"It is not the work I am thinking of—it is the—— Do you remember what I said the last time I saw you?"
"Perfectly—about your fellow-creatures, was it not? My dear Harry, it seems to me as if our fellow-men get on very well in their own way without our interference."
"Yes—that is to say, no. They are all getting on as badly as possible; and somehow I want, before I go away, to find out what it is they want. They don't know; and how they should set about getting it—if it is to be got—as I think it is. You will not think me a prig, sir?"
"You will never be a prig, Harry, under any circumstances. Does, then, the lady of your worship approve of this?—this study of humanity?"
"Perfectly—if this lady did not approve of it, I should not be engaged upon it."
"Harry, will you take me to see this goddess of Stepney Green—it is there, I believe, that she resides?"
"Yes; I would rather not. Yet (the young man hesitated for a moment)—Miss Kennedy thinks that I have always been a working-man. I would not undeceive her yet. I would rather she did not know that I have given up, for her sake, such a man as you, and such companionship as yours."
He held out both his hands to his guardian, and his eyes for a moment were dim.
Lord Jocelyn made no reply for a moment—then he cleared his throat and said he must go; asked Harry rather piteously could he do nothing for him at all? and made slowly for the door. The clerk who received the distinguished visitor was standing at the door of the office, waiting for another glimpse of the noble and illustrious personage. Presently he came back and reported that his lordship had crossed the yard on the arm of the young man called Goslett, and that on parting with him he had shaken him by the hand, and called him "my boy." Whereat many marvelled, and the thing was a stumbling-block; but Josephus said it was not at all unusual for members of his family to be singled out by the great for high positions of trust; that his own father had been churchwarden of Stepney, and he was a far-off cousin of Miss Messenger's; and that he could himself have been by this time superintendent of his Sunday-school if it had not been for his misfortunes. Presently the thing was told to the chief accountant, who told it to the chief brewer; and if there had been a chief baker one knows not what would have happened.