effort to save their son; and also to save, on his behalf, the
valuable official appointment which he held. He had now been
three years in his office, and his salary had risen to L110 per
annum. L110 per annum was worth saving if it could be saved. The
plan adopted by Mrs. Tudor was that of beseeching their cousin
Alaric to take Charley under his especial wing.

When Charley first arrived in town, the fact of Alaric and Norman
living together had given the former a good excuse for not
offering to share his lodgings with his cousin. Alaric, with the
advantage in age of three or four years--at that period of life
the advantage lies in that direction--with his acquired
experience of London life, and also with all the wondrous eclat
of the Weights and Measures shining round him, had perhaps been a
little too unwilling to take by the hand a rustic cousin who was
about to enter life under the questionable auspices of the
Internal Navigation. He had helped Charley to transcribe the
chapter of Gibbon, and had, it must be owned, lent him from time
to time a few odd pounds in his direst necessities. But their
course in life had hitherto been apart. Of Norman, Charley had
seen less even than of his cousin.

And now it became a difficult question with Alaric how he was to
answer the direct appeal made to him by Mrs. Tudor;--'Pray, pray
let him live with you, if it be only for a year, Alaric,' the
mother had said, with the tears running down her cheeks. 'You are
so good, so discreet, so clever--you can save him.' Alaric
promised, or was ready to promise, anything else, but hesitated
as to the joint lodgings. 'How could he manage it,' said he,
'living, as he was, with another man? He feared that Mr. Norman