In the mean time, some of the humble personages in our drama, being fixed in certain grooves, remain there uneventfully, the only changes that occur to them being marked by the hand of time. Mr. Podmore continues in his situation on the railway, works as hard and as long hours as ever, comes home as tired as ever, but more often now with a "daze" upon him, as he expresses it. This "daze"--he has no idea how he got hold of the word--gives him terrible frights at times, and causes him to be oblivious of what passes around him. It never comes upon him but when he is dead-beat, when what is known as a fair day's work is turned into a foul day's work by the abominable system which coins large dividends out of its servants' health, and which taxes their strength so unfairly as to bring old age upon men long before it is naturally due. Jim Podmore is fearful to speak of this "daze" to any one, for if it were known to the officers of the company, short shrift would be his portion. Such a sympathetic affection as humanity holds no place in the schemes and calculations of railway directors. Given so much bone and blood and muscle: how much strain can they bear? This ascertained, apply the strain to its utmost, until blood, bone, and muscle can no longer bear it, and fail, naturally, to perform their task. Then throw aside, and obtain fresh. Jim Podmore would not thus have expressed it, but the conclusion at which he had arrived is the same as the conclusion here set down. The only person who knows of his fast-growing infirmity is his wife. He confides to her the various stages of this "daze;" how he goes to work of a morning pretty fresh, and how, when his fair day's work is being turned into a foul day's work by the directors' strain, he begins to tire. "I seem to--fall asleep--gradually," he says, "although I hear--everything about me. All the wear and tear--of the day--all the noise--all the slamming and shouting--all the whistling and puffing--seem to get into the middle--of my head--and buzz there--as if they were bees. And so I go off--with this buzzing. Then I jump up--in a fright--just in time, old woman!--to shift the points--but I'm all of a tremble--and feel fit to die. Then I fall off--into a daze again--and the buzzing goes on--in my head. Then Snap--good old dog!"--(Snap licks the hand that pats its head) "pulls at my trousers--sometimes--and wakes me. Suppose I shouldn't--rouse myself in time--some time or other--and something was to occur! What then, old woman? I wake up--in the middle of a night--often--thinking of it--with the perspiration--a-running down me." Mrs. Podmore does her best to comfort him, but she cannot suggest a cure for Jim's "daze." "You see, old woman," he says, "it wouldn't do--for me--to fall ill even--and be laid up--for a week or two. That might do me good--but it wouldn't do. Where's the money--to come from? We couldn't lay our hands--on a spare half a crown--to save our lives." Which was a fact. Capital, in the majority of instances, pays labour just such a sum for its blood, bone, and muscle as is barely sufficient to live upon; every farthing flies away for urgent necessities, without which labour would starve, with which it barely manages to preserve its health. The result is that labour grows inevitably into a state of pauperism; hence workhouses--which are not known in the world's new lands. May they never be known! They are plague-spots, poisonous to the healthful blood of cities.

However, until a change for the worse comes, this small family of three, Mr. and Mrs. Podmore and their little Pollypod, live in their one room, and are more often happy there than otherwise. Felix frequently pays them visits, and learns from Jim and Mrs. Podmore many particulars concerning the railway system of overworking its servants, which he works up with good effect in his newspaper letters and other ways. Felix likes to get hold of a good public grievance, and has already learnt how to make capital of it. But, indeed, he could not write earnestly on any matter in which his sympathies were not in some way engaged. Pollypod enjoys herself greatly; she and Lizzie are firm friends, and the consequence is that she often accompanies Lily to Lizzie's house in the "country," and spends the day there. Old Wheels likes Lily to take the child with her; and, apart from her fondness for Pollypod, Lily is glad to please her grandfather in this way.

The Gribbles, senior and junior, go on as usual. Gribble junior maintains his ground, and is even prospering a little in his umbrella hospital, which is generally pretty full of patients. He "keeps moving" with his tongue, and is continually rattling away complacently on this subject and that. He likes Felix, who indeed is a favourite with them all, but he has contracted an inveterate dislike to Mr. Sheldrake, and never loses an opportunity of saying an ill word concerning that gentleman. Gribble senior keeps his chandler's shop open, but the trade continues to fall off woefully, and the old shopkeeper is more rampant than ever on the subject of co-operative stores, which he declares will be the ruin of the country.

Alfred grows more and more infatuated with racing; he meets with reverse after reverse, adopts system after system, discovers continually new methods of winning infallibly, is buoyed up and elated one day with the prospect of winning a great sum, and groans with despair the next day when the result is made known. Of course he does not always lose; he wins small sums occasionally, but they are like raindrops in the sea. Week after week passes, month after month flies by, and he is sinking lower and lower. David Sheldrake stands his friend still; still supplies him with money, and takes his signature for the amount, and what with letters and documents and information of how matters stand with Alfred at the office of his employers, Messrs. Tickle and Flint, holds such a dangerous power over the infatuated young man as can crush him at any moment. Here a defence must be set up for David Sheldrake, otherwise he might be taken for a fool for parting with his money so freely to a young fellow for whom he cared no more than for the snuff of a candle. David Sheldrake knew every trick of the game he was playing. Madly infatuated as he was with Lily, he was too completely a man of the world to throw away the sums of money he advanced to Alfred from time to time. But the fact of it was, he got it all back; what he gave with one hand he received with the other. He made an express stipulation with Alfred that Con Staveley should be the medium of all the young fellow's racing speculations; so that no sooner did David Sheldrake lend, than Con Staveley swallowed. Therefore, although in the aggregate, Alfred owed David Sheldrake a large sum of money, the astute David was really very little out of pocket. He was aware that, in other ways, Alfred was more extravagant than his earnings at Messrs. Tickle and Flint's warranted; but where he got the money from to supply these extravagances was no business of David Sheldrake's. Alfred did not get it from him. But in Alfred's moments of remorse, when he was pouring into David Sheldrake's ears accounts of his misfortunes, of how he was trapped by this tipster or deceived by that prophet, or swindled in some other way, many a chance expression of terror escaped from him, of which David Sheldrake made good use in his reflections--putting this and that together until he had arrived at the truth, and knew for a certainty that Alfred was robbing his employers. The power which this knowledge gave him over Lily was so complete that he would not have parted with it upon easy terms. He never failed of impressing upon Alfred that what he did for him he did for Lily's sake, and for Lily's sake only.

"If it were not for her, my boy," he said, "I think I should close on you; for after all, business is business."

Alfred listened, white and trembling.

"For God's sake," he said to Lily one day, when David Sheldrake had retired offended at her coldness; the man of the world had been more than usually pressing in his attentions, and Lily had shrunk from them--"for God's sake, Lily, don't offend him! You don't know how good he is; you don't know what a friend he is to me. If it was not for him, I should—"

Lily's eyes, fixed in alarm upon his face, stopped him, and he broke off with,

"I am the most miserable wretch in the world! There never was anybody half so miserable or half so unfortunate as I am! There's only one girl in the world who loves me--and that's Lizzie. My own sister, that I would lay down my life for, turns against me."

Lily's grief may be imagined. Turn against him! Against the dearest brother that sister ever had! How could she prove the sincerity of her love for him, she asked.

"By being kind to Mr. Sheldrake," Alfred answered sullenly; his fears blinded him to the unselfishness of her affection, blinded him to results.

Thus it came about that, on the next occasion Lily and Mr. Sheldrake met, Lily acted a part, and Mr. Sheldrake's wound was healed. Lily received her reward; Alfred kissed her and embraced her, and called her the dearest sister! She found consolation in his brighter manner; and although she shed many tears she was careful that Alfred should not witness her pain.