ons whose example and influence helped to drag him down and
increase his tendency to drink.

This tendency was in part hereditary. His father had been a confirmed
drinker. Although well aware of this, he did not believe in his own
fallibility. Few young men of his stamp do. Other men might give way
to it, but there was no fear of him. He admitted that he could, and
sometimes did, take a stiff glass of grog--but what then? It did him no
harm. He was not a slave to it. He could give it up and do without it
if he chose--although, it is to be remarked, he had never made the
trial, and only assumed this power. To be rather "screwed" now and then
was, he admitted, somewhat discreditable; but he wasn't worse than many
others, and it didn't occur often. Thus he reasoned, half-justifying
himself in a thoroughly selfish, sinful course; growling at his "bad
luck," and charging the guilt of his sin, which he said he couldn't
help, on Fate--in other words, on God.

It never occurred to George Aspel that the true way to get out of his
troubles was to commit his way to his Maker; to accept the position
assigned him; to do the work of a faithful servant therein; to get
connected with good society through the medium of churches and young
men's Christian associations, and to spend a few years in establishing a
character for trustworthiness, capacity, vigour, and intelligence, which
would secure his advancement in life. At least, if such thoughts did
occur to him, he refused to entertain them, and resolved to fling care
to the dogs and defy fortune.

Of course, it soon became apparent to his employer that there was a
great change for the worse in the youth, whom he not only admired for
his frank bearing and strapping appearance, but loved as his deliverer
from death. Delicacy of feeling, however, prevented Mr Blurt from
alluding to dissipations at which he could only guess.

Poverty and distress bring about strange companionships. When Aspel
first arrived in London he would have scouted the idea of his having
anything whatever to do with such a man as Abel Bones, but he had not
proceeded far in his downward course when that disreputable character
became, if not a companion, at least an acquaintance.

This state of things was brought about primarily by the patronage which
Aspel had extended to the "poor worthless fellow" whom he had so
unceremoniously knocked down. But the poor worthless fellow, although
born in a lower