xception the confidence reposed in it. Poor
George Montgomery found himself at eighteen without any outlook,
although he was a gentleman, and his father was a clergyman. The only
appointment he could procure was that of temporary clerk in the War
Office during a "scare"--"a merely provisional arrangement," as the
Rev. Mr. Montgomery explained, when inquiries were made after George.
The scare passed away; the temporary clerks were discharged; the father
died; and George, still more unfitted for any ordinary occupation, came
down at last, by a path which it is not worth while to trace, to earn a
living by delighting a Southwark audience nightly with his fine
baritone voice, good enough for a ballad in those latitudes, and good
enough indeed for something much better if it had been properly
exercised under a master. He was not downright dissolute, but his
experience with his father, who was weak and silly, had given him a
distaste for what he called religion; and he was loose, as might be
expected. Still, he was not so loose as to have lost his finer
instincts altogether, for he had some. He read a good deal, mostly
fiction, played the organ, and actually conducted the musical part of a
service every Sunday, heathen as he was. His vagrant life of
excitement begot in him a love of liquor, which he took merely to quiet
him, but unfortunately the dose required strengthening every now and
then. He was mostly in debt; prided himself on not dishonouring
virtuous women--a boast, nevertheless, not entirely justifiable; and
through his profession had acquired a slightly histrionic manner,
especially when he was reciting, an art in which he was accomplished.
He found out that Andrew had a sister, and he gave him a couple of
tickets for an entertainment which had been got up by some well-meaning
people to draw the poor to his church. They were tickets for the
respectable end of the schoolroom, and Andrew having obtained
permission to leave an hour earlier, took Miriam in her very best
dress, and with one or two little additional and specially purchased
articles of finery. It never entered Mr. Montgomery's head to invite
even Andrew to the music hall. He was ashamed of it, and he saw that
Andrew was not exactly the person to be taken there. Mr. Montgomery
had two classes of songs, both of which found favour with his ordinary
nightly audience. One was coarse, and the other sentimental.

Of the coarse, his always applauded "