’Wouldn’t have ‘ad it but for the “sir,"’ chuckled Nicholas to himself.  ‘Never used to when he come here, unless I stood it.’

Daniel drew a chair to the table and stirred his tumbler thoughtfully, his nose over the steam.

’We’re going to have trouble with ‘Arry,’ said Richard, who had seated himself on a sofa in a dispirited way.  ’Of course someone’s been telling him, and now the young fool says he’s going to throw up work.  I suppose I shall have to take him down yonder with me.’

‘Better do so,’ assented Daniel, without much attention to the matter.

‘What is it you want to talk about, Dan?’

Mr. Dabbs had a few minutes ago performed the customary evening cleansing of his hands and face, but it had seemed unnecessary to brush his hair, which consequently stood upright upon his forehead, a wiry rampart, just as it had been thrust by the vigorously-applied towel.  This, combined with an unwonted lugubriousness of visage, made Daniel’s aspect somewhat comical.  He kept stirring very deliberately with his sugar-crusher.

‘Why, it’s this, Dick,’ he began at length.  ’And understand, to begin with, that I’ve got no complaint to make of nobody; it’s only things as are awk’ard.  It’s this way, my boy.  When you fust of all come and told me about what I may call the great transformation scene, you said, “Now it ain’t a-goin’ to make no difference, Dan,” you said.  Now wait till I’ve finished; I ain’t complainin’ of nobody.  Well, and I tried to ’ope as it wouldn’t make no difference, though I ‘ad my doubts.  “Come an’ see us all just as usu’l,” you said.  Well, I tried to do so, and three or four weeks I come reg’lar, lookin’ in of a Sunday night.  But somehow it wouldn’t work; something ’ad got out of gear.  So I stopped it off.  Then comes ’Arry a-askin’ why I made myself scarce, sayin’ as th’ old lady and the Princess missed me.  So I looked in again; but it was wuss than before, I saw I’d done better to stay away.  So I’ve done ever since.  Y’ understand me, Dick?’

Richard was not entirely at his ease in listening.  He tried to smile, but failed to smile naturally.

‘I don’t see what you found wrong,’ he returned, abruptly.

‘Why, I’m a-tellin’ you, my boy, I didn’t find nothing wrong except in myself, as you may say.  What’s the good o’ beatin’ about the bush?  It’s just this ’ere, Dick, my lad.  When I come to the Square, you know very well who it was as I come to see.  Well, it stands to reason as I can’t go to the new ’ouse with the same thoughts as I did to the old.  Mind, I can’t say as she’d ever a’ listened to me; it’s more than likely she wouldn’t But now that’s all over, and the sooner I forget all about it the better for me.  And th’ only way to forget is to keep myself to myself,—­see, Dick?’

The listener drummed with his fingers on the table, still endeavouring to smile.