CHAPTER VII. “You, who would not go out to dinner because you could not afford it!” cried Harry, “how do you dare venture on such rash proceedings? It appears to me you have adopted a new member into the family.” “Ah, but it is different,” said I; “going out to dinner was a matter of choice, this was a matter of necessity.” “It depends upon how people think,” said Harry, “the priest and the Levite were of quite a different opinion; but if you mean to have friends and pensioners, and get rich people and poor people about you, Milly darling, we’ll have to think of new supplies. I cannot imagine how it has gone out of my mind all this time. Pendleton actually asked me to-day whether I had heard anything more about your grandfather’s house.” “My grandfather’s house!” I said; and we both looked at each other and laughed; our removal had put all that out of our heads. Chester, and new places to look at, and new people to see, and just the usual disturbance of one’s thoughts in changing about, had betrayed Harry who was so anxious about it, just as much as it had betrayed me. “I must see after it now in earnest. A thousand pounds or so, you know,” said Harry, with a kind of serio-comic look, “would be worth a great deal to you just now.” And with this he went out. A thousand pounds or so! twenty would have been nice; aye, or ten, or even five, more than just our regular money. However, I only laughed to myself, and went upstairs to my poor gentleman. After all, I am not so sure that he was a gentleman, or at least anything unusual in himself. He was very independent, and want, and a passionate dread of being found out, and made a pauper of, had carried him to a kind of heroism for the moment. But when he got used to me, and consented to let me bring him things, he became very much like other people. He was always eager to get the newspaper and see the news. I carried him up the Chester paper, which Mrs. Goldsworthy took in just now. When I went into his room, the first thing I saw was two letters on the table. He was just drawing back, and still trembling from his exertion, for he was still very weak. He put the letters towards me with a little movement of his hand. “I am writing to ask for work; I’m wonderfully steady now, wonderfully steady; if they would only give me work! Ah, it’s hard times when a man can’t get work,” he said. I glanced at them as he wished me. “Cresswell?” said I; “I think I know his daughter, Mr. Ward. I’ll speak to her; perhaps she can make him help you.” “She can make him do whatever she likes,” said my friend, with his wistful eyes; “it’ll be well for him if she don’t make him do what he’ll repent.” “How do you mean?” said I, with some surprise.