The occasional social articles for the ‘Morning Intelligence’ supplied Ernest with work enough for the time being to occupy part of his leisure, and income enough to keep the ship floating somehow, if not securely, at least in decent fair-weather fashion. His frequent trips with Ronald into the East-end gave him something comparatively fresh to write about, and though he was compelled to conceal his own sentiments upon many points, in order to conform to that impersonal conscience, ‘the policy of the paper,’ he was still able to deal with subjects that really interested him, and in which he fancied he might actually be doing a little good. A few days after he had taken seriously to the new occupation, good Mrs. Halliss made her appearance in the tiny sitting-room one morning, and with many apologies and much humming and hawing ventured to make a slight personal representation to wondering little Edie.

‘If you please, mum,’ she said nervously, fumbling all the while with the corner of the table cloth she was folding on the breakfast-table, ‘if I might make so bold, mum, without offence, I should like to say as me an’ John ‘as been talkin’ it hover, an’ we think now as your good gentleman ‘as so much writin’ to do, at ‘is littery work, mum, as I may make bold to call it, perhaps you wouldn’t mind, so as not to disturb ‘im with the blessed baby—not as that dear child couldn’t never disturb nobody, bless ‘er dear ‘eart, the darling, not even when she’s cryin’, she’s that sweet and gentle,—but we thought, mum, as littery gentlemen likes to ‘ave the coast clear, in the manner of speakin’, and perhaps you wouldn’t mind bein’ so good as to use the little front room upstairs, mum, for a sort o’ nursery, as I may call it, for the dear baby. It was our bedroom, that was, where John an’ me used to sleep; but we’ve been an’ putt our things into the front hattic, mum, as is very nice and comfortable in every way, so as to make room for the dear baby. An’ if you won’t take it as a liberty, mum, me an’ John ‘ud be more’n glad if you’d kindly make use of that there room for a sort of occasional nursery for the dear baby.’

Edie bit her lip hard in her momentary confusion. ‘Oh, dear, Mrs. Halliss,’ she said, almost crying at the kindly meant offer, ‘I’m afraid we can’t afford to have THREE rooms all for ourselves as things go at present. How much do you propose to charge us for the additional nursery?’

‘Charge you for it, mum,’ Mrs. Halliss echoed, almost indignantly; ‘charge our lodgers for any little hextry accommodation like the small front room upstairs, mum—now, don’t you go and say that to John, mum, I beg of you; for ‘is temper’s rather short at times, mum, thro’ boin’ asmatic and the rheumatiz, though you wouldn’t think it to look at ‘im, that you wouldn’t; an’ I’m reely afraid, mum, he might get angry if anybody was to holler ‘im anythink for a little bit of hextry accommodation like that there. Lord bless your dear ‘eart, mum, don’t you say nothink more about that, I beg of you; for if John was to ‘ear of it, he’d go off in a downright tearin’ tantrum at the bare notion. An’ about dinner, mum, you’ll ‘ave the cold mutton an’ potatoes, and a bit of biled beetroot; and I’ll just run round to the greengrocer’s this moment to order it for early dinner.’ And before Edie had time to thank her, the good woman was out of tha room again, and down in the kitchen at her daily preparations, with tears trickling slowly down both her hard red cheeks in her own motherly fashion.

So from that time forth, Ernest had the small sitting-room entirely to himself, whenever he was engaged in his literary labours, while Edie and Dot turned the front bedroom on the first floor into a neat and commodious nursery. As other work did not turn up so rapidly as might have been expected, and as Ernest grew tired after a while of writing magazine articles on ‘The Great Social Problem,’ which were invariably ‘declined with thanks’ so promptly as to lead to a well-founded suspicion that they had never even been opened by the editor, he determined to employ his spare time in the production of an important economical volume, a treatise on the ultimate ethics of a labouring community, to be entitled ‘The Final Rule of Social Right Living.’ This valuable economical work he continued to toil at for many months in the intervals of his other occupations; and when at last it was duly completed, he read it over at full length to dear little Edie, who considered it one of the most profoundly logical and convincing political treatises ever written. The various leading firms, however, to whom it was afterwards submitted with a view to publication, would appear, oddly enough, to have doubted its complete suitability to the tastes and demands of the reading public in the present century; for they invariably replied to Ernest’s inquiries that they would be happy to undertake its production for the trilling sum of one hundred guineas, payable in advance; but that they did not see their way to accepting the risk and responsibility of floating so speculative a volume on their own account. In the end, the unhappy manuscript, after many refusals, was converted into cock-boats, hats, and paper dollies for little Dot; and its various intermediate reverses need enter no further into the main thread of this history. It kept Ernest busy in the spare hours of several months, and prevented him from thinking too much of his own immediate prospects, in his dreams for the golden future of humanity; and insomuch it did actually subserve some indirectly useful function; but on the other hand it wasted a considerable quantity of valuable tenpenny foolscap, and provided him after all with one more severe disappointment, to put on top of all the others to which he was just then being subjected. Clearly, the reading public took no paying interest in political economy; or if they did, then the article practically affected by the eternal laws of supply and demand was at least not the one meted out to them from the enthusiastic Schurzian pen of Ernest Le Breton.

One afternoon, not long after Ernest and Edie had taken rooms at Mrs. Halliss’s, they were somewhat surprised at receiving the honour of a casual visit from a very unexpected and unusual quarter. Ronald was with them, talking earnestly over the prospects of the situation, when a knock came at the door, and to their great astonishment the knock was quickly followed by the entrance of Herbert. He had never been there before, and Ernest felt sure he had come now for some very definite and sufficient purpose. And so he had indeed: it was a strange one for him; but Herbert Le Breton was actually bound upon a mission of charity. We have all of us our feelings, no doubt, and Herbert Le Breton, too, in his own fashion, had his. Ernest was after all a good fellow enough at bottom, and his own brother: (a man can’t for very rospectability’s sake let his own brother go utterly to the dogs if he can possibly help it); and so Herbert had made up his mind, much against his natural inclination, to warn Ernest of the danger he incurred in having anything more to do or say with this insane, disreputable old Schurz fellow. For his own part, he hated giving advice; people never took it; and that was a deadly offence against his amour propre and a gross insult to his personal dignity; but still, in this case, for Ernest’s sake, he determined after an inward struggle to swallow his own private scruples, and make an effort to check his brother on the edge of the abyss. Not that he would come to the point at once; Herbert was a careful diplomatic agent, and he didn’t spoil his hand by displaying all his cards too openly at the outset; he would begin upon comparatively indifferent subjects, and lead round the conversation gradually to the perils and errors of pure Schurzianism. So he set out by admiring his niece’s fat arms—a remarkable stretch of kindliness on Herbert’s part, for of course other people’s babies are well known to be really the most uninteresting objects in the whole animate universe—and then he passed on by natural transitions to Ernest’s housekeeping arrangements, and to the prospects of journalism as a trade, and finally to the necessity for a journalist to consult the tastes of his reading public. ‘And by the way, Ernest,’ he said quietly at last, ‘of course after this row at Pilbury, you’ll drop the acquaintance of your very problematical German socialist.’

Edie started in surprise. ‘What? Herr Schurz?’ she said eagerly. ‘Dear simple, kindly old Herr Schurz! Oh no, Herbert, that I’m sure he won’t; Ernest will never drop HIS acquaintance, whatever happens.’

Herbert coughed drily. ‘Then there are two of them for me to contend against,’ he said to himself with an inward smile. ‘I should really hardly have expected that, now. One would have said a priori that the sound common-sense and practical regard for the dominant feelings of society, which is so justly strong in most women, would have kept HER at any rate—with her own social disabilities, too—from aiding and abetting her husband in such a piece of egregious folly’—‘I’m sorry to hear it, Mrs. Le Breton,’ he went on aloud,—he never called her by her Christian name, and Edie was somehow rather pleased that he didn’t: ‘for you know Herr Schurz is far from being a desirable acquai............