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Updated: June 15, 2025
And he departed very like a man walking to the gallows. Shuckleford returned at midnight, and found the supper waiting for him, but, to his relief, neither of the ladies. He wrote the following short note before he partook of his evening meal: "Dear D., Come round first thing in the morning. The police have dished us for once, but we'll be quits with them if we put our heads together.
"And down in your spirits, too; and well you may be, poor dear," said the visitor soothingly. "No, Mrs Shuckleford," said Mrs Cruden brightly. "Indeed, I ought not to be in bad spirits to-day. We've had quite a little family triumph to-day. Horace has had an article published in the Rocket, and we are so proud." "Ah, yes; he's the steady one," said Mrs Shuckleford.
"Who told me?" said Mrs Cruden, with surprise. "Who told me he was anything else?" "Oh, Mrs Cruden! Oh, Mrs Cruden!" said Mrs Shuckleford, beginning to cry. Mrs Cruden at last began to grow uneasy and alarmed. She sat up on the sofa, and said, in an agitated voice, "What do you mean, Mrs Shuckleford? Has anything happened? Is there any bad news about Reginald?"
She always takes on if any one mentions that boy's name; and she's old enough to be his aunt, too!" "The sooner she cures herself of that craze the better," said Sam, pouring himself out some more tea. "She don't know quite so much about him as I do!" "Why, what do you know about 'im, then?" inquired Mrs Shuckleford, in tones of curiosity.
Polly's out!" "I say," said Shuckleford, as they stood ready for the next round, "give us a jingle, Cruden; `Pop goes the Weasel, or something of that sort. That last was like the tune the cow died of. And stop short in the middle of a line, anyhow." Reginald rose from the piano with flushed cheeks, and said, "I'm afraid I'm not used to this sort of music. Perhaps Miss Shuckleford "
Samuel Shuckleford had, as his mother termed it, been "entered for the law" shortly after his father's death, and Miss Jemima Shuckleford, after the month's sojourn at a ladies' boarding-school already referred to, had settled down to assist her mother in the housework and maintain the dignity of the family by living on her income.
"Sad's no name for it," replied the visitor, with emotion. "Oh, Mrs Cruden, 'ow sorry I am for you." "You are very kind. It is a sad trial to be separated from my boy, but I've not given up hopes of seeing him back soon." Mrs Shuckleford shook her head. "'Ow you must suffer on 'is account," said she. "If your 'eart don't break with it, it must be made of tougher stuff than mine."
But as he got farther away from inhospitable Liverpool his spirits revived, and before London was reached he was once more in imagination "the clever lawyer, Shuckleford, don't you know, who gave the Liverpool police a slap in the face over that Agency Corporation business, don't you know." Two "don't you knows" this time!
"Yes, isn't yours?" said Horace, in a tone that rather surprised the limb of the law. "Mine? No. What makes you ask that?" he inquired. "Only because I thought I'd like to know," said Horace artlessly. Mr Shuckleford looked perplexed. He didn't understand exactly what Horace meant, and yet, whatever it was, it put him off the thread of his discourse for a time. So he changed the subject.
Mrs Shuckleford is really very kind, though she's not a congenial spirit. "Young Gedge and I see plenty of one another: he's joined our shorthand class, and is going in for a little steady work all round. He owes you a lot for befriending him at the time you did, and he's not forgotten it. I promised to send you his love next time I wrote. Harker will be in town next week, which will be jolly.
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