"'Sall right, mother,' said Ernie, and whirled my uncle violently from the hearthrug to the bottom of the staircase. Then he shifted his grip from my uncle's wrist to the seat of his tight black trousers and partly lifted and partly impelled him up the staircase. My uncle's arms waved wildly as if he clutched at his lost dignity.
"'John!' cried my mother. ''Ere's your 'at!'
"I had a glimpse of my uncle's eye as he vanished up the staircase. He seemed to be looking for his hat. But he was now offering no serious opposition to my brother Ernest's handling of him.
"'Give it 'im, 'Arry,' said my mother. 'And there's 'is gloves too.'
"I took the black hat and the black gloves and followed the struggle upstairs. Astonished and unresisting, my uncle was propelled through the front door into the street and stood there panting and regarding my brother. His collar was torn from its stud and his black tie disarranged. Ernest was breathing heavily. 'Now you be orf and mind your own business,' said Ernie.
"Ernie turned with a start as I pushed past him. ''Ere's your 'at and gloves, uncle,' I said, handing them to him. He took them mechanically, his eyes still fixed on Ernest.
"'And you're the boy I trained to be 'onest,' said my uncle to my brother Ernest, very bitterly. 'Leastways I tried to. You're the young worm I fattened up at my gardens and showed such kindness to! Gratitood!'
"He regarded the hat in his hand for a moment as though it was some strange object, and then by a happy inspiration put it on his head.
"'God 'elp your poor mother,' said my Uncle John Julip. 'God 'elp 'er.'
"He had nothing more to say. He looked up the street and down and then turned as by a sort of necessity in the direction of the Wellington public-house. And in this manner was my Uncle John Julip on the day of my father's funeral cast forth into the streets of Cherry Gardens, a prospective widower and a most pathetic and unhappy little man. That dingy little black figure in retreat still haunts my memory. Even from the back he looked amazed. Never did a man who has not been kicked look so like a man who has been. I never saw him again. I have no doubt that he carried his sorrows down to the Wellington and got himself thoroughly drunk, and I have as little doubt that he missed my father dreadfully all the time he was doing so.