Mrs Shingle had finished her hurried cleaning, and the furniture was put back; had been to the glass and arranged her hair, and finished off by taking out three pins, which she stuck in her mouth, as if it were a cushion, giving herself a shake, which caused her dress, that had been round her waist, to fall into its customary folds; and then, sitting down she was busy at work binding boot-tops, when the open door was darkened, and a fashionably dressed young man, of five-and-twenty, tapped on the panel with the end of his stick, entered with a languid walk, said, "How do, aunt?" and seated himself on the edge of the table. The visitor's clothes were very good, but they had a slangy cut, and might have been made for some Leviathan of a music-hall, who intended to delineate what he termed "a swell." For the cuffs of the excessively short coat nearly hid the young fellow's hands, even as the ends of his trousers almost concealed his feet; his shirt front was ornamented with large crimson zigzag patterns, and his hat was so arranged on the back of his head that it pressed down over his forehead a series of unhappy, greasy-looking little curls, which came down to his eyebrows. Mrs Shingle nodded, and stabbed a boot-top very viciously as the young man saluted her. "Old man out?" he said. "You know he is," retorted Mrs Shingle, "else you wouldn't have come." "Don't be hard on a fellow, aunt. You know I can't help coming. Where's Jessie?" "Out," said Mrs Shingle, sharply. "She always is out when I come," drawled the young man, tapping his teeth with his cane. "I believe she is upstairs now." "Then you'd better go up and see," exclaimed Mrs Shingle. "Look here, Fred, I'm sure your father don't approve of your coming here." "I can't help what the governor likes," was the reply. "I'm not going to ask him where I'm to go. Is Jessie out?" "I told you she was, sir." "Don't be so jolly cross, aunt. It's all right, you know. The old man will kick a bit, but he'll soon come round. Don't you be rusty about it. You ought to be pleased, you know; because she ain't likely to have a chance to do half so well. I shall go and meet her." As he spoke, the young man--to wit, Frederick Fraser, step-son of Maximilian Shingle, Esq, of Oblong Square, Pentonville--slowly descended from the table, glanced at himself in the glass, and made for the door. "She's gone down the Goswell Road, I know," said the young man, turning to show his teeth in a grin. "No, no," exclaimed Mrs Shingle hastily. "Thank ye, I know," said the young fellow, with a wink, and he passed out. "Bother the boy!" exclaimed Mrs Shingle petulantly. "Now he'll meet her, and she'll be upset, and Dick will be cross, and Tom look hurt. Oh, dear, dear, dear, I wish she'd been as ugly as sin!" There was an interval of angry stitching, as if the needle was at enmity with the soft leather, and determined to do it to death, and then Mrs Shingle cried, "Here she is!"