trial. The old woman had lived amongst all her property. She had eaten
and drunk and slept amidst the dirty rags of Eastthorpe, but Mike could
not. Fortunately the cottage was at the end of the alley. One window
looked out on it, but the door was in a kind of indentation in it round
the corner. On the right-hand side of the door was the room looking into
the alley, and this Mike made his shop; on the left was a little cupboard
of a living-room. He kept the shop window open, so that no customer came
through the doorway, and he begged some scarlet geranium cuttings, which,
in due time, bloomed into brilliant colour on his sitting-room window-
sill, proclaiming that from their possessor hope and delight in life had
not departed. Alas! the enterprise was a failure. Mike was no hand at
driving hard bargains, and frequently, when the Jew from Cambridge came
round to sweep up what Mike had been unable to sell in the town, he found
himself the worse for his purchases. The unscalable wall was again in
front of him, and his foe at his heels, closer than before, and raging
for his blood. He had gone out one morning, Tom leading him, and was
passing the bank, when the cashier ran out. Miss Foster, one of the
maiden ladies who, it will be remembered, lived in the Abbey Close, had
left a sovereign on the counter, and the cashier was exceedingly anxious
to show his zeal by promptly returning it, for Miss Foster, it will also
be remembered, was a daughter of a former partner in the bank, and still,
as it was supposed, retained some interest in it. She had gone too far,
however, and the cashier could not venture to leave his post and follow
her. Knowing Mike and Tom perfectly well, he asked Mike to take the
sovereign at once to the lady. He promptly obeyed, and was in time to
restore it to its owner before it was missed. She was not particularly
sensitive, but the sight of Mike and Tom standing at the hall entrance
rather touched her, and she rewarded them with a shilling. She was also
pleased to inquire how Mike was getting on, and he briefly told her he
did not get on in any way, save as the most unsuccessful happily get on,
and so at last terminate their perplexities. Miss Foster, although well-
to-do, kept neither footman nor page, and a thought struck her. She
abhorred male servants, but it was very often inconvenient to send her
maids on errands. She therefore suggested to Mike that, if he and Tom
could station t