rnor come down with the money. I don't know
whether that was handsome. It knocked me about terrible, I know."

"He always meant honest, Jacob."

"I don't know that I care much for a man's meaning when he runs
short of money. How is he going to see his way, with his seat in
Parliament, and this giving up of his profession? He owes us near a
quarter now."

"He paid me two months this morning, Jacob; so he don't owe a
farthing."

"Very well;--so much the better for us. I shall just have a few words
with Mr. Low, and see what he says to it. For myself I don't think
half so much of Parliament folk as some do. They're for promising
everything before they's elected; but not one in twenty of 'em is as
good as his word when he gets there."

Mr. Bunce was a copying journeyman, who spent ten hours a day in
Carey Street with a pen between his fingers; and after that he would
often spend two or three hours of the night with a pen between his
fingers in Marlborough Street. He was a thoroughly hard-working man,
doing pretty well in the world, for he had a good house over his
head, and always could find raiment and bread for his wife and
eight children; but, nevertheless, he was an unhappy man because he
suffered from political grievances, or, I should more correctly say,
that his grievances were semi-political and semi-social. He had no
vote, not being himself the tenant of the house in Great Marlborough
Street. The tenant was a tailor who occupied the shop, whereas Bunce
occupied the whole of the remainder of the premises. He was a lodger,
and lodgers were not as yet trusted with the franchise. And he had
ideas, which he himself admitted to be very raw, as to the injustice
of the manner in which he was paid for his work. So much a folio,
without reference to the way in which his work was done, without
regard to the success of his work, with no questions asked of
himself, was, as he thought, no proper way of remunerating a man for
his labours. He had long since joined a Trade Union, and for two
years past had paid a subscription of a shilling a week towards its
funds. He longed to be doing some battle against his superiors, and
to be putting himself in opposition to his employers;--not that he
objected personally to Messrs. Foolscap, Margin, and Vellum, who
always made much of him as a useful man;--but because some such
antagonism would be manly, and the fighting of some battle would
be the right thing to do. "If Labour don't m