en to get
changed, and no one would change it. What a night!

When he woke his brain was heavy as lead; but his meditations were very
lucid. Pray, what did he mean by that insane outlay of money, which he
could not possibly afford, on a new (and detestable) pair of boots? The old
would have lasted, at all events, till winter began. What was in his mind
when he entered the shop? Did he intend...? Merciful powers!

Mr. Tymperley was not much of a psychologist. But all at once he saw with
awful perspicacity the moral crisis through which he had been living. And
it taught him one more truth on the subject of poverty.

Immediately after his breakfast he went downstairs and tapped at the door
of Mr. Suggs' sitting-room.

'What is it?' asked the bookbinder, who was eating his fourth large rasher,
and spoke with his mouth full.

'Sir, I beg leave of absence for an hour or two this morning. Business of
some moment demands my attention.'

Mr. Suggs answered, with the grace natural to his order, 'I s'pose you can
do as you like. I don't pay you nothing.'

The other bowed and withdrew.

Two days later he again penned a letter to Mrs. Weare. It ran thus:--

'The money which you so kindly sent, and which I have already
acknowledged, has now been distributed. To ensure a proper use of it,
I handed the cheque, with clear instructions, to a clergyman in this
neighbourhood, who has been so good as to jot down, on the sheet
enclosed, a memorandum of his beneficiaries, which I trust will be
satisfactory and gratifying to you.

'But why, you will ask, did I have recourse to a clergyman. Why did I
not use my own experience, and give myself the pleasure of helping
poor souls in whom I have a personal interest--I who have devoted my
life to this mission of mercy?

'The answer is brief and plain. I have lied to you.

'I am _not_ living in this place of my free will. I am _not_
devoting myself to works of charity. I am--no, no, I was--merely a
poor gentleman, who, on a certain day, found that he had wasted his
substance in a foolish speculation, and who, ashamed to take his
friends into his confidence, fled to a life of miserable obscurity.
You see that I have added disgrace to misfortune. I will not tell you
how very near I came to something still worse.

'I have been serving an apprenticeship to a certain handicraft which
will, I doubt not, enable me