Impossible to run the risk of offending Mr. Chadwick; moreover, who could hesitate between the modest possibilities of the museum and such a career as waited the lad under the protection of his powerful friend?  With nervous haste the draper explained how matters stood, excused himself, and begged that not another word on the subject might be spoken in his son’s hearing.

Harry Humplebee knew what he had lost; the curator, in talk with him, had already thrown out his suggestion; at their next meeting he discreetly made known to the boy that other counsels must prevail.  For the first time Harry felt a vehement impulse, prompting him to speak on his own behalf, to assert and to plead for his own desires.  But courage failed him.  He heard his father loud in praise of Mr. Chadwick, intent upon the gratitude and respect due to that admirable man.  He knew how his mother would exclaim at the mere hint of disinclination to enter the great man’s office.  And so he held his peace, though it cost him bitterness of heart and even secret tears.  A long, long time passed before he could bring himself to enter again the museum doors.

He sat on a stool in Mr. Chadwick’s office, a clerk at a trifling salary.  Everything, his father reminded him, must have a beginning; let him work well and his progress would be rapid.  Two years passed and he was in much the same position; his salary had increased by one half, but his work remained the same, mechanical, dreary, hateful to him in its monotony.  Meanwhile his father’s venture in the new premises had led to great embarrassments; business did not thrive; the day came when Mr. Humplebee, trembling and shamefaced, felt himself drawn to beg help of his son’s so-called benefactor.  He came away from the interview with empty hands.  Worse than that, he had heard things about Harry which darkened his mind with a new anxiety.

‘I greatly fear,’ said Mr. Chadwick, ’that your son must seek a place in some other office.  It’s a painful thing; I wish I could have kept him; but the fact of the matter is that he shows utter incapacity.  I have no fault to find with him otherwise; a good lad; in a smaller place of business he might do well enough.  But he’s altogether below the mark in an office such as mine.  Don’t distress yourself, Mr. Humplebee, I beg, I shall make it my care to inquire for suitable openings; you shall hear from me—­you shall hear from me.  Pray consider that your son is under notice to leave this day month.  As for the—­other matter of which you spoke, I can only repeat that the truest kindness is only to refuse assistance.  I assure you it is.  The circumstances forbid it.  Clearly, what you have to do is to call together your creditors, and arrive at an understanding.  It is my principle never to try to prop up a hopeless concern such as yours evidently is.  Good day to you, Mr. Humplebee; good day.’

A year later several things had happened.  Mr. Humplebee was dead; his penniless widow had gone to live in another town on the charity of poor relatives, and Harry Humplebee sat in another office, drawing the salary at which he had begun under Mr. Chadwick, his home a wretched bedroom in the house of working-folk.