“Now, Mr Aspel, I’ll relieve you. The lady you sent up, Miss Lillycrop, is, it seems, an old friend of my brother, and she insists on acting the part of nurse to-night. I am all the better pleased, because I have business to attend to at the other end of the town. We will therefore close the shop, and you can go home. By the way, have you a home?”

 

“O yes,” said Aspel, with a laugh. “A poor enough one truly, off the Strand.”

 

“Indeed?—that reminds me: we always pay salaries in advance in this office. Here is a sovereign to account of your first quarter. We can settle the amount afterwards.”

 

Aspel accepted the coin with a not particularly good grace.

 

“Now then, you had better—ha—excuse me—put up the shutters.”

 

Instantly the youth pulled out the sovereign and laid it on the counter.

 

“No, sir,” he said firmly; “I am willing to aid you in your difficulties, but I am not willing to become a mere shop-boy—at least not while there is man’s work to be had.”

 

Mr Blurt looked perplexed. “What are we to do?” he asked.

 

“Hire a little boy,” said Aspel.

 

“But there are no little boys about,” he said, looking out into the street, where the wind was sending clouds of dust and bits of straw and paper into the air. “I would do it myself, but have not time; I’m late as it is. Ah! I have it—Mrs Murridge!”

 

Calling the faithful domestic, he asked if she knew how to put up the shutters, and would do it. She was quite willing, and set about it at once, while Mr Blurt nodded good-night, and went away.

 

With very uncomfortable feelings George Aspel stood in the shop, his tall figure drawn up, his arms crossed on his broad breast, and his finely formed head bent slightly down as he sternly watched the operation.

 

Mrs Murridge was a resolute woman. She put up most of the shutters promptly in spite of the high wind, but just as she was fixing the last of them a blast caught it and almost swept it from her grasp. For two seconds there was a tough struggle between Boreas and the old woman. Gallantry forbade further inaction. Aspel rushed out just in time to catch Mrs Murridge and the shutter in his strong arms as they were about to be swept into the kennel. He could do no more, however, than hold them there, the wind being too much even for him. While in this extremity he received timely aid from some one, whom the indistinct light revealed as a broad-shouldered little fellow in a grey uniform. With his assistance the shutter was affixed and secured.

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