"Indeed, sir! Oh! sir, I hope that nothing serious _has_ happened?" "Nothing at all. It's not so very wonderful that I should come to my own house, I suppose, Mattie?" "N--no," she answered, hesitating; "but it's past one o'clock." "I couldn't sleep--and Harriet was at home with the good lady," he said, as if by way of excuse; adding very sulkily, a moment afterwards, "I never could sleep in that Camberwell place--I wish I'd never left the shop!" Mr. Wesden hazarded no further reason for his eccentric arrival, and Mattie went up-stairs to lay it with the rest of her stock of mysteries daily accumulating round her. Mr. Wesden remained down-stairs, fidgeting with shop drawers, counting the money left in the till, and wandering up and down in a reckless, hypochondriacal fashion, very remarkable in a man of his phlegmatic temperament, and which it was as well for Mattie not to have seen. Finally he groped his way down-stairs into the kitchen, and the coal-cellar where the gas-meter was placed, and with a wrench cut off the supply of gas for that night, casting Sidney Hinchford so suddenly into darkness, that he leaped up with an exclamation far from appropriate to his character. "What the devil next?" The next thing for Sidney was to knock over the chair he had been sitting upon, which came down on the drawing-room floor with a bumping noise that shook the house, and woke up his father, who shouted forth his name. "Coming, coming,'' said Sidney, walking into the double-bedded room, and giving up further study or brooding for that night. "What's the matter, Sid, my boy?" asked the father, from the corner; "haven't you been in bed yet?" "Must have fallen asleep in the next room, I think." "And a terrible row you've made in waking, Sid. Good night, my boy--God bless you!" The old gentleman turned on his side, and was soon indulging in the snores of the just again. There was a night-light burning there, and Sidney took it from its saucer of water and held it above his head, looking down at that old, world-worn, yet handsome face of the father. "God bless _you_!" he said, re-echoing his father's benediction; "how will you bear it when the time comes, I wonder?" CHAPTER VI. A BURST OF CONFIDENCE. Yes, Mr. Wesden, late of Suffolk Street, had become nervous and eccentric in his old age--many people do, besides stationers. He had retired from business too late to enjoy the relaxation from business cares; he had better have died in harness than have given up the shop, for isolation therefrom began to work its evil.