CHAPTER 6.
He had breakfasted, and was smoking his pipe as he wrote a letter, when Mrs.Hopper announced the visit, by appointment, of her brother-in-law, Allchin.

There entered a short, sturdy, red-headed young fellow, in a Sunday suit of respectable antiquity; his features were rude, his aspect dogged; but a certain intelligence showed in his countenance, and a not unamiable smile responded to the bluff heartiness of Warburton's greeting.

By original calling, Allchin was a grocer's assistant, but a troublesome temper had more than once set him adrift, the outcast of grocerdom, to earn a living as best he could by his vigorous thews, and it was in one of these intervals that, having need of a porter at the works, Warburton had engaged him, on Mrs.Hopper's petition.

After a month or so of irreproachable service, Allchin fought with a foreman, and took his discharge.

The same week, Mrs.Allchin presented him with their first child; the family fell into want; Mrs.
Hopper (squeezed between door and jamb) drew her master's attention to the lamentable case, and help was of course forthcoming.