Lizzie asked her father not to cry.  Then came a slight altercation between Lizzie and her husband, in which it was passionately debated whether Harry, the brother, was fitted to succeed Mike on the paper.

“How the fellow has done for himself!  A nice sort of paper they’ll bring out.”

A cloud passed over Mike’s face when he thought it would probably be this young gentleman who would continue his articles—­Lions of the Season.

“You have quarrelled with Mike,” said Lizzie, “and you say you aren’t going to make it up again.  You’ll want some one, and Harry writes very nicely indeed.  When he was at school his master always praised his writing.  When he is in love he writes off page after page.  I should like you to see the letters he wrote to ...”

“Now, Liz, I really—­I wish you wouldn’t ...”

“I am sure he would soon get into it.”

“Quite so, quite so; I hope he will; I’m sure Harry will get into it—­and the way to get into it is for him to send me some paragraphs.  I will look over his ‘copy,’ making the alterations I think necessary.  But for the moment, until he has learned the trick of writing paragraphs, he would be of no use to me in the office.  I should never get the paper out.  I must have an experienced writer by me.”

Then he dropped his voice, and Mike heard nothing till Frank said—­

“That cad Fletcher is still here; we don’t speak, of course; we passed each other on the staircase the other night.  If he doesn’t clear out soon I’ll have to turn him out.  You know who he is—­a farmer’s son, and used to live in a little house about a mile from Mount Rorke Castle, on the side of the road.”

Mike thrilled with rage and hatred.

“You brute! you fool! you husband of a bar-girl!—­you’ll never be Lord Mount Rorke!  He that came from the palace shall go to the garret; he that came from the little house on the roadside shall go to the castle, you brute!”

And Mike vowed that he would conquer sloth and lasciviousness, and outrageously triumph in the gaudy, foolish world, and insult his rival with riches and even honour.  Then he heard Lizzie reproach Frank for refusing her first request, and the foolish fellow’s expostulations suscitated feelings in Mike of intense satisfaction.  He smiled triumphantly when he heard the old man’s talents as accountant referred to.

“Father never told you about his failure,” said Lizzie.  Then the story with all its knots was laboriously unravelled.

“But,” said the old man, “my books were declared to be perfect; I was complimented on my books; I was proud of them books.”

“Great Scott! the brother as sub-editor, the father as book-keeper, the sister as wife—­it would be difficult to imagine anything more complete.  I’m sorry for the paper, though;—­and my series, what a hash they’ll make of it!” Taking the room in a glance, and imagining the others with every piece of furniture and every picture, he thought—­“I give him a year, and then these rooms will be for sale.  I shall get them; but I must clear out.”