"I'll be hanged, if I don't want to go to bed too!" soliloquized the
old gentleman under his breath, "and get to to-morrow, and have my
'Times' at breakfast. I'm as bad as Zack, every bit!"

"Grandpapa," continued the child, more wearily than before, "I want to
whisper something in your ear."

Mr. Goodworth bent down a little. Zack looked round cunningly towards
his father--then putting his mouth close to his grandfather's ear,
communicated the conclusion at which he had arrived, after the events
of the day, in these words--

_"I say, granpapa, I hate Sunday!"_




BOOK I

THE HIDING.

CHAPTER I.

A NEW NEIGHBORHOOD, AND A STRANGE CHARACTER.

At the period when the episode just related occurred in the life of Mr.
Zachary Thorpe the younger--that is to say, in the year 1837--Baregrove
Square was the farthest square from the city, and the nearest to the
country, of any then existing in the north-western suburb of London.