“Exactly, old boy!” said Peters, slapping his preceptor on the knee.  “Exactly!  I’m not one of your weak-headed ones.  Oh no!”

“Look here, Joe Morgan!”—­the half-angry voice of Simon Slade now rung through the bar-room,—­“just take yourself off home!”

I had not observed the entrance of this person.  He was standing at the bar, with an emptied glass in his hand.  A year had made no improvement in his appearance.  On the contrary, his clothes were more worn and tattered; his countenance more sadly marred.  What he had said to irritate the landlord, I know not; but Slade’s face was fiery with passion, and his eyes glared threateningly at the poor besotted one, who showed not the least inclination to obey.

“Off with you, I say!  And never show your face here again.  I won’t have such low vagabonds as you are about my house.  If you can’t keep decent and stay decent, don’t intrude yourself here.”

“A rum-seller talk of decency!” retorted Morgan.  “Pah!  You were a decent man once, and a good miller into the bargain.  But that time’s past and gone.  Decency died out when you exchanged the pick and facing-hammer for the glass and muddler.  Decency!  Pah!  How you talk!  As if it were any more decent to sell rum than to drink it.”

There was so much of biting contempt in the tones, as well as the words of the half-intoxicated man, that Slade, who had himself been drinking rather more freely than usual, was angered beyond self-control.  Catching up an empty glass from the counter, he hurled it with all his strength at the head of Joe Morgan.  The missive just grazed one of his temples, and flew by on its dangerous course.  The quick sharp cry of a child startled the air, followed by exclamations of alarm and horror from many voices.

“It’s Joe Morgan’s child!” “He’s killed her!” “Good heavens!” Such were the exclamations that rang through the room.  I was among the first to reach the spot where a little girl, just gliding in through the door, had been struck on the forehead by the glass, which had cut a deep gash, and stunned her into insensibility.  The blood flowed instantly from the wound, and covered her face, which presented a shocking appearance.  As I lifted her from the floor, upon which she had fallen, Morgan, into whose very soul the piercing cry of his child had penetrated, stood by my side, and grappled his arms around her insensible form, uttering as he did so heart-touching moans and lamentations.

“What’s the matter?  Oh, what’s the matter?” It was a woman’s voice, speaking in frightened tones.

“It’s nothing!  Just go out, will you, Ann?” I heard the landlord say.

But his wife—­it was Mrs. Slade—­having heard the shrieks of pain and terror uttered by Morgan’s child, had come running into the bar-room—­heeded not his words, but pressed forward into the little group that stood around the bleeding girl.

“Run for Doctor Green, Frank,” she cried in an imperative voice, the moment her eyes rested on the little one’s bloody face.