They had come there six years previously, on the death of Mr Shuckleford, a respectable wharfinger, who had saved up money enough to leave his wife a small annuity.

Shortly before his death he had been promoted to the command of one of the Thames steamboats plying between Chelsea and London Bridge, in virtue of which office he had taken to himself--or rather his wife had claimed for him--the title of "captain," and with this patent of gentility had held up her head ever since.

Her children, following her good example, were not slow to hold up their heads too, and were fully convinced of their own gentility.

Samuel Shuckleford had, as his mother termed it, been "entered for the law" shortly after his father's death, and Miss Jemima Shuckleford, after the month's sojourn at a ladies' boarding-school already referred to, had settled down to assist her mother in the housework and maintain the dignity of the family by living on her income.
Such were the new next-door neighbours of the Crudens when at last they arrived, sadly, and with the new world before them, at Number 6, Dull Street.
Mr Richmond, who, with all his unfortunate manner, had acted a friend's part all along, had undertaken the task of clearing up affairs at Garden Vale, superintending the payment of Mr Cruden's debts, the sale of his furniture, and the removal to Dull Street of what little remained to the family to remind them of their former comforts.
It might have been better if in this last respect the boys and their mother had acted for themselves, for Mr Richmond appeared to have hazy notions as to what the family would most value.

The first sight which met the boys' eyes as they arrived was their tennis-racquets in a corner of the room.