weather goes on there won't be much left o' me. I'm
a-goin' like the butter.'

'It's warmish, that's true,' said Luke, when she had finished her
laugh. 'I heard Mr. Boddy playing in there, and I've got a message for
him.'

'Come in and sit down. He's just practisin' a new piece for his club
to-night.'

Ackroyd advanced into the parlour. The table was spread for tea, and at
the tray sat Mrs. Bower's daughter, Mary. She was a girl of nineteen,
sparely made, and rather plain-featured, yet with a thoughtful,
interesting face. Her smile was brief, and always passed into an
expression of melancholy, which in its turn did not last long; for the
most part she seemed occupied with thoughts which lay on the borderland
between reflection and anxiety. Her dress was remarkably plain,
contrasting with her mother's, and her hair was arranged in the
simplest way.

In a round-backed chair at a distance from the table sat an old man
with a wooden leg, a fiddle on his knee. His face was parchmenty, his
cheeks sunken, his lips compressed into a long, straight line; his
small grey eyes had an anxious look, yet were ever ready to twinkle
into a smile. He wore a suit of black, preserved from sheer decay by a
needle too evidently unskilled. Wrapped about a scarcely visible collar
was a broad black neckcloth of the antique fashion; his one shoe was
cobbled into shapelessness. Mr. Boddy's spirit had proved more durable
than his garments. Often hard set to earn the few shillings a week that
sufficed to him, he kept up a long-standing reputation for joviality,
and, with the aid of his fiddle, made himself welcome at many a festive
gathering in Lambeth.

'Give Mr. Hackroyd a cup o' tea, Mary,' said Mrs. Bower. 'How you pore
men go about your work days like this is more than I can understand. I
haven't life enough in me to drive away a fly as settles on my nose.
It's all very well for you to laugh, Mr. Boddy. There's good in
everything, if we only see it, and you may thank the trouble you've had
as it's kep' your flesh down.'

Ackroyd addressed the old man.

'There's a friend of mine in Newport Street would be glad to have you
do a little job for him, Mr. Boddy. Two or three chairs, I think.'

Mr. Boddy held forth his stumpy, wrinkled hand.

'Give us a friendly grip, Mr. Ackroyd! There's never a friend in this
world but the man as finds you work; that's the philosophy as has come
o' my three-score-and-nine years. What's the name and add