tmost
to bring his mother to London.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

LIGHT SHINING IN DARK PLACES.

Down by the river-side, in an out-of-the-way and unsavoury
neighbourhood, George Aspel and Abel Bones went one evening into a small
eating-house to have supper after a day of toil at the docks. It was a
temperance establishment. They went to it, however, not because of its
temperance but its cheapness. After dining they adjourned to a
neighbouring public-house to drink.

Bones had not yet got rid of his remorse, nor had he entirely given up
desiring to undo what he had done for Aspel. But he found the effort to
do good more difficult than he had anticipated. The edifice pulled down
so ruthlessly was not, he found, to be rebuilt in a day. It is true,
the work of demolition had not been all his own. If Aspel had not been
previously addicted to careless living, such a man as Bones never could
have had the smallest chance of influencing him. But Bones did not care
to reason deeply. He knew that he had desired and plotted the youth's
downfall, and that downfall had been accomplished. Having fallen from
such a height, and being naturally so proud and self sufficient, Aspel
was proportionally more difficult to move again in an upward direction.

Bones had tried once again to get him to go to the temperance
public-house, and had succeeded. They had supped there once, and were
more than pleased with the bright, cheerful aspect of the place, and its
respectable and sober, yet jolly, frequenters. But the cup of coffee
did not satisfy their depraved appetites. The struggle to overcome was
too much for men of no principle. They were self-willed and reckless.
Both said, "What's the use of trying?" and returned to their old haunts.

On the night in question, after supping, as we have said, they entered a
public-house to drink. It was filled with a noisy crew, as well as with
tobacco-smoke and spirituous fumes. They sat down at a retired table
and looked round.

"God help me," muttered Aspel, in a low husky voice, "I've fallen _very_
low!"

"Ay," responded Bones, almost savagely, "_very_ low."

Aspel was too much depressed to regard the tone. The waiter stood
beside them, expectant. "Two pints of beer," said Bones,--"_ginger_-
beer," he added, quickly.

"Yessir."

The waiter would have said "Yessir" to an order for two pints of prussic
acid, if that had been an article in his line. It was all one to him,
so l