A weary-looking man with hollow eyes and nervously-twitching fingers found himself pushed before the desk. He seemed at first embarrassed and half dazed. Brooks waited without any sign of impatience. When at last he spoke, it was without the slightest trace of any Cockney accent.

"I--I beg your pardon, sir! I ought not perhaps to intrude here, but I don't know who needs help more than I do."

"He's orl right, sir," sung out the costermonger. "He is a bit queer in the 'ead, but he's a scholar, and fair on his uppers. Speak up, Joe."

"You see, my friends are willing to give me a character, sir," the man remarked, with a ghost of a smile. "My name is Edward Owston. I was clerk at a large drapery firm, Messrs. Appleby, Sons, and Dawson, in St. Paul's Churchyard, for fourteen years. I have a verified character from them. They were obliged to cult down their staff, owing to foreign competition, and--I have never succeeded--in obtaining another situation. There is nothing against me, sir. I would have worked for fifteen shillings a week. I walked the streets till my boots were worn through and my clothes hung around me like rags. It was bad luck at first--afterwards it was my clothes. I have been selling matches for a month it has brought me in two shillings a week."

"How old are you?" Brooks asked. "Thirty-four, sir." Brooks nearly dropped his pen.

"What?" he exclaimed.

"Thirty-four, sir. It is four years since I lost my situation."

The man's hair was grey, a little stubbly grey beard was jutting out from his chin. His eyes were almost lost in deep hollows. Brooks felt a lump in his throat, and for a moment pretended to be writing busily.

Then he looked up.

"We shall give you a fresh start in life, Edward Owston," he said.

"Follow this gentleman at my left. He will find you clothes and food.

To-morrow you will go to a cottage which belongs to us at Hastings for one month. Afterwards, if your story is true, we shall find you a suitable situation--if it is partially true, we shall still find you something to do. If it is altogether false we cannot help you, for absolute truth in answering our questions is the only condition we impose." The man never uttered a word. He went out leaning upon the arm of one of Brooks' assistants. Another, who was a doctor, after a glance into the man's face, followed them. When he returned, after about twenty minutes' absence, he leaned forward and whispered in Brooks' ear "You'll never have to find a situation for that poor fellow. A month's about all he's good for." Brooks looked round shocked. "What is it--drink?" he asked. The doctor shook his head.

"Not a trace of it. Starvation and exhaustion. If I hadn't been with him just now he'd have been dead before this. He fainted away."

Brooks half closed his eyes.

"It is horrible!" he murmured.

The costermonger was next. Brooks looked around the room and at the clock.

"Look here," he said. "If I sit here till tomorrow I can't possibly attend to all of you. I tell you what I'll do. If you others will give place to those whose cases are really urgent, I'll be here at seven to-morrow morning till seven at night, and the next day too, if necessary. It's no good deputing any one else to tell me, because however many branches we open--and I hope we shall open a great many--I mean to manage this one myself, and I must know you all personally.

Now are you all agreeable?"

"I am for one," declared the costermonger, moving away from before the desk. "I ain't in no 'urry. I've 'ad a bit o' bad luck wi' my barrer, all owing to a plaguing drunken old omnibus-driver, and horl I want is a bit o' help towards the security. Josh Auk wants it before he'll let me out a new one. Tomorrow's horl right for me."

"Well, I expect we'll manage that," Brooks remarked. "Now where are the urgent cases?"

One by one they were elbowed forward. Brooks' pen flew across the paper. It was midnight even then before they had finished. Brooks and Mary Scott left together. They were both too exhausted for words.

As they crossed the street Mary suddenly touched his arm.

"Look!" she whispered.

A girl was leaning up against the wall, her face buried in her hands, sobbing bitterly. They both watched her for a moment. It was Amy Hardinge.

"I will go and speak to her," Mary whispered.

Brooks drew her away.

"Not one word, even of advice," he said. "Let us keep to our principles. The end will be surer."

They turned the corner of the street. Above the shouting of an angry woman and the crazy song of a drunken man the girl's sobs still lingered in their ears.

CHAPTER VIII

MR. BULLSOM IS STAGGERED

Mr. Bullsom looked up from his letters With an air of satisfaction.

"Company to dinner, Mrs. Bullsom!" he declared. "Some more of your silly old directors, I suppose," said Selina, discontentedly. "What a nuisance they are."

Mr. Bullsom frowned.

"My silly old directors, as you call 'em," he answered, "may not be exactly up to your idea of refinement, but I wouldn't call 'em names if I were you. They've made me one of the richest men in Medchester."

"A lot we get out of it," Louise grunted, discontentedly.

"You get as much as you deserve," Mr. Bullsom retorted. "Besides, you're so plaguing impatient. You don't hear your mother talk like that."

Selina whispered something under her breath which Mr. Bullsom, if he heard, chose to ignore.

"I've explained to you all before," he continued, "that up to the end of last year we've been holding the entire property--over a million pounds'

worth, between five of us. Our time's come now. Now, look here--I'll listen to what you've got to say--all of you. Supposing I've made up my mind to launch out. How do you want to do it? You first, mother."

Mrs. Bullsom looked worried.

"My dear Peter," she said, "I think we're very comfortable as we are. A larger household means more care, and a man-servant about the place is a thing I could never abide. If you felt like taking sittings at Mr.

Thompson's as well as our own chapel, so that we could go there when we felt we needed a change, I think I should like it sometimes. But it seems a waste of good money with Sundays only coming once in seven days."

Mr. Bullsom shook with good-humoured laughter.

"Mother, mother," he said, "we shall never smarten you up, shall we, girls? Now, what do you say, Selina?"

"I should like a country house quite ten on fifteen miles away from here, lots of horses and carriages, and a house in town for the season,"

Selina declared, boldly.

"And you, Louise?"

"I should like what Selina has said."

Mr. Bullsom looked a little grave.

"The house in London," he said, "you shall have, whether I buy it or only hire it for a few months at a time. If we haven't friends up there, there are always the theatres and music-halls, and lots going on.

But a country house is a bit different. I thought of building a place up at Nicholson's Corner, where the trains stop. The land belongs to me, and there's room for the biggest house in Medchester."

Selina tossed her head.

"Of course," she said, "if we have to spend all our lives in this hateful suburb it doesn't much matter whether you stay here on build another house, no one will come to see us. We shall never get to know anybody."