but a fair living was promised the lad if he stuck to his work, and at the age of nineteen he was already earning his pound a week.  Then he was clever in a good many other ways.  He had an car for music, played (nothing else was within his reach) the concertina, sang a lively song with uncommon melodiousness—­a gift much appreciated at the meetings of a certain Mutual Benefit Club, to which his father had paid a weekly subscription, without fail, through all adversities.  In the regular departments of learning Bob had never shown any particular aptitude; he wrote and read decently, but his speech, as you have had occasion for observing, was not marked by refinement, and for books he had no liking.  His father, unfortunately, had spoilt him, just as he had spoilt Clara.  Being of the nobly independent sex, between fifteen and sixteen he practically free himself from parental control.  The use he made of his liberty was not altogether pleasing to John, but the time for restraint and training had hopelessly gone by.  The lad was selfish, that there was no denying; he grudged the money demanded of him for his support; but in other matters he always showed himself so easy-tempered, so disposed to a genial understanding, that the great fault had to be blinked.  Many failings might have been forgiven him in consideration of the fact that he had never yet drunk too much, and indeed cared little for liquor.

Men of talent, as you are aware, not seldom exhibit low tastes in their choice of companionship.  Bob was a case in point; he did not sufficiently appreciate social distinctions.  He, who wore a collar, seemed to prefer associating with the collarless.  There was Jack—­ more properly ’Jeck’—­Bartley, for instance, his bosom friend until they began to cool in consequence of a common interest in Miss Peckover.  Jack never wore a collar in his life, not even on Sundays, and was closely allied with all sorts of blackguards, who somehow made a living on the outskirts of turf-land.  And there was Eli Snape, compared with whom Jack was a person of refinement and culture.  Eli dealt surreptitiously in dogs and rats, and the mere odour of him was intolerable to ordinary nostrils; yet he was a species of hero in Bob’s regard, such invaluable information could he supply with regard to ‘events’ in which young Hewett took a profound interest.  Perhaps a more serious aspect of Bob’s disregard for social standing was revealed in his relations with the other sex.  Susceptible from his tender youth, he showed no ambition in the bestowal of his amorous homage.  At the age of sixteen did he not declare his resolve to wed the daughter of old Sally Budge, who went about selling watercress? and was there not a desperate conflict at home before this project could be driven from his head?  It was but the first of many such instances.  Had he been left to his own devices, he would already, like numbers of his coevals, have been supporting (or declining to support) a wife and two or three