Reginald shrank from this greeting like a guilty being, and the two desolate boys were glad to escape further encounters by retreating to their carriage and ordering the coachman to drive home at once.

A few days disclosed all that was wanting to make their position quite clear. Mr Cruden's will confirmed Mr Richmond's statement as to the source of his income. All his money was invested in shares of the two ruined railways, and all he had to leave besides these was the furniture and contents of Garden Vale. Even this, when realised, would do little more than cover the debts which the next week or two brought to light.

It was pitiful the way in which that unrelenting tide of bills flowed in, swamping gradually the last hope of a competency, or even means of bare existence, for the survivors.

Neither Mrs Cruden nor her sons had been able to endure a day's delay at Garden Vale after the funeral, but had hurried for shelter to quiet lodgings at the seaside, kept by an old servant, where in an agony of suspense they awaited the final result of Mr Richmond's investigations.

It came at last, and, bad as it was, it was a comfort to know the worst.

The furniture, carriages, and other contents of Garden Vale had sufficed to pay all debts of every description, with a balance of about 350 remaining over and above, to represent the entire worldly possessions of the Cruden family, which only a month ago had ranked with the wealthiest in the county.

"So," said Mrs Cruden, with a shadow of her old smile, as she folded up the lawyer's letter and put it back in her pocket, "we know the worst at last, boys."

"Which is," said Reginald, bitterly, "we are worth among us the magnificent sum of sixteen pounds per annum. Quite princely!"

"Reg, dear," said his mother, "let us be thankful that we have anything, and still more that we may start life owing nothing to any one."

"Start life!" exclaimed Reginald; "I wish we could end it with--"

"Oh, hush, hush, my precious boy!" exclaimed the widow; "you will break my heart if you talk like that! Think how many there are to whom this little sum would seem a fortune. Why, it may keep a roof over our heads, at any rate, or help you into situations."

"Or bury us!" groaned Reginald.

The mother looked at her eldest son, half in pity, half in reproach, and then burst into tears.

Reginald sprang to her side in an instant.

"What a beast I am!" he exclaimed. "Oh, mother, do forgive me! I really didn't think what I was saying."

"No, dear Reggie, I know you didn't," said Mrs Cruden, recovering herself with a desperate effort. "You mustn't mind me, I--I scarcely-- know--I--"

It was no use trying. The poor mother broke down completely, and on that evening it was impossible to talk more about the future.

Next morning, however, all three were in a calmer mood, and Horace said at breakfast, "We can't do any good here, mother. Hadn't we better go to London?"

"I think so; and Parker here knows of a small furnished lodging in Dull Street, which she says is cheap. We might try there to begin with. Eh, Reg?"

Reginald winced, and then replied, "Oh, certainly; the sooner we get down to our right level the better."

That evening the three Crudens arrived in London.

CHAPTER THREE.

NUMBER SIX, DULL STREET.

Probably no London street ever rejoiced in a more expressive name than Dull Street. It was not a specially dirty street, or a specially disreputable street, or a specially dark street. The neighbourhood might a hundred years ago have been considered "genteel," and the houses even fashionable, and some audacious antiquarians went so far as to a.s.sert that the street took its name not from its general appearance at all, but from a worthy London alderman, who in the reign of George the First had owned most of the neighbouring property.

Be that as it may, Dull Street was--and for all I know may still be--one of the dullest streets in London. A universal seediness pervaded its houses from roof to cellar; nothing was as it should be anywhere. The window sashes had to be made air-tight by wedges of wood or paper stuck into the frames; a bell in Dull Street rarely sounded after less than six pulls; there was scarcely a sitting-room but had a crack in its grimy ceiling, or a handle off its ill-hung door, or a strip of wall- paper peeling off its walls. There were more chairs in the furnished apartments of Dull Street with three legs than there were with four, and there was scarcely horsehair enough in the twenty-four sofas of its twenty-four parlours to suffice for an equal quant.i.ty of bolsters.

In short, Dull Street was the shabbiest genteel street in the metropolis, and nothing could make it otherwise.

A well-built, tastefully-furnished house in the middle of it would have been as incongruous as a new patch in an old garment, and no one dreamt of disturbing the traditional aspect of the place by any attempt to repair or beautify it.

Indeed, the people who lived in Dull Street were as much a part of its dulness as the houses they inhabited. They were for the most part retired tradesmen, or decayed milliners, or broken-down Government clerks, most of whom tried to eke out their little pensions by letting part of their lodgings to others as decayed and broken-down as themselves.

These interesting colonists, whose one bond of sympathy was a mutual seediness, amused themselves, for the most part, by doing nothing all day long, except perhaps staring out of the window, in the remote hope of catching sight of a distant cab pa.s.sing the street corner, or watching to see how much milk their opposite neighbour took in, or reading the news of the week before last in a borrowed newspaper, or talking scandal of one neighbour to another.

"Jemima, my dear," said a middle-aged lady, who, with her son and daughter, was the proud occupant of Number 4, Dull Street--"Jemima, my dear, I see to-day the bill is hout of the winder of number six."

"Never!" replied Jemima, a sharp-looking young woman of twenty, who had once in her life spent a month at a ladies' boarding-school, and was therefore decidedly genteel. "I wonder who's coming."

"A party of three, so I hear from Miss Moulden's maid, which is niece to Mrs Grimley: a widow,"--here the speaker snuffled slightly--"and two childer--like me."

"Go on!" said Jemima. "Any more about them, ma?"

"Well, my dear, I do hear as they 'ave come down a bit."

"Oh, ah! lag!" put in the speaker's son, a lawyer's clerk in the receipt of two pounds a week, to whom this intelligence appeared particularly amusing; "we know all about that--never heard that sort of tale before, have we, ma? Oh no!" and the speaker emphasised the question by giving his widowed mother a smart dig in the ribs.

"For shame, Sam! don't be vulgar!" cried the worthy lady; "how many times have I told you?"

"All right, ma," replied the legal young gentleman; "but it is rather a wonner, you know. What were they before they came down?"

"Gentlefolk, so I'm told," replied the lady, drawing herself up at the very mention of the name; "and I hintend, and I 'ope my children will do the same, to treat them as fellow-creatures with hevery consideration."

"And how old is the babies, ma?" inquired Miss Jemima, whose gentility sometimes had the advantage of her grammar.

"The babies!" said the mother; "why, they're young gentlemen, both of 'em--old enough to be your sweethearts!"

Sam laughed profusely.

"Then what did you say they was babies for?" demanded Jemima, pettishly.

"I never!"

"You did, ma, I heard you! Didn't she, Sam?"

"So you did, ma. Come now, no crackers!" said Sam.

"I never; I said 'childer,'" pleaded the mother.

"And ain't babies childer?" thundered Miss Jemima.

"'Ad 'er there, Jim!" chuckled the dutiful Samuel, this time favouring his sister with a sympathetic nudge. "Better give in, and own you told a cracker, ma!"

"Shan't!" said the lady, beginning to whimper. "Oh, I wish my poor 'Oward was here to protect me! He was a gentleman, and I'm glad he didn't live to see what a pair of vulgar brats he'd left behind him, that I am!"

"There you go!" said Sam; "taking on at nothing, as per usual! No one was saying anything to hurt you, old girl. Simmer down, and you'll be all the better for it. There now, dry your eyes; it's all that Jim, she's got such a tongue! Next time I catch you using language to ma, Jim, I'll turn you out of the house! Come, cheer up, ma."