e muttered, "who would have thought it! But it is just
my luck. You will be drenched before I get you in, Kit, and Ma'am will
scold us for the rest of the day."

"Will you take this umbrella for the child, my good man?" observed
Malcolm pleasantly. "I am close to my chambers. You can let me have it
back to-morrow morning." Then, as the man regarded him in dazed
astonishment, he gave him his address. "Perhaps you may as well let me
know your name," he continued.

"Caleb Martin, sir," replied the cobbler; "and we live in Todmorden's
Lane, leading out of Beauchamp Street. It is Mr. Bennet's the
bootmaker, and I works for him and lives in the basement, 'long of wife
and Kit."

"Beauchamp Street--oh yes, I know. Then you had better get the child
home." He nodded and smiled at Kit as he moved away.

Caleb gazed after him with open mouth and pale eyes full of speechless
gratitude; but Kit had unfurled the umbrella proudly, and sat like a
queen in a silken tent.

"Ain't he a gentleman!" she exclaimed with a joyous chuckle; "seems to
me the angels must be his sort. Wasn't he just splendid, dad!" But
Caleb, who was trundling the perambulator down a side street, only
shook his head in silence.

Malcolm felt a warm glow of exhilaration, which secretly moved him to
astonishment, as he ran lightly up the long bare flights of stairs to
his chambers. "A mere trifle like that," he said to himself
contemptuously, as he entered the outer room, where a small and
exceedingly sharp office boy, rejoicing in the euphonious name of
Malachi Murphy, beguiled the tedium of the waiting hours by cutting the
initials of his family on the legs of the table.

When Malcolm wanted to amuse a friendly visitor, he would question
Malachi blandly and innocently on his brothers' and sisters' names.

"You are all minor prophets," he would say carelessly. "I think Mr.
So-and-So would be interested to hear how you came by these names." And
thus encouraged, Malachi would twist his face knowingly, until it
resembled a gargoyle rather than a human face, and start away as though
he had been wound up afresh.

"Well, it was like this, sir. Father was just reading Hosea on Sunday
evening, when mother took bad, and so they made up their minds that
they would call my eldest brother Hosea; the next one was Joel, because
father liked the name; and by-and-by mother put in her word for Amos.
Obadiah only lived five weeks; and the next was a girl, and they called