READY-MONEY MORTIBOY.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1523, 21 June 1873, Page 4

READY -MONEY MORTIBOY.

A MATTER-OF-FACT STORY.

Chapter XXII. — Continued,

" Mother, Dick's no fool. I've had fifty pounds out of him for little Bill in the last four months. I told him only a fortnight ago, that Bill had got the scarlet fever ; and he told me to go to the devil. He's deep, too. He doesn't say anything, but he's down on you all of a sudden. > Mother, I lie awake at night and tremble sometimes. I'm afraid of him, he is so masterful." " B\vt try, Polly, my dear — try. Tell liini I want things at my time of life." . "I might do that; But it's no use pretending anything about' Bill for" awhile. The other night he said Bill" was played out. He wants to know "where the boy is, too." "Where is he, Polly?" Tell your old mother, deary." « Sha'n't," said Polly. , She made a long story about her mother that very night, and coaxed ten pounds out of Dick for her. The old woman clutched the gold, and put it away under her pillow, where she ke])t all the money that Polly got out of Dick. It was odd that he could endure the woman at all. She was rough-handed, rough-tongued, coarse-minded, intriguing, and crafty — and he knew it. Her tastes were of the lowest kinds. She liked to eat and drink, and do little work. The had no topics in common. He was lazy, and liked to " let things slide." She had all the faults that a woman can have ; but she had a sort of cleverness which was not displeasing to him. Sometimes he would hate her. This was generally after he had been spending an evening at Parkside— almost the only house he visited. Here, under the influence of the two girls and their father, he became subdued and sobered. The subtle influence of the sweet domestic life was strong enough to touch him : to move him, but not to bring him back. The sins of youth are never forgiven or forgotten. Now, when all else went well with Dick, when things had turned out beyond his wildest hopes, this woman — whom he had married in a fit of calf love — stood in his way; and seemed to drag him down again when he would fain have zisen above Ms own level. Other things had passed away and been forgotten. There was no fear thati;he>old Palmiste business would be revived. Facts and reports, ugly enough, were safe across the Atlantic. Of the twelve years of Bohemian existence no one knew : they were lost to history as completely as the forty years' wandering of the Israelities. Only Lafleur, who was sure to keep silent for his own sake, knew. And this woman alone stood in the way, warning him back from the paths of respectability — an Apollyon whom it was impossible to pass. But one evening, Polly, who had come in to see him, ciied in a maudlin way over the love she had for the boy ; and pulling her handkerchief out of her pocket to dry her eyes, dragged with it a letter, which Dick, who was sitting opposite her, and not to far off, instantly covered with, his foot. Ignorant

of her loss, she went on crying till the fit passed; and then, finishing off the port, marched off to bed in rather a corkscrew fashion. Dick, lifting his foot, pibked. up the letter and read it. It was ? a 1 very odd epistle, and was dated from some suburb of London of whichheknewnothing, called "Paragonplace, Gray's Inn-road." The orthography was that of a person imperfectly educated, and Dick deciphered it with some difficulty. "my Deer poly" — it went — "excuse Me trubbling you butt im hard up, haveing six of themm Cussed babies to look after and methoosalem and Little bill' dp eat ther Heds of and what with methoosalem as wont wurk and bill as Wont Prig im most crasy with them you Owe me for six Munths which six Pound ten and hope as youll send me the money sharp as Else bill he cuts his , Lucky so as lies your own Son and not mine i.dont see wy should kepe him any longer for Nuthink and remain dear poly your affeckshunit. " AnjSU Mariar Kneeboxe. " P.s. — [This in another hand]— i see the old woman a ritin her letter wich it toke her hall day and the babies a starvin, so i had a P.s. to say as she is verry hard up and so am i and so his bill. " Methoosalem." Dick read the precious epistle with a look of extreme bewilderment. Then he read it over again. Gradually arriving at a sense of its meaning, he looked again at the address and the name, so as not to forget them — lie never forgot anything — and then he ijwisted , it up and burned it in the candle. After that he went to bed, putting off meditation till the following morning. Dick was not going to spoil his night's rest because Polly had told him lies. Little Bill— that was Polly's child; presumably, therefore, his as well. Therefore, little ■William Mortiboy — the heir-apparent to his father's fortunes. " William Mortiboy'-s position," said Dick to himself, next morning after breakfast, " appears unsatisfactory. He lives with a lady named Kneebone, who has a lodging-house for babies. Wonder if the babies like the lodgings ] William Mortiboy associates, apparently, with a gentleman called Methoosalem, who refuses to work. Is he one of the babies? Wonder if he is ! William Mortiboy is expected to prig. That's a devilish bad beginning for William. William Mortiboy's companions are not, apparently, the heirs to anything — not even what the man in the play call a stainless name. Polly, I'm afraid you're a bad lot ! .... Anyhow, you might have paid the five bob a-week out of all the money you've had in the last four months. But we'll be even with you. Only wait a bit, my young lady."