Mr.Norman heard her out with all the calm propriety of the Weights and Measures, begged to have a day to consider, and then acceded to the request.
'I think we ought to do it,' said he to Alaric.

The mother's tears had touched his heart, and his sense of duty had prevailed.
Alaric, of course, could now make no further objection, and thus Charley the Navvy became domesticated with his cousin Alaric and Harry Norman.
The first great question to be settled, and it is a very great question with a young man, was that of latch-key or no latch-key.
Mrs.Richards, the landlady, when she made ready the third bedroom for the young gentleman, would, as was her wont in such matters, have put a latchkey on the toilet-table as a matter of course, had she not had some little conversation with Mamma Tudor regarding her son.

Mamma Tudor had implored and coaxed, and probably bribed Mrs.Richards to do something more than 'take her son in and do for him'; and Mrs.Richards, as her first compliance with these requests, had kept the latch-key in her own pocket.

So matters went on for a week; but when Mrs.Richards found that her maidservant was never woken by Mr.Charley's raps after midnight, and that she herself was obliged to descend in her dressing-gown, she changed her mind, declared to herself that it was useless to attempt to keep a grown gentleman in leading-strings, and put the key on the table on the second Monday morning.
As none of the three men ever dined at home, Alaric and Norman having clubs which they frequented, and Charley eating his dinner at some neighbouring dining-house, it may be imagined that this change of residence did our poor navvy but little good.

It had, however, a salutary effect on him, at any rate at first.