one and fourpence. Abatements
there were none, and families supporting life on two pounds a week
might in some cases, perchance, be reconciled to the mulct by
considering how equitably its incidence was graduated.

Some, on the other hand, were less philosophical; for instance, the
household consisting of Nicholas Peak, his wife, their three-year-old
daughter, their newly-born son, and a blind sister of Nicholas,
dependent upon him for sustenance. Mr. Peak, aged thirty and now four
years wedded, had a small cottage on the outskirts of Greenwich. He was
employed as dispenser, at a salary of thirty-five shillings a week, by
a medical man with a large practice. His income, therefore, fell
considerably within the hundred pound limit; and, all things
considered, it was not unreasonable that he should be allowed to expend
the whole of this sum on domestic necessities. But it came to pass that
Nicholas, in his greed of wealth, obtained supplementary employment,
which benefited him to the extent of a yearly ten pounds. Called upon
to render his statement to the surveyor of income-tax, he declared
himself in possession of a hundred and one pounds per annum;
consequently, he stood indebted to the Exchequer in the sum of four
pounds, sixteen shillings, and ninepence. His countenance darkened, as
also did that of Mrs. Peak.

'This is wrong and cruel--dreadfully cruel!' cried the latter, with
tears in her eyes.

'It is; but that's no new thing,' was the bitter reply.

'I think it's wrong of _you_, Nicholas. What need is there to say
anything about that ten pounds? It's taking the food out of our mouths.'

Knowing only the letter of the law, Mr. Peak answered sternly:

'My income is a hundred and one pounds. I can't sign my name to a lie.'

Picture the man. Tall, gaunt, with sharp intellectual features, and
eyes of singular beauty, the face of an enthusiast--under given
circumstances, of a hero. Poorly clad, of course, but with rigorous
self-respect; his boots polished, _propria manu_, to the point of
perfection; his linen washed and ironed by the indefatigable wife. Of
simplest tastes, of most frugal habits, a few books the only luxury
which he deemed indispensable; yet a most difficult man to live with,
for to him applied precisely the description which Robert Burns gave of
his own father; he was 'of stubborn, ungainly integrity and headlong
irascibility'.

Ungainly, for his strong impulses towards culture were powerless