ddle!" Tom replied. "All those hopes have
vanished. You'll never live to see any child of mine. And I know well
where to look for my enemy. Stubbs indeed! I'll Stubbs him. If I can
only live to be revenged on that traitor then I shall die contented.
Though he shot me through the heart, I should die contented."

This had happened a little before that unfortunate Christmas Eve. Up
to this time Sir Thomas, though he had known well that his son had
not been living as he should do, had been mild in his remonstrances,
and had said nothing at Merle Park to frighten Lady Tringle. But the
affair of Christmas Eve came to his ears with all its horrors. A
policeman whom Tom had struck with his fist in the pit of the stomach
had not been civil enough to accept this mark of familiarity with
good humour. He had been much inconvenienced by the blow, and had
insisted upon giving testimony to this effect before the magistrate.
There had been half-an-hour, he said, in which he had hung dubious
between this world and the next, so great had been the violence of
the blow, and so deadly its direction! The magistrate was one of
those just men who find a pleasure and a duty in protecting the
police of the metropolis. It was no case, he declared, for a fine.
What would be a fine to such a one as Thomas Tringle, junior! And
Tom,--Tom Tringle, the only son of Sir Thomas Tringle, the senior
partner in the great house of Travers and Treason,--was ignominiously
locked up for a week. Faddle, who had not struck the blow, was
allowed to depart with a fine and a warning. Oh, Ayala, Ayala, this
was thy doing!

When the sentence was known Sir Thomas used all his influence to
extricate his unfortunate son, but in vain. Tom went through his
penalty, and, having no help from champagne, doubtless had a bad time
of it. Ayala, Stubbs, the policeman, and the magistrate, seemed to
have conspired to destroy him. But the week at last dragged itself
out, and then Tom found himself confronted with his father in the
back-parlour of the house in Queen's Gate. "Tom," he said, "this is
very bad!"

"It is bad, Sir," said Tom.

"You have disgraced me, and your mother, and yourself. You have
disgraced Travers and Treason!" Poor Tom shook his head. "It will be
necessary, I fear, that you should leave the house altogether." Tom
stood silent without a word. "A young man who has been locked up in
prison for a week for maltreating a policeman can hardly expect to be
entrust