IN BUSINESS.

There was a great effervescence of rumor in Cubitt Town when Ted Munsey came into money. Ted Munsey, commonly alluded to as Mrs. Munsey's 'usband, was a moulder with a regular job at Moffat's: a large, quiet man of forty-five, the uncomplaining appurtenance of his wife. This was fitting, for she had married beneath her, her father having been a dock timekeeper.

To come into money is an unusual feat in Cubitt Town; a feat, nevertheless, continually contemplated among possibilities by all Cubitt Towners; who find nothing else in the Sunday paper so refreshing as the paragraphs headed "Windfall for a Cabman" and "A Fortune for a Pauper," and who cut them out to pin over the mantelpiece. The handsome coloring of such paragraphs was responsible for many bold flights of fancy in regard to Ted Munsey's fortune: Cubitt Town, left to itself, being sterile soil for the imagination. Some said that the Munseys had come in for chests packed with bank notes,on the decease of one of Mrs. Munsey's relations, of whom she was wont to hint. Others put it at a street full of houses, as being the higher ideal of wealth. A few, more romantically given, imagined vaguely of ancestral lands and halls, which Mrs. Munsey and her forbears had been "done out of" for many years by the lawyers. All which Mrs. Munsey, in her hour of triumph, was at little pains to discount, although, in simple fact, the fortune was no more than a legacy of a hundred pounds from Ted's uncle, who had kept a public-house in Deptford.

Of the hundred pounds Mrs. Munsey took immediate custody. There was no guessing what would have become of it in Ted's hands; probably it would have been, in chief part, irrecoverably lent; certainly it would have gone and left Ted a moulder at Moffat's, as before. With Mrs. Munsey there was neither hesitation nor difficulty. The obvious use of a hundred pounds was to put its possessors into business—which meant a shop; to elevate them socially at a single bound beyond the many grades lying between the moulder and the small tradesman. Wherefore the Munseys straightway went into business. Being equally ignorant of every sort of shopkeeping, they were free to choose the sort they pleased; and thus it was that Mrs.Munsey decided upon drapery and haberdashery, Ted's contribution to the discussion being limited to a mild hint of greengrocery and coals, instantly suppressed as low. Nothing could be more genteel than drapery, and it would suit the girls. General chandlery, sweetstuff, oil, and firewood—all these were low, comparatively. Drapery it was, and quickly; for Mrs. Munsey was not wont to shilly-shally. An empty shop was found in Bromley, was rented, and was stocked as far as possible. Tickets were hung upon everything, bearing a very large main figure with a very small three-farthings beside it, and the thing was done. The stain of moulding was washed from the scutcheon; the descent thereunto from dock timekeeping was redeemed fivefold; dock timekeeping itself was left far below, with carpentering, shipwrighting, and engine-fitting. The Munseys were in business.

Ted Munsey stood about helplessly and stared, irksomely striving not to put his hands in his pockets, which was low; any lapse being instantly detected by Mrs. Munsey, who rushed from all sorts of unexpected places and corrected the fault vigorously.

"I didn't go for to do it, Marier," he explained penitently. "It's 'abit. I'll get out of it soon. It don't look well, I know, in abusiness; but it do seem a comfort, somehow."

"O you an' your comfort! A lot you studymycomfort, Hedward!"—for he was Ted no more—"a-toilin' an' a-moilin' with everything to think of myself while you look on with your 'ands in your pockets. Do try an' not look like a stuck ninny, do!" And Hedward, whose every attempt at help or suggestion had been severely repulsed, slouched uneasily to the door, and strove to look as business-like as possible.

"There you go again, stickin' in the doorway and starin' up an' down the street, as though there was no business doin'"—there was none, but that might not be confessed. "D'y' expect people to come in with you a-fillin' up the door? Do come in, do! You'd be better out o' the shop altogether."

Hedward thought so too, but said nothing. He had been invested with his Sunday clothes of lustrous black, and brought into the shop to give such impression of a shop-walker as he might. He stood uneasily on alternate feet, and stared at the ceiling, the floor, or the space before him, with an unhappy sense of being on show and not knowing what was expected of him. He moved his hands purposelessly, and knocked things down with his elbows; he rubbed his hair all up behind, and furtively wiped the resultingoil from his hand on his trousers: never looking in the least degree like a shop-walker.

The first customer was a very small child who came for a ha'porth of pins, and on whom Hedward gazed with much interest and respect, while Mrs. Munsey handed over the purchase: abating not a jot of his appreciation when the child returned, later, to explain that what she really wanted was sewing cotton. Other customers were disappointingly few. Several old neighbors came in from curiosity, to talk and buy nothing. One woman, who looked at many things without buying, was discovered after her departure to have stolen a pair of stockings; and Hedward was duly abused for not keeping a sharp look-out while his wife's back was turned. Finally, the shutters went up on a day's takings of three and sevenpence farthing, including a most dubious threepenny bit. But then, as Mrs. Munsey said, when you are in business you must expect trade to vary; and of course there would be more customers when the shop got known; although Hedward certainly might have taken the trouble to find one in a busier thoroughfare. Hedward (whose opinion in that matter, as in others, had never been asked) retired to the back-yard to smoke a pipe—a thing he had been pining for all day; but was quickly recalled (the pipe being a clay) upon Mrs. Munsey's discovery that theact could be observed from a neighbor's window. He was continually bringing the family into disgrace, and Mrs. Munsey despaired aloud over him far into the night.

The days came and went, and trade varied, as a fact, very little indeed. Between three and sevenpence farthing and nothing the scope for fluctuation is small, and for some time the first day's record was never exceeded. But on the fifth day a customer bought nearly seven shillings' worth all at once. Her husband had that day returned from sea with money, and she, after months of stint, indulged in an orgie of haberdashery at the nearest shop. Mrs. Munsey was reassured. Trade was increasing; perhaps an assistant would be needed soon, in addition to the two girls.

Only the younger of the girls, by the bye, had as yet taken any active interest in the business: Emma, the elder, spending much of her time in a bedroom, making herself unpresentable by inordinate blubbering. This was because of Mrs. Munsey's prohibition of more company-keeping with Jack Page. Jack was a plumber, just out of his time—rather a catch for a moulder's daughter, but impossible, of course, for the daughter of people in business, as Emma should have had the proper feeling to see for herself. This Emma had not: she wallowed ina luxury of woe, exacerbated on occasions to poignancy by the scoldings and sometimes by the thumpings of her mar; and neglected even the select weekly quadrille class, membership whereof was part of the novel splendor.

But there was never again a seven-shilling customer. The state of trade perplexed Mrs. Munsey beyond telling. Being in business, one must, by the circumstance, have a genteel competence: this was an elementary axiom in Cubitt Town. But where was the money? What was the difference between this and other shops? Was a screw loose anywhere? In that case it certainly could not be her fault; wherefore she nagged Hedward.

One day a polite young man called in a large pony-trap and explained the whole mystery. Nobody could reasonably expect to succeed in a business of this sort who did not keep a good stock of the fancy aprons and lace bows made by the firm he was charged to represent. Of course he knew what business was, and that cash was not always free, but that need never hinder transactions with him: three months' credit was the regular thing with any respectable, well-established business concern, and in three months one would certainly sell all the fancy aprons and lace bows of this especial kind and price that one had room for. And he needscarcely remind a lady of Mrs. Munsey's business experience that fancy aprons and lace bows—of the right sort—were by far the most profitable goods known to the trade. Everybody knewthat. Should they say a gross of each, just to go on with? No? Well, then half a gross. These prices were cut so near that it really did not pay to split the gross, but this time, to secure a good customer, he would stretch a point. Mrs. Munsey was enlightened. Plainly the secret of success in business was to buy advantageously, in the way the polite young man suggested, sell at a good price, and live on the profits: merely paying over the remainder at the end of three months. Nothing could be simpler. So she began the system forthwith. Other polite young men called, and further certain profits were arranged for on similar terms.

The weak spot in the plan was the absence of any binding arrangement with the general public; and this was not long in discovering itself. Nobody came to buy the fancy aprons and the lace bows, tempting as they might seem. Moreover, after they had hung a week or more, Alice reported that a large shop in the Commercial Road was offering, by retail, aprons and bows of precisely the same sort at a less price than the polite young man had charged for a wholesale purchase. Mrs. Munsey grew desperate,and Hedward's life became a horror unto him. He was set to stand at the door with a fancy apron in one hand and a lace bow in the other, and capture customers as they passed: a function wherein he achieved detestable failure; alarming passing women (who considered him dangerously drunk) as greatly as his situation distressed himself.

Mrs. Munsey grew more desperate, and drove Hedward to the rear of the house, with bitter revilings. Money must be got out of the stock somehow. That a shop could in any circumstances be unremunerative puzzled as much as it dismayed her. The goods were marked down to low prices—often lower than cost. Still Mrs. Munsey had the abiding conviction that the affair must pay, as others did, if only she might hold out long enough. Hedward's suggestion that he should return to the moulding, coming and going as little in sight as possible, she repelled savagely. "A nice notion you've got o' keepin' up a proper position. You ain't content with disgracin' me and yourself too, playin' the fool in the shop till trade's ruined an' nobody won't come near the place—an' I don't wonder at it.... You're a nice sort of 'usband, I must say. What are you goin' to do now, with the business in this pretty mess, an' your wife an' children ready to starve? Whatare you goin' to do? Where are you goin' to turn? That's what I want to know."

"Well, I'm a-thinkin' it out, Marier, in a legal point. P'r'aps, you know, my dear—"

"Oh, don't dear me! I 'ate a fool."

Marked as low as they might be, none of the aprons nor the bows nor the towels nor the stockings nor any other of the goods were bought—never a thing beyond a ha'porth of thread or a farthing bodkin. Rent had to be paid, and even food cost money. There was a flavor of blank disappointment about Saturday—the pay day of less anxious times; and quarter day, when all these polite young men would demand the money that was not—that day was coming, black and soon. Mrs. Munsey grew more desperate than ever, sharp of feature, and aged. Alone, she would probably have wept. Having Hedward at hand, she poured forth her bitterness of spirit upon him; till at last he was nagged out of his normal stolidity, and there came upon his face the look of a bullock that is harried on all hands through unfamiliar streets.

On a night when, from sheer weariness of soul, she fell from clatter toward sleep, of a sudden Hedward spoke. "Marier—" he said.

"Well?"

"You ain't give me a kiss lately. Kiss me now."

"Don't be a fool. I'm sick an' tired. Go to sleep, if you can sleep, with everything—"

"Kiss me, I tell you!" He had never commanded like that before. She marvelled, feared a little, and obeyed.

In the morning, when she awoke, he had already gone downstairs. This was as usual. When she followed, however, he was not to be found in the house. The shop shutters had been taken down, and the windows carefully cleaned, although it was not the regular window-cleaning day; but the door was shut. On the sitting-room table were two papers, one within the other. The first was written with many faults and smudges, and this was how it ran:—

"the deed and testiment of Ed. Munsey this is to cirtiffy that i make over all my property to my belovdwife stock bisness and furnitur so help me god all detts i keep to pay myself and my wife is not ansrable for them and certiffy that I O U Minchin and co 9 pound 4/7½ Jones and son 6 pound 13/2 and settrer all other detts me and not my wife I O UEd. Munsey"

Ed. Munsey"

The other was a letter:—

"my dear wife i have done this legle dockerment after thinking it out it will make you alrite having all made over and me still oawe the detts not you as you can pull round the bisness as you said with time and if you do not see me again will you pay the detts when it is pull round as we have been allways honnest and straght i should wish for Emma to keep co with Jhon Page if can be mannaged he might be shop walker and you will soon all be rich swels i know so no more from yours affec husbandEd. Munsey"love to Emma and Alice this one must be burnt keep the other"

Ed. Munsey

"love to Emma and Alice this one must be burnt keep the other"

Near the papers lay Ted Munsey's large silver watch and chain, the silver ring that he used to fasten his best tie, three keys, and a few coppers. Upstairs the girls began to move about. Mrs. Munsey sat with her frightened face on the table.

THE RED COW GROUP.

The Red Cow Anarchist Group no longer exists. Its leading spirit appears no more among his devoted comrades, and without him they are ineffectual.

He was but a young man, this leading spirit, (his name, by the bye, was Sotcher,) but of his commanding influence among the older but unlettered men about him, read and judge. For themselves, they had long been plunged in a beery apathy, neither regarding nor caring for the fearful iniquities of the social system that oppressed them. A Red Cow group they had always been, before the coming of Sotcher to make Anarchists of them: forgathering in a remote compartment of the Red Cow bar, reached by a side door in an alley; a compartment uninvaded and almost undiscovered by any but themselves, where night after night they drank their beer and smoked their pipes, sunk in a stagnant ignorance of their manifold wrongs. During the day Old Baker remained to garrison the stronghold. He was a long-bankrupttradesman, with invisible resources and no occupation but this, and no known lodging but the Red Cow snuggery. There he remained all day and every day, "holding the fort," as he put it: with his nose, a fiery signal of possession, never two feet from the rim of his pot; while Jerry Shand was carrying heavy loads in Columbia Market; while Gunno Polson was running for a book-maker in Fleet Street; while Snorkey was wherever his instinct took him, doing whatever paid best, and keeping out of trouble as long as he could; and while the rest of the group—two or three—picked a living out of the London heap in ways and places unspecified. But at evening they joined Old Baker, and they filled their snuggery.

Their talk was rarely of politics, and never of "social problems": present and immediate facts filled their whole field of contemplation. Their accounts were kept, and their references to pecuniary matters were always stated, in terms of liquid measure. Thus, fourpence was never spoken of in the common way: it was a quart, and a quart was the monetary standard of the community. Even as twopence was a pint, and eightpence was half-a-gallon.

It was Snorkey who discovered Sotcher, and it was with Snorkey that that revolutionary appeared before the Red Cow group with hismessage of enlightenment. Snorkey (who was christened something else that nobody knew or cared about) had a trick of getting into extraordinary and unheard-of places in his daily quest of quarts, and he had met Sotcher in a loft at the top of a house in Berners Street, Shadwell. It was a loft where the elect of Anarchism congregated nightly, and where everybody lectured all the others. Sotcher was a very young Anarchist, restless by reason of not being sufficiently listened to, and glad to find outsiders to instruct and to impress with a full sense of his sombre, mystic dare-devilry. Therefore he came to the Red Cow with Snorkey, to spread (as he said) the light.

He was not received with enthusiasm, perhaps because of a certain unlaundered aspect of person remarkable even to them of the Red Cow group. Grease was his chief exterior characteristic, and his thick hair, turning up over his collar, seemed to have lain for long unharried of brush or comb. His face was a sebaceous trickle of long features, and on his hands there was a murky deposit that looked like scales. He wore, in all weathers, a long black coat with a rectangular rent in the skirt, and his throat he clipped in a brown neckerchief that on a time had been of the right Anarchist red. But no want of welcome could abash him. Here,indeed, he had an audience, an audience that did not lecture on its own account, a crude audience that might take him at his own valuation. So he gave it to that crude audience, hot and strong. They (and he) were the salt of the earth, bullied, plundered and abused. Down with everything that wasn't down already. And so forth and so on.

His lectures were continued. Every night it was the same as every other, and each several chapter of his discourse was a repetition of the one before. Slowly the Red Cow group came around. Plainly other people were better off than they; and certainly each man found it hard to believe that anybody else was more deserving than himself.

"Wy are we pore?" asked Sotcher, leaning forward and jerking his extended palm from one to another, as though attempting a hasty collection. "I ask you straight, wy are we pore? Why is it, my frien's, that awften and awften you find you ain't got a penny in yer pocket, not for to git a crust o' bread or 'alf a pint o' reasonable refreshment? 'Ow is it that 'appens? Agin I ask, 'ow?"

Snorkey, with a feeling that an answer was expected from somebody, presently murmured, "No mugs," which encouraged Gunno Polson to suggest, "Backers all stony-broke." JerryShand said nothing, but reflected on the occasional result of a day on the loose. Old Baker neither spoke nor thought.

"I'll tell you, me frien's. It's 'cos o' the rotten state o' s'ciety. Wy d'you allow the lazy, idle, dirty, do-nothing upper classes, as they call 'emselves, to reap all the benefits o' your toil wile you slave an' slave to keep 'em in lukshry an' starve yerselves? Wy don't you go an' take your shares o' the wealth lyin' round you?"

There was another pause. Gunno Polson looked at his friends one after another, spat emphatically, and said, "Coppers."

"Becos o' the brute force as the privileged classes is 'edged theirselves in with, that's all. Becos o' the paid myrmidons armed an' kep' to make slaves o' the people. Becos o' the magistrates an' p'lice. Then wy not git rid o' the magistrates an' p'lice? They're no good, are they? 'Oo wants 'em, I ask? 'Oo?"

"Theyarea noosance," admitted Snorkey, who had done a little time himself. He was a mere groundling, and persisted in regarding the proceedings as simple conversation, instead of as an oration with pauses at the proper places.

"Nobody wants 'em—nobody as is any good. Then don't 'ave 'em, me frien's—don't 'ave 'em! It all rests with you. Don't 'ave nomagistrates nor p'lice, nor gover'ment, nor parliament, nor monarchy, nor county council, nor nothink. Make a clean sweep of 'em. Blow 'em up. Then you'll 'ave yer rights. The time's comin', I tell you. It's comin', take my word for it. Now you toil an' slave; then everybody'll 'ave to work w'ether 'e likes it or not, and two hours work a day'll be all you'll 'ave to do."

Old Baker looked a little alarmed, and for a moment paused in his smoking.

"Two hours a day at most, that's all; an' all yer wants provided for, free an' liberal." Some of the group gave a lickerish look across the bar. "No a'thority, no gover'ment, no privilege, an' nothink to interfere. Free contrack between man an' man, subjick to free revision an' change."

"Wot's that?" demanded Jerry Shand, who was the slowest convert.

"Wy, that," Sotcher explained, "means that everybody can make wot arrangements with 'is feller-men 'e likes for to carry on the business of life, but nothink can't bind you. You chuck over the arrangement if it suits best."

"Ah," said Gunno Polson musingly, rotating his pot horizontally before him to stir the beer; "that 'ud be 'andy sometimes. They call it welshin' now."

The light spread fast and free, and in a few nights the Red Cow group was a very promising little bed of Anarchy. Sotcher was at pains to have it reported at two places west of Tottenham Court Road and at another in Dean Street, Soho, that at last a comrade had secured an excellent footing with a party of the proletariat of East London, hitherto looked on as hopeless material. More: that an early manifestation of activity might be expected in that quarter. Such activity had been held advisable of late, in view of certain extraditions.

And Sotcher's discourse at the Red Cow turned, lightly and easily, toward the question of explosives. Anybody could make them, he explained; nothing simpler, with care. And here he posed at large in the character of mysterious desperado, the wonder and admiration of all the Red Cow group. They should buy nitric acid, he said, of the strongest sort, and twice as much sulphuric acid. The shops where they sold photographic materials were best and cheapest for these things, and no questions were asked. They should mix the acids, and then add gently, drop by drop, the best glycerine, taking care to keep everything cool. After which the whole lot must be poured into water, to stand for an hour. Then a thick, yellowish, oily stuff would be found to have sunk to thebottom, which must be passed through several pails of water to be cleansed: and there it was, a terrible explosive. You handled it with care and poured it on brick-dust or dry sand, or anything of that sort that would soak it up, and then it could be used with safety to the operator.

The group listened with rapt attention, more than one pot stopping half-way on its passage mouthwards. Then Jerry Shand wanted to know if Sotcher had ever blown up anything or anybody himself.

The missionary admitted that that glory had not been his. "I'm one o' the teachers, me frien's—one o' the pioneers that goes to show the way for the active workers like you. I on'y come to explain the principles an' set you in the right road to the social revolution, so as you may get yer rights at last. It's for you to act."

Then he explained that action might be taken in two ways: either individually or by mutual aid in the group. Individual work was much to be preferred, being safer; but a particular undertaking often necessitated co-operation. But that was for the workers to settle as the occasion arose. However, one thing must be remembered. If the group operated, each man must be watchful of the rest; there must be no half measures, no timorousness; any comrade wavering, temporizing, or behaving in any waysuspiciously, must be straightwaysuppressed. There must be no mistake about that. It was desperate and glorious work, and there must be desperate and rapid methods both of striking and guarding. These things he made clear in his best conspirator's manner: with nods and scowls and a shaken forefinger, as of one accustomed to oversetting empires.

The men of the Red Cow group looked at each other, and spat thoughtfully. Then a comrade asked what had better be blown up first. Sotcher's opinion was that there was most glory in blowing up people, in a crowd or at a theatre. But a building was safer, as there was more chance of getting away. Of buildings, a public office was probably to be preferred—something in Whitehall, say. Or a bank—nobody seemed to have tried a bank: he offered the suggestion now. Of course there were not many public buildings in the East End, but possibly the group would like to act in their own neighborhood: it would be a novelty, and would attract notice; the question was one for their own decision, independent freedom of judgment being the right thing in these matters. There were churches, of course, and the factories of the bloated capitalist. Particularly, he might suggest the gas-works close by. There was a large gasometer abutting on the street, andprobably an explosion there would prove tremendously effective, putting the lights out everywhere, and attracting great attention in the papers. That was glory.

Jerry Shand hazarded a remark about the lives of the men in the gas-works; but Sotcher explained that that was a trivial matter. Revolutions were never accomplished without bloodshed, and a few casual lives were not to be weighed in the balance against the glorious consummation of the social upheaval. He repeated his contention, when some weaker comrade spoke of the chance of danger to the operator, and repeated it with a proper scorn of the soft-handed pusillanimity that shrank from danger to life and limb in the cause. Look at the glory, and consider the hundred-fold vengeance on the enemy in the day to come! The martyr's crown was his who should die at the post of duty.

His eloquence prevailed: there were murmurs no more. "'Ere, tell us the name of the stuff agin," broke out Gunno Polson, resolutely, feeling for a pencil and paper. "Blimy, I'll make some to-morrer."

He wrote down the name of the ingredients with much spelling. "Thick, yuller, oily stuff, ain't it, wot you make?" he asked.

"Yus—an' keep it cool."

The group broke up, stern and resolute, andSotcher strode to his home exultant, a man of power.

For the next night or two the enthusiasm at the Red Cow was unbounded. There was no longer any questioning of principles or action—every man was an eager Anarchist—strong and devoted in the cause. The little chemical experiment was going on well, Gunno Polson reported, with confident nods and winks. Sotcher repeated his discourse, as a matter of routine, to maintain the general ardor, which had, however, to endure a temporary check as the result of a delicate inquiry of Snorkey's, as to what funds might be expected from head-quarters. For there were no funds, said Sotcher, somewhat surprised at the question.

"Wot?" demanded Jerry Shand, opening his mouth and putting down his pipe: "ain't we goin' to get nothink for all this?"

They would get the glory, Sotcher assured him, and the consciousness of striking a mighty blow at this, and that, and the other; but that was all. And instantly the faces of the group grew long.

"But," said Old Baker, "I thought all you blokes always got somethink from the—the committee?"

There was no committee, and no funds: therewas nothing but glory, and victory, and triumph, and the social revolution, and things of that kind. For a little, the comrades looked at each other awkwardly, but they soon regained their cheerfulness, with zeal no whit abated. The sitting closed with promises of an early gathering for the next night.

But when the next night came Sotcher was later than usual. "Ullo," shouted Gunno Polson, as he entered, "'ere you are at last. We've 'ad to do important business without you. See," he added in a lower tone, "'ere's the stuff!" And he produced an old physic-bottle nearly full of a thick, yellowish fluid.

Sotcher started back half a pace, and slightly paled. "Don't shake it," he whispered hoarsely. "Don't shake it, for Gawd's sake!... Wot—wotjer bring it 'ere for, like that? It's—it's awful stuff, blimy." He looked uneasily about the group, and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "I—I thought you'd git the job over soon as the stuff was ready.... 'Ere, my Gawd!" he squeaked under his breath, "don't put it down 'ard on the table like that. It's sich—sich awful stuff." He wiped his forehead again, and, still standing, glanced once more apprehensively round the circle of impassive faces. Then after a pause, he asked, with an effort, "Wot—wotjer goin' to do now?"

"Blow up the bleed'n' gas-works, o' course," answered Gunno Polson complacently. "'Ere's a penn'orth o' silver sand, an' a 'bacca canister, an' some wire, an' a big cracker with a long touch-paper, so as to stick out o' the canister-lid. That ought to set it auf, oughtn't it? 'Ere, you pour the stuff over the sand, doncher?" And he pulled out the cork and made ready to mix.

"'Old on—'old on—don't! Wait a bit, for Gawd's sake!" cried Sotcher, in a sweat of terror. "You—you dunno wot awful stuff it is—s'elp me, you don't! You—you'll blow us all up if you don't keep it still. Y—you'll want some—other things. I'll go an'—"

But Jerry Shand stood grimly against the door. "This 'ere conspiracy'll 'ave to be gawn through proper," he said. "We can't 'ave no waverers nor blokes wot want to clear out in the middle of it, and p'r'aps go an' tell the p'lice. Them sort we 'as tosuppress, see? There's all the stuff there, me lad, an' you know it. Wot's more, it's you as is got to put it up agin the gas-works an' set it auf."

The hapless Sotcher turned a yellower pallor and asked faintly, "Me? Wy me?"

"All done reg'lar and proper," Jerry replied, "'fore you come. We voted it—by ballot, all square. If you'd 'a' come earlier you'd 'a' 'ad a vote yerself."

Sotcher pushed at Jerry's shoulder despairingly. "I won't, I won't!" he gasped. "Lemme go—it ain't fair—I wasn't 'ere—lemme go!"

"None o' yer shovin', young man," said Jerry severely. "None o' yer shovin', else I'll 'ave to punch you on the jore. You're a bleed'n' nice conspirator, you are. It's pretty plain we can't depend on you, an' you know wot that means,—eh? Doncher? You're one o' the sort as 'as to be suppressed, that's wot it means. 'Ere, 'ave a drink o' this 'ere beer, an' see if that can't put a little 'art in ye. You got to do it, so you may as well do it cheerful. Snorkey, give 'im a drink."

But the wretched revolutionary would not drink. He sank in a corner—the furthest from the table where Gunno Polson was packing his dreadful canister—a picture of stupefied affright.

Presently he thought of the bar—a mere yard of counter in an angle of the room, with a screen standing above it—and conceived a wild notion of escape by scrambling over. But scarce had he risen ere the watchful Jerry divined his purpose.

"'Old 'im, Snorkey," he said. "Keep 'im in the corner. An' if 'e won't drink that beer, pour it over 'is 'ead."

Snorkey obeyed gravely and conscientiously,and the bedraggled Sotcher, cowed from protest, whined and sobbed desolately.

When all was ready, Jerry Shand said: "I s'pose it's no good askin' you to do it willin', like a man?"

"O, let me go, I—I ain't well—s'elp me, I ain't. I—I might do it wrong—an'—an'—I'm a—a teacher—a speaker; not the active branch, s'elp me. Put it auf—for to-night—wait till to-morrer. I ain't well an'—an' you're very 'ard on me!"

"Desp'rit work, desp'rit ways," Jerry replied laconically. "You're be'avin' very suspicious, an' you're rebellin' agin the orders o' the group. There's only one physic for that, ain't there, in the rules? You're got to be suppressed. Question is 'ow. We'll 'ave to kill 'im quiet somehow," he proceeded, turning to the group. "Quiet an' quick. It's my belief 'e's spyin' for the p'lice, an' wants to git out to split on us. Question is 'ow to do for 'im?"

Sotcher rose, a staring spectre. He opened his mouth to call, but there came forth from it only a dry murmur. Hands were across his mouth at once, and he was forced back into the corner. One suggested a clasp-knife at the throat, another a stick in his neckerchief, twisted to throttling-point. But in the end it was settled that it would be simpler, and wouldbetter destroy all traces, to despatch him in the explosion—to tie him to the canister, in fact.

A convulsive movement under the men's hands decided them to throw more beer on Sotcher's face, for he seemed to be fainting. Then his pockets were invaded by Gunno Polson, who turned out each in succession. "You won't 'ave no use for money where you're goin'," he observed callously; "besides, it 'ud be blowed to bits an' no use to nobody. Look at the bloke at Greenwich, 'ow 'is things was blowed away. 'Ullo! 'ere's two 'arf-crowns an' some tanners. Seven an' thrippence altogether, with the browns. This is the bloke wot 'adn't got no funds. This'll be divided on free an' equal principles to 'elp pay for that beer you've wasted. 'Old up, ol' man! Think o' the glory. P'r'aps you're all right, but it's best to be on the safe side, an' dead blokes can't split to the coppers. An' you mustn't forget the glory. You 'ave to shed blood in a revolution, an' a few odd lives more or less don't matter—not a single damn. Keep your eye on the bleed'n' glory! They'll 'ave photos of you in the papers, all the broken bits in a 'eap, fac-similiar as found on the spot. Wot a comfort that'll be!"

But the doomed creature was oblivious—prostrate—a swooning heap. They ran a piece ofclothes-line under his elbows, and pulled them together tight. They then hobbled his ankles, and took him among them through the alley and down the quiet street, singing and shouting their loudest as they went, in case he might sufficiently recover his powers to call for help. But he did not, and there in the shadow, at the foot of the great gasometer, they flung him down with a parting kick and a barbarous knock on the head, to keep him quiet for those few necessary moments. Then the murderous canister, bound with wire, was put in place; the extruding touch-paper was set going with a match; and the Red Cow Anarchists disappeared at a run, leaving their victim to his fate. Presently the policeman on that beat heard a sudden report from the neighborhood of the gas-works, and ran to see what it might mean.

The next morning Alfred Sotcher was charged at the Thames Police Court as a drunk and incapable. He had been found in a helpless state near the gas-works, and appeared to have been tied at the elbows and ankles by mischievous boys, who had also, it seemed, ignited a cracker near by where he lay. The divisional surgeon stated that he was called to the prisoner, and found him tearful and incoherent, and smelling strongly of drink. He complained of havingbeen assaulted in a public-house, but could give no intelligible account of himself. A canister found by his side appeared to contain a mixture of sand and castor oil, but prisoner could not explain how it came there. The magistrate fined him five shillings, with the alternative of seven days, and as he had no money he was removed to the cells.

ON THE STAIRS.

The house had been "genteel." When trade was prospering in the East End, and the ship-fitter or block-maker thought it no shame to live in the parish where his workshop lay, such a master had lived here. Now, it was a tall, solid, well-bricked, ugly house, grimy and paintless in the joinery, cracked and patched in the windows: where the front door stood open all day long; and the womankind sat on the steps, talking of sickness and deaths and the cost of things; and treacherous holes lurked in the carpet of road-soil on the stairs and in the passage. For when eight families live in a house, nobody buys a door-mat, and the street was one of those streets that are always muddy. It smelt, too, of many things, none of them pleasant (one was fried fish); but for all that it was not a slum.

Three flights up, a gaunt woman with bare forearms stayed on her way to listen at a door which, opening, let out a warm, fetid waft from a close sick-room. A bent and tottering oldwoman stood on the threshold, holding the door behind her.

"An' is 'e no better now, Mrs. Curtis?" the gaunt woman asked, with a nod at the opening.

The old woman shook her head, and pulled the door closer. Her jaw waggled loosely in her withered chaps: "Nor won't be; till 'e's gone." Then after a certain pause, "'E's goin'," she said.

"Don't doctor give no 'ope?"

"Lor' bless ye, I don't want to ast no doctors," Mrs. Curtis replied, with something not unlike a chuckle. "I've seed too many on 'em. The boy's a-goin', fast; I can see that. An' then"—she gave the handle another tug, and whispered—"he's been called." She nodded amain. "Three seprit knocks at the bed-head las' night; an' I know whatthatmeans!"

The gaunt woman raised her brows, and nodded. "Ah, well," she said, "we all on us comes to it some day, sooner or later. An' it's often a 'appy release."

The two looked into space beyond each other, the elder with a nod and a croak. Presently the other pursued, "'E's been a very good son, ain't 'e?"

"Ay, ay, well enough son to me," responded the old woman, a little peevishly; "an' I'll 'ave 'im put away decent, though there's on'y theUnion for me after. I can do that, thank Gawd!" she added, meditatively, as chin on fist she stared into the thickening dark over the stairs.

"When I lost my pore 'usband," said the gaunt woman, with a certain brightening, "I give 'im a 'ansome funeral. 'E was a Oddfeller, an' I got twelve pound. I 'ad a oak caufin an' a open 'earse. There was a kerridge for the fam'ly an' one for 'is mates—two 'orses each, an' feathers, an' mutes; an' it went the furthest way round to the cimitry. 'Wotever 'appens, Mrs. Manders,' says the undertaker, 'you'll feel as you're treated 'im proper; nobody can't reproach you over that.' An' they couldn't. 'E was a good 'usband to me, an' I buried 'im respectable."

The gaunt woman exulted. The old, old story of Manders's funeral fell upon the other one's ears with a freshened interest, and she mumbled her gums ruminantly. "Bob'll 'ave a 'ansome buryin', too," she said. "I can make it up, with the insurance money, an' this, an' that. On'y I dunno about mutes. It's a expense."

In the East End, when a woman has not enough money to buy a thing much desired, she does not say so in plain words; she says the thing is an "expense," or a "great expense."It means the same thing, but it sounds better. Mrs. Curtis had reckoned her resources, and found that mutes would be an "expense." At a cheap funeral mutes cost half-a-sovereign and their liquor. Mrs. Manders said as much.

"Yus, yus, 'arf-a-sovereign," the old woman assented. Within, the sick man feebly beat the floor with a stick. "I'm a-comin'," she cried shrilly; "yus, 'arf-a-sovereign, but it's a lot, an' I don't see 'ow I'm to do it—not at present." She reached for the door-handle again, but stopped and added, by after-thought, "Unless I don't 'ave no plooms."

"It 'ud be a pity not to 'ave plooms. I 'ad—"

There were footsteps on the stairs: then a stumble and a testy word. Mrs. Curtis peered over into the gathering dark. "Is it the doctor, sir?" she asked. It was the doctor's assistant; and Mrs. Manders tramped up to the next landing as the door of the sick-room took him in.

For five minutes the stairs were darker than ever. Then the assistant, a very young man, came out again, followed by the old woman with a candle. Mrs. Manders listened in the upper dark. "He's sinking fast," said the assistant. "Hemusthave a stimulant. Dr. Mansell ordered port wine. Where is it?" Mrs. Curtis mumbled dolorously. "I tell you hemusthaveit," he averred with unprofessional emphasis (his qualification was only a month old). "The man can't take solid food, and his strength must be kept up somehow. Another day may make all the difference. Is it because you can't afford it?" "It's a expense—sich a expense, doctor," the old woman pleaded. "An' wot with 'arf-pints o' milk an'—" She grew inarticulate, and mumbled dismally.

"But he must have it, Mrs. Curtis, if it's your last shilling: it's the only way. If you mean you absolutely haven't the money—" And he paused a little awkwardly. He was not a wealthy young man—wealthy young men do not devil for East End doctors—but he was conscious of a certain haul of sixpences at nap the night before; and, being inexperienced, he did not foresee the career of persecution whereon he was entering at his own expense and of his own motion. He produced five shillings: "If you absolutely haven't the money, why—take this and get a bottle—good: not at a public-house. But mind,at once. He should have had it before."

It would have interested him, as a matter of coincidence, to know that his principal had been guilty of the selfsame indiscretion—even the amount was identical—on that landing the day before. But, as Mrs. Curtis said nothingof this, he floundered down the stair and out into the wetter mud, pondering whether or not the beloved son of a Congregational minister might take full credit for a deed of charity on the proceeds of sixpenny nap. But Mrs. Curtis puffed her wrinkles, and shook her head sagaciously as she carried in her candle. From the room came a clink as of money falling into a teapot. And Mrs. Manders went about her business.

The door was shut, and the stair a pit of blackness. Twice a lodger passed down, and up and down, and still it did not open. Men and women walked on the lower flights, and out at the door, and in again. From the street a shout or a snatch of laughter floated up the pit. On the pavement footsteps rang crisper and fewer, and from the bottom passage there were sounds of stagger and sprawl. A demented old clock buzzed divers hours at random, and was rebuked every twenty minutes by the regular tread of a policeman on his beat. Finally, somebody shut the street-door with a great bang, and the street was muffled. A key turned inside the door on the landing, but that was all. A feeble light shone for hours along the crack below, and then went out. The crazy old clock went buzzing on, but nothing left that room all night. Nothing that opened the door....

When next the key turned, it was to Mrs. Manders's knock, in the full morning; and soon the two women came out on the landing together, Mrs. Curtis with a shapeless clump of bonnet. "Ah, 'e's a lovely corpse," said Mrs. Manders. "Like wax. So was my 'usband."

"I must be stirrin'," croaked the old woman, "an' go about the insurance an' the measurin' an' that. There's lots to do."

"Ah, there is. 'Oo are you goin' to 'ave,—Wilkins? I 'ad Wilkins. Better than Kedge,Ithink: Kedge's mutes dresses rusty, an' their trousis is frayed. If you was thinkin' of 'avin' mutes—"

"Yus, yus,"—with a palsied nodding,—"I'm a-goin' to 'ave mutes: I can do it respectable, thank Gawd!"

"And the plooms?"

"Ay, yus, and the plooms too. They ain't sich a great expense, after all."

SQUIRE NAPPER.

Bill Napper was a heavy man of something between thirty-five and forty. His moleskin trousers were strapped below the knees, and he wore his coat loose on his back, with the sleeves tied across his chest. The casual observer set him down a navvy, but Mrs. Napper punctiliously made it known that he was "in the paving"; which meant that he was a pavior. He lived in Canning Town, and was on a footpath job at West Ham (Allen was the contractor) when he won and began to wear the nickname "Squire."

Daily at the stroke of twelve from the neighboring church, Bill Napper's mates let drop rammer, trowel, spade, and pick, and turned toward a row of basins, tied in blue-and-red handkerchiefs, and accompanied of divers tin cans with smoky bottoms. Bill himself looked toward the street corner for the punctual Polly bearing his own dinner fresh and hot; for homewas not far, and Polly, being thirteen, had no school now.

One day Polly was nearly ten minutes late. Bill, at first impatient, grew savage, and thought wrathfully on the strap on its nail by the kitchen-dresser. But at the end of the ten minutes Polly came, bringing a letter as well as the basin-load of beef and cabbage. A young man had left it, she said, after asking many ill-mannered questions. The letter was addressed "W. Napper, Esq.," with a flourish; the words, "By hand," stood in the corner of the envelope; and on the flap at the back were the embossed characters "T. & N." These things Bill Napper noted several times over, as he turned the letter about in his hand.

"Seems to me you'll 'ave to open it after all," said one of Bill's mates; and he opened it, setting back his hat as a preparation to serious study. The letter was dated from Old Jewry, and ran thus:—

"ReB. Napperdeceased."Dear Sir,—We have a communication in this matter from our correspondents at Sydney, New South Wales, in respect to testamentary dispositions under which you benefit. We shall be obliged if you can make it convenient to callat this office any day except Saturday between two and four.—Your obedient servants,"Tims & Norton."

"ReB. Napperdeceased.

"Dear Sir,—We have a communication in this matter from our correspondents at Sydney, New South Wales, in respect to testamentary dispositions under which you benefit. We shall be obliged if you can make it convenient to callat this office any day except Saturday between two and four.—Your obedient servants,

"Tims & Norton."

The dinner hour had gone by before the full inner meaning had been wrested from this letter. "B. Napper deceased" Bill accepted, with a little assistance, as an announcement of the death of his brother Ben, who had gone to Australia nearly twenty years ago, and had been forgotten. "Testamentary dispositions" nobody would tackle with confidence, although its distinct suggestion of biblical study was duly remarked. "Benefit" was right enough, and led one of the younger men, after some thought, to the opinion that Bill Napper's brother might have left him something: a theory instantly accepted as the most probable, although some thought it foolish of him not to leave it direct instead of authorizing the interference of a lawyer, who would want to do Bill out of it.

Bill Napper put up his tools and went home. There the missis put an end to doubt by repeating what the lawyer's clerk said: which was nothing more definite than that Bill had been "left a bit"; and the clerk only acknowledged so much when he had satisfied himself, by sinuous questionings, that he had found the real legatee. He further advised the bringing of certainevidence on the visit to the office. Thus it was plain that the Napper fortunes were in good case, for, as "a bit" means money all the world over, the thing was clearly no worthless keepsake.

II.

On the afternoon of the next day, Bill Napper, in clean moleskins and black coat, made for Old Jewry. On mature consideration he had decided to go through it alone. There was not merely one lawyer, which would be bad enough, but two of them in a partnership; and to take the missis, whose intellects, being somewhat flighty, were quickly divertible by the palaver of which a lawyer was master, would be to distract and impede his own faculties. A male friend might not have been so bad, but Bill could not call to mind one quite cute enough to be of any use, and in any case such a friend would have to be paid for the loss of his day's work. Moreover, he might imagine himself to hold a sort of interest in the proceeds. So Bill Napper went alone.

Having waited the proper time without the bar in the clerk's office, he was shown into a room where a middle-aged man sat at awriting-table. There was no other lawyer to be seen. This was a stratagem for which Bill Napper was not prepared. He looked suspiciously about the room, but without discovering anything that looked like a hiding-place. Plainly there were two lawyers, because their names were on the door and on the letter itself; and the letter said we. Why one should hide it was hard to guess, unless it were to bear witness to some unguarded expression. Bill Napper resolved to speak little, and not loud.

The lawyer addressed him affably, inviting him to sit. Then he asked to see the papers that Bill had brought. These were an old testimonial reciting that Bill had been employed "with his brother Benjamin" as a boy in a brick-field, and had given satisfaction; a letter from a parish guardian, the son of an old employer of Bill's father, certifying that Bill was his father's son and his brother's brother; copies of the birth registry of both Bill and his brother, procured that morning; and a letter from Australia, the last word from Benjamin, dated eighteen years back. These Bill produced in succession, keeping a firm grip on each as he placed it beneath the lawyer's nose. The lawyer behaved somewhat testily under this restraint, but Bill knew better than to let the papers out of his possession, and would not be done.

When he had seen all, "Well, Mr. Napper," said the lawyer, rather snappishly (obviously he was balked), "these things seem all right, and with the inquiries I have already made I suppose I may proceed to pay you the money. It is a legacy of three hundred pounds. Your brother was married, and I believe his business and other property goes to his wife and children. The money is intact, the estate paying legacy duty and expenses. In cases of this sort there is sometimes an arrangement for the amount to be paid a little at a time as required; that, however, I judge, would not be an arrangement to please you. I hope, at any rate, you will be able to invest the money in a profitable way. I will draw a check."

Three hundred pounds was beyond Bill Napper's wildest dreams. But he would not be dazzled out of his caution. Presently the lawyer tore the check from the book, and pushed it across the table with another paper. He offered Bill a pen, pointing with his other hand at the bottom of the second paper, and saying, "This is the receipt. Sign just there, please."

Bill took up the check, but made no movement toward the pen. "Receipt?" he grunted softly; "receipt wot for? I ain't 'ad no money."

"There's the check in your hand—the same thing. It's an order to the bank to hand youthe amount—the usual way of paying money in business affairs. If you would rather have the money paid here, I can send a clerk to the bank to get it. Give me the check."

But again Bill was not to be done. The lawyer, finding him sharper than he expected, now wanted to get this tricky piece of paper back. So Bill only grinned at him, keeping a good hold of the check. The lawyer lost his temper. "Why, damn it," he said, "you're a curious person to deal with. D'ye want the money and the check too?"

He rang a bell twice, and a clerk appeared. "Mr. Dixon," said the lawyer, "I have given this person a check for three hundred pounds. Just take him round to the bank, and get it cashed. Let him sign the receipt at the bank. I suppose," he added, turning to Bill, "that you won't object to giving a receipt when you get the money, eh?"

Bill Napper, conscious of his victory, expressed his willingness to do the proper thing at the proper time, and went out with the clerk. At the bank there was little difficulty, except at the clerk's advice to take the money chiefly in notes, which instantly confirmed Bill in a determination to accept nothing but gold. When all was done, and the three hundred sovereigns, carefully counted over for the third and fourthtime, were stowed in small bags about his person, Bill, much relieved after his spell of watchfulness, insisted on standing the clerk a drink.

"Ah," he said, "all you City lawyers an' clurks are pretty bleed'n' sharp, I know, but you ain't done me, an'Idon't bear no malice. 'Ave wot you like—'ave wine or a six o' Irish—I ain't goin' to be stingy. I'm goin' to do it open an' free, I am, an' set a example to men o' property."

III.

Bill Napper went home in a hansom, ordering a barrel of beer on the way. One of the chief comforts of affluence is that you may have beer in by the barrel; for then Sundays and closing times vex not, and you have but to reach the length of your arm for another pot whenever moved thereunto. Nobody in Canning Town had beer by the barrel except the tradesmen, and for that Bill had long envied the man who kept shop. And now, at his first opportunity, he bought a barrel of thirty-six gallons.

Once home with the news, and Canning Town was ablaze. Bill Napper had come in for three thousand, thirty thousand, three hundredthousand—any number of thousands that were within the compass of the gossip's command of enumeration. Bill Napper was called "W. Napper, Esq."—he was to be knighted—he was a long-lost baronet—anything. Bill Napper came home in a hansom—a brougham—a state coach.

Mrs. Napper went that very evening to the Grove at Stratford to buy silk and satin, green, red, and yellow—cutting her neighbors dead, right and left. And by the next morning tradesmen had sent circulars and samples of goods. Mrs. Napper was for taking a proper position in society, and a house in a fashionable part—Barking Road, for instance, or even East India Road, Poplar; but Bill would none of such foolishness. He wasn't proud, and Canning Town was quite good enough for him. This much, though, he conceded: that the family should take a whole house of five rooms in the next street, instead of the two rooms and a cellule upstairs now rented.

That morning Bill lit his pipe, stuck his hands in his pockets, and strolled as far as his job. "Wayo, squire," shouted one of the men as he approached. "'Ere comes the bleed'n' toff," remarked another.

"'Tcheer, 'tcheer, mates," Bill responded, calmly complacent. "I'm a-goin' to wet it."And all the fourteen men left their paving for the beer-house close by. The foreman made some demur, but was helpless, and ended by coming himself. "Now then, gaffer," said Bill, "none o' your sulks. No one ain't a-goin' to stand out of a drink o' mine—unless 'e wants to fight. As for the job—damn the job! I'd buy up fifty jobs like that 'ere and not stop for the change. You send the guv'nor to me if'esays anythink: unnerstand? You send 'im tome." And he laid hands on the foreman, who was not a big man, and hauled him after the others.

They wetted it for two or three hours, from many quart pots. Then there appeared between the swing doors the wrathful face of the guv'nor.

The guv'nor's position was difficult. He was only a small master, and but a few years back had been a working mason. This deserted job was his first for the parish, and by contract he was bound to end it quickly under penalty. Moreover, he much desired something on account that week, and must stand well with the vestry. On the other hand, this was a time of strikes, and the air was electrical. Several large and successful movements had quickened a spirit of restlessness in the neighborhood, and no master was sure of his men. Some slight was fancied, something was not done as it shouldhave been done from the point of view of the workshop, and there was a strike, picketing, and bashing. Now, the worst thing that could have happened to the guv'nor at this moment was one of those tiny, unrecorded strikes that were bursting out weekly and daily about him, with the picketing of his two or three jobs. Furious, therefore, as he was, he dared not discharge every man on the spot. So he stood in the door, and said: "Look here, I won't stand this sort of thing—it's a damn robbery. I'll—"

"That's all right, ol' cock," roared Bill Napper, reaching toward the guv'nor. "You come 'an 'ave a tiddley. I'm a bleed'n' millionaire meself now, but I ain't proud. What, you won't?"—for the guv'nor, unenthusiastic, remained at the door. "You're a sulky old bleeder. These 'ere friends o' mine are 'avin' 'arf a day auf at my expense: unnerstand? My expense. I'm a-payin' for their time, if you dock 'em; an' I can giveyoua bob, me fine feller, if you're 'ard up. See?"

The guv'nor addressed himself to the foreman. "What's the meaning o' this, Walker?" he said. "What game d'ye call it?"

Bill Napper, whom a succession of pots had made uproarious, slapped the foreman violently on the shoulder. "This 'ere's the gaffer," heshouted. "'E's all right. 'E come 'ere 'cos 'e couldn't 'elp 'isself. I made 'im come, forcible. Don't you bear no spite agin' the gaffer, d'y' ear? 'E's my mate, is the gaffer; an' I could buy you up forty times, s'elp me—but I ain't proud. An' you're a bleed'n' gawblimy slackbaked...."

"Well," said the guv'nor to the assembled company, but still ignoring Bill, "don't you think there's been about enough of this?"

A few of the men glanced at one another, and one or two rose. "Awright, guv'nor," said one, "we're auf." And two more echoed, "Awright, guv'nor," and began to move away.

"Ah!" said Bill Napper, with disgust, as he turned to finish his pot, "you're a blasted nigger-driver, you are. An' a sulky beast," he added as he set the pot down. "Never mind," he pursued, "I'mawright, an' I ain't a 'arf-paid kerb-whacker no more, under you."

"You was a damn sight better kerb-whacker than you are a millionaire," the guv'nor retorted, feeling safer now that his men were getting back to work.

"None o' your lip," replied Bill, rising and reaching for a pipe-spill: "none o' your lip, you work'us stone-breaker." Then, turning with a sudden access of fury, "I'll knock yer face off, blimy!" he shouted, and raised his fist.

"Now, then, none o' that here, please," cried the landlord from behind the bar; unto whom Bill Napper, with all his wonted obedience in that quarter, answered only, "All right, guv'nor," and subsided.

Left alone, he soon followed the master-pavior and his men through the swing doors, and so went home. In his own street, observing two small boys in the prelusory stages of a fight, he put up sixpence by way of stakes, and supervised the battle from the seat afforded by a convenient window-sill. After that he bought a morning paper, and lay upon his bed to read it, with a pipe and a jug; for he was beginning a life of leisure and comfort, wherein every day should be a superior Sunday.

IV.

Thus far the outward and visible signs of the Napper wealth were these: the separate house; the barrel of beer; a piano—not bought as a musical instrument, but as one of the visible signs; a daily paper, also primarily a sign; the bonnets and dresses of the missis; and the perpetual possession of Bill Napper by a varying degree of fuddlement. An inward and dissembled sign was a regiment, continuallyreinforced, of mostly empty bottles, in a cupboard kept sacred by the missis. And the faculties of that good lady herself experienced a fluctuating confusion from causes not always made plain to Bill: for the money was kept in the bedroom chest of drawers, and it was easy to lay hands on a half-sovereign as required without unnecessary disturbance.

Now and again Bill Napper would discuss the abstract question of entering upon some investment or business pursuit. Land had its advantages; great advantages; and he had been told that it was very cheap just now, in some places. Houses were good, too, and a suitable possession for a man of consideration. Not so desirable on the whole, however, as Land. You bought your Land and—well there it was, and you could take things easily. But with Houses there was rent to collect, and repairs to see to, and so forth. It was a vastly paying thing for any man with capital to be a Merchant; but there was work even in that, and you had to be perpetually on guard against sharp chaps in the City. A public-house, suggested by one of his old mates on the occasion of wetting it, was out of the question. There was tick, and long hours, and a sharp look-out, and all kinds of trouble, which a man with money would be a fool to encounter. Altogether, perhaps, Landseemed to be the thing: although there was no need to bother now, and plenty of time to turn things over, even if the matter were worth pondering at all, when it was so easy for a man to live on his means. After all, to take your boots off, and lie on the bed with a pipe and a pot and the paper was very comfortable, and you could always stroll out and meet a mate, or bring him in when so disposed.

Of an evening the Albert Music Hall was close at hand, and the Queen's not very far away. And on Sundays and Saturday afternoons Bill would often take a turn down by the dock gates, or even in Victoria Park, or Mile End Waste, where there were speakers of all sorts. At the dock gates it was mostly Labor and Anarchy, but at the other places there was a fine variety; you could always be sure of a few minutes of Teetotalism, Evangelism, Atheism, Republicanism, Salvationism, Socialism, Anti-Vaccinationism, and Social Purity, with now and again some Mormonism or another curious exotic. Most of the speakers denounced something, and if the denunciations of one speaker were not sufficiently picturesque and lively, you passed on to the next. Indeed, you might always judge afar off where the best denouncing was going on by the size of the crowds, at least until the hat went round.

It was at Mile End Waste that a good notion occurred to Bill Napper. He had always vastly admired the denunciations of one speaker—a little man, shabbier, if anything, than most of the others, and surpassingly tempestuous of antic. He was an unattached orator, not confining himself to any particular creed, but denouncing whatever seemed advisable, considering the audience and circumstances. He was always denouncing something somewhere, and was ever in a crisis that demanded the circulation of a hat. Bill esteemed this speaker for his versatility as well as for the freshness of his abuse, and Bill's sudden notion was to engage him for private addresses.

The orator did not take kindly to the proposal at first, strongly suspecting something in the nature of "guy" or "kid"; but a serious assurance of a shilling for an occasional hour and the payment of one in advance brought him over. After this Squire Napper never troubled to go to Mile End Waste. He sat at ease in his parlor, with his pot on the piano, while the orator, with another pot on the mantelpiece, stood up and denounced to order. "Tip us the Teetotal an' Down-with-the-Public-'Ouse," Bill would request, and the orator (his name was Minns) would oblige in that line till most of the strong phrases had run out, and had begun to recur.Then Bill would say, "Now come the Rights o' Labor caper." Whereupon Minns would take a pull at the pot, and proceed to denounce Capital, Bill Napper applauding or groaning at the pauses provided for those purposes. And so on with whatever subjects appealed to the patron's fancy. It was a fancy that sometimes put the orator's invention to grievous straits; but for Bill the whole performance was peculiarly privileged and dignified. For to have an orator gesticulating and speechifying all to one's self, on one's own order and choice of subject, is a thing not given to all men.

One day Minns turned up (not having been invited) with a friend. Bill did not take to the friend. He was a lank-jawed man with a shifty eye, who smiled as he spoke, and showed a top row of irregular and dirty teeth. This friend, Minns explained, was a journalist—a writer of newspapers; and between them they had an idea, which idea the friend set forth. Everybody, he said, who knew the history of Mr. Napper admired his sturdy independence and democratic simplicity. He was of the people and not ashamed of it. ("Well, no, I ain't proud," Bill interjected, wondering what was coming.) With all the advantages of wealth, he preferred to remain one of the people, living among them plainly, conforming to their simplehabits, and sympathizing with their sorrows. ("This chap," thought Bill, "wants to be took on to hold forth turn about with the other, and he's showing his capers; but I ain't on it.") It was the knowledge of these things, so greatly to Mr. Napper's honor, that had induced Minns and Minns's friend to place before him a means by which he might do the cause of toiling humanity a very great service. A new weekly paper was wanted—wanted very badly: a paper that should rear its head on behalf of the downtrodden toilers, and make its mighty voice heard with dread by the bloated circles of Class and Privilege. That paper would prove a marvellously paying investment to its proprietor, bringing him enormous profits every week. He would have a vast fortune in that paper alone, besides the glory and satisfaction of striking the great blow that should pave the way to the emancipation of the Masses and the destruction of the vile system of society whose whole and sole effect was the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the Grasping Few. Being professionally disengaged at present, he (the speaker), in conjunction with his friend Minns, had decided to give Mr. Napper the opportunity of becoming its proprietor.

Bill was more than surprised: he was also a little bewildered. "What," he said, after twodraws of his pipe, "d'ye mean you want me to go in the printin' line?"

That was not at all necessary. The printing would be done by contract. Mr. Napper would only have to find the money. The paper, with a couple of thousand pounds behind it—or even one thousand (Minns's friend read a difficulty in Bill's face)—would be established forever. Even five hundred would do, and many successful papers had been floated with no more than a couple of hundred or so. Suppose they said just a couple of hundred to go on with, till the paper found its legs and began to pay? How would that do?

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