tion: "IT WAS A GLORIOUS VICTORY."]

She knew her husband was a stubborn man, and set in his way, so,
unprotesting, she followed him in, as she had followed him out,
stumbling many times, for often her eyes did not see the road. And so
they returned to their empty rooms.

Jack Morris went to look for work at the Red Lion. There he met that
genial comrade, Joe Hollends, who had been reformed, and who had
backslid twice since Jack had foregathered with him before. It is but
fair to Joe to admit that he had never been optimistic about his own
reclamation, but, being an obliging man, even when he was sober, he was
willing to give the Social League every chance. Jack was deeply grieved
at the death of his son, although he had said no word to his wife that
would show it. It therefore took more liquor than usual to bring him up
to the point of good comradeship that reigned at the Red Lion. When he
and Joe left the tavern that night it would have taken an expert to tell
which was the more inebriated. They were both in good fighting trim, and
both were in the humour for a row. The police, who had reckoned on Joe
alone, suddenly found a new element in the fight that not only upset
their calculations but themselves as well. It was a glorious victory,
and, as both fled down a side street, Morris urged Hollends to come
along, for the representatives of law and order have the habit of
getting reinforcements which often turn a victory into a most
ignominious defeat.

"I can't," panted Hollends. "The beggars have hurt me."

"Come along. I know a place where we are safe."

Drunk as he was, Jack succeeded in finding the hole in the wall that
allowed him to enter a vacant spot behind the box factory. There
Hollends lay down with a groan, and there Morris sank beside him in a
drunken sleep. The police were at last revenged, and finally.

When the grey daylight brought Morris to a dazed sense of where he was,
he found his companion dead beside him. He had a vague fear that he
would be tried for murder, but it was not so. From the moment that
Hollends, in his fall, struck his head on the kerb, the Providence which
looks after the drunken deserted him.

But the inquest accomplished one good object. It attracted the attention
of the Social League to Jack Morris, and they are now endeavouring to
reclaim him.

Whether they succeed or not, he was a man that was certainly once worth
saving.

[Illustration]

MY FIRST BOOK.

DAW