But for all this he was active, for he rose very early the next morning. He had not had an hour's sleep throughout the night, but had lain in every variety of restless attitude, tossing first on this side and then on that: always thinking, thinking, thinking, till the action of his brain became as mechanical as that of any other machine, and went on in spite of himself. He went downstairs, paid the money for his supper and night's lodging to a sleepy servant-girl, and left the house as the church-clock in an old-fashioned square hard by struck eight. He walked straight to the High Street, and entered the shop of a tailor and general outfitter. It was a stylish establishment, and there was a languid young man taking down the shutters, who appeared to be the only person on the establishment just at present. He looked superciliously enough at Joseph Wilmot, eyeing him lazily from head to foot, and yawning as he did so. "You'd better make yourself scarce," he said; "our principal never gives anything to tramps." "Your principal may give or keep what he likes," Joseph answered, carelessly; "I can pay for what I want. Call your master down: or stay, you'll do as well, I dare say. I want a complete rig-out from head to heel. Do you understand?" "I shall, perhaps, when I see the money for it," the languid youth answered, with a sneer. "So you've learned the way of the world already, have you, my lad?" said Joseph Wilmot, bitterly. Then, pulling his brother's memorandum-book from his pocket, he opened it, and took out the little packet of bank-notes. "I suppose you can understand these?" he said. The languid youth lifted his nose, which by its natural conformation betrayed an aspiring character, and looked dubiously at his customer. "I can understand as they might be flash uns," he remarked, significantly. Mr. Joseph Wilmot growled out an oath, and made a plunge at the young shopman. "I said as they _might_ be flash," the youth remonstrated, quite meekly; "there's no call to fly at me. I didn't mean to give no offence." "No," muttered Mr. Wilmot; "egad! you'd better _not_ mean it. Call your master." The youth retired to obey: he was quite subdued and submissive by this time. Joseph Wilmot looked about the shop. "The cur forgot the till," he muttered; "I might try my hand at that, if—" He stopped and smiled with a strange, deliberate expression, not quite agreeable to behold—"if I wasn't going to meet Henry Dunbar." There was a full-length looking-glass in one corner of the shop. Joseph Wilmot walked up to it, looked at himself for a few moments in silent contemplation, and then shook his clenched hand at the reflected image. "You're a vagabond!" he muttered between his set teeth, "and you look it! You're an outcast; and you look it! But who set the mark upon you? Who's to blame for all the evil you have done? Whose treachery made you what you are? That's the question!"