CHAPTER SIX.
REGINALD'S PROSPECTS DEVELOP.
It was in anything but exuberant spirits that the two Crudens presented themselves on the following morning at the workman's entrance of the _Rocket_ Newspaper Company, Limited.

The bell was beginning to sound as they did so, and their enemy the timekeeper looked as though he would fain discover a pretext for pouncing on them and giving them a specimen of his importance.

But even his ingenuity failed in this respect, and as Horace passed him with a good-humoured nod, he had, much against his will, to nod back, and forego his amiable intentions.
The brothers naturally turned their steps to the room presided over by Mr Durfy.

That magnate had not yet arrived, much to their relief, and they consoled themselves in his absence by standing at the table watching their fellow-workmen as they crowded in and proceeded with more or less alacrity to settle down to their day's work.
Among those who displayed no unseemly haste in applying themselves to their tasks was Barber, who, with the dust of the back case-room still in his mind, and equally on his countenance, considered the present opportunity of squaring up accounts with Reginald too good to be neglected.

For reasons best known to himself, Mr Barber determined that his victim's flagellation should be moral rather than physical.