"Do you know, Mr Cleave," she said, sweetly, "I am afraid this book will be _rather_ thrown away on me. _I_ don’t drink----" "There are some excellent tales illustrating the evils----" Cleave was protesting, when Dora interrupted him. "Yes, but they are hardly the kind of tales girls care to read. It is very kind of you to give me this volume, but I feel you could bestow it better elsewhere." "As you like--as you like," said Cleave, looking much offended. "But," said Dora, producing a tiny pair of scissors from her chatelaine, "there is one paragraph I should like to cut out, if you don’t mind. This one, look...." Mr Cleave looked--and turned pale. He had entirely forgotten having marked that report of Jim’s wrong-doing. "You see," explained Dora, a bright flush irradiating her face, which had been very wan and pensive all this week of dire suspense, "I take a great interest in the--the person this paragraph is about." Then she quickly snipped the paragraph out and put it safely away in her purse. "Thank you so much, Mr Cleave," she said, handing back the volume. And so Mr Cleave, after giving the matter due reflection, decided that he couldn’t do better than go to live with his relatives at Norwood. He had always fancied that they didn’t understand him at No. 9. He felt quite sure about it now. *CHAPTER XXXI.* *IN WHICH IT IS SHOWN THAT THE BEARDED MAN HAD MADE ANOTHER MISTAKE.* Mr Evans Evans, of the red hair, and Mr Deadwood, the truculent and filibustering, having recently (after an eight or nine years’ struggle) obtained their qualification, accepted Dr Mortimer’s invitation with alacrity. Yes--certainly they would look after the Long ’Un’s practice. Only too pleased. Start at once and share proceeds? Right O! They were both capable men, and so they found it quite within their power to cope with the work in Mount Street and its environments. True, Mr Evans did the brunt of the work, but Mr Deadwood had his uses. For, taking into consideration the manner in which the Long ’Un and his predecessor had been handled by the Hooligans of the neighbourhood, Mr Deadwood, after due thought, decided that the thing was to take a strong line with such roughs as might assume a hostile, or even an impertinent, attitude towards himself and his colleague. There were still a good many Hooligans about, and the colour of Mr Evans’s hair provoked a variety of rude jests from a group of them on the afternoon of the day Messrs Evans and Deadwood started operations in this district.