Godwin was endeavouring to masticate a piece of toast, but it turned to sawdust upon his palate.  Of a sudden, when the bilious gloom of his countenance foretold anything but mirth, he burst into hard laughter.  Andrew smote him jovially on the back.

‘Tickles you, eh, bo-oy?  “Peak’s Refreshment an’ Dinin’ Rooms!” Everything tip-top, mind; respectable business, Godwin; nothing for nobody to be ashamed of—­that wouldn’t do, of course.’

The young man’s laughter ended as abruptly as it had begun, but his visage was no longer clouded with bitter misery.  A strange indifference seemed to have come upon him, and whilst the speculative uncle talked away with increasing excitement, he ate and drank heedlessly.

‘Mother expects you to-morrow, she tells me,’ said Andrew, when his companion’s taciturnity had suggested a change of topic.  ’Shouldn’t wonder if you see me over at Twybridge again before long.  I was to remember your awnt and your cousin Jowey to you.  You wouldn’t know Jowey? the sharpest lad of his age as ever I knowed, is Jowey.  Your father ‘ud a’ took a delight in ’im, if ’e’d lived, that ‘e would.’

For a quarter of an hour or so the dialogue was concerned with domestic history.  Godwin gave brief reply to many questions, but asked none, not even such as civility required.  The elder man, however, was unaffected by this reticence, and when at length his nephew pleaded an engagement as excuse for leave-taking he shook hands with much warmth.  The two parted close by the shop, and Godwin, casting a glance at the now silent College, walked hastily towards his lodgings.

CHAPTER II

In the prosperous year of 1856, incomes of between a hundred and a hundred and fifty pounds were chargeable with a tax of elevenpence halfpenny in the pound:  persons who enjoyed a revenue of a hundred and fifty or more had the honour of paying one and fourpence.  Abatements there were none, and families supporting life on two pounds a week might in some cases, perchance, be reconciled to the mulct by considering how equitably its incidence was graduated.

Some, on the other hand, were less philosophical; for instance, the household consisting of Nicholas Peak, his wife, their three-year-old daughter, their newly-born son, and a blind sister of Nicholas, dependent upon him for sustenance.  Mr. Peak, aged thirty and now four years wedded, had a small cottage on the outskirts of Greenwich.  He was employed as dispenser, at a salary of thirty-five shillings a week, by a medical man with a large practice.  His income, therefore, fell considerably within the hundred pound limit; and, all things considered, it was not unreasonable that he should be allowed to expend the whole of this sum on domestic necessities.  But it came to pass that Nicholas, in his greed of wealth, obtained supplementary employment, which benefited him to the extent of a yearly ten pounds.  Called upon to render his statement to the surveyor of income-tax, he declared himself in possession of a hundred and one pounds per annum; consequently, he stood indebted to the Exchequer in the sum of four pounds, sixteen shillings, and ninepence.  His countenance darkened, as also did that of Mrs. Peak.