a coat, mark you,[23] Bessie!—points to the door, and says that I'm not to be served again. Some talk of a score—of a paltry sum that should have been paid long since."

[23]

There was silence between them for a minute; it seemed as if, in the gathering darkness, the petty record of the years was being told over between them—so much to this account, and so much to that. The man in the shabby frock-coat seemed to shrink and dwindle—to fall away from what he would have appeared in her eyes, and to be the mean thing he really was. When presently he went on with his tale, it was as though he sought for excuses for himself, and blamed her in so doing.

"That place was in a sense my last refuge; I held a position there I hold nowhere else now. When the cares of the world pressed upon me more than usual, I was able to turn there; I had my seat in a special corner—and I was respected. It was known always and everywhere as 'Mr. Meggison's place'; and only once in all the years has it been usurped—and then the man was drunk. He was very properly turned out at once, of course, and made to understand the enormity of his offence. And now—now, Bessie"—he turned to the girl, and feebly smote the crazy table with his fist—"now they tell me I am not to go there again—they turn me out; I heard them laugh when the door banged behind me. Oh—a bitter world—a very bitter world, Bessie!"

In all that he said she knew that there was an implied reproach for herself. For if Bessie Meggison had but passed into his hands certain shillings,[24] this might never have happened; he might still have held up his head at the Arcadia Arms—still have filled his old seat in a corner—still have called like a man for his glass to be filled. In that Bessie had failed; and she knew it now.

[24]

"We have had a hard time, father," she said, dropping a light hand on the fist with which he was beating the table. "People don't come and take the lodgings as they used to do; the things are getting so poor and shabby that perhaps the more fashionable young men don't like it. I try hard, father—but every shilling seems to be so important."

"My dear Bessie, I am not aware that I have blamed you," he said a little coldly, as he withdrew his hand and turned away his head. "Time was when Fortune smiled upon me, and I was able to do work that brought in money; that time is long since past. In a fashion, I may be said to have retired; I am no longer actively engaged in 

 Prev. P 16/209 next