g, and if you will please to remember that Mr.
Pedgift's directions to me were very particular--and, besides, I only
mentioned my late wife because if she hadn't tried Sir John's patience
to begin with, things might have turned out differently--" He paused,
gave up the disjointed sentence in which he had involved himself, and
tried another. "I had only two children, sir," he went on, advancing to
a new point in his narrative, "a boy and a girl. The girl died when she
was a baby. My son lived to grow up; and it was my son who lost me my
place. I did my best for him; I got him into a respectable office in
London. They wouldn't take him without security. I'm afraid it was
imprudent; but I had no rich friends to help me, and I became security.
My boy turned out badly, sir. He--perhaps you will kindly understand
what I mean, if I say he behaved dishonestly. His employers consented,
at my entreaty, to let him off without prosecuting. I begged very
hard--I was fond of my son James--and I took him home, and did my best
to reform him. He wouldn't stay with me; he went away again to London;
he--I beg your pardon, sir! I'm afraid I'm confusing things; I'm afraid
I'm wandering from the point."

"No, no," said Midwinter, kindly. "If you think it right to tell me this
sad story, tell it in your own way. Have you seen your son since he left
you to go to London?"

"No, sir. He's in London still, for all I know. When I last heard of
him, he was getting his bread--not very creditably. He was employed,
under the inspector, at the Private Inquiry Office in Shadyside Place."

He spoke those words--apparently (as events then stood) the most
irrelevant to the matter in hand that had yet escaped him; actually (as
events were soon to be) the most vitally important that he had uttered
yet--he spoke those words absently, looking about him in confusion, and
trying vainly to recover the lost thread of his narrative.

Midwinter compassionately helped him. "You were telling me," he said,
"that your son had been the cause of your losing your place. How did
that happen?"

"In this way, sir," said Mr. Bashwood, getting back again excitedly into
the right train of thought. "His employers consented to let him off; but
they came down on his security; and I was the man. I suppose they were
not to blame; the security covered their loss. I couldn't pay it all out
of my savings; I had to borrow--on the word of a man, sir, I couldn't
help it--I had to borr