"Stop it," yelled the indignant Mr. Blows; "stop it at once; d'ye hear?"

"I wish I'd never seen you," sobbed his wife from behind her apron. "Of
all the lazy, idle, drunken, good-for-nothing----"

"Go on," said Mr. Blows, grimly.

"You're more trouble than you're worth," declared Mrs. Blows. "Look at
your father, my dears," she continued, taking the apron away from her
face; "take a good look at him, and mind you don't grow up like it."

Mr. Blows met the combined gaze of his innocent offspring with a dark
scowl, and then fell to moodily walking up and down the passage until he
fell over the pail. At that his mood changed, and, turning fiercely, he
kicked that useful article up and down the passage until he was tired.

"I've 'ad enough of it," he muttered. He stopped at the kitchen-door
and, putting his hand in his pocket, threw a handful of change on to the
floor and swung out of the house.

Another pint of beer confirmed him in his resolution. He would go far
away and make a fresh start in the world. The morning was bright and the
air fresh, and a pleasant sense of freedom and adventure possessed his
soul as he walked. At a swinging pace he soon left Gravelton behind him,
and, coming to the river, sat down to smoke a final pipe before turning
his back forever on a town which had treated him so badly.

The river murmured agreeably and the rushes stirred softly in the breeze;
Mr. Blows, who could fall asleep on an upturned pail, succumbed to the