Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. I, 1889.djvu/146

 manly face did every one good to look at. He still took little Clara upon his knee. Ha! there would come a day before long when he would not venture to do that, and then perhaps—perhaps! What a supper that was, and how smoothly went the great wheels of the world that evening!

One baby, two babies, three babies; before the birth of the third, John's brow was again clouded, again he had begun to rail and fume at the unfitness of things. His business was a failure, partly because he dealt with a too rigid honesty, partly because of his unstable nature, which left him at the mercy of whims and obstinacies and airy projects. He did not risk the ordinary kind of bankruptcy, but came down and down, until at length he was the only workman in his own shop; then the shop itself had to be abandoned; then he was searching for some one who would employ him.

Bob had been put to the die-sinker's craft; Clara was still going to school, and had no thought of earning a livelihood,—ominous