nd in it dead?"

"Yes, indeed, sir; dead for many hours, the doctor said; and in this
very house he had been no later than last night, and quite steady, sir,
I do assure you. He had been steady--oh, steady for weeks."

Maitland assumed an expression of regret, which no doubt he felt to
a certain extent But in his sorrow there could not but have been some
relief. For Maitland, in the course of his philanthropic labors, had
known old Dicky Shields, the naturalist and professional tattooer, as
a hopeless _mauvais sujet_. But Dicky's daughter, Margaret, had been a
daisy flourishing by the grimy waterside, till the young social reformer
transplanted her to a school in the purer air of Devonshire. He was
having her educated there, and after she was educated--why, then,
Maitland had at one time entertained his own projects or dreams. In the
way of their accomplishment Dicky Shields had been felt as an obstacle;
not that he objected--on the other hand, he had made Maitland put his
views in writing. There were times--there had lately, above all, been
times--when Maitland reflected uneasily on the conditional promises in
this document Dicky was not an eligible father-in-law, however good and
pretty a girl his daughter might be. But now Dicky had ceased to be an
obstacle; he was no longer (as he certainly had been) in any man's way;
he was nobody's enemy now, not even his own.

The vision of all these circumstances passed rapidly, like a
sensation rather than a set of coherent thoughts, through Maitland's
consciousness.

"Tell me everything you know of this wretched business," he said, rising
and closing the door which led into the outer room.

"Well, sir, you have not been here for some weeks, or you would know
that Dicky had found a friend lately--an old shipmate, or petty-officer,
he called him--a sailor-man. Well-to-do, he seemed; the mate of a
merchant vessel he might be. He had known Dicky, I think, long ago at
sea, and he'd bring him here 'to yarn with him,' he said, once or twice
it might be in this room, but mainly in the parlor up-stairs. He let old
Dicky tattoo him a bit, up there, to put him in the way of earning an
honest penny by his trade--a queer trade it was. Never more than a
pint, or a glass of hot rum and water, would he give the old man. Most
considerate and careful, sir, he ever was. Well, last night he brought
him in about nine, and they sat rather late; and about twelve the sailor
comes in, rubbing his