He failed in business, and was unable to reëstablish himself. He obtained a situation as a clerk, but his intemperate habits unfitted him for his duties. If he could not take care of his own affairs, much less could he manage the affairs of another. He had become a confirmed sot, had sacrificed everything, and given himself up to the demon of the cup. He became a ragged, filthy drunkard; and as such, friends who had formerly honored him refused to recognize him, or to permit him to enter their counting-rooms. Just before the opening of our story, he had been arrested as a common drunkard; and it was even a relief to his poor wife to know that he was safely lodged in the House of Correction.
When Mrs. Wittleworth found she could no longer depend upon her natural protector, she went to work with her own hands, like an heroic woman, as she was. As soon as her son was old enough to be of any assistance to her, a place was found for him in a lawyer's office, where he received a couple of dollars a week. Her own health giving way under the drudgery of toil, to which she had never been accustomed, she was obliged to depend more and more upon Fitz, who, in the main, was not a bad boy, though his notions were not suited to the station in which he was compelled to walk. At last she was obliged to appeal to her brother-in-law, who gave Fitz his situation.
Fitz was rather "airy." He had a better opinion of himself than anybody else had—a vicious habit, which the world does not readily forgive. He wanted to dress himself up, and "swell" round among bigger men than himself. His mother was disappointed in him, and tried to teach him better things; but he believed that his mother was only a woman, and that he was wiser, and more skilful in worldly affairs, than she was. He paid her three dollars a week out of his salary of five dollars, and in doing this he believed that he discharged his whole duty to her.
Perhaps we ought again to apologize to Mr. Checkynshaw for leaving him so long in such a disagreeable place as the poor home of his first wife's sister; but he was seated before the cooking-stove, and the contemplation of poverty would do him no harm; so we shall not beg his pardon.
The banker looked around the room, at the meagre and mean furniture, and then at the woman herself; her who had once been the belle of the circle in which she moved, now clothed in the cheapest calico, her face pale and hollow from hard work and ceaseless anxiety. Perhaps he found it difficult to believe that she was the sister of his first wife.
"Where is Fitz?" asked he, in gruff accents.
"He has gone up in Summer Street. He will be back in a few minutes," replied Mrs. Wittleworth, as she seated herself opposite the banker, still fearing that some new calamity was about to overtake her.
"I want to see him," added Mr. Checkynshaw, in the most uncompromising tones.
"Fitz says you discharged him," continued the poor woman, heaving a deep sigh.
"I didn't; he discharged himself. I could not endure the puppy's impudence. But that is neither here nor there. I don't want to see him about that."