said Fred, slowly gathering
himself off the sofa. "You're a pretty fellow to speak, you are--that
wouldn't lend a fellow a shilling to keep him from ruin. You had better
remember where you are--in--in--as Susan says--my own house."

What outbreak of contempt might have come from the doctor's lips was
fortunately lost at that moment, since a louder outcry than usual from
outside, the screams of the children, and the wailings of the landlady,
at length roused the mother to the length of going to the door. When
she was gone the two brothers eyed each other threateningly. Fred, not
without a certain intolerable sensation of shame, rose to knock his pipe
upon the mantel-shelf among Nettie's pretty girlish ornaments. Somehow
these aggravations of insult to her image drove Edward Rider desperate.
He laid his hand on Fred's shoulder and shook him violently.

"Wake up! can't you wake up and see what you're about?" cried the
doctor; "can't you show a little respect for her, at least? Look here,
Fred Rider. I knew you could do anything shabby or mean, if it suited
you. I knew you would consent to hang a burden on anybody that would
take such a weight upon them; but, by Jove, I did not think you had the
heart to insult her, after all. A man can't stand by and see that. Clear
off your pipe and your brandy before she comes, or, as sure as I am made
of flesh and blood, and not cast-iron----"

The doctor's threats were interrupted by the entrance of a woeful
procession. Into the presence of the two brothers, eyeing each other
with such lowering faces, Mrs Smith and her husband entered, carrying
between them, with solemn looks, the unconscious Freddy, while his
mother followed screaming, and his little brother and sister staring
open-mouthed. It was some relief to the doctor's feelings, in the
excitement of the moment, to rush to the window and throw it open,
admitting a gust of chill December air, penetrating enough to search to
the bones of the fireside loiterer. Fred was father enough to turn with
anxiety to the child. But his trembling nervous fingers and bemused eyes
could make nothing of the "case" thus so suddenly brought before him. He
turned fiercely and vacantly upon his wife and demanded why everything
was suffered to go to ruin when Nettie was away. Mrs Fred, screaming and
terrified, began to recriminate. The pallid figure of the child on the
table gave a certain air of squalid tragedy to the scene, to the sordid
miseries