Captain Dahher. 53 



be imagined, when their darling was returned for the 

 second time on their hands, marked ''incorrigible." There 

 was no doubt about it, as the old nurse expressed it, the 

 boy was a regular young '* Rooshian. What to do with 

 him now was the question. It was no use thinking about 

 the Church ; it was all they could do to induce him to 

 occasionally enter one, and then only by bribery and cor- 

 ruption on his mother's part. The boy was evidently not 

 a fool. Why should he not succeed if trained for mercan- 

 tile pursuits? "Who knows?" observed his fond 

 and ever-sanguine mother : '* perhaps dear Charles may 

 eventually turn out a second Dick Whittington, and be- 

 come Lord Mayor of London in process of time." Her 

 husband shook his head rather dubiously at his wife's 

 remark ; however, he thought there was no harm in giving 

 the lad a trial. Accordingly, a seat having been duly found 

 for him in a large counting-house in the City, and an 

 arrangement made with a highly respectable family, in 

 Bloomsbury Square, to board and lodge our hero during 

 his sojourn in town, with strict orders not to allow him a 

 latch-key on any pretence whatever, the youth was 

 launched on his new career, the fact being duly 

 impressed upon him at starting, that, if he only behaved 

 himself and worked hard, he was bound eventually to 

 become a very great man. 



Alas! the ''castles in the air" built by poor old Mr. 

 and Mrs. Dabber were destined before six months 

 were over to come with a crash to the ground. 

 One fine day the fond old couple took it into their 

 heads to go up to London with a view to giving dear 

 Charlie a pleasant surprise. Having ordered rooms 

 at the Golden Cross, where the coach stopped, old 



