smallpox. No sooner was this over than the father
came down with fever and went to the hospital for
three months. Then he was done for. He came
out weak, debilitated, no strong young son to stand
by him, his little business gone glimmering, and
not a farthing. The thing had happened, and the
game was up. No chance for an old man to
start again. Friends all poor and unable to he] p.
He had tried for work when they were putting up
the stands for the first Coronation parade. " An
I got fair sick of the answer; No! no ! no ! It
rang in my ears at night when I tried to sleep,
always the same, No ! no ! no ! ! Only the past
week he had answered an advertisement in Hack
ney, and on giving his age was told, " Oh, too old,
too old by far."

The Carpenter had been born in the army, where
his father had served twenty-two years. Likewise,
his two brothers had gone into the army; one,
troop sergeant-major of the Seventh Hussars, dying
in India after the Mutiny; the other, after nine
years under Roberts in the East, had been lost in
Egypt. The Carpenter had not gone into the
army, so here he was, still on the planet.

"But ere, give me your and," he said, ripping
open his ragged shirt. " I m fit for the anatomist,
that s all. I m wastin away, sir, actually wastin
away for want of food. Feel my ribs an you ll see."

[[88]]

p087 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p088w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p089

v?