me nothing but the truth, when they said that my opportunities of learning the trade of chimney-sweeping would be but few. There was really next to nothing for me to do. It seldom happened that there were more than half-a-dozen jobs for Mr. Belcher and Ned Perks to divide between them, and Sam went with one, and I with the other. My work was over by ten or eieven o'clock in the morning, nor was it of a soit to tire me, consisting as did in nothing more arduous than carrying part of the machine as we went from one house to the next, handing the sticks at a job to Mr. Belcher to be screwed one into the other, taking them from, and bradling them up as he unscrewed the nd sweeping up the hearth when the job v at an end. Certainly it would not have cost Mi selcher half an-hour's extra trouble a-day to have dispens with my services altogether. After breakfasttime I was free to amuse myself in any way I chose; and as my food was regular, tolerably good, and plentiful, the dearth of trade did not cause me much anxiety. Better still, it appeared to cause Mr. Belcher no anxiety. He seemed to have quite as much work as he cared about, and did not trouble himself to get more. More might have been got, I am sure, and by a no more troublesome process than bawling "sweep" in the streets as we went along of mornings. But this, although prompted by a knowledge of my small utility to my master I more than once suggested, he would by no means allow. It wasn't respectable, he said. There was hi house, and there was his bell, free to anyone to pull that had occasion to pull it; if people did not like to pull it, they might do the other thing. He always had plenty of money in his pocket, and was accustomed to partake freely of rum and milk with Mr. Perks early in the morning, and use the parlour of the George and Dragon in the evening, drinking glass after glass of gin and water, and smoking a long parlour pike. That is, he so beguiled his evenings when business did not engage him. After about six weeks |