Mr Brande, “the new man,” as he was called, had found all this, and had been ready to despair again and again through the many years he had been trying to make a practice; but now the turning-point had come in the honours of Thomas Hardon, Esq, MD; not that he had reaped much present advantage, and it was doubtful if he would have had the practice at all if Doctor Hardon had not had immediate want for a hundred and fifty pounds, and, trusting to Mr Brande’s honour as a gentleman, offered to throw up the parish work on condition of receiving that sum, which Mr Brande gave him in bills, and, what was more, screwed, economised, and met them as they fell due. But Mrs Doctor Hardon did not know this, nor yet the extent of the liabilities her lord had incurred; while the deeper he sunk in that black, clinging mire of debt, the more reticent he grew.


Volume One—Chapter Eight.

Mr Pawley’s Performance.

“Such a beautiful, well-cut letter too!” said old Matt Space, as he stood looking at the empty type-rack from whence the cases had been taken to furnish money for Septimus Hardon’s present expenses. “In such good order too. Puts me in mind of being so low down that I had to sell my own stick. Fellow always seems so badly off when he gets selling his tools.”

A tap at the door, following the sound of wheels, interrupted the old man’s soliloquy, and going to the door he admitted the undertaker, who had just arrived with his shabby Shillibeer hearse and mourning-coach in one, with which he performed the economic funerals so frequent in his district.

“Here you are, then,” said old Matt, grimly surveying the new-comer.

“Yes, here we are,” said the undertaker, in a subdued, melancholy tone; and then he drew out a pocket-handkerchief and wiped his eye, as if to remove a tear—in fact, he did remove a tear—though not sorrow-shed, for Mr Pawley was in very good spirits just then; but he had an eye afflicted with a watery weakness which necessitated the constant application of a handkerchief, and this had passed with a certain class of people for the manifestation of sorrow for their griefs. Some said that this eye had been a little fortune to him. Perhaps it had, but doubtless the crowded courts clustering round Lincoln’s-inn had done more to keep up the incessant “rat-tat-tat-tat” heard in his shop, a sound as if grim Death were tapping with those bony fingers of his at the door.

“Such a feeling man!” said Mrs Sims, who was always at home upon such occasions as this, and had now come to mind Septimus Hardon’s boy, and help; “if she could be of service leastways, for it’s few berrins take place about here, mom, that they don’t send for me,” she said with a sniff, and the corner of her apron to her eye.