The door was a-jar that led into an interior room that served for a dormitory.  Two old soiled mattresses, in which the straw had not been changed for years, thrown carelessly upon the floor, were the sole garniture of this execrable chamber.  Anthony glanced around with feelings of an uncontrollable disgust, and all his boyish antipathy to the place returned.  The lapse of nearly twenty years had not improved the aspect of his old prison-house, and he was now more capable of appreciating its revolting features.  The harsh words, and still harsher blows and curses, which he had been wont to receive from the miser and his sordid associate, Grenard Pike, came up in his heart, and, in spite of his better nature, steeled that heart against his ungracious parent.

The entrance of Mark Hurdlestone, whose high stern features, once seen, could never be forgotten, roused Anthony from his train of gloomy recollections, and called back his thoughts to the unpleasant business that brought him there.

Mark did not at the first glance recognise his son in the tall elegantly-dressed young man before him; and he growled out, “Who are you, sir, and what do you want?”

“Mr. Hurdlestone,” said Anthony respectfully, “I am your son.”

The old man sat down in the chair.  A dark cloud came over his brow, as if he already suspected the nature of his son’s mission, and he knitted his straight bushy eyebrows so closely together that his small fiery dark eyes gleamed like sparks from beneath the gloomy shade.

“My son; yes, yes.  I’ve heard say that ’tis a wise son that knows his own father.  It must be a very wise father who could instinctively know his own son.  Certainly, I should never have recognised mine in the gay magpie before me.  But sit down, young sir, and tell me what brought you here.  Money, I suppose; money, the everlasting want that the extravagant sons of pleasure strive to extort from the provident, who lay up during the harvest of life a provision for the winter of age.  If such be your errand, young man, your time is wasted here.  Anthony Hurdlestone, I have nothing to give.”

“Not even affection it would appear, to an only son.”

“I owe you none.”

“In what manner have I forfeited my natural claim upon your heart?”

“By transferring the duty and affection which you owed to me to another.  Go to him who has pampered your appetites, clothed you with soft raiment, and brought you up daintily to lead the idle life of a gentleman.  I disown all relationship with a useless butterfly.”

Anthony’s cheek reddened with indignation.  “It was not upon my own account I sought you, sir.  From my infancy I have been a neglected and forsaken child, for whom you never showed the least parental regard.  Hard blows and harder words were the only marks of fatherly regard that Anthony Hurdlestone ever received at your hands.  To hear you curse me, when, starving with cold and hunger,