became grimly speculative.

Copious dinner at noon for Jacob; but little dinner, because little
appetite, for David. Instead of eating, he plied Jacob with beer; for
through this liberality he descried a hope. Jacob fell into a dead
sleep, at last, without having his arms round David, who paid the
reckoning, took his bundle, and walked off. In another half-hour he was
on the coach on his way to Liverpool, smiling the smile of the triumphant
wicked. He was rid of Jacob--he was bound for the Indies, where a
gullible princess awaited him. He would never steal any more, but there
would be no need; he would show himself so deserving, that people would
make him presents freely. He must give up the notion of his father's
legacy; but it was not likely he would ever want that trifle; and even if
he did--why, it was a compensation to think that in being for ever
divided from his family he was divided from Jacob, more terrible than
Gorgon or Demogorgon to David's timid green eyes. Thank heaven, he
should never see Jacob any more!

CHAPTER II

It was nearly six years after the departure of Mr. David Faux for the
West Indies, that the vacant shop in the market-place at Grimworth was
understood to have been let to the stranger with a sallow complexion and
a buff cravat, whose first appearance had caused some excitement in the
bar of the Woolpack, where he had called to wait for the coach.

Grimworth, to a discerning eye, was a good place to set up shopkeeping
in. There was no competition in it at present; the Church-people had
their own grocer and draper; the Dissenters had theirs; and the two or
three butchers found a ready market for their joints without strict
reference to religious persuasion--except that the rector's wife had
given a general order for the veal sweet-breads and the mutton kidneys,
while Mr. Rodd, the Baptist minister, had requested that, so far as was
compatible with the fair accommodation of other customers, the sheep's
trotters might be reserved for him. And it was likely to be a growing
place, for the trustees of Mr. Zephaniah Crypt's Charity, under the
stimulus of a late visitation by commissioners, were beginning to apply
long-accumulating funds to the rebuilding of the Yellow Coat School,
which was henceforth to be carried forward on a greatly-extended scale,
the testator having left no restrictions concerning the curriculum, but
only concerning the coat.

The shopkeepers at Grimworth