I can only repeat that
the truest kindness is only to refuse assistance. I assure you it is. The
circumstances forbid it. Clearly, what you have to do is to call together
your creditors, and arrive at an understanding. It is my principle never to
try to prop up a hopeless concern such as yours evidently is. Good day to
you, Mr. Humplebee; good day.'

A year later several things had happened. Mr. Humplebee was dead; his
penniless widow had gone to live in another town on the charity of poor
relatives, and Harry Humplebee sat in another office, drawing the salary at
which he had begun under Mr. Chadwick, his home a wretched bedroom in the
house of working-folk.

It did not appear to the lad that he had suffered any injustice. He knew
his own inaptitude for the higher kind of office work, and he had expected
his dismissal by Mr. Chadwick long before it came. What he did resent, and
profoundly, was Mr. Chadwick's refusal to aid his father in that last
death-grapple with ruinous circumstance. At the worst moment Harry wrote a
letter to Leonard Chadwick, whom he had never seen since he left school. He
told in simple terms the position of his family, and, without a word of
justifying reminiscence, asked his schoolfellow to help them if he could.
To this letter a reply came from London. Leonard Chadwick wrote briefly and
hurriedly, but in good-natured terms; he was really very sorry indeed that
he could do so little; the fact was, just now he stood on anything but good
terms with his father, who kept him abominably short of cash. He enclosed
five pounds, and, if possible, would soon send more.

'Don't suppose I have forgotten what I owe you. As soon as ever I find
myself in an independent position you shall have substantial proof of my
enduring gratitude. Keep me informed of your address.'

Humplebee made no second application, and Leonard Chadwick did not again
break silence.

The years flowed on. At five-and-twenty Humplebee toiled in the same
office, but he could congratulate himself on a certain progress; by dogged
resolve he had acquired something like efficiency in the duties of a
commercial clerk, and the salary he now earned allowed him to contribute to
the support of his mother. More or less reconciled to the day's labour, he
had resumed in leisure hours his favourite study; a free library supplied
him with useful books, and whenever it was possible he went his way into
the fields, searching, collecting, observing