"But you can't stand between him and it any
longer, John, and I mustn't ask you to; it's not
fair to you, John, and you shan't be burdened
with him any longer."

Poor old Daddy was sitting dozing in his
chair, blissfully unconscious ot these deliberations,
of which he was the subject. In his time
Daddy had been in a good, though small way of
business, in the carpentering line, combined
with a little undertaking (which he undertook
in his overtime, to oblige friends), and he had
brought up a large family decently; but his
sons, who might have been a help to him in his
declining years, emigrated, and died in foreign
parts; and when the infirmities of age began to
creep upon the old man, and he was no longer
able to work with his own hands, he disposed of
his business at an alarming sacrifice, and retired
to live on his means. His means were small,
but his remaining years were few; and proceeding
on his philosophical calculation, Daddy
lived upon the principal instead of the interest
(which he could not have lived upon at all), and
lived longer than he calculated. Although Daddy
disposed of his business, and let the carpenter's
shop, he still continued to occupy the dwelling-house
of which it formed a part, and this led
many to believe that the old carpenter was
pretty well off. His daughter Martha shared
in this impression, and was rather disposed to
boast of the independent gentleman, her father,
and cherish expectations of an inheritance.

One day, about two years after Martha had
been married to John Beadle, and shortly after
she had prodigally presented John with the
second pledge of her affection, old Daddy
arrived at the emporium suffused with smiles.
Martha thought he was going to present baby
with the silver spoons. When the old man
had settled himself in a chair, and recovered his
breath, he said, with a pleasant chuckle,

"I've got something to tell you, Martha."

"What is it, father?"

"Well, Martha, I've been looking in the top
drawer, and—and——"

"Yes, father, yes," said Martha, eagerly,
making quite sure now that baby was to have
the spoons.

"I've been looking in the top drawer," the
old man repeated, "and—and——"

"The spoons," Martha suggested, as
dutifully helping her poor old father in a difficulty.

"No, not the spoons, Martha," he said, "the
money."

"What about the money, father?"

"It's all gone, Martha!"

"All gone! The money you've got to live
upon, father," cried Martha, hysterically, "all
gone?"

"Every farden," said the old man.

Martha could not believe it. She gave baby
to a neighbour to mind, and insisted upon the
old man going back with her to his lodging
immediately. He gave her the key, and she tore
open the top drawer in a frantic way. She
seized the canvas bag in which the old man
kept his money (for he had an unconquerable
distrust of banks), and plunged her hand into
it. She could feel nothing like coin. She
turned the bag inside out and shook it, nothing
fell out of it. She rummaged among the useless
odds and ends in the drawer, and not a farthing
could she find. Suddenly she paused and said,

"You've been robbed, father. Somebody's
been at the drawer."

"No, no, my dear, you mustn't say that;
nobody's been at the drawer but me. I've
spent it all. There wasn't much of it, only
eighty pounds altogether, and it wouldn't last
for ever. It's me that's lived too long, Martha;"
and the old man sat down in a chair and began
to whimper and weep.

Martha could only sit down and weep too.
She was overwhelmed by the thought of her
father's destitution and the prospect which lay
before him in his weak old age. His money
was all gone, and his few sticks of furniture,
with the silver spoons, which were the only
portion of his plate which remained, would scarcely
realise enough to bury him.

This was sad news to tell John when he came
in (from a moving job) to his dinner. Martha,
by way of breaking it gently to him, hysterically
shrieked out the tidings at the top of her
voice as John was coming in at the door.

"Oh, John, father's money's all gone," she
cried.

Seeing that Martha was in a dreadful state
of excitement about the matter, John, with
a proper appreciation of artistic contrast, took
the unwelcome announcement coolly.

"Well," he said, "in that case we must keep
him. He has nobody else to look to."

And so one day John went over to Daddy's
house, sent for a broker and disposed of all the
things except the old man's bed, which he
despatched by the truck to the emporium. That
done, he locked the door, sent the key to the
landlord, and taking the old man by the hand,
led him to the shelter of the broken-backed
roof. Putting him into the old arm-chair by
the fire, and patting him kindly on his bald head,
he said:

"There, Daddy, consider yourself at home—
provided for for the rest of your life."

So it happened that John and Martha were
burdened with old Daddy Dodd, in addition to
their own numerous offspring. And Daddy was
a burden, though neither John nor Martha ever
said so, even to each other. He was an expensive
old man, for though he did not eat much,
and was well content to share a bedroom with
the boys, he had, considering his circumstances,
an unreasonable passion for snuff; and a glass of
"six ale," punctually every morning at eleven
o'clock, was absolutely necessary to his existence.
The glass of six ale he would have, and
he would have it nowhere but in the public-house,
standing at the pewter bar, according to
a custom which he had most religiously
observed for more than forty years. One of the
inconveniences of this requirement was that
the old man had to be provided every morning
with three-halfpence in current coin of the
realm; and another, which followed in the
course of time, when the old man became