Chapter: I had begun to like him on the night Towneley had sent for me, and on the
following day I thought he had shaped well.  I had liked him also during
our interview in prison, and wanted to see more of him, so that I might
make up my mind about him.  I had lived long enough to know that some men
who do great things in the end are not very wise when they are young;
knowing that he would leave prison on the 30th, I had expected him, and,
as I had a spare bedroom, pressed him to stay with me, till he could make
up his mind what he would do.

Being so much older than he was, I anticipated no trouble in getting my
own way, but he would not hear of it.  The utmost he would assent to was
that he should be my guest till he could find a room for himself, which
he would set about doing at once.

He was still much agitated, but grew better as he ate a breakfast, not of
prison fare and in a comfortable room.  It pleased me to see the delight
he took in all about him; the fireplace with a fire in it; the easy
chairs, the _Times_, my cat, the red geraniums in the window, to say
nothing of coffee, bread and butter, sausages, marmalade, etc.  Everything
was pregnant with the most exquisite pleasure to him.  The plane trees
were full of leaf still; he kept rising from the breakfast table to
admire them; never till now, he said, had he known what the enjoyment of
these things really was.  He ate, looked, laughed and cried by turns,
with an emotion which I can neither forget nor describe.

He told me how his father and mother had lain in wait for him, as he was
about to leave prison.  I was furious, and applauded him heartily for
what he had done.  He was very grateful to me for this.  Other people, he
said, would tell him he ought to think of his father and mother rather
than of himself, and it was such a comfort to find someone who saw things
as he saw them himself.  Even if I had differed from him I should not
have said so, but I was of his opinion, and was almost as much obliged to
him for seeing things as I saw them, as he to me for doing the same kind
office by himself.  Cordially as I disliked Theobald and Christina, I was
in such a hopeless minority in the opinion I had formed concerning them
that it was pleasant to find someone who agreed with me.

Then there came an awful moment for both of us.

A knock, as of a visitor and not a postman, was heard at my door.

"Goodness gracious," I exclaimed, "why didn't we sport the oak?  Perhaps
it is your father.  But surely he would hardly come at this time of day!
Go at once into my bedroom."

I went to the door, and, sure enough, there were both Theobald and
Christina.  I could not refuse to let them in and was obliged to listen
to their version of the story, which agreed substantially with Ernest's.
Christina cried bitterly--Theobald stormed.  After about ten minutes,
during which I assured them that I had not the faintest conception where
their son was, I dismissed them both.  I saw they looked suspiciously
upon the manifest signs that someone was breakfasting with me, and parted
from me more or less defiantly, but I got rid of them, and poor Ernest
came out again, looking white, frightened and upset.  He had heard
voices, but no more, and did not feel sure that the enemy might not be
gaining over me.  We sported the oak now, and before long he began to
recover.

After breakfast, we discussed the situation.  I had taken away his
wardrobe and books from Mrs Jupp's, but had left his furniture, pictures
and piano, giving Mrs Jupp the use of these, so that she might let her
room furnished, in lieu of charge for taking care of the furniture.  As
soon as Ernest heard that his wardrobe was at hand, he got out a suit of
clothes he had had before he had been ordained, and put it on at once,
much, as I thought, to the improvement of his personal appearance.

Then we went into the subject of his finances.  He had had ten pounds
from Pryer only a day or two before he was apprehended, of which between
seven and eight were in his purse when he entered the prison.  This money
was restored to him on leaving.  He had always paid cash for whatever he
bought, so that there was nothing to be deducted for debts.  Besides
this, he had his clothes, books and furniture.  He could, as I have said,
have had 100 pounds from his father if he had chosen to emigrate, but
this both Ernest and I (for he brought me round to his opinion) agreed it
would be better to decline.  This was all he knew of as belonging to him.

He said he proposed at once taking an unfurnished top back attic in as
quiet a house as he could find, say at three or four shillings a week,
and looking out for work as a tailor.  I did not think it much mattered
what he began with, for I felt pretty sure he would ere long find his way
to something that suited him, if he could get a start with anything at
all.  The difficulty was how to get him started.  It was not enough that
he should be able to cut out and make clothes--that he should have the
organs, so to speak, of a tailor; he must be put into a tailor's shop and
guided for a little while by someone who knew how and where to help him.

The rest of the day he spent in looking for a room, which he soon found,
and in familiarising himself with liberty.  In the evening I took him to
the Olympic, where Robson was then acting in a burlesque on Macbeth, Mrs
Keeley, if I remember rightly, taking the part of Lady Macbeth.  In the
scene before the murder, Macbeth had said he could not kill Duncan when
he saw his boots upon the landing.  Lady Macbeth put a stop to her
husband's hesitation by whipping him up under her arm, and carrying him
off the stage, kicking and screaming.  Ernest laughed till he cried.
"What rot Shakespeare is after this," he exclaimed, involuntarily.  I
remembered his essay on the Greek tragedians, and was more I _epris_ with
him than ever.

Next day he set about looking for employment, and I did not see him till
about five o'clock, when he came and said that he had had no success.  The
same thing happened the next day and the day after that.  Wherever he
went he was invariably refused and often ordered point blank out of the
shop; I could see by the expression of his face, though he said nothing,
that he was getting frightened, and began to think I should have to come
to the rescue.  He said he had made a great many enquiries and had always
been told the same story.  He found that it was easy to keep on in an old
line, but very hard to strike out into a new one.

He talked to the fishmonger in Leather Lane, where he went to buy a
bloater for his tea, casually as though from curiosity and without any
interested motive.  "Sell," said the master of the shop, "Why nobody
wouldn't believe what can be sold by penn'orths and twopenn'orths if you
go the right way to work.  Look at whelks, for instance.  Last Saturday
night me and my little Emma here, we sold 7 pounds worth of whelks
between eight and half past eleven o'clock--and almost all in penn'orths
and twopenn'orths--a few, hap'orths, but not many.  It was the steam that
did it.  We kept a-boiling of 'em hot and hot, and whenever the steam
came strong up from the cellar on to the pavement, the people bought, but
whenever the steam went down they left off buying; so we boiled them over
and over again till they was all sold.  That's just where it is; if you
know your business you can sell, if you don't you'll soon make a mess of
it.  Why, but for the steam, I should not have sold 10s. worth of whelks
all the night through."

This, and many another yarn of kindred substance which he heard from
other people determined Ernest more than ever to stake on tailoring as
the one trade about which he knew anything at all, nevertheless, here
were three or four days gone by and employment seemed as far off as ever.

I now did what I ought to have done before, that is to say, I called on
my own tailor whom I had dealt with for over a quarter of a century and
asked his advice.  He declared Ernest's plan to be hopeless.  "If," said
Mr Larkins, for this was my tailor's name, "he had begun at fourteen, it
might have done, but no man of twenty-four could stand being turned to
work into a workshop full of tailors; he would not get on with the men,
nor the men with him; you could not expect him to be 'hail fellow, well
met' with them, and you could not expect his fellow-workmen to like him
if he was not.  A man must have sunk low through drink or natural taste
for low company, before he could get on with those who have had such a
different training from his own."

Mr Larkins said a great deal more and wound up by taking me to see the
place where his own men worked.  "This is a paradise," he said, "compared
to most workshops.  What gentleman could stand this air, think you, for a
fortnight?"

I was glad enough to get out of the hot, fetid atmosphere in five
minutes, and saw that there was no brick of Ernest's prison to be
loosened by going and working among tailors in a workshop.

Mr Larkins wound up by saying that even if my _protege_ were a much
better workman than he probably was, no master would give him employment,
for fear of creating a bother among the men.

I left, feeling that I ought to have thought of all this myself, and was
more than ever perplexed as to whether I had not better let my young
friend have a few thousand pounds and send him out to the colonies, when,
on my return home at about five o'clock, I found him waiting for me,
radiant, and declaring that he had found all he wanted.





It seems he had been patrolling the streets for the last three or four
nights--I suppose in search of something to do--at any rate knowing
better what he wanted to get than how to get it.  Nevertheless, what he
wanted was in reality so easily to be found that it took a highly
educated scholar like himself to be unable to find it.  But, however this
may be, he had been scared, and now saw lions where there were none, and
was shocked and frightened, and night after night his courage had failed
him and he had returned to his lodgings in Laystall Street without
accomplishing his errand.  He had not taken me into his confidence upon
this matter, and I had not enquired what he did with himself in the
evenings.  At last he had concluded that, however painful it might be to
him, he would call on Mrs Jupp, who he thought would be able to help him
if anyone could.  He had been walking moodily from seven till about nine,
and now resolved to go straight to Ashpit Place and make a mother
confessor of Mrs Jupp without more delay.

Of all tasks that could be performed by mortal woman there was none which
Mrs Jupp would have liked better than the one Ernest was thinking of
imposing upon her; nor do I know that in his scared and broken-down state
he could have done much better than he now proposed.  Miss Jupp would
have made it very easy for him to open his grief to her; indeed, she
would have coaxed it all out of him before he knew where he was; but the
fates were against Mrs Jupp, and the meeting between my hero and his
former landlady was postponed _sine die_, for his determination had
hardly been formed and he had not gone more than a hundred yards in the
direction of Mrs Jupp's house, when a woman accosted him.

He was turning from her, as he had turned from so many others, when she
started back with a movement that aroused his curiosity.  He had hardly
seen her face, but being determined to catch sight of it, followed her as
she hurried away, and passed her; then turning round he saw that she was
none other than Ellen, the housemaid who had been dismissed by his mother
eight years previously.

He ought to have assigned Ellen's unwillingness to see him to its true
cause, but a guilty conscience made him think she had heard of his
disgrace and was turning away from him in contempt.  Brave as had been
his resolutions about facing the world, this was more than he was
prepared for; "What! you too shun me, Ellen?" he exclaimed.

The girl was crying bitterly and did not understand him.  "Oh, Master
Ernest," she sobbed, "let me go; you are too good for the likes of me to
speak to now."

"Why, Ellen," said he, "what nonsense you talk; you haven't been in
prison, have you?"

"Oh, no, no, no, not so bad as that," she exclaimed passionately.

"Well, I have," said Ernest, with a forced laugh, "I came out three or
four days ago after six months with hard labour."

Ellen did not believe him, but she looked at him with a "Lor'! Master
Ernest," and dried her eyes at once.  The ice was broken between them,
for as a matter of fact Ellen had been in prison several times, and
though she did not believe Ernest, his merely saying he had been in
prison made her feel more at ease with him.  For her there were two
classes of people, those who had been in prison and those who had not.
The first she looked upon as fellow-creatures and more or less
Christians, the second, with few exceptions, she regarded with suspicion,
not wholly unmingled with contempt.

Then Ernest told her what had happened to him during the last six months,
and by-and-by she believed him.

"Master Ernest," said she, after they had talked for a quarter of an hour
or so, "There's a place over the way where they sell tripe and onions.  I
know you was always very fond of tripe and onions, let's go over and have
some, and we can talk better there."

So the pair crossed the street and entered the tripe shop; Ernest ordered
supper.

"And how is your pore dear mamma, and your dear papa, Master Ernest,"
said Ellen, who had now recovered herself and was quite at home with my
hero.  "Oh, dear, dear me," she said, "I did love your pa; he was a good
gentleman, he was, and your ma too; it would do anyone good to live with
her, I'm sure."

Ernest was surprised and hardly knew what to say.  He had expected to
find Ellen indignant at the way she had been treated, and inclined to lay
the blame of her having fallen to her present state at his father's and
mother's door.  It was not so.  Her only recollection of Battersby was as
of a place where she had had plenty to eat and drink, not too much hard
work, and where she had not been scolded.  When she heard that Ernest had
quarrelled with his father and mother she assumed as a matter of course
that the fault must lie entirely with Ernest.

"Oh, your pore, pore ma!" said Ellen.  "She was always so very fond of
you, Master Ernest: you was always her favourite; I can't abear to think
of anything between you and her.  To think now of the way she used to
have me into the dining-room and teach me my catechism, that she did!  Oh,
Master Ernest, you really must go and make it all up with her; indeed you
must."

Ernest felt rueful, but he had resisted so valiantly already that the
devil might have saved himself the trouble of trying to get at him
through Ellen in the matter of his father and mother.  He changed the
subject, and the pair warmed to one another as they had their tripe and
pots of beer.  Of all people in the world Ellen was perhaps the one to
whom Ernest could have spoken most freely at this juncture.  He told her
what he thought he could have told to no one else.

"You know, Ellen," he concluded, "I had learnt as a boy things that I
ought not to have learnt, and had never had a chance of that which would
have set me straight."

"Gentlefolks is always like that," said Ellen musingly.

"I believe you are right, but I am no longer a gentleman, Ellen, and I
don't see why I should be 'like that' any longer, my dear.  I want you to
help me to be like something else as soon as possible."

"Lor'! Master Ernest, whatever can you be meaning?"

The pair soon afterwards left the eating-house and walked up Fetter Lane
together.

Ellen had had hard times since she had left Battersby, but they had left
little trace upon her.

Ernest saw only the fresh-looking smiling face, the dimpled cheek, the
clear blue eyes and lovely sphinx-like lips which he had remembered as a
boy.  At nineteen she had looked older than she was, now she looked much
younger; indeed she looked hardly older than when Ernest had last seen
her, and it would have taken a man of much greater experience than he
possessed to suspect how completely she had fallen from her first estate.
It never occurred to him that the poor condition of her wardrobe was due
to her passion for ardent spirits, and that first and last she had served
five or six times as much time in gaol as he had.  He ascribed the
poverty of her attire to the attempts to keep herself respectable, which
Ellen during supper had more than once alluded to.  He had been charmed
with the way in which she had declared that a pint of beer would make her
tipsy, and had only allowed herself to be forced into drinking the whole
after a good deal of remonstrance.  To him she appeared a very angel
dropped from the sky, and all the more easy to get on with for being a
fallen one.

As he walked up Fetter Lane with her towards Laystall Street, he thought
of the wonderful goodness of God towards him in throwing in his way the
very person of all others whom he was most glad to see, and whom, of all
others, in spite of her living so near him, he might have never fallen in
with but for a happy accident.

When people get it into their heads that they are being specially
favoured by the Almighty, they had better as a general rule mind their
p's and q's, and when they think they see the devil's drift with more
special clearness, let them remember that he has had much more experience
than they have, and is probably meditating mischief.

Already during supper the thought that in Ellen at last he had found a
woman whom he could love well enough to wish to live with and marry had
flitted across his mind, and the more they had chatted the more reasons
kept suggesting themselves for thinking that what might be folly in
ordinary cases would not be folly in his.

He must marry someone; that was already settled.  He could not marry a
lady; that was absurd.  He must marry a poor woman.  Yes, but a fallen
one?  Was he not fallen himself?  Ellen would fall no more.  He had only
to look at her to be sure of this.  He could not live with her in sin,
not for more than the shortest time that could elapse before their
marriage; he no longer believed in the supernatural element of
Christianity, but the Christian morality at any rate was indisputable.
Besides, they might have children, and a stigma would rest upon them.
Whom had he to consult but himself now?  His father and mother never need
know, and even if they did, they should be thankful to see him married to
any woman who would make him happy as Ellen would.  As for not being able
to afford marriage, how did poor people do?  Did not a good wife rather
help matters than not?  Where one could live two could do so, and if
Ellen was three or four years older than he was--well, what was that?

Have you, gentle reader, ever loved at first sight?  When you fell in
love at first sight, how long, let me ask, did it take you to become
ready to fling every other consideration to the winds except that of
obtaining possession of the loved one?  Or rather, how long would it have
taken you if you had had no father or mother, nothing to lose in the way
of money, position, friends, professional advancement, or what not, and
if the object of your affections was as free from all these _impedimenta_
as you were yourself?

If you were a young John Stuart Mill, perhaps it would have taken you
some time, but suppose your nature was Quixotic, impulsive, altruistic,
guileless; suppose you were a hungry man starving for something to love
and lean upon, for one whose burdens you might bear, and who might help
you to bear yours.  Suppose you were down on your luck, still stunned by
a horrible shock, and this bright vista of a happy future floated
suddenly before you, how long under these circumstances do you think you
would reflect before you would decide on embracing what chance had thrown
in your way?

It did not take my hero long, for before he got past the ham and beef
shop near the top of Fetter Lane, he had told Ellen that she must come
home with him and live with him till they could get married, which they
would do upon the first day that the law allowed.

I think the devil must have chuckled and made tolerably sure of his game
this time.





Ernest told Ellen of his difficulty about finding employment.

"But what do you think of going into a shop for, my dear," said Ellen.
"Why not take a little shop yourself?"

Ernest asked how much this would cost.  Ellen told him that he might take
a house in some small street, say near the "Elephant and Castle," for
17s. or 18s. a week, and let off the two top floors for 10s., keeping the
back parlour and shop for themselves.  If he could raise five or six
pounds to buy some second-hand clothes to stock the shop with, they could
mend them and clean them, and she could look after the women's clothes
while he did the men's.  Then he could mend and make, if he could get the
orders.

They could soon make a business of 2 pounds a week in this way; she had a
friend who began like that and had now moved to a better shop, where she
made 5 or 6 pounds a week at least--and she, Ellen, had done the greater
part of the buying and selling herself.

Here was a new light indeed.  It was as though he had got his 5000 pounds
back again all of a sudden, and perhaps ever so much more later on into
the bargain.  Ellen seemed more than ever to be his good genius.

She went out and got a few rashers of bacon for his and her breakfast.
She cooked them much more nicely than he had been able to do, and laid
breakfast for him and made coffee, and some nice brown toast.  Ernest had
been his own cook and housemaid for the last few days and had not given
himself satisfaction.  Here he suddenly found himself with someone to
wait on him again.  Not only had Ellen pointed out to him how he could
earn a living when no one except himself had known how to advise him, but
here she was so pretty and smiling, looking after even his comforts, and
restoring him practically in all respects that he much cared about to the
position which he had lost--or rather putting him in one that he already
liked much better.  No wonder he was radiant when he came to explain his
plans to me.

He had some difficulty in telling all that had happened.  He hesitated,
blushed, hummed and hawed.  Misgivings began to cross his mind when he
found himself obliged to tell his story to someone else.  He felt
inclined to slur things over, but I wanted to get at the facts, so I
helped him over the bad places, and questioned him till I had got out
pretty nearly the whole story as I have given it above.

I hope I did not show it, but I was very angry.  I had begun to like
Ernest.  I don't know why, but I never have heard that any young man to
whom I had become attached was going to get married without hating his
intended instinctively, though I had never seen her; I have observed that
most bachelors feel the same thing, though we are generally at some pains
to hide the fact.  Perhaps it is because we know we ought to have got
married ourselves.  Ordinarily we say we are delighted--in the present
case I did not feel obliged to do this, though I made an effort to
conceal my vexation.  That a young man of much promise who was heir also
to what was now a handsome fortune, should fling himself away upon such a
person as Ellen was quite too provoking, and the more so because of the
unexpectedness of the whole affair.

I begged him not to marry Ellen yet--not at least until he had known her
for a longer time.  He would not hear of it; he had given his word, and
if he had not given it he should go and give it at once.  I had hitherto
found him upon most matters singularly docile and easy to manage, but on
this point I could do nothing with him.  His recent victory over his
father and mother had increased his strength, and I was nowhere.  I would
have told him of his true position, but I knew very well that this would
only make him more bent on having his own way--for with so much money why
should he not please himself?  I said nothing, therefore, on this head,
and yet all that I could urge went for very little with one who believed
himself to be an artisan or nothing.

Really from his own standpoint there was nothing very outrageous in what
he was doing.  He had known and been very fond of Ellen years before.  He
knew her to come of respectable people, and to have borne a good
character, and to have been universally liked at Battersby.  She was then
a quick, smart, hard-working girl--and a very pretty one.  When at last
they met again she was on her best behaviour, in fact, she was modesty
and demureness itself.  What wonder, then, that his imagination should
fail to realise the changes that eight years must have worked?  He knew
too much against himself, and was too bankrupt in love to be squeamish;
if Ellen had been only what he thought her, and if his prospects had been
in reality no better than he believed they were, I do not know that there
is anything much more imprudent in what Ernest proposed than there is in
half the marriages that take place every day.

There was nothing for it, however, but to make the best of the
inevitable, so I wished my young friend good fortune, and told him he
could have whatever money he wanted to start his shop with, if what he
had in hand was not sufficient.  He thanked me, asked me to be kind
enough to let him do all my mending and repairing, and to get him any
other like orders that I could, and left me to my own reflections.

I was even more angry when he was gone than I had been while he was with
me.  His frank, boyish face had beamed with a happiness that had rarely
visited it.  Except at Cambridge he had hardly known what happiness
meant, and even there his life had been clouded as of a man for whom
wisdom at the greatest of its entrances was quite shut out.  I had seen
enough of the world and of him to have observed this, but it was
impossible, or I thought it had been impossible, for me to have helped
him.

Whether I ought to have tried to help him or not I do not know, but I am
sure that the young of all animals often do want help upon matters about
which anyone would say _a priori_ that there should be no difficulty.  One
would think that a young seal would want no teaching how to swim, nor yet
a bird to fly, but in practice a young seal drowns if put out of its
depth before its parents have taught it to swim; and so again, even the
young hawk must be taught to fly before it can do so.

I grant that the tendency of the times is to exaggerate the good which
teaching can do, but in trying to teach too much, in most matters, we
have neglected others in respect of which a little sensible teaching
would do no harm.

I know it is the fashion to say that young people must find out things
for themselves, and so they probably would if they had fair play to the
extent of not having obstacles put in their way.  But they seldom have
fair play; as a general rule they meet with foul play, and foul play from
those who live by selling them stones made into a great variety of shapes
and sizes so as to form a tolerable imitation of bread.

Some are lucky enough to meet with few obstacles, some are plucky enough
to over-ride them, but in the greater number of cases, if people are
saved at all they are saved so as by fire.

While Ernest was with me Ellen was looking out for a shop on the south
side of the Thames near the "Elephant and Castle," which was then almost
a new and a very rising neighbourhood.  By one o'clock she had found
several from which a selection was to be made, and before night the pair
had made their choice.

Ernest brought Ellen to me.  I did not want to see her, but could not
well refuse.  He had laid out a few of his shillings upon her wardrobe,
so that she was neatly dressed, and, indeed, she looked very pretty and
so good that I could hardly be surprised at Ernest's infatuation when the
other circumstances of the case were taken into consideration.  Of course
we hated one another instinctively from the first moment we set eyes on
one another, but we each told Ernest that we had been most favourably
impressed.

Then I was taken to see the shop.  An empty house is like a stray dog or
a body from which life has departed.  Decay sets in at once in every part
of it, and what mould and wind and weather would spare, street boys
commonly destroy.  Ernest's shop in its untenanted state was a dirty
unsavoury place enough.  The house was not old, but it had been run up by
a jerry-builder and its constitution had no stamina whatever.  It was
only by being kept warm and quiet that it would remain in health for many
months together.  Now it had been empty for some weeks and the cats had
got in by night, while the boys had broken the windows by day.  The
parlour floor was covered with stones and dirt, and in the area was a
dead dog which had been killed in the street and been thrown down into
the first unprotected place that could be found.  There was a strong
smell throughout the house, but whether it was bugs, or rats, or cats, or
drains, or a compound of all four, I could not determine.  The sashes did
not fit, the flimsy doors hung badly; the skirting was gone in several
places, and there were not a few holes in the floor; the locks were
loose, and paper was torn and dirty; the stairs were weak and one felt
the treads give as one went up them.

Over and above these drawbacks the house had an ill name, by reason of
the fact that the wife of the last occupant had hanged herself in it not
very many weeks previously.  She had set down a bloater before the fire
for her husband's tea, and had made him a round of toast.  She then left
the room as though about to return to it shortly, but instead of doing so
she went into the back kitchen and hanged herself without a word.  It was
this which had kept the house empty so long in spite of its excellent
position as a corner shop.  The last tenant had left immediately after
the inquest, and if the owner had had it done up then people would have
got over the tragedy that had been enacted in it, but the combination of
bad condition and bad fame had hindered many from taking it, who like
Ellen, could see that it had great business capabilities.  Almost
anything would have sold there, but it happened also that there was no
second-hand clothes shop in close proximity so that everything combined
in its favour, except its filthy state and its reputation.

When I saw it, I thought I would rather die than live in such an awful
place--but then I had been living in the Temple for the last five and
twenty years.  Ernest was lodging in Laystall Street and had just come
out of prison; before this he had lived in Ashpit Place so that this
house had no terrors for him provided he could get it done up.  The
difficulty was that the landlord was hard to move in this respect.  It
ended in my finding the money to do everything that was wanted, and
taking a lease of the house for five years at the same rental as that
paid by the last occupant.  I then sublet it to Ernest, of course taking
care that it was put more efficiently into repair than his landlord was
at all likely to have put it.

A week later I called and found everything so completely transformed that
I should hardly have recognised the house.  All the ceilings had been
whitewashed, all the rooms papered, the broken glass hacked out and
reinstated, the defective wood-work renewed, all the sashes, cupboards
and doors had been painted.  The drains had been thoroughly overhauled,
everything in fact, that could be done had been done, and the rooms now
looked as cheerful as they had been forbidding when I had last seen them.
The people who had done the repairs were supposed to have cleaned the
house down before leaving, but Ellen had given it another scrub from top
to bottom herself after they were gone, and it was as clean as a new pin.
I almost felt as though I could have lived in it myself, and as for
Ernest, he was in the seventh heaven.  He said it was all my doing and
Ellen's.

There was already a counter in the shop and a few fittings, so that
nothing now remained but to get some stock and set them out for sale.
Ernest said he could not begin better than by selling his clerical
wardrobe and his books, for though the shop was intended especially for
the sale of second-hand clothes, yet Ellen said there was no reason why
they should not sell a few books too; so a beginning was to be made by
selling the books he had had at school and college at about one shilling
a volume, taking them all round, and I have heard him say that he learned
more that proved of practical use to him through stocking his books on a
bench in front of his shop and selling them, than he had done from all
the years of study which he had bestowed upon their contents.

For the enquiries that were made of him whether he had such and such a
book taught him what he could sell and what he could not; how much he
could get for this, and how much for that.  Having made ever such a
little beginning with books, he took to attending book sales as well as
clothes sales, and ere long this branch of his business became no less
important than the tailoring, and would, I have no doubt, have been the
one which he would have settled down to exclusively, if he had been
called upon to remain a tradesman; but this is anticipating.

I made a contribution and a stipulation.  Ernest wanted to sink the
gentleman completely, until such time as he could work his way up again.
If he had been left to himself he would have lived with Ellen in the shop
back parlour and kitchen, and have let out both the upper floors
according to his original programme.  I did not want him, however, to cut
himself adrift from music, letters and polite life, and feared that
unless he had some kind of den into which he could retire he would ere
long become the tradesman and nothing else.  I therefore insisted on
taking the first floor front and back myself, and furnishing them with
the things which had been left at Mrs Jupp's.  I bought these things of
him for a small sum and had them moved into his present abode.

I went to Mrs Jupp's to arrange all this, as Ernest did not like going to
Ashpit Place.  I had half expected to find the furniture sold and Mrs
Jupp gone, but it was not so; with all her faults the poor old woman was
perfectly honest.

I told her that Pryer had taken all Ernest's money and run away with it.
She hated Pryer.  "I never knew anyone," she exclaimed, "as white-livered
in the face as that Pryer; he hasn't got an upright vein in his whole
body.  Why, all that time when he used to come breakfasting with Mr
Pontifex morning after morning, it took me to a perfect shadow the way he
carried on.  There was no doing anything to please him right.  First I
used to get them eggs and bacon, and he didn't like that; and then I got
him a bit of fish, and he didn't like that, or else it was too dear, and
you know fish is dearer than ever; and then I got him a bit of German,
and he said it rose on him; then I tried sausages, and he said they hit
him in the eye worse even than German; oh! how I used to wander my room
and fret about it inwardly and cry for hours, and all about them paltry
breakfasts--and it wasn't Mr Pontifex; he'd like anything that anyone
chose to give him.

"And so the piano's to go," she continued.  "What beautiful tunes Mr
Pontifex did play upon it, to be sure; and there was one I liked better
than any I ever heard.  I was in the room when he played it once and when
I said, 'Oh, Mr Pontifex, that's the kind of woman I am,' he said, 'No,
Mrs Jupp, it isn't, for this tune is old, but no one can say you are
old.'  But, bless you, he meant nothing by it, it was only his mucky
flattery."

Like myself, she was vexed at his getting married.  She didn't like his
being married, and she didn't like his not being married--but, anyhow, it
was Ellen's fault, not his, and she hoped he would be happy.  "But after
all," she concluded, "it ain't you and it ain't me, and it ain't him and
it ain't her.  It's what you must call the fortunes of matterimony, for
there ain't no other word for it."

In the course of the afternoon the furniture arrived at Ernest's new
abode.  In the first floor we placed the piano, table, pictures,
bookshelves, a couple of arm-chairs, and all the little household gods
which he had brought from Cambridge.  The back room was furnished exactly
as his bedroom at Ashpit Place had been--new things being got for the
bridal apartment downstairs.  These two first-floor rooms I insisted on
retaining as my own, but Ernest was to use them whenever he pleased; he
was never to sublet even the bedroom, but was to keep it for himself in
case his wife should be ill at any time, or in case he might be ill
himself.

In less than a fortnight from the time of his leaving prison all these
arrangements had been completed, and Ernest felt that he had again linked
himself on to the life which he had led before his imprisonment--with a
few important differences, however, which were greatly to his advantage.
He was no longer a clergyman; he was about to marry a woman to whom he
was much attached, and he had parted company for ever with his father and
mother.

True, he had lost all his money, his reputation, and his position as a
gentleman; he had, in fact, had to burn his house down in order to get
his roast sucking pig; but if asked whether he would rather be as he was
now or as he was on the day before his arrest, he would not have had a
moment's hesitation in preferring his present to his past.  If his
present could only have been purchased at the expense of all that he had
gone through, it was still worth purchasing at the price, and he would go
through it all again if necessary.  The loss of the money was the worst,
but Ellen said she was sure they would get on, and she knew all about it.
As for the loss of reputation--considering that he had Ellen and me left,
it did not come to much.

I saw the house on the afternoon of the day on which all was finished,
and there remained nothing but to buy some stock and begin selling.  When
I was gone, after he had had his tea, he stole up to his castle--the
first floor front.  He lit his pipe and sat down to the piano.  He played
Handel for an hour or so, and then set himself to the table to read and
write.  He took all his sermons and all the theological works he had
begun to compose during the time he had been a clergyman and put them in
the fire; as he saw them consume he felt as though he had got rid of
another incubus.  Then he took up some of the little pieces he had begun
to write during the latter part of his undergraduate life at Cambridge,
and began to cut them about and re-write them.  As he worked quietly at
these till he heard the clock strike ten and it was time to go to bed, he
felt that he was now not only happy but supremely happy.

Next day Ellen took him to Debenham's auction rooms, and they surveyed
the lots of clothes which were hung up all round the auction room to be
viewed.  Ellen had had sufficient experience to know about how much each
lot ought to fetch; she overhauled lot after lot, and valued it; in a
very short time Ernest himself began to have a pretty fair idea what each
lot should go for, and before the morning was over valued a dozen lots
running at prices about which Ellen said he would not hurt if he could
get them for that.

So far from disliking this work or finding it tedious, he liked it very
much, indeed he would have liked anything which did not overtax his
physical strength, and which held out a prospect of bringing him in
money.  Ellen would not let him buy anything on the occasion of this
sale; she said he had better see one sale first and watch how prices
actually went.  So at twelve o'clock when the sale began, he saw the lots
sold which he and Ellen had marked, and by the time the sale was over he
knew enough to be able to bid with safety whenever he should actually
want to buy.  Knowledge of this sort is very easily acquired by anyone
who is in _bona fide_ want of it.

But Ellen did not want him to buy at auctions--not much at least at
present.  Private dealing, she said, was best.  If I, for example, had
any cast-off clothes, he was to buy them from my laundress, and get a
connection with other laundresses, to whom he might give a trifle more
than they got at present for whatever clothes their masters might give
them, and yet make a good profit.  If gentlemen sold their things, he was
to try and get them to sell to him.  He flinched at nothing; perhaps he
would have flinched if he had had any idea how _outre_ his proceedings
were, but the very ignorance of the world which had ruined him up till
now, by a happy irony began to work its own cure.  If some malignant
fairy had meant to curse him in this respect, she had overdone her
malice.  He did not know he was doing anything strange.  He only knew
that he had no money, and must provide for himself, a wife, and a
possible family.  More than this, he wanted to have some leisure in an
evening, so that he might read and write and keep up his music.  If
anyone would show him how he could do better than he was doing, he should
be much obliged to them, but to himself it seemed that he was doing
sufficiently well; for at the end of the first week the pair found they
had made a clear profit of 3 pounds.  In a few weeks this had increased
to 4 pounds, and by the New Year they had made a profit of 5 pounds in
one week.

Ernest had by this time been married some two months, for he had stuck to
his original plan of marrying Ellen on the first day he could legally do
so.  This date was a little delayed by the change of abode from Laystall
Street to Blackfriars, but on the first day that it could be done it was
done.  He had never had more than 250 pounds a year, even in the times of
his affluence, so that a profit of 5 pounds a week, if it could be
maintained steadily, would place him where he had been as far as income
went, and, though he should have to feed two mouths instead of one, yet
his expenses in other ways were so much curtailed by his changed social
position, that, take it all round, his income was practically what it had
been a twelvemonth before.  The next thing to do was to increase it, and
put by money.

Prosperity depends, as we all know, in great measure upon energy and good
sense, but it also depends not a little upon pure luck--that is to say,
upon connections which are in such a tangle that it is more easy to say
that they do not exist, than to try to trace them.  A neighbourhood may
have an excellent reputation as being likely to be a rising one, and yet
may become suddenly eclipsed by another, which no one would have thought
so promising.  A fever hospital may divert the stream of business, or a
new station attract it; so little, indeed, can be certainly known, that
it is better not to try to know more than is in everybody's mouth, and to
leave the rest to chance.

Luck, which certainly had not been too kind to my hero hitherto, now
seemed to have taken him under her protection.  The neighbourhood
prospered, and he with it.  It seemed as though he no sooner bought a
thing and put it into his shop, than it sold with a profit of from thirty
to fifty per cent.  He learned book-keeping, and watched his accounts
carefully, following up any success immediately; he began to buy other
things besides clothes--such as books, music, odds and ends of furniture,
etc.  Whether it was luck or business aptitude, or energy, or the
politeness with which he treated all his customers, I cannot say--but to
the surprise of no one more than himself, he went ahead faster than he
had anticipated, even in his wildest dreams, and by Easter was
established in a strong position as the owner of a business which was
bringing him in between four and five hundred a year, and which he
understood how to extend.

 Ernest relishes the comforts of Overton's room but declines to stay more than a few days with his gracious host. Theobald and Christina call on Overton without pointedly asking him about their son's whereabouts. After moving into rooms of his own, Ernest seeks work as a tailor, albeit fruitlessly. The problem, as Overton's tailor explains, is that Ernest is hopelessly handicapped by his age and genteel background; tailors, who begin their apprenticeship at an early age, simply will not accept him into their ranks. While growing despondent from the bleakness of his prospects, Ernest chances to meet Ellen, the former servant at Battersby who was dismissed when it was discovered that she was pregnant. Without realizing that she is a streetwalker, Ernest renews his acquaintance with Ellen as though he were the one who had fallen into greater disgrace. Ernest's defensiveness increases when Ellen chides him for disparaging his parents and recalls her years in their service with pleasure. He is nonetheless infatuated with Ellen, who has lost little of her attractiveness in spite of the dissolute life she has led since leaving Battersby. Her attractiveness to him is, in fact, so great that Ernest quickly determines that he wants her to be his wife. Overton, the incarnate bachelor, is dismayed by this news and attempts to dissuade Ernest from committing yet another impulsive and foolish act. Ernest will not be deterred, however, especially after Ellen suggests that they open a used-clothing shop, a line of endeavor in which she has had experience. Overton once again resigns himself to his godson's will by offering financial help to the young couple so that they can obtain a shop which will also provide living quarters.

