gs at the office were passing in a flagrantly irregular way: he
knew that any one else in his position would have put this serious
affair into legal hands, if only out of justice to Sherwood himself.
More than once he had thought of communicating with Mr. Turnbull, but
shame withheld him. It seemed improbable, too, that the solicitor would
connive at keeping his friends at The Haws ignorant of what had
befallen them, and with every day that passed Will felt more disposed
to hide that catastrophe, if by any means that were possible. Already
he had half committed himself to this deception, having written to his
mother (without mention of any other detail) that he might, after all,
continue to live in London, where Applegarth's were about to establish
a warehouse. The question was how; if he put aside all the money he had
for payment of pretended dividend to his mother and sister, how, in
that case, was he himself to live? At the thought of going about
applying for clerk's work, or anything of that kind, cold water flowed
down his back; rather than that, he would follow Allchin's example, and
turn porter--an independent position compared with bent-backed slavery
on an office-stool. Some means of earning money he must find without
delay. To live on what he had, one day longer than could be helped,
would be sheer dishonesty. Sherwood might succeed in bringing him a few
hundreds--of the ten thousand Will thought not at all, so fantastic did
the whole story sound--but that would be merely another small
instalment of the sum due to the unsuspecting victims at St. Neots.
Strictly speaking, he owned not a penny; his very meals to-day were at
the expense of his mother and Jane. This thought goaded him. His sleep
became a mere nightmare; his waking, a dry-throated misery.

In spite of loathing and dread, he began to read the thick-serried
columns of newspaper advertisement, Wanted! Wanted! Wanted! Wants by
the thousand; but many more those of the would-be employed than those
of the would-be employers, and under the second heading not one in a
hundred that offered him the slightest hint or hope. Wanted! Wanted. To
glance over these columns is like listening to the clamour of a
hunger-driven multitude; the ears sing, the head turns giddy. After a
quarter of an hour of such search, Will flung the paper aside, and
stamped like a madman about his room. A horror of life seized him; he
understood, with fearful sympathy, the impulse of thos