pounds realised from his effects passed into the hands of Mr. Roach,
and were soon expended in payment for Sidney's board and lodging.

His bereavement possibly saved Sidney from a young-manhood of
foolishness and worse. In the upper world a youth may 'sow his wild
oats' and have done with it; in the nether, 'to have your fling' is
almost necessarily to fall among criminals. The death was sudden; it
affected the lad profoundly, and filled him with a remorse which was
to influence the whole of his life. Mr. Roach, a thick-skinned and
rather thick-headed person, did not spare to remind his apprentice
of the most painful things wherewith the latter had to reproach
himself. Sidney bore it, from this day beginning a course of
self-discipline of which not many are capable at any age, and very
few indeed at seventeen. Still, there had never been any sympathy
between him and his uncle, and before very long the young man saw
his way to live under another roof and find work with a new
employer.

It was just after leaving his uncle's house that Sidney came to know
John Hewett; the circumstances which fostered their friendship were
such as threw strong light on the characters of both. Sidney had
taken a room in Islington, and two rooms on the floor beneath him
were tenanted by a man who was a widower and had two children. In
those days, our young friend found much satisfaction in spending his
Sunday evenings on Clerkenwell Green, where fervent, if
ungrammatical, oratory was to be heard, and participation in debate
was open to all whom the spirit moved. One whom the spirit did very
frequently move was Sidney's fellow-lodger; he had no gift of
expression whatever, but his brief, stammering protests against this
or that social wrong had such an honest, indeed such a pathetic