The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-09-06


 He was greatly admired by the officers
 who took him, and found himself quite
 lion in the house to which he was taken.
 "A deep fle," said the Sheriffs officer,
 winking at another gentleman who winked back and said: q should say sol
 Only three and twenty and Brough's right-hand man. and in for three hundred thousand pound!"
 Their opinion fell sadly when Titmarsh told them that he did not have money
 enough to pay for lodgings in their house
 of detention, but would have to go to the
 Fleet. And to the Fleet he went, through
 a crowd of idlers, with his wife hanging trustfully to his arm and smiling like Heaven into his face-and taking Heaven into the Fleet prison with him. He had loved her before, when all was sunshine; but now that he was unhappy he knew what it was to be loved by good woman. So on that little ride down Holborn to the prison he kissed her, little minding the bailiff who sat opposite; kissed her and cried with her; but before the ride was over her tears were dried up and she stepped, blushing and happy, out of the coach at the prison door, as if she l were a princess going to the Queens drawing room
 The failure of the great Diddlesex company became the theme of all the newspapers. Brough, 1t was said, had gone off with a million pounds, although the truth was that he was living in garret in Bouogne without a shilling and only Mrs. Brough, like good, brave woman, faithful to him.
 MT. Titmarsh, said the papers, had , managed to secrete e100000 and only . waited to pass through the courti in order to be rich man for the rest of his days A great hubbub greeted him when he was taken to the bankruptcy court tried to assault him, and everywhere arose cries os "scoundreli" and "vil-
 lain" The faithful Gus stayed valiantly l by his side, however; and on his other side sat Mary pale as death, looking anxiously into his face.
 He spoke up manfully and answered all
 questions so frankly and honestly that 1 | When his testimony had all been given the commissioner said that it was clear i indeed that he had been deceived as grossly as everybody else and that he evidently was innocent of all guilt. They went back to prison, he and his young
 wife, and lived through long days that passed as in a dreadful fever. Mary was
 not we'll and the misery and foul air and gloomy sights told on her. But though Titmarsh tried hard to get sureties for the detainers against him, that he
 might at least live outside of the prison in the comparative freedom of "the rules 1 of the feet" he could find none to 1 offer it.
 His aunt had removed her furniture | (and most of Samuel's and Mary's pos
 sessions during the process) as soon as he
 was arrested, and in reply to his appeal | she wrote him that she had destroyed
 her will in which her fortune was be- queathed to him, ending her note with the l postscript: T took a viper in my bosom
 and it stung me-" Mary's grandfather, the lieutenant, had nothing but his half pay. 1 Samuel's mother had lost almost all through the failure, and neither Mary
 nor he would let her know of his plight. They seemed quite forsaken.
 Then Gus Hoskins came to the front. | He brought his father, and that kind, !, fat gentleman brought his kind, fat wife, l and being a man of weight in the Skin
 ners company and soon to be an alder
 man, he obtained leave for MT. Titmarsh
 to leave the prison and lodge outside. l As soon as he was freed from all re- 1 sponsibilty for the ruin and debts of the company he bestrred himself to make an | arrangement with his private creditors,
 who he knew were few and held but small 1 claims against him. But he discovered 1 that his aunt had written to all the | tradesmen warning them that he was a
 swindler and that all the goods ordered | in her name had really been ordered by ! him. Even the wedding dresses and other 1 gifts that he had ordered in London were 1 included in this; for his aunt as he now l found, never had paid these bills. There | fore. detainer after detainer piled up against him.
 | At this time their little baby was born. l Titmarsh did not know whether to be
 sad or happy when they showed him the ! little weakly thing, but Mary was the ! happiest woman, she declared, in the world, and forgot all her sorrows. She i vowed that it was the loveliest child ever 1 seen, and that though Lady Tiptof, to 1 whom, as the papers announced, baby | had been born at the same time, might l give hers a silken bed, it never could be | as beautiful a little child as their little | Gus.
 The young father walked up and down
 the street within the bounds, fretting over
 his enforced helplessness, and wearing l out his heart as so many wore 1t out 1 under England's glorious debtors law, that deprived honest men of all right or ability to labor just when they needed it 1 the most He envied the black man who
 swept the crossing. He was not allowed l even to carry broom.
 The baby was sickly, though the mother 1 did not see it. One night 1t was seized l with convulsions. All through the dark ness the mother watched, and prayed
 over it, but by the next midnight it lay
 a corpse in her arms.
 | When at last after many, many hours, l they succeeded in taking it from her and in leading her away to lie down, Tit | marsh sat beside it where 1t lay in it's
 wicker cradle with its sweet fixed smile
 on its face, and wept bitter tears because
 it came to him that he had not even
 money enough left to bury the little 1 thing.
 He got up and walked to and fro. Suddenly his eye fell on some thing that he had quite forgotten in his trouble and misery It was the great Hoggarty dia- | mond pin.
 He looked into the bedroom His wife