But the question always came up-- "What is your character ?" "I have none," he would say doggedly.
"Why did you leave your last place ?" "I was turned away." "What for ?" "Because I am supposed to have killed a boy once." Once indeed he did get a temporary job at a warehouse--as a porter--and for a week, a happy week, used his broad back and brawny arms in carrying heavy loads and lifting weights.

Hope sprang again within him as he laboured.

He might yet, by beginning at the lowest step, rise above his evil name and conquer it.
Alas! One day a shilling was lost from the warehouseman's desk.
Jeffreys had been seen near the place and was suspected.

He resented the charge scornfully at first, then savagely, and in an outbreak of rage struck his accuser.

He was impeached before the head of the firm, and it was discovered that he had come without a character.