n.

He walked all that night unmolested, his foot giving him but little
trouble, and passed the following day under a haystack, assuaging his
hunger with some bread and cheese he had put in his pocket.

Travelling by night and sleeping in secluded spots by day, he reached
the city in three days. Considering that he had no money, and was afraid
to go into a town to pawn his watch, he did not suffer so much from
hunger as might have been expected--something which he vaguely referred
to as Providence, but for which the sufferers found other terms, twice
leading his faltering footsteps to labourers' dinners in tin cans and
red handkerchiefs.

At Stratford he pawned his watch and chain and sat down to a lengthy
meal, and then, with nearly eighteen shillings in his pocket, took train
to Liverpool Street. The roar of the city greeted his ears like music,
and, investing in a pipe and tobacco, he got on a 'bus bound eastward,
and securing cheap apartments in the Mile End Road, sat down to consider
his plans. The prompt appearance of the Tipping family after his letter
to Fraser had given him a wholesome dread of the post, and until the
connection between the two was satisfactorily explained he would not
risk another, even in his new name of Thompson. Having come to this
decision, he had another supper, and then went upstairs to the unwonted
luxury of a bed.

CHAPTER XVII.

It is one of the first laws of domestic economy that the largest
families must inhabit the smallest houses--a state of things which is
somewhat awkward when the heads wish to discuss affairs of state. Some
preserve a certain amount of secrecy by the use of fragmentary sentences
eked out by nods and blinks and by the substitution of capital letters
for surnames; a practice likely to lead to much confusion and scandal
when the names of several friends begin with the same letter. Others
improve the family orthography to an extent they little dream of by
spelling certain vital words instead of pronouncing them, some children
profiting so much by this form of vicarious instruction that they have
been known to close a most interesting conversation by thoughtlessly
correcting their parents on a point of spelling.

There were but few secrets in the Wheeler family, the younger members
relating each other's misdeeds quite freely, and refuting the charge
of tale-bearing by keeping debit and credit accounts with each other
in which assets and liabilities coul