When at length Oliver, waiting for supper, began to dance grotesquely to an air which local talent had somehow caught from the London music-halls, Godwin's self-control gave way.
'Is it your ambition,' he asked, with fiery sarcasm, 'to join a troupe of nigger minstrels ?' Oliver was startled into the military posture of attention.

He answered, with some embarrassment: 'I can't say it is.' 'Yet anyone would suppose so,' went on Godwin, hotly.

'Though you are employed in a shop, I should have thought you might still aim at behaving like a gentleman.' Indisposed to quarrel, and possessed of small skill in verbal fence, Oliver drew aside with shadowed brow.

As the brothers still had to share one bedroom, they were presently alone together, and their muteness, as they lay down to sleep, showed the estrangement that had at length come between them.

When all had been dark and still for half-an-hour, Godwin spoke.
'Are you awake ?' 'Yes.' 'There was something about Uncle Andrew.