Her brother vouchsafed no reply, but withdrew from the room, and almost immediately left the house. He walked half a mile with his eyes turned to the ground, then noticed a hansom which was passing empty, and had himself driven to Hoxton. He alighted near the Britannia Theatre, and thence made his way by foul streets to a public-house called the ‘Warwick Castle.’ Only two customers occupied the bar; the landlord stood in his shirt-sleeves, with arms crossed, musing. At the sight of Mutimer he brightened up, and extended his hand. ‘How d’you do; how d’you do, sir?’ he exclaimed. ‘Glad to see you.’ The shake of the hands was a tribute to old times, the ‘sir’ was a recognition of changed circumstances. Mr. Nicholas Dabbs, the brother of Daniel, was not a man to lose anything by failure to acknowledge social distinctions. A short time ago Daniel had expostulated with his brother on the use of ‘sir’ to Mutimer, eliciting the profound reply, ‘D’you think he’d have ‘ad that glass of whisky if I’d called him Dick?’ ‘Dan home yet?’ Mutimer inquired. ‘Not been in five minutes. Come round, sir, will you? I know he wants to see you.’ A portion of the counter was raised, and Richard passed into a parlour behind the bar. ‘I’ll call him,’ said the landlord. Daniel appeared immediately. ‘I want a bit of private talk,’ he said to his brother. ‘We’ll have this door shut, if you don’t mind.’ ‘You may as well bring us a drop of something first, Nick,’ put in Richard. ‘Give the order, Dan.’ ‘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.