sound, that Sidney took an opportunity of walking home with him and
converting neighbourship into friendly acquaintance. John Hewett
gave the young man an account of his life. He had begun as a
lath-render; later he had got into cabinet-making, started a
business on his own account, and failed. A brother of his, who was a
builder's foreman, then found employment for him in general
carpentry on some new houses; but John quarrelled with his brother,
and after many difficulties fell to the making of packing-cases;
that was his work at present, and with much discontent he pursued
it. John was curiously frank in owning all the faults in himself
which had helped to make his career so unsatisfactory. He confessed
that he had an uncertain temper, that he soon became impatient with
work 'which led to nothing,' that he was tempted out of his prudence
by anything which seemed to offer 'a better start.' With all these
admissions, he maintained that he did well to be angry. It was wrong
that life should be so hard; so much should not be required of a
man. In body he was not strong; the weariness of interminable days
over-tried him and excited his mind to vain discontent. His wife was
the only one who could ever keep him cheerful under his lot, and his
wedded life had lasted but six years; now there was his lad Bob and
his little girl Clara to think of, and it only made him more
miserable to look forward and see them going through hardships like
his own. Things were wrong somehow, and it seemed to him that 'if
only we could have universal suffrage--'

Sidney was only eighteen, and strong in juvenile Radicalism, but he
had a fund of common sense, and such a conclusion as this of poor
John's half-astonished, half-amused him. However, the man's
personality attracted him; it was honest, warm-hearted, interesting;
the logic of his pleadings might be at fault, but Sidney sympathised