FILTHY LUCRE. "A CHAPTER I. PROBYN'S WHARF. ND for goodness gracious' sake, George, mind it's tender!" shouted Mr. Probyn's cook after the departing butcher-boy. "Master's gone to the Wharf, and he's safe to come back as cross as two sticks." George replied, "All serene!" as he rattled down Great Coram Street in his cart, and the cook returned to her fiery domain, troubled but hopeful. She had a good place-most bachelors' cooks have. "Wharf day" only came once a week; and if the sole were fried to a turn, and the shrimp sauce were the thing; if George kept his word about the leg of Welsh mutton, and the savoury omelette were served hot-all might yet go well, though it was "Wharf day." Now, why was a middle-aged, independent, and prosperous man like James Probyn " safe to come home B as cross as two sticks" on Wharf days? Did things go wrong at the Wharf? Far from it. All went on excellently well, and that, if you will believe me, was why he came home so cross every Saturday. I have heard that convicts accustomed to iron anklets feel quite uncomfortable when a ticket-of-leave renders that appendage no longer de rigueur. The Wharf was a shackle which had been riveted to James Probyn early in life—a chain by which he had been dragged away from pursuits in which he delighted, and linked to others that he had been taught to despise-linked so long that when prosperity placed the file in his hands he lacked the will, or perhaps the energy, to cut himself free. He was two-and-twenty when he took his seat (a three-legged one) at the Wharf, and was close upon forty when he began to come home cross on Saturdays. It is not easy to change one's way of life at fortyespecially if you have been kept as close to your work as James Probyn had been; but it certainly did not mend matters for him to lose his temper. He had that choice flower of Parliamentary oratory, "three courses," before him. 1st. To endure what went on at the Wharf, if it could not be cured. 2nd. If it could be cured, to cure it. 3rd. If it could be neither cured nor endured, to cut the whole concern. I have said that things went on excellently well at |