The time came when they must leave school and begin work. They were now fifteen years of age, and tall lads, who might have passed for seventeen. There is a House in the City — Brimage and Waring’s — whose offices are situated in the square of Great St. Simon Apostle, where there is the Dutch Church, and at the London and the St. Katherine Docks. It is a House in the silk trade, which has a long and splendid history, and employs an immense quantity of clerks, workmen, porters, carters, and people of all kinds: and it has branches and agencies in the far East, and in France. The grey-headed men who draw large salaries, or have a share in the profits, have been in the House since they were boys. They entered as clerks, ambitious rising clerks. There are, also, grey-headed men who entered with them as clerks, without ambition, hopeless clerks, who began to copy letters and add up, and are doing the same thing still, and draw, some of them, as much as two
hundred pounds a year, and live at Stepney, or Pentonville, or,
it may be, happy Hoxton. Allen’s father began as an ambitious clerk in this House, but he went out of it and set up for himself, as do most ambitious clerks who love to be their own masters.

     
It was natural, therefore, that Allen’s mother should apply to
the partners of this House in her son’s behalf. They promised to, receive him, and they informed the widow that the boy should
be favourably looked after.

     
By good fortune, Will also got into the same Firm at the same time, so that the two boys, who had so long trudged together backwards and forwards to school, now went to the City and back by the same train, sat beside each other at the same desk, and took their dinners together for ninepence at the same luncheon-bar.

     
As for Tommy, he was, of course, taken into his uncle’s office. But on the evening before Allen’s duties began, his mother begged him to stay at home with her. She had something to tell him. She was a woman born to be comely, smiling, and contented, but fate had been against her. The memory of past misfortune and the pinch of present poverty had taken the sunshine out of her face, which was generally hard, except when her eyes fell upon the boy. For in him was her only hope. A daughter of the City, too, who knew of no other life for a man than to go off ‘to business’ every morning, and to make himself a position. What her husband had tried to do, her son would succeed in doing.

     
The thing she had to tell was so dreadful that, when she, began to tell it, she fell into passionate sobbing and crying, such as Allen had never seen before.

     
‘Why, mother,’ he said, ‘if it distresses you, do not tell me.’

     
‘It is about your father,’ she cried. ‘Oh! Allen — Allen — I must tell you about your father at last.’

     
‘But I know, mother, without your telling. He failed in business, and he died, and we have been very poor ever since. You see, I know. But never mind, I will make you rich again.’

     
‘No!’ she said, bursting into fresh tears. ‘There is a great deal more. The worst remains to be told. Listen, Allen. He had a partner — a man named Stephens — Engledew and Stephens was the Firm, with offices in Laburnum Court,
Threadneedle Street. I knew John Stephens before I knew

your father. Yes; I knew John when we mere boy and girl together, and before he became a bad man. Sometimes I think that he did it out of revenge when he did it, because he asked me once to marry him, and I refused. But he went on being friendly, and I never suspected — never. A bad man — a bad man.’

     
She paused and wiped her eyes.

     
‘Remember, Allen, always remember, that there never was any one like your father for honour and rectitude, which made it all the worse. And his only fault was that he believed other people to be as honourable as himself. As for his partner, he trusted him entirely; whatever Stephens told him he believed. And, oh! the things which that man told him.’

     
‘Go on, mother,’ said Allen gravely.

     
‘My dear, I have always intended to tell you about the wickedness of this man as a warning to you. But I cannot. You must guess his wickedness when you hear about other men, as you grow older. Whatever you hear of treachery and lies and wicked profligacy, remember that Stephens, your father’s partner, was worse. I think there never was, since the world
began, a man so horribly — so incredibly wicked.’ The poor woman’s experience of vice was, to be sure, confined to this one example, so that possibly there was some exaggeration. But Allen was not in a critical mood. He perceived that something had to be told him, much more painful than anything that had gone before. ‘One clay,’ his mother continued, ‘your father did not come home at his usual time. I waited for him till past nine o’clock. Then I was frightened, and I put on my things and took an omnibus to town to see if anything had happened. It was ten o’clock when I got to the City, and all the offices were closed, and the streets empty. But in my husband’s office the gas was burning, the door was unlocked, and I found him — oh! my dear husband! oh! my poor husband! — sitting at his
table with papers before him, and on his white face, as he lifted it when I opened the door, I saw despair.’

     
She hid her face in her hands. The tears ran clown Allen’s face, but he said nothing. What word of comfort could the boy find to say?

     
‘Without a word of warning, Allen, the blow had fallen. Stephens had run away, leaving a letter in which he confessed all. Your father was ruined.’

     
‘What had he — Stephens — done, mother?’

     
‘I do not know. That is, I knew once, because they told me. But I have forgotten, I know no longer. He had robbed all the money, he had borrowed more in the name of the Firm; everything was gone, credit as well as money. Your father’s good name was gone; no one, he said, would ever believe that he knew nothing of the frauds — think of the word fraud — the frauds perpetrated by his partner; ruin and disgrace were before him, very likely: most likely, he said, a criminal prosecution

and a prison. Think of that, Allen. Oh! boy, you have wondered why your mother never laughed; she can never laugh again because of that night. All these things he told me in a quiet, cold way, without any anger or any hope, so that I knew his heart was quite broken. Presently, it was then half-past eleven. he kissed me — oh! God of mercy, it was the last kiss he would ever give me, my dear — my good — my noble husband — and he bade me leave him, because he had much to do, and I must go home and think of the child. Who was I that I should disobey him at such a moment? Oh! I left him. I went home and I waited all night long beside your cradle, but he did not come home all night long — what a night!’ She stopped with a kind of spasm.

     
Allen sprang to his feet and began to walk up and down the room.

     
‘Mother! Go on. Tell me all.’

     
‘He never came home any more. They brought me a letter in the morning. He said that he could have borne poverty with me, but not shame. He could see no way of escape, he could find no means of proving that he knew nothing of the frauds which had been committed by his partner in his name. That he had written to everybody concerned stating the truth, and that as Heaven had taken from him what was dearer than life, he would give up that too, and he prayed that it might be forgiven him, and that God’s blessing would rest upon us, his wife and innocent boy. And then — Allen — Allen — he destroyed himself.’

     
She was silent. She had told all there was to tell.

     
‘Now you know, poor boy. It will not make you happier to know it. At the office where you go tomorrow everybody knows. Sir Charles knows about it. I suppose that all the village knows.’

     
‘Everybody, except me,’ said Allen bitterly.

     
‘And now you too know. But, Allen, there was a meeting of the creditors, and — and — the people who had been robbed. And they passed a resolution that they believed Mr. Engledew was free from any guilty knowledge in his partner’s frauds. And they offered a reward for John Stephens’s apprehension.’

     
‘And did they catch him?’

     
‘No! he was never heard of afterwards. We may suppose that he is dead. Something dreadful is sure to have happened to such a man. I hope,’ she added then, with a little hesitation, as if she was not quite satisfied with the honesty of her wish, ‘I hope that he repented before he died. But, no doubt,’ she cheered up a little, ‘he died unrepentant and went to his own place.’

     
Allen threw his arms about his mother’s neck and kissed her. Then he went out, put on his hat, and made for the forest. The evening was warm and light. As he passed the cottage he saw Claire in the garden alone. Her father, as usual, was hunting the common slug among the lettuces.

     
‘Claire,’ he whispered, ‘come with me.’

     
She ran out and took his hand. They ran together across the meadow beyond which the forest begins. When they came to the trees and were hidden among the branches, Allen stopped.

     
‘Oh, Claire,’ he cried, but his voice failed, and he burst
into cries and tears.

     
‘Allen, what is it? You are going into the City tomorrow to make your fortune, and you are not happy? Will was with us half an hour ago. He was full of delight.’

     
‘Claire, I want the earth to open and swallow me,’ said Allen. ‘I wish I had never been born. I wish I was dead.’

     
‘Please, Allen, tell me why.’

     
He told her, in as few words as he could find, the substance of his mother’s story.

     
‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘I have to go into the City and into the office where they all know me. They will say, “Is this the son of the man who was bankrupt, and who, because he might have been accused of dreadful things, killed himself?”’

     
‘Poor Allen!’ The girl was only thirteen years old, but she knew already the simple arts by which women become ministering angels. ‘Poor Allen! Do you think that any of the three or four who know will care to speak or to think of such a thing? As if it was your father’s fault! As if it was your fault! You may be proud of your father, Allen, not ashamed. I have heard Sir Charles say that there was no more honourable man in the City of London. Allen, dear, don’t cry, I have known — why, we have all known this all along, but no one thinks the worse of you for it. How can they? Come, let us go back to my father. Tell him that you are going into the City to-morrow for the first time — to make your fortune.’

     
‘I hate the City,’ cried the boy passionately. ‘It has robbed my father of his fortune and his good name; it has robbed my mother of her happiness; what will it take from me?’

     
‘Come. Allen.’ said Claire, ‘come to my father: he will comfort you.’

     
Despite the philosopher’s consolations, it was with downcast eyes and shameful heart that Allen went into the City for the first time, while Will looked as if he, for his part, must dance and sing for joy that the time for action had arrived.

     
‘Remember, Allen,’ he said in the train, ‘they think that we are just a couple of boys from school who know nothing but to copy letters. Wait a bit, They will find us out after a time, and then we shall make our way. Don’t be afraid, old boy.’

     
All day long Allen went about his work expecting to hear some allusions to his father’s fall and suicide. Yet no one said anything about it, for the simple reason that the whole thing was forgotten, save by one or two. This forgetting of things is a natural event which people concerned in events which should

be forgotten do not consider or expect. I met the other day a clergyman whom I had not seen since old days at Cambridge. He accosted me with something like a maidenly blush, saying,
‘They acknowledged afterwards that it was all my handwriting.’ For some time I could not understand what he meant. Then I remembered that he had been plucked for Classical Honours. It was twenty years ago, but the sight of me recalled the old shame, and he still imagined that everybody was talking of it. This was exactly the case with Allen Engledew. Nobody cared any longer to remember the misfortunes of his father. They were buried, and will only be exhumed again when, if ever, Allen is talked about for other things — if; for instance, he should write a successful book — and then men will rake up the story and quote it in order to reduce by a measurable quantity the greatness of the new man. Who on earth cares about the father of a boy clerk, and whether he shot
himself or hanged himself or disposed of himself in any other
fashion?

     
‘What is it, Allen?’ asked Will, when they were coming home. ‘Why have you been looking so blue all day? I call it jolly. Why, we are at work at last, Don’t you like the lookout? I think it is splendid. Once we get our chance we shall go ahead. Did you see the old gentleman who got down from his carriage? That is the senior partner. He has got a town house at a place called Lancaster Gate, and a country house in Hampshire, and he’s a Member of Parliament. We shall have our carriages and be Members of Parliament too But what’s the matter, Allen?’

     
He saw Allen’s eyes were flooded, and he was fain to hide his tears in the old schoolboy fashion — with his knuckles.

     
‘Tell me, Will,’ he said ’do you know — did any one ever tell you, how my father died?’

     
‘Poor old boy,’ said Will, ‘you are thinking of that.’

     
‘I only heard last night. My mother told me.’

     
‘Why, Allen, it was nearly fifteen years ago. Think no more about it. Of course we know. It was his partner’s fault. Everybody knows that. Cheer up, old chap. Let’s go and tell Claire about the City. You shall tell her about the golden pavement — that’s all in your line — and I’ll tell her about the turtle soup we had for dinner, all for ninepence, eh? at a luncheon-bar, after we’d danced on the pavement and filled our pockets with nuggets. That’s in my line. Hooray! Who wouldn’t be in Brimage and Waring’s? What a lucky pair we are! I say, Allen, partners always, man; no quarrelling between us two. We’re brothers, we are. You and I will go up the ladder together. Don’t you feel as if you were quite ready for the second rung?’

     
They shook hands and Allen cheered up.

     
‘And Tommy?’ he asked.

     
‘Tommy shall be only a first cousin,’ replied Will.