taining man--a
man whom one feels all the better for talking to, and who naturally sets
every guest in his house at ease. They talked much about Charlie and
his prospects. They even consulted Tom as to the wisdom of yielding to
the boy's desire for a military career, and Tom strongly supported the
idea.

Then Tom's own prospects were canvassed and highly approved of by both
Mr, and Mrs Newcome.

Tom already pictured himself settled down in his country practice,
enjoying himself, doing good to others, and laying by a comfortable
competency for future years. On the whole, he felt, as he quitted the
hospitable roof of his genial friends, that he had rarely spent a more
pleasant or profitable evening.

People were thronging out of the theatre as he returned, and he could
not resist the desire to stand and watch them; for a little. He
wondered what they had seen, and whether those he saw had waited for the
"farce," or was that still going on?--and he wondered if any people ever
went into a theatre at so late an hour as eleven.

Ah, Tom! he did not go in that night, or the next, but he was getting
himself ready for the first step.

Reader, do not mistake Tom's weakness and folly. He was not trying to
persuade himself this place was a good one for him to enter; he was not
thoughtlessly going in to discover too late that he had better have
stayed out. No, Tom--rightly or wrongly--had made up his own mind that
this theatre was a bad place, and _yet_ he had a desire to enter in!

CHAPTER TWELVE.

HOW TOM DRIFT BEGINS TO GO DOWNHILL.

Time went on, and Tom Drift advanced inch by inch nearer the brink. He
slipped, not without many an effort to recover himself, many a pang of
self-reproach, many a vague hope of deliverance.

"Be good to Tom Drift!" was ever ringing in my ears. But what could I
do? He often neglected me for days. All I could do was to watch and
tremble for what was coming.

You who are so ready to call Tom a fool, and hug yourselves that you
have more strength of character and resolution than he had, try to
realise what were his perils and what were his temptations at that time,
before you pass judgment.

The dulness of those lodgings in Grime Street was often almost
unbearable. When his work was done, and Tom looked out of the window
and saw nothing but carts and cabs and tradesmen, and the dismal houses
opposite, what wonder if he sometimes felt miserable? When he heard
nothing but pa