Mr. Hinchford pulled at his long white moustache--the girl's confidence and coolness induced him to linger there--something in his own heart led him to continue the conversation. He was a philosopher, a student of human nature, and this was a singular specimen before him. "What could you live and keep honest upon?" "Tuppence a day in summer--fourpence in winter. Summer a gal can sleep anywhere--there's some prime places in the Borough Market, and lots o' railway arches, Dockhead way; but it nips you awful hard when the frost's on." "Well--here's sixpence to set up in business with, Mattie--and as long as you can show me an honest front, and can come here every Saturday night and say, 'I've been honest all the week,' why, I'll stand the same amount." Mattie's eyes sparkled at this rise in life. "I'll borrow a basket, and buy some inguns to-morrow. P'raps _you_ buy inguns sometimes, and old--Mr. Wesden down-stairs, too. Yes, sir, it's the connexion that budges one up!" she said, with the gravity of an old woman. "I see. I'll speak to Mr. Wesden about his custom, Mattie. You can go now." "Thankee, sir." She rose to her feet, went a few steps down-stairs, paused, and looked back. "What is it, Mattie?" "I hope the young gen'leman isn't a fretting much about his _broach_." "Here, young gentleman," called the father, "do you hear that?" Master Hinchford laughed from within. "Oh, no!--I don't fret." "P'raps some day I shall have saved up enuf to pay him back. That's a _rum_ idea, isn't it, sir?" "Not a bad one, Mattie. Think it over." "Yes, sir." Mattie departed, and Mr. Hinchford returned to the sitting-room. Master Hinchford, buried in books, was sitting at the centre table. "Are you going at figures to-night?" "Just for a little while, I think." "You'll ruin your eyes--I've said so fifty times." "Better have weak eyes than weak brains, sir." "Not the general idea, lad." After a while, and when Master Hinchford was scratching away with his pen, the father said-- "You don't say anything about Mattie." "I think it was very kind of you," said the youth; "and I think--somehow--that Mattie will be grateful." "Pooh! pooh!" remarked the father, "you'll never make a first-rate city man, if you believe in gratitude. Look at the world sternly, boy. Put not your trust in anything turning out the real and genuine article--work everything by figures." Master Hinchford looked at his sire, as though he scarcely understood him. "I must bring you up to understand human nature, Sid--what a bad article it is--plated with a material that soon wears off, if rubbed smartly. Human nature is everywhere the same, and if you be only on your guard, you may take advantage of it, instead of letting it take advantage of you. Now, this girl is a specimen, which, at my own expense, we will experimentalize upon. In that stray, my boy, you shall see the natural baseness of mankind--or girl-kind." "Don't you think that she'll come again?"