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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wrong Box, by 
+Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wrong Box
+
+Author: Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
+
+Release Date: February 25, 2006 [EBook #1585]
+[Last updated: September 19, 2011]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WRONG BOX ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WRONG BOX
+
+By Robert Louis Stevenson And Lloyd Osbourne
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+'Nothing like a little judicious levity,' says Michael Finsbury in the
+text: nor can any better excuse be found for the volume in the reader's
+hand. The authors can but add that one of them is old enough to be
+ashamed of himself, and the other young enough to learn better.
+
+R. L. S. L. O.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. In Which Morris Suspects
+
+How very little does the amateur, dwelling at home at ease, comprehend
+the labours and perils of the author, and, when he smilingly skims the
+surface of a work of fiction, how little does he consider the hours
+of toil, consultation of authorities, researches in the Bodleian,
+correspondence with learned and illegible Germans--in one word, the vast
+scaffolding that was first built up and then knocked down, to while away
+an hour for him in a railway train! Thus I might begin this tale with
+a biography of Tonti--birthplace, parentage, genius probably inherited
+from his mother, remarkable instance of precocity, etc--and a complete
+treatise on the system to which he bequeathed his name. The material
+is all beside me in a pigeon-hole, but I scorn to appear vainglorious.
+Tonti is dead, and I never saw anyone who even pretended to regret him;
+and, as for the tontine system, a word will suffice for all the purposes
+of this unvarnished narrative.
+
+A number of sprightly youths (the more the merrier) put up a certain sum
+of money, which is then funded in a pool under trustees; coming on for
+a century later, the proceeds are fluttered for a moment in the face of
+the last survivor, who is probably deaf, so that he cannot even hear of
+his success--and who is certainly dying, so that he might just as well
+have lost. The peculiar poetry and even humour of the scheme is now
+apparent, since it is one by which nobody concerned can possibly profit;
+but its fine, sportsmanlike character endeared it to our grandparents.
+
+When Joseph Finsbury and his brother Masterman were little lads
+in white-frilled trousers, their father--a well-to-do merchant
+in Cheapside--caused them to join a small but rich tontine of
+seven-and-thirty lives. A thousand pounds was the entrance fee; and
+Joseph Finsbury can remember to this day the visit to the lawyer's,
+where the members of the tontine--all children like himself--were
+assembled together, and sat in turn in the big office chair, and signed
+their names with the assistance of a kind old gentleman in spectacles
+and Wellington boots. He remembers playing with the children afterwards
+on the lawn at the back of the lawyer's house, and a battle-royal that
+he had with a brother tontiner who had kicked his shins. The sound of
+war called forth the lawyer from where he was dispensing cake and
+wine to the assembled parents in the office, and the combatants were
+separated, and Joseph's spirit (for he was the smaller of the two)
+commended by the gentleman in the Wellington boots, who vowed he had
+been just such another at the same age. Joseph wondered to himself if
+he had worn at that time little Wellingtons and a little bald head,
+and when, in bed at night, he grew tired of telling himself stories
+of sea-fights, he used to dress himself up as the old gentleman, and
+entertain other little boys and girls with cake and wine.
+
+In the year 1840 the thirty-seven were all alive; in 1850 their number
+had decreased by six; in 1856 and 1857 business was more lively, for the
+Crimea and the Mutiny carried off no less than nine. There remained
+in 1870 but five of the original members, and at the date of my story,
+including the two Finsburys, but three.
+
+By this time Masterman was in his seventy-third year; he had long
+complained of the effects of age, had long since retired from business,
+and now lived in absolute seclusion under the roof of his son Michael,
+the well-known solicitor. Joseph, on the other hand, was still up and
+about, and still presented but a semi-venerable figure on the streets
+in which he loved to wander. This was the more to be deplored because
+Masterman had led (even to the least particular) a model British life.
+Industry, regularity, respectability, and a preference for the four per
+cents are understood to be the very foundations of a green old age. All
+these Masterman had eminently displayed, and here he was, ab agendo, at
+seventy-three; while Joseph, barely two years younger, and in the most
+excellent preservation, had disgraced himself through life by idleness
+and eccentricity. Embarked in the leather trade, he had early wearied
+of business, for which he was supposed to have small parts. A taste for
+general information, not promptly checked, had soon begun to sap his
+manhood. There is no passion more debilitating to the mind, unless,
+perhaps, it be that itch of public speaking which it not infrequently
+accompanies or begets. The two were conjoined in the case of Joseph; the
+acute stage of this double malady, that in which the patient delivers
+gratuitous lectures, soon declared itself with severity, and not many
+years had passed over his head before he would have travelled thirty
+miles to address an infant school. He was no student; his reading was
+confined to elementary textbooks and the daily papers; he did not even
+fly as high as cyclopedias; life, he would say, was his volume. His
+lectures were not meant, he would declare, for college professors; they
+were addressed direct to 'the great heart of the people', and the
+heart of the people must certainly be sounder than its head, for his
+lucubrations were received with favour. That entitled 'How to Live
+Cheerfully on Forty Pounds a Year', created a sensation among the
+unemployed. 'Education: Its Aims, Objects, Purposes, and Desirability',
+gained him the respect of the shallow-minded. As for his celebrated
+essay on 'Life Insurance Regarded in its Relation to the Masses', read
+before the Working Men's Mutual Improvement Society, Isle of Dogs, it
+was received with a 'literal ovation' by an unintelligent audience of
+both sexes, and so marked was the effect that he was next year elected
+honorary president of the institution, an office of less than
+no emolument--since the holder was expected to come down with a
+donation--but one which highly satisfied his self-esteem.
+
+While Joseph was thus building himself up a reputation among the more
+cultivated portion of the ignorant, his domestic life was suddenly
+overwhelmed by orphans. The death of his younger brother Jacob saddled
+him with the charge of two boys, Morris and John; and in the course of
+the same year his family was still further swelled by the addition of a
+little girl, the daughter of John Henry Hazeltine, Esq., a gentleman
+of small property and fewer friends. He had met Joseph only once, at a
+lecture-hall in Holloway; but from that formative experience he returned
+home to make a new will, and consign his daughter and her fortune to the
+lecturer. Joseph had a kindly disposition; and yet it was not without
+reluctance that he accepted this new responsibility, advertised for a
+nurse, and purchased a second-hand perambulator. Morris and John he made
+more readily welcome; not so much because of the tie of consanguinity
+as because the leather business (in which he hastened to invest their
+fortune of thirty thousand pounds) had recently exhibited inexplicable
+symptoms of decline. A young but capable Scot was chosen as manager to
+the enterprise, and the cares of business never again afflicted Joseph
+Finsbury. Leaving his charges in the hands of the capable Scot (who was
+married), he began his extensive travels on the Continent and in Asia
+Minor.
+
+With a polyglot Testament in one hand and a phrase-book in the other,
+he groped his way among the speakers of eleven European languages.
+The first of these guides is hardly applicable to the purposes of the
+philosophic traveller, and even the second is designed more expressly
+for the tourist than for the expert in life. But he pressed interpreters
+into his service--whenever he could get their services for nothing--and
+by one means and another filled many notebooks with the results of his
+researches.
+
+In these wanderings he spent several years, and only returned to England
+when the increasing age of his charges needed his attention. The two
+lads had been placed in a good but economical school, where they had
+received a sound commercial education; which was somewhat awkward, as
+the leather business was by no means in a state to court enquiry. In
+fact, when Joseph went over his accounts preparatory to surrendering his
+trust, he was dismayed to discover that his brother's fortune had not
+increased by his stewardship; even by making over to his two wards
+every penny he had in the world, there would still be a deficit of seven
+thousand eight hundred pounds. When these facts were communicated to the
+two brothers in the presence of a lawyer, Morris Finsbury threatened
+his uncle with all the terrors of the law, and was only prevented from
+taking extreme steps by the advice of the professional man. 'You cannot
+get blood from a stone,' observed the lawyer.
+
+And Morris saw the point and came to terms with his uncle. On the one
+side, Joseph gave up all that he possessed, and assigned to his
+nephew his contingent interest in the tontine, already quite a hopeful
+speculation. On the other, Morris agreed to harbour his uncle and Miss
+Hazeltine (who had come to grief with the rest), and to pay to each
+of them one pound a month as pocket-money. The allowance was amply
+sufficient for the old man; it scarce appears how Miss Hazeltine
+contrived to dress upon it; but she did, and, what is more, she never
+complained. She was, indeed, sincerely attached to her incompetent
+guardian. He had never been unkind; his age spoke for him loudly; there
+was something appealing in his whole-souled quest of knowledge and
+innocent delight in the smallest mark of admiration; and, though the
+lawyer had warned her she was being sacrificed, Julia had refused to add
+to the perplexities of Uncle Joseph.
+
+In a large, dreary house in John Street, Bloomsbury, these four dwelt
+together; a family in appearance, in reality a financial association.
+Julia and Uncle Joseph were, of course, slaves; John, a gentle man with
+a taste for the banjo, the music-hall, the Gaiety bar, and the sporting
+papers, must have been anywhere a secondary figure; and the cares
+and delights of empire devolved entirely upon Morris. That these are
+inextricably intermixed is one of the commonplaces with which the bland
+essayist consoles the incompetent and the obscure, but in the case of
+Morris the bitter must have largely outweighed the sweet. He grudged no
+trouble to himself, he spared none to others; he called the servants
+in the morning, he served out the stores with his own hand, he took
+soundings of the sherry, he numbered the remainder biscuits; painful
+scenes took place over the weekly bills, and the cook was frequently
+impeached, and the tradespeople came and hectored with him in the back
+parlour upon a question of three farthings. The superficial might have
+deemed him a miser; in his own eyes he was simply a man who had been
+defrauded; the world owed him seven thousand eight hundred pounds, and
+he intended that the world should pay.
+
+But it was in his dealings with Joseph that Morris's character
+particularly shone. His uncle was a rather gambling stock in which he
+had invested heavily; and he spared no pains in nursing the security.
+The old man was seen monthly by a physician, whether he was well or ill.
+His diet, his raiment, his occasional outings, now to Brighton, now to
+Bournemouth, were doled out to him like pap to infants. In bad weather
+he must keep the house. In good weather, by half-past nine, he must
+be ready in the hall; Morris would see that he had gloves and that his
+shoes were sound; and the pair would start for the leather business
+arm in arm. The way there was probably dreary enough, for there was no
+pretence of friendly feeling; Morris had never ceased to upbraid
+his guardian with his defalcation and to lament the burthen of Miss
+Hazeltine; and Joseph, though he was a mild enough soul, regarded his
+nephew with something very near akin to hatred. But the way there
+was nothing to the journey back; for the mere sight of the place of
+business, as well as every detail of its transactions, was enough to
+poison life for any Finsbury.
+
+Joseph's name was still over the door; it was he who still signed the
+cheques; but this was only policy on the part of Morris, and designed
+to discourage other members of the tontine. In reality the business was
+entirely his; and he found it an inheritance of sorrows. He tried to
+sell it, and the offers he received were quite derisory. He tried to
+extend it, and it was only the liabilities he succeeded in extending; to
+restrict it, and it was only the profits he managed to restrict. Nobody
+had ever made money out of that concern except the capable Scot, who
+retired (after his discharge) to the neighbourhood of Banff and built a
+castle with his profits. The memory of this fallacious Caledonian Morris
+would revile daily, as he sat in the private office opening his mail,
+with old Joseph at another table, sullenly awaiting orders, or savagely
+affixing signatures to he knew not what. And when the man of the heather
+pushed cynicism so far as to send him the announcement of his second
+marriage (to Davida, eldest daughter of the Revd. Alexander McCraw), it
+was really supposed that Morris would have had a fit.
+
+Business hours, in the Finsbury leather trade, had been cut to the
+quick; even Morris's strong sense of duty to himself was not strong
+enough to dally within those walls and under the shadow of that
+bankruptcy; and presently the manager and the clerks would draw a long
+breath, and compose themselves for another day of procrastination. Raw
+Haste, on the authority of my Lord Tennyson, is half-sister to Delay;
+but the Business Habits are certainly her uncles. Meanwhile, the leather
+merchant would lead his living investment back to John Street like a
+puppy dog; and, having there immured him in the hall, would depart for
+the day on the quest of seal rings, the only passion of his life. Joseph
+had more than the vanity of man, he had that of lecturers. He owned he
+was in fault, although more sinned against (by the capable Scot) than
+sinning; but had he steeped his hands in gore, he would still not
+deserve to be thus dragged at the chariot-wheels of a young man, to sit
+a captive in the halls of his own leather business, to be entertained
+with mortifying comments on his whole career--to have his costume
+examined, his collar pulled up, the presence of his mittens verified,
+and to be taken out and brought home in custody, like an infant with
+a nurse. At the thought of it his soul would swell with venom, and he
+would make haste to hang up his hat and coat and the detested mittens,
+and slink upstairs to Julia and his notebooks. The drawing-room at least
+was sacred from Morris; it belonged to the old man and the young girl;
+it was there that she made her dresses; it was there that he inked
+his spectacles over the registration of disconnected facts and the
+calculation of insignificant statistics.
+
+Here he would sometimes lament his connection with the tontine. 'If it
+were not for that,' he cried one afternoon, 'he would not care to keep
+me. I might be a free man, Julia. And I could so easily support myself
+by giving lectures.'
+
+'To be sure you could,' said she; 'and I think it one of the meanest
+things he ever did to deprive you of that amusement. There were those
+nice people at the Isle of Cats (wasn't it?) who wrote and asked you so
+very kindly to give them an address. I did think he might have let you
+go to the Isle of Cats.'
+
+'He is a man of no intelligence,' cried Joseph. 'He lives here literally
+surrounded by the absorbing spectacle of life, and for all the good
+it does him, he might just as well be in his coffin. Think of his
+opportunities! The heart of any other young man would burn within him
+at the chance. The amount of information that I have it in my power
+to convey, if he would only listen, is a thing that beggars language,
+Julia.'
+
+'Whatever you do, my dear, you mustn't excite yourself,' said Julia;
+'for you know, if you look at all ill, the doctor will be sent for.'
+
+'That is very true,' returned the old man humbly, 'I will compose myself
+with a little study.' He thumbed his gallery of notebooks. 'I wonder,'
+he said, 'I wonder (since I see your hands are occupied) whether it
+might not interest you--'
+
+'Why, of course it would,' cried Julia. 'Read me one of your nice
+stories, there's a dear.'
+
+He had the volume down and his spectacles upon his nose instanter, as
+though to forestall some possible retractation. 'What I propose to read
+to you,' said he, skimming through the pages, 'is the notes of a highly
+important conversation with a Dutch courier of the name of David Abbas,
+which is the Latin for abbot. Its results are well worth the money
+it cost me, for, as Abbas at first appeared somewhat impatient, I was
+induced to (what is, I believe, singularly called) stand him drink. It
+runs only to about five-and-twenty pages. Yes, here it is.' He cleared
+his throat, and began to read.
+
+Mr Finsbury (according to his own report) contributed about four hundred
+and ninety-nine five-hundredths of the interview, and elicited from
+Abbas literally nothing. It was dull for Julia, who did not require to
+listen; for the Dutch courier, who had to answer, it must have been
+a perfect nightmare. It would seem as if he had consoled himself by
+frequent appliances to the bottle; it would even seem that (toward the
+end) he had ceased to depend on Joseph's frugal generosity and called
+for the flagon on his own account. The effect, at least, of some
+mellowing influence was visible in the record: Abbas became suddenly a
+willing witness; he began to volunteer disclosures; and Julia had just
+looked up from her seam with something like a smile, when Morris burst
+into the house, eagerly calling for his uncle, and the next instant
+plunged into the room, waving in the air the evening paper.
+
+It was indeed with great news that he came charged. The demise was
+announced of Lieutenant-General Sir Glasgow Biggar, KCSI, KCMG, etc.,
+and the prize of the tontine now lay between the Finsbury brothers. Here
+was Morris's opportunity at last. The brothers had never, it is true,
+been cordial. When word came that Joseph was in Asia Minor, Masterman
+had expressed himself with irritation. 'I call it simply indecent,' he
+had said. 'Mark my words--we shall hear of him next at the North Pole.'
+And these bitter expressions had been reported to the traveller on his
+return. What was worse, Masterman had refused to attend the lecture on
+'Education: Its Aims, Objects, Purposes, and Desirability', although
+invited to the platform. Since then the brothers had not met. On the
+other hand, they never had openly quarrelled; Joseph (by Morris's
+orders) was prepared to waive the advantage of his juniority; Masterman
+had enjoyed all through life the reputation of a man neither greedy nor
+unfair. Here, then, were all the elements of compromise assembled;
+and Morris, suddenly beholding his seven thousand eight hundred pounds
+restored to him, and himself dismissed from the vicissitudes of the
+leather trade, hastened the next morning to the office of his cousin
+Michael.
+
+Michael was something of a public character. Launched upon the law at a
+very early age, and quite without protectors, he had become a trafficker
+in shady affairs. He was known to be the man for a lost cause; it was
+known he could extract testimony from a stone, and interest from a
+gold-mine; and his office was besieged in consequence by all that
+numerous class of persons who have still some reputation to lose, and
+find themselves upon the point of losing it; by those who have
+made undesirable acquaintances, who have mislaid a compromising
+correspondence, or who are blackmailed by their own butlers. In
+private life Michael was a man of pleasure; but it was thought his dire
+experience at the office had gone far to sober him, and it was known
+that (in the matter of investments) he preferred the solid to the
+brilliant. What was yet more to the purpose, he had been all his life a
+consistent scoffer at the Finsbury tontine.
+
+It was therefore with little fear for the result that Morris presented
+himself before his cousin, and proceeded feverishly to set forth his
+scheme. For near upon a quarter of an hour the lawyer suffered him to
+dwell upon its manifest advantages uninterrupted. Then Michael rose from
+his seat, and, ringing for his clerk, uttered a single clause: 'It won't
+do, Morris.'
+
+It was in vain that the leather merchant pleaded and reasoned, and
+returned day after day to plead and reason. It was in vain that he
+offered a bonus of one thousand, of two thousand, of three thousand
+pounds; in vain that he offered, in Joseph's name, to be content with
+only one-third of the pool. Still there came the same answer: 'It won't
+do.'
+
+'I can't see the bottom of this,' he said at last. 'You answer none of
+my arguments; you haven't a word to say. For my part, I believe it's
+malice.'
+
+The lawyer smiled at him benignly. 'You may believe one thing,' said he.
+'Whatever else I do, I am not going to gratify any of your curiosity.
+You see I am a trifle more communicative today, because this is our last
+interview upon the subject.'
+
+'Our last interview!' cried Morris.
+
+'The stirrup-cup, dear boy,' returned Michael. 'I can't have my business
+hours encroached upon. And, by the by, have you no business of your own?
+Are there no convulsions in the leather trade?'
+
+'I believe it to be malice,' repeated Morris doggedly. 'You always hated
+and despised me from a boy.'
+
+'No, no--not hated,' returned Michael soothingly. 'I rather like you
+than otherwise; there's such a permanent surprise about you, you look so
+dark and attractive from a distance. Do you know that to the naked
+eye you look romantic?--like what they call a man with a history? And
+indeed, from all that I can hear, the history of the leather trade is
+full of incident.'
+
+'Yes,' said Morris, disregarding these remarks, 'it's no use coming
+here. I shall see your father.'
+
+'O no, you won't,' said Michael. 'Nobody shall see my father.'
+
+'I should like to know why,' cried his cousin.
+
+'I never make any secret of that,' replied the lawyer. 'He is too ill.'
+
+'If he is as ill as you say,' cried the other, 'the more reason for
+accepting my proposal. I will see him.'
+
+'Will you?' said Michael, and he rose and rang for his clerk.
+
+It was now time, according to Sir Faraday Bond, the medical baronet
+whose name is so familiar at the foot of bulletins, that Joseph (the
+poor Golden Goose) should be removed into the purer air of Bournemouth;
+and for that uncharted wilderness of villas the family now shook off
+the dust of Bloomsbury; Julia delighted, because at Bournemouth she
+sometimes made acquaintances; John in despair, for he was a man of city
+tastes; Joseph indifferent where he was, so long as there was pen and
+ink and daily papers, and he could avoid martyrdom at the office; Morris
+himself, perhaps, not displeased to pretermit these visits to the city,
+and have a quiet time for thought. He was prepared for any sacrifice;
+all he desired was to get his money again and clear his feet of leather;
+and it would be strange, since he was so modest in his desires, and the
+pool amounted to upward of a hundred and sixteen thousand pounds--it
+would be strange indeed if he could find no way of influencing Michael.
+'If I could only guess his reason,' he repeated to himself; and by day,
+as he walked in Branksome Woods, and by night, as he turned upon his
+bed, and at meal-times, when he forgot to eat, and in the bathing
+machine, when he forgot to dress himself, that problem was constantly
+before him: Why had Michael refused?
+
+At last, one night, he burst into his brother's room and woke him.
+
+'What's all this?' asked John.
+
+'Julia leaves this place tomorrow,' replied Morris. 'She must go up to
+town and get the house ready, and find servants. We shall all follow in
+three days.'
+
+'Oh, brayvo!' cried John. 'But why?'
+
+'I've found it out, John,' returned his brother gently.
+
+'It? What?' enquired John.
+
+'Why Michael won't compromise,' said Morris. 'It's because he can't.
+It's because Masterman's dead, and he's keeping it dark.'
+
+'Golly!' cried the impressionable John. 'But what's the use? Why does he
+do it, anyway?'
+
+'To defraud us of the tontine,' said his brother.
+
+'He couldn't; you have to have a doctor's certificate,' objected John.
+
+'Did you never hear of venal doctors?' enquired Morris. 'They're as
+common as blackberries: you can pick 'em up for three-pound-ten a head.'
+
+'I wouldn't do it under fifty if I were a sawbones,' ejaculated John.
+
+'And then Michael,' continued Morris, 'is in the very thick of it. All
+his clients have come to grief; his whole business is rotten eggs. If
+any man could arrange it, he could; and depend upon it, he has his plan
+all straight; and depend upon it, it's a good one, for he's clever, and
+be damned to him! But I'm clever too; and I'm desperate. I lost seven
+thousand eight hundred pounds when I was an orphan at school.'
+
+'O, don't be tedious,' interrupted John. 'You've lost far more already
+trying to get it back.'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. In Which Morris takes Action
+
+Some days later, accordingly, the three males of this depressing family
+might have been observed (by a reader of G. P. R. James) taking their
+departure from the East Station of Bournemouth. The weather was raw
+and changeable, and Joseph was arrayed in consequence according to the
+principles of Sir Faraday Bond, a man no less strict (as is well known)
+on costume than on diet. There are few polite invalids who have not
+lived, or tried to live, by that punctilious physician's orders. 'Avoid
+tea, madam,' the reader has doubtless heard him say, 'avoid tea, fried
+liver, antimonial wine, and bakers' bread. Retire nightly at 10.45;
+and clothe yourself (if you please) throughout in hygienic flannel.
+Externally, the fur of the marten is indicated. Do not forget to
+procure a pair of health boots at Messrs Dail and Crumbie's.' And he has
+probably called you back, even after you have paid your fee, to add
+with stentorian emphasis: 'I had forgotten one caution: avoid kippered
+sturgeon as you would the very devil.' The unfortunate Joseph was cut to
+the pattern of Sir Faraday in every button; he was shod with the health
+boot; his suit was of genuine ventilating cloth; his shirt of hygienic
+flannel, a somewhat dingy fabric; and he was draped to the knees in
+the inevitable greatcoat of marten's fur. The very railway porters at
+Bournemouth (which was a favourite station of the doctor's) marked the
+old gentleman for a creature of Sir Faraday. There was but one evidence
+of personal taste, a vizarded forage cap; from this form of headpiece,
+since he had fled from a dying jackal on the plains of Ephesus, and
+weathered a bora in the Adriatic, nothing could divorce our traveller.
+
+The three Finsburys mounted into their compartment, and fell immediately
+to quarrelling, a step unseemly in itself and (in this case) highly
+unfortunate for Morris. Had he lingered a moment longer by the window,
+this tale need never have been written. For he might then have observed
+(as the porters did not fail to do) the arrival of a second passenger in
+the uniform of Sir Faraday Bond. But he had other matters on hand, which
+he judged (God knows how erroneously) to be more important.
+
+'I never heard of such a thing,' he cried, resuming a discussion which
+had scarcely ceased all morning. 'The bill is not yours; it is mine.'
+
+'It is payable to me,' returned the old gentleman, with an air of bitter
+obstinacy. 'I will do what I please with my own property.'
+
+The bill was one for eight hundred pounds, which had been given him at
+breakfast to endorse, and which he had simply pocketed.
+
+'Hear him, Johnny!' cried Morris. 'His property! the very clothes upon
+his back belong to me.'
+
+'Let him alone,' said John. 'I am sick of both of you.'
+
+'That is no way to speak of your uncle, sir,' cried Joseph. 'I will not
+endure this disrespect. You are a pair of exceedingly forward, impudent,
+and ignorant young men, and I have quite made up my mind to put an end
+to the whole business.'.
+
+'O skittles!' said the graceful John.
+
+But Morris was not so easy in his mind. This unusual act of
+insubordination had already troubled him; and these mutinous words now
+sounded ominously in his ears. He looked at the old gentleman uneasily.
+Upon one occasion, many years before, when Joseph was delivering a
+lecture, the audience had revolted in a body; finding their entertainer
+somewhat dry, they had taken the question of amusement into their own
+hands; and the lecturer (along with the board schoolmaster, the Baptist
+clergyman, and a working-man's candidate, who made up his bodyguard) was
+ultimately driven from the scene. Morris had not been present on that
+fatal day; if he had, he would have recognized a certain fighting
+glitter in his uncle's eye, and a certain chewing movement of his lips,
+as old acquaintances. But even to the inexpert these symptoms breathed
+of something dangerous.
+
+'Well, well,' said Morris. 'I have no wish to bother you further till we
+get to London.'
+
+Joseph did not so much as look at him in answer; with tremulous hands
+he produced a copy of the British Mechanic, and ostentatiously buried
+himself in its perusal.
+
+'I wonder what can make him so cantankerous?' reflected the nephew. 'I
+don't like the look of it at all.' And he dubiously scratched his nose.
+
+The train travelled forth into the world, bearing along with it the
+customary freight of obliterated voyagers, and along with these old
+Joseph, affecting immersion in his paper, and John slumbering over
+the columns of the Pink Un, and Morris revolving in his mind a dozen
+grudges, and suspicions, and alarms. It passed Christchurch by the sea,
+Herne with its pinewoods, Ringwood on its mazy river. A little behind
+time, but not much for the South-Western, it drew up at the platform of
+a station, in the midst of the New Forest, the real name of which (in
+case the railway company 'might have the law of me') I shall veil under
+the alias of Browndean.
+
+Many passengers put their heads to the window, and among the rest an old
+gentleman on whom I willingly dwell, for I am nearly done with him now,
+and (in the whole course of the present narrative) I am not in the least
+likely to meet another character so decent. His name is immaterial, not
+so his habits. He had passed his life wandering in a tweed suit on the
+continent of Europe; and years of Galignani's Messenger having at length
+undermined his eyesight, he suddenly remembered the rivers of Assyria
+and came to London to consult an oculist. From the oculist to the
+dentist, and from both to the physician, the step appears inevitable;
+presently he was in the hands of Sir Faraday, robed in ventilating cloth
+and sent to Bournemouth; and to that domineering baronet (who was his
+only friend upon his native soil) he was now returning to report. The
+case of these tweedsuited wanderers is unique. We have all seen them
+entering the table d'hote (at Spezzia, or Grdtz, or Venice) with a
+genteel melancholy and a faint appearance of having been to India and
+not succeeded. In the offices of many hundred hotels they are known by
+name; and yet, if the whole of this wandering cohort were to disappear
+tomorrow, their absence would be wholly unremarked. How much more, if
+only one--say this one in the ventilating cloth--should vanish! He had
+paid his bills at Bournemouth; his worldly effects were all in the van
+in two portmanteaux, and these after the proper interval would be
+sold as unclaimed baggage to a Jew; Sir Faraday's butler would be a
+half-crown poorer at the year's end, and the hotelkeepers of Europe
+about the same date would be mourning a small but quite observable
+decline in profits. And that would be literally all. Perhaps the old
+gentleman thought something of the sort, for he looked melancholy enough
+as he pulled his bare, grey head back into the carriage, and the train
+smoked under the bridge, and forth, with ever quickening speed, across
+the mingled heaths and woods of the New Forest.
+
+Not many hundred yards beyond Browndean, however, a sudden jarring of
+brakes set everybody's teeth on edge, and there was a brutal stoppage.
+Morris Finsbury was aware of a confused uproar of voices, and sprang to
+the window. Women were screaming, men were tumbling from the windows on
+the track, the guard was crying to them to stay where they were; at the
+same time the train began to gather way and move very slowly backward
+toward Browndean; and the next moment--, all these various sounds were
+blotted out in the apocalyptic whistle and the thundering onslaught of
+the down express.
+
+The actual collision Morris did not hear. Perhaps he fainted. He had a
+wild dream of having seen the carriage double up and fall to pieces
+like a pantomime trick; and sure enough, when he came to himself, he was
+lying on the bare earth and under the open sky. His head ached savagely;
+he carried his hand to his brow, and was not surprised to see it red
+with blood. The air was filled with an intolerable, throbbing roar,
+which he expected to find die away with the return of consciousness; and
+instead of that it seemed but to swell the louder and to pierce the more
+cruelly through his ears. It was a raging, bellowing thunder, like a
+boiler-riveting factory.
+
+And now curiosity began to stir, and he sat up and looked about him. The
+track at this point ran in a sharp curve about a wooded hillock; all
+of the near side was heaped with the wreckage of the Bournemouth train;
+that of the express was mostly hidden by the trees; and just at the
+turn, under clouds of vomiting steam and piled about with cairns of
+living coal, lay what remained of the two engines, one upon the other.
+On the heathy margin of the line were many people running to and fro,
+and crying aloud as they ran, and many others lying motionless like
+sleeping tramps.
+
+Morris suddenly drew an inference. 'There has been an accident' thought
+he, and was elated at his perspicacity. Almost at the same time his eye
+lighted on John, who lay close by as white as paper. 'Poor old John!
+poor old cove!' he thought, the schoolboy expression popping forth from
+some forgotten treasury, and he took his brother's hand in his with
+childish tenderness. It was perhaps the touch that recalled him;
+at least John opened his eyes, sat suddenly up, and after several
+ineffectual movements of his lips, 'What's the row?' said he, in a
+phantom voice.
+
+The din of that devil's smithy still thundered in their ears. 'Let us
+get away from that,' Morris cried, and pointed to the vomit of steam
+that still spouted from the broken engines. And the pair helped each
+other up, and stood and quaked and wavered and stared about them at the
+scene of death.
+
+Just then they were approached by a party of men who had already
+organized themselves for the purposes of rescue.
+
+'Are you hurt?' cried one of these, a young fellow with the sweat
+streaming down his pallid face, and who, by the way he was treated, was
+evidently the doctor.
+
+Morris shook his head, and the young man, nodding grimly, handed him a
+bottle of some spirit.
+
+'Take a drink of that,' he said; 'your friend looks as if he needed it
+badly. We want every man we can get,' he added; 'there's terrible work
+before us, and nobody should shirk. If you can do no more, you can carry
+a stretcher.'
+
+The doctor was hardly gone before Morris, under the spur of the dram,
+awoke to the full possession of his wits.
+
+'My God!' he cried. 'Uncle Joseph!'
+
+'Yes,' said John, 'where can he be? He can't be far off. I hope the old
+party isn't damaged.'
+
+'Come and help me to look,' said Morris, with a snap of savage
+determination strangely foreign to his ordinary bearing; and then, for
+one moment, he broke forth. 'If he's dead!' he cried, and shook his fist
+at heaven.
+
+To and fro the brothers hurried, staring in the faces of the wounded,
+or turning the dead upon their backs. They must have thus examined forty
+people, and still there was no word of Uncle Joseph. But now the course
+of their search brought them near the centre of the collision, where the
+boilers were still blowing off steam with a deafening clamour. It was
+a part of the field not yet gleaned by the rescuing party. The ground,
+especially on the margin of the wood, was full of inequalities--here
+a pit, there a hillock surmounted with a bush of furze. It was a place
+where many bodies might lie concealed, and they beat it like pointers
+after game. Suddenly Morris, who was leading, paused and reached forth
+his index with a tragic gesture. John followed the direction of his
+brother's hand.
+
+In the bottom of a sandy hole lay something that had once been human.
+The face had suffered severely, and it was unrecognizable; but that was
+not required. The snowy hair, the coat of marten, the ventilating cloth,
+the hygienic flannel--everything down to the health boots from Messrs
+Dail and Crumbie's, identified the body as that of Uncle Joseph. Only
+the forage cap must have been lost in the convulsion, for the dead man
+was bareheaded.
+
+'The poor old beggar!' said John, with a touch of natural feeling; 'I
+would give ten pounds if we hadn't chivvied him in the train!'
+
+But there was no sentiment in the face of Morris as he gazed upon the
+dead. Gnawing his nails, with introverted eyes, his brow marked with
+the stamp of tragic indignation and tragic intellectual effort, he stood
+there silent. Here was a last injustice; he had been robbed while he was
+an orphan at school, he had been lashed to a decadent leather business,
+he had been saddled with Miss Hazeltine, his cousin had been defrauding
+him of the tontine, and he had borne all this, we might almost say, with
+dignity, and now they had gone and killed his uncle!
+
+'Here!' he said suddenly, 'take his heels, we must get him into the
+woods. I'm not going to have anybody find this.'
+
+'O, fudge!' said John, 'where's the use?'
+
+'Do what I tell you,' spirted Morris, as he took the corpse by the
+shoulders. 'Am I to carry him myself?'
+
+They were close upon the borders of the wood; in ten or twelve paces
+they were under cover; and a little further back, in a sandy clearing of
+the trees, they laid their burthen down, and stood and looked at it with
+loathing.
+
+'What do you mean to do?' whispered John.
+
+'Bury him, to be sure,' responded Morris, and he opened his pocket-knife
+and began feverishly to dig.
+
+'You'll never make a hand of it with that,' objected the other.
+
+'If you won't help me, you cowardly shirk,' screamed Morris, 'you can go
+to the devil!'
+
+'It's the childishest folly,' said John; 'but no man shall call me a
+coward,' and he began to help his brother grudgingly.
+
+The soil was sandy and light, but matted with the roots of the
+surrounding firs. Gorse tore their hands; and as they baled the sand
+from the grave, it was often discoloured with their blood. An hour
+passed of unremitting energy upon the part of Morris, of lukewarm help
+on that of John; and still the trench was barely nine inches in depth.
+Into this the body was rudely flung: sand was piled upon it, and then
+more sand must be dug, and gorse had to be cut to pile on that; and
+still from one end of the sordid mound a pair of feet projected and
+caught the light upon their patent-leather toes. But by this time the
+nerves of both were shaken; even Morris had enough of his grisly task;
+and they skulked off like animals into the thickest of the neighbouring
+covert.
+
+'It's the best that we can do,' said Morris, sitting down.
+
+'And now,' said John, 'perhaps you'll have the politeness to tell me
+what it's all about.'
+
+'Upon my word,' cried Morris, 'if you do not understand for yourself, I
+almost despair of telling you.'
+
+'O, of course it's some rot about the tontine,' returned the other. 'But
+it's the merest nonsense. We've lost it, and there's an end.'
+
+'I tell you,' said Morris, 'Uncle Masterman is dead. I know it, there's
+a voice that tells me so.'
+
+'Well, and so is Uncle Joseph,' said John.
+
+'He's not dead, unless I choose,' returned Morris.
+
+'And come to that,' cried John, 'if you're right, and Uncle Masterman's
+been dead ever so long, all we have to do is to tell the truth and
+expose Michael.'
+
+'You seem to think Michael is a fool,' sneered Morris. 'Can't you
+understand he's been preparing this fraud for years? He has the whole
+thing ready: the nurse, the doctor, the undertaker, all bought, the
+certificate all ready but the date! Let him get wind of this business,
+and you mark my words, Uncle Masterman will die in two days and be
+buried in a week. But see here, Johnny; what Michael can do, I can do.
+If he plays a game of bluff, so can I. If his father is to live for
+ever, by God, so shall my uncle!'
+
+'It's illegal, ain't it?' said John.
+
+'A man must have SOME moral courage,' replied Morris with dignity.
+
+'And then suppose you're wrong? Suppose Uncle Masterman's alive and
+kicking?'
+
+'Well, even then,' responded the plotter, 'we are no worse off than we
+were before; in fact, we're better. Uncle Masterman must die some day;
+as long as Uncle Joseph was alive, he might have died any day; but we're
+out of all that trouble now: there's no sort of limit to the game that I
+propose--it can be kept up till Kingdom Come.'
+
+'If I could only see how you meant to set about it' sighed John. 'But
+you know, Morris, you always were such a bungler.'
+
+'I'd like to know what I ever bungled,' cried Morris; 'I have the best
+collection of signet rings in London.'
+
+'Well, you know, there's the leather business,' suggested the other.
+'That's considered rather a hash.'
+
+It was a mark of singular self-control in Morris that he suffered this
+to pass unchallenged, and even unresented.
+
+'About the business in hand,' said he, 'once we can get him up to
+Bloomsbury, there's no sort of trouble. We bury him in the cellar, which
+seems made for it; and then all I have to do is to start out and find a
+venal doctor.'
+
+'Why can't we leave him where he is?' asked John.
+
+'Because we know nothing about the country,' retorted Morris. 'This wood
+may be a regular lovers' walk. Turn your mind to the real difficulty.
+How are we to get him up to Bloomsbury?'
+
+Various schemes were mooted and rejected. The railway station at
+Browndean was, of course, out of the question, for it would now be a
+centre of curiosity and gossip, and (of all things) they would be
+least able to dispatch a dead body without remark. John feebly proposed
+getting an ale-cask and sending it as beer, but the objections to this
+course were so overwhelming that Morris scorned to answer. The purchase
+of a packing-case seemed equally hopeless, for why should two gentlemen
+without baggage of any kind require a packing-case? They would be more
+likely to require clean linen.
+
+'We are working on wrong lines,' cried Morris at last. 'The thing must
+be gone about more carefully. Suppose now,' he added excitedly, speaking
+by fits and starts, as if he were thinking aloud, 'suppose we rent
+a cottage by the month. A householder can buy a packing-case without
+remark. Then suppose we clear the people out today, get the packing-case
+tonight, and tomorrow I hire a carriage or a cart that we could
+drive ourselves--and take the box, or whatever we get, to Ringwood or
+Lyndhurst or somewhere; we could label it "specimens", don't you see?
+Johnny, I believe I've hit the nail at last.'
+
+'Well, it sounds more feasible,' admitted John.
+
+'Of course we must take assumed names,' continued Morris. 'It would
+never do to keep our own. What do you say to "Masterman" itself? It
+sounds quiet and dignified.'
+
+'I will NOT take the name of Masterman,' returned his brother; 'you may,
+if you like. I shall call myself Vance--the Great Vance; positively the
+last six nights. There's some go in a name like that.'
+
+'Vance?' cried Morris. 'Do you think we are playing a pantomime for our
+amusement? There was never anybody named Vance who wasn't a music-hall
+singer.'
+
+'That's the beauty of it,' returned John; 'it gives you some standing at
+once. You may call yourself Fortescue till all's blue, and nobody cares;
+but to be Vance gives a man a natural nobility.'
+
+'But there's lots of other theatrical names,' cried Morris. 'Leybourne,
+Irving, Brough, Toole--'
+
+'Devil a one will I take!' returned his brother. 'I am going to have my
+little lark out of this as well as you.'
+
+'Very well,' said Morris, who perceived that John was determined to
+carry his point, 'I shall be Robert Vance.'
+
+'And I shall be George Vance,' cried John, 'the only original George
+Vance! Rally round the only original!'
+
+Repairing as well as they were able the disorder of their clothes, the
+Finsbury brothers returned to Browndean by a circuitous route in quest
+of luncheon and a suitable cottage. It is not always easy to drop at
+a moment's notice on a furnished residence in a retired locality; but
+fortune presently introduced our adventurers to a deaf carpenter, a man
+rich in cottages of the required description, and unaffectedly eager to
+supply their wants. The second place they visited, standing, as it did,
+about a mile and a half from any neighbours, caused them to exchange a
+glance of hope. On a nearer view, the place was not without depressing
+features. It stood in a marshy-looking hollow of a heath; tall trees
+obscured its windows; the thatch visibly rotted on the rafters; and the
+walls were stained with splashes of unwholesome green. The rooms were
+small, the ceilings low, the furniture merely nominal; a strange chill
+and a haunting smell of damp pervaded the kitchen; and the bedroom
+boasted only of one bed.
+
+Morris, with a view to cheapening the place, remarked on this defect.
+
+'Well,' returned the man; 'if you can't sleep two abed, you'd better
+take a villa residence.'
+
+'And then,' pursued Morris, 'there's no water. How do you get your
+water?'
+
+'We fill THAT from the spring,' replied the carpenter, pointing to a big
+barrel that stood beside the door. 'The spring ain't so VERY far off,
+after all, and it's easy brought in buckets. There's a bucket there.'
+
+Morris nudged his brother as they examined the water-butt. It was
+new, and very solidly constructed for its office. If anything had been
+wanting to decide them, this eminently practical barrel would have
+turned the scale. A bargain was promptly struck, the month's rent was
+paid upon the nail, and about an hour later the Finsbury brothers might
+have been observed returning to the blighted cottage, having along with
+them the key, which was the symbol of their tenancy, a spirit-lamp, with
+which they fondly told themselves they would be able to cook, a pork pie
+of suitable dimensions, and a quart of the worst whisky in Hampshire.
+Nor was this all they had effected; already (under the plea that they
+were landscape-painters) they had hired for dawn on the morrow a light
+but solid two-wheeled cart; so that when they entered in their new
+character, they were able to tell themselves that the back of the
+business was already broken.
+
+John proceeded to get tea; while Morris, foraging about the house, was
+presently delighted by discovering the lid of the water-butt upon the
+kitchen shelf. Here, then, was the packing-case complete; in the absence
+of straw, the blankets (which he himself, at least, had not the smallest
+intention of using for their present purpose) would exactly take the
+place of packing; and Morris, as the difficulties began to vanish from
+his path, rose almost to the brink of exultation. There was, however,
+one difficulty not yet faced, one upon which his whole scheme depended.
+Would John consent to remain alone in the cottage? He had not yet dared
+to put the question.
+
+It was with high good-humour that the pair sat down to the deal table,
+and proceeded to fall-to on the pork pie. Morris retailed the discovery
+of the lid, and the Great Vance was pleased to applaud by beating on the
+table with his fork in true music-hall style.
+
+'That's the dodge,' he cried. 'I always said a water-butt was what you
+wanted for this business.'
+
+'Of course,' said Morris, thinking this a favourable opportunity to
+prepare his brother, 'of course you must stay on in this place till I
+give the word; I'll give out that uncle is resting in the New Forest. It
+would not do for both of us to appear in London; we could never conceal
+the absence of the old man.'
+
+John's jaw dropped.
+
+'O, come!' he cried. 'You can stay in this hole yourself. I won't.'
+
+The colour came into Morris's cheeks. He saw that he must win his
+brother at any cost.
+
+'You must please remember, Johnny,' he said, 'the amount of the tontine.
+If I succeed, we shall have each fifty thousand to place to our bank
+account; ay, and nearer sixty.'
+
+'But if you fail,' returned John, 'what then? What'll be the colour of
+our bank account in that case?'
+
+'I will pay all expenses,' said Morris, with an inward struggle; 'you
+shall lose nothing.'
+
+'Well,' said John, with a laugh, 'if the ex-s are yours, and
+half-profits mine, I don't mind remaining here for a couple of days.'
+
+'A couple of days!' cried Morris, who was beginning to get angry and
+controlled himself with difficulty; 'why, you would do more to win five
+pounds on a horse-race!'
+
+'Perhaps I would,' returned the Great Vance; 'it's the artistic
+temperament.'
+
+'This is monstrous!' burst out Morris. 'I take all risks; I pay all
+expenses; I divide profits; and you won't take the slightest pains to
+help me. It's not decent; it's not honest; it's not even kind.'
+
+'But suppose,' objected John, who was considerably impressed by his
+brother's vehemence, 'suppose that Uncle Masterman is alive after all,
+and lives ten years longer; must I rot here all that time?'
+
+'Of course not,' responded Morris, in a more conciliatory tone; 'I only
+ask a month at the outside; and if Uncle Masterman is not dead by that
+time you can go abroad.'
+
+'Go abroad?' repeated John eagerly. 'Why shouldn't I go at once? Tell
+'em that Joseph and I are seeing life in Paris.'
+
+'Nonsense,' said Morris.
+
+'Well, but look here,' said John; 'it's this house, it's such a pig-sty,
+it's so dreary and damp. You said yourself that it was damp.'
+
+'Only to the carpenter,' Morris distinguished, 'and that was to reduce
+the rent. But really, you know, now we're in it, I've seen worse.'
+
+'And what am I to do?' complained the victim. 'How can I entertain a
+friend?'
+
+'My dear Johnny, if you don't think the tontine worth a little trouble,
+say so, and I'll give the business up.'
+
+'You're dead certain of the figures, I suppose?' asked John.
+'Well'--with a deep sigh--'send me the Pink Un and all the comic papers
+regularly. I'll face the music.'
+
+As afternoon drew on, the cottage breathed more thrillingly of its
+native marsh; a creeping chill inhabited its chambers; the fire smoked,
+and a shower of rain, coming up from the channel on a slant of wind,
+tingled on the window-panes. At intervals, when the gloom deepened
+toward despair, Morris would produce the whisky-bottle, and at first
+John welcomed the diversion--not for long. It has been said this spirit
+was the worst in Hampshire; only those acquainted with the county can
+appreciate the force of that superlative; and at length even the Great
+Vance (who was no connoisseur) waved the decoction from his lips. The
+approach of dusk, feebly combated with a single tallow candle, added
+a touch of tragedy; and John suddenly stopped whistling through his
+fingers--an art to the practice of which he had been reduced--and
+bitterly lamented his concessions.
+
+'I can't stay here a month,' he cried. 'No one could. The thing's
+nonsense, Morris. The parties that lived in the Bastille would rise
+against a place like this.'
+
+With an admirable affectation of indifference, Morris proposed a game
+of pitch-and-toss. To what will not the diplomatist condescend! It was
+John's favourite game; indeed his only game--he had found all the rest
+too intellectual--and he played it with equal skill and good fortune. To
+Morris himself, on the other hand, the whole business was detestable;
+he was a bad pitcher, he had no luck in tossing, and he was one who
+suffered torments when he lost. But John was in a dangerous humour, and
+his brother was prepared for any sacrifice.
+
+By seven o'clock, Morris, with incredible agony, had lost a couple of
+half-crowns. Even with the tontine before his eyes, this was as much as
+he could bear; and, remarking that he would take his revenge some other
+time, he proposed a bit of supper and a grog.
+
+Before they had made an end of this refreshment it was time to be at
+work. A bucket of water for present necessities was withdrawn from the
+water-butt, which was then emptied and rolled before the kitchen fire to
+dry; and the two brothers set forth on their adventure under a starless
+heaven.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. The Lecturer at Large
+
+Whether mankind is really partial to happiness is an open question.
+Not a month passes by but some cherished son runs off into the merchant
+service, or some valued husband decamps to Texas with a lady help;
+clergymen have fled from their parishioners; and even judges have been
+known to retire. To an open mind, it will appear (upon the whole) less
+strange that Joseph Finsbury should have been led to entertain ideas of
+escape. His lot (I think we may say) was not a happy one. My friend, Mr
+Morris, with whom I travel up twice or thrice a week from Snaresbrook
+Park, is certainly a gentleman whom I esteem; but he was scarce a model
+nephew. As for John, he is of course an excellent fellow; but if he was
+the only link that bound one to a home, I think the most of us would
+vote for foreign travel. In the case of Joseph, John (if he were a link
+at all) was not the only one; endearing bonds had long enchained the old
+gentleman to Bloomsbury; and by these expressions I do not in the least
+refer to Julia Hazeltine (of whom, however, he was fond enough), but to
+that collection of manuscript notebooks in which his life lay buried.
+That he should ever have made up his mind to separate himself from these
+collections, and go forth upon the world with no other resources than
+his memory supplied, is a circumstance highly pathetic in itself, and
+but little creditable to the wisdom of his nephews.
+
+The design, or at least the temptation, was already some months old; and
+when a bill for eight hundred pounds, payable to himself, was suddenly
+placed in Joseph's hand, it brought matters to an issue. He retained
+that bill, which, to one of his frugality, meant wealth; and he promised
+himself to disappear among the crowds at Waterloo, or (if that should
+prove impossible) to slink out of the house in the course of the
+evening and melt like a dream into the millions of London. By a peculiar
+interposition of Providence and railway mismanagement he had not so long
+to wait.
+
+He was one of the first to come to himself and scramble to his feet
+after the Browndean catastrophe, and he had no sooner remarked his
+prostrate nephews than he understood his opportunity and fled. A man of
+upwards of seventy, who has just met with a railway accident, and who is
+cumbered besides with the full uniform of Sir Faraday Bond, is not
+very likely to flee far, but the wood was close at hand and offered the
+fugitive at least a temporary covert. Hither, then, the old gentleman
+skipped with extraordinary expedition, and, being somewhat winded and
+a good deal shaken, here he lay down in a convenient grove and was
+presently overwhelmed by slumber. The way of fate is often highly
+entertaining to the looker-on, and it is certainly a pleasant
+circumstance, that while Morris and John were delving in the sand to
+conceal the body of a total stranger, their uncle lay in dreamless sleep
+a few hundred yards deeper in the wood.
+
+He was awakened by the jolly note of a bugle from the neighbouring high
+road, where a char-a-banc was bowling by with some belated tourists. The
+sound cheered his old heart, it directed his steps into the bargain, and
+soon he was on the highway, looking east and west from under his vizor,
+and doubtfully revolving what he ought to do. A deliberate sound of
+wheels arose in the distance, and then a cart was seen approaching, well
+filled with parcels, driven by a good-natured looking man on a double
+bench, and displaying on a board the legend, 'I Chandler, carrier'. In
+the infamously prosaic mind of Mr Finsbury, certain streaks of poetry
+survived and were still efficient; they had carried him to Asia Minor
+as a giddy youth of forty, and now, in the first hours of his recovered
+freedom, they suggested to him the idea of continuing his flight in Mr
+Chandler's cart. It would be cheap; properly broached, it might even
+cost nothing, and, after years of mittens and hygienic flannel, his
+heart leaped out to meet the notion of exposure.
+
+Mr Chandler was perhaps a little puzzled to find so old a gentleman, so
+strangely clothed, and begging for a lift on so retired a roadside.
+But he was a good-natured man, glad to do a service, and so he took the
+stranger up; and he had his own idea of civility, and so he asked no
+questions. Silence, in fact, was quite good enough for Mr Chandler;
+but the cart had scarcely begun to move forward ere he found himself
+involved in a one-sided conversation.
+
+'I can see,' began Mr Finsbury, 'by the mixture of parcels and boxes
+that are contained in your cart, each marked with its individual label,
+and by the good Flemish mare you drive, that you occupy the post of
+carrier in that great English system of transport which, with all its
+defects, is the pride of our country.'
+
+'Yes, sir,' returned Mr Chandler vaguely, for he hardly knew what to
+reply; 'them parcels posts has done us carriers a world of harm.'
+
+'I am not a prejudiced man,' continued Joseph Finsbury. 'As a young
+man I travelled much. Nothing was too small or too obscure for me to
+acquire. At sea I studied seamanship, learned the complicated knots
+employed by mariners, and acquired the technical terms. At Naples,
+I would learn the art of making macaroni; at Nice, the principles of
+making candied fruit. I never went to the opera without first buying the
+book of the piece, and making myself acquainted with the principal airs
+by picking them out on the piano with one finger.'
+
+'You must have seen a deal, sir,' remarked the carrier, touching up his
+horse; 'I wish I could have had your advantages.'
+
+'Do you know how often the word whip occurs in the Old Testament?'
+continued the old gentleman. 'One hundred and (if I remember exactly)
+forty-seven times.'
+
+'Do it indeed, sir?' said Mr Chandler. 'I never should have thought it.'
+
+'The Bible contains three million five hundred and one thousand two
+hundred and forty-nine letters. Of verses I believe there are upward of
+eighteen thousand. There have been many editions of the Bible; Wycliff
+was the first to introduce it into England about the year 1300. The
+"Paragraph Bible", as it is called, is a well-known edition, and is so
+called because it is divided into paragraphs. The "Breeches Bible" is
+another well-known instance, and gets its name either because it was
+printed by one Breeches, or because the place of publication bore that
+name.'
+
+The carrier remarked drily that he thought that was only natural, and
+turned his attention to the more congenial task of passing a cart of
+hay; it was a matter of some difficulty, for the road was narrow, and
+there was a ditch on either hand.
+
+'I perceive,' began Mr Finsbury, when they had successfully passed the
+cart, 'that you hold your reins with one hand; you should employ two.'
+
+'Well, I like that!' cried the carrier contemptuously. 'Why?'
+
+'You do not understand,' continued Mr Finsbury. 'What I tell you is a
+scientific fact, and reposes on the theory of the lever, a branch of
+mechanics. There are some very interesting little shilling books upon
+the field of study, which I should think a man in your station would
+take a pleasure to read. But I am afraid you have not cultivated the art
+of observation; at least we have now driven together for some time, and
+I cannot remember that you have contributed a single fact. This is a
+very false principle, my good man. For instance, I do not know if you
+observed that (as you passed the hay-cart man) you took your left?'
+
+'Of course I did,' cried the carrier, who was now getting belligerent;
+'he'd have the law on me if I hadn't.'
+
+'In France, now,' resumed the old man, 'and also, I believe, in the
+
+United States of America, you would have taken the right.'
+
+'I would not,' cried Mr Chandler indignantly. 'I would have taken the
+left.'
+
+'I observe again,' continued Mr Finsbury, scorning to reply, 'that you
+mend the dilapidated parts of your harness with string. I have always
+protested against this carelessness and slovenliness of the English
+poor. In an essay that I once read before an appreciative audience--'
+
+'It ain't string,' said the carrier sullenly, 'it's pack-thread.'
+
+'I have always protested,' resumed the old man, 'that in their private
+and domestic life, as well as in their labouring career, the lower
+classes of this country are improvident, thriftless, and extravagant. A
+stitch in time--'
+
+'Who the devil ARE the lower classes?' cried the carrier. 'You are the
+lower classes yourself! If I thought you were a blooming aristocrat, I
+shouldn't have given you a lift.'
+
+The words were uttered with undisguised ill-feeling; it was plain the
+pair were not congenial, and further conversation, even to one of Mr
+Finsbury's pathetic loquacity, was out of the question. With an angry
+gesture, he pulled down the brim of the forage-cap over his eyes,
+and, producing a notebook and a blue pencil from one of his innermost
+pockets, soon became absorbed in calculations.
+
+On his part the carrier fell to whistling with fresh zest; and if (now
+and again) he glanced at the companion of his drive, it was with mingled
+feelings of triumph and alarm--triumph because he had succeeded in
+arresting that prodigy of speech, and alarm lest (by any accident) it
+should begin again. Even the shower, which presently overtook and passed
+them, was endured by both in silence; and it was still in silence that
+they drove at length into Southampton.
+
+Dusk had fallen; the shop windows glimmered forth into the streets of
+the old seaport; in private houses lights were kindled for the evening
+meal; and Mr Finsbury began to think complacently of his night's
+lodging. He put his papers by, cleared his throat, and looked doubtfully
+at Mr Chandler.
+
+'Will you be civil enough,' said he, 'to recommend me to an inn?' Mr
+Chandler pondered for a moment.
+
+'Well,' he said at last, 'I wonder how about the "Tregonwell Arms".'
+
+'The "Tregonwell Arms" will do very well,' returned the old man, 'if
+it's clean and cheap, and the people civil.'
+
+'I wasn't thinking so much of you,' returned Mr Chandler thoughtfully.
+'I was thinking of my friend Watts as keeps the 'ouse; he's a friend of
+mine, you see, and he helped me through my trouble last year. And I was
+thinking, would it be fair-like on Watts to saddle him with an old party
+like you, who might be the death of him with general information. Would
+it be fair to the 'ouse?' enquired Mr Chandler, with an air of candid
+appeal.
+
+'Mark me,' cried the old gentleman with spirit. 'It was kind in you to
+bring me here for nothing, but it gives you no right to address me
+in such terms. Here's a shilling for your trouble; and, if you do
+not choose to set me down at the "Tregonwell Arms", I can find it for
+myself.'
+
+Chandler was surprised and a little startled; muttering something
+apologetic, he returned the shilling, drove in silence through several
+intricate lanes and small streets, drew up at length before the bright
+windows of an inn, and called loudly for Mr Watts.
+
+'Is that you, Jem?' cried a hearty voice from the stableyard. 'Come in
+and warm yourself.'
+
+'I only stopped here,' Mr Chandler explained, 'to let down an old gent
+that wants food and lodging. Mind, I warn you agin him; he's worse nor a
+temperance lecturer.'
+
+Mr Finsbury dismounted with difficulty, for he was cramped with his long
+drive, and the shaking he had received in the accident. The friendly Mr
+Watts, in spite of the carter's scarcely agreeable introduction, treated
+the old gentleman with the utmost courtesy, and led him into the back
+parlour, where there was a big fire burning in the grate. Presently a
+table was spread in the same room, and he was invited to seat himself
+before a stewed fowl--somewhat the worse for having seen service
+before--and a big pewter mug of ale from the tap.
+
+He rose from supper a giant refreshed; and, changing his seat to one
+nearer the fire, began to examine the other guests with an eye to the
+delights of oratory. There were near a dozen present, all men, and (as
+Joseph exulted to perceive) all working men. Often already had he seen
+cause to bless that appetite for disconnected fact and rotatory argument
+which is so marked a character of the mechanic. But even an audience of
+working men has to be courted, and there was no man more deeply versed
+in the necessary arts than Joseph Finsbury. He placed his glasses on his
+nose, drew from his pocket a bundle of papers, and spread them before
+him on a table. He crumpled them, he smoothed them out; now he skimmed
+them over, apparently well pleased with their contents; now, with
+tapping pencil and contracted brows, he seemed maturely to consider some
+particular statement. A stealthy glance about the room assured him of
+the success of his manoeuvres; all eyes were turned on the performer,
+mouths were open, pipes hung suspended; the birds were charmed. At the
+same moment the entrance of Mr Watts afforded him an opportunity.
+
+'I observe,' said he, addressing the landlord, but taking at the same
+time the whole room into his confidence with an encouraging look, 'I
+observe that some of these gentlemen are looking with curiosity in
+my direction; and certainly it is unusual to see anyone immersed in
+literary and scientific labours in the public apartment of an inn. I
+have here some calculations I made this morning upon the cost of living
+in this and other countries--a subject, I need scarcely say, highly
+interesting to the working classes. I have calculated a scale of living
+for incomes of eighty, one hundred and sixty, two hundred, and two
+hundred and forty pounds a year. I must confess that the income of
+eighty pounds has somewhat baffled me, and the others are not so exact
+as I could wish; for the price of washing varies largely in foreign
+countries, and the different cokes, coals and firewoods fluctuate
+surprisingly. I will read my researches, and I hope you won't scruple to
+point out to me any little errors that I may have committed either from
+oversight or ignorance. I will begin, gentlemen, with the income of
+eighty pounds a year.'
+
+Whereupon the old gentleman, with less compassion than he would have had
+for brute beasts, delivered himself of all his tedious calculations.
+As he occasionally gave nine versions of a single income, placing
+the imaginary person in London, Paris, Bagdad, Spitzbergen,
+Bassorah, Heligoland, the Scilly Islands, Brighton, Cincinnati, and
+Nijni-Novgorod, with an appropriate outfit for each locality, it is no
+wonder that his hearers look back on that evening as the most tiresome
+they ever spent.
+
+Long before Mr Finsbury had reached Nijni-Novgorod with the income of
+one hundred and sixty pounds, the company had dwindled and faded away to
+a few old topers and the bored but affable Watts. There was a constant
+stream of customers from the outer world, but so soon as they were
+served they drank their liquor quickly and departed with the utmost
+celerity for the next public-house.
+
+By the time the young man with two hundred a year was vegetating in the
+Scilly Islands, Mr Watts was left alone with the economist; and that
+imaginary person had scarce commenced life at Brighton before the last
+of his pursuers desisted from the chase.
+
+Mr Finsbury slept soundly after the manifold fatigues of the day. He
+rose late, and, after a good breakfast, ordered the bill. Then it was
+that he made a discovery which has been made by many others, both before
+and since: that it is one thing to order your bill, and another to
+discharge it. The items were moderate and (what does not always follow)
+the total small; but, after the most sedulous review of all his pockets,
+one and nine pence halfpenny appeared to be the total of the old
+gentleman's available assets. He asked to see Mr Watts.
+
+'Here is a bill on London for eight hundred pounds,' said Mr Finsbury,
+as that worthy appeared. 'I am afraid, unless you choose to discount it
+yourself, it may detain me a day or two till I can get it cashed.'
+
+Mr Watts looked at the bill, turned it over, and dogs-eared it with his
+fingers. 'It will keep you a day or two?' he said, repeating the old
+man's words. 'You have no other money with you?'
+
+'Some trifling change,' responded Joseph. 'Nothing to speak of.'
+
+'Then you can send it me; I should be pleased to trust you.'
+
+'To tell the truth,' answered the old gentleman, 'I am more than half
+inclined to stay; I am in need of funds.'
+
+'If a loan of ten shillings would help you, it is at your service,'
+responded Watts, with eagerness.
+
+'No, I think I would rather stay,' said the old man, 'and get my bill
+discounted.'
+
+'You shall not stay in my house,' cried Mr Watts. 'This is the last time
+you shall have a bed at the "Tregonwell Arms".'
+
+'I insist upon remaining,' replied Mr Finsbury, with spirit; 'I remain
+by Act of Parliament; turn me out if you dare.'
+
+'Then pay your bill,' said Mr Watts.
+
+'Take that,' cried the old man, tossing him the negotiable bill.
+
+'It is not legal tender,' replied Mr Watts. 'You must leave my house at
+once.'
+
+'You cannot appreciate the contempt I feel for you, Mr Watts,' said the
+old gentleman, resigning himself to circumstances. 'But you shall feel
+it in one way: I refuse to pay my bill.'
+
+'I don't care for your bill,' responded Mr Watts. 'What I want is your
+absence.'
+
+'That you shall have!' said the old gentleman, and, taking up his
+forage cap as he spoke, he crammed it on his head. 'Perhaps you are
+too insolent,' he added, 'to inform me of the time of the next London
+train?'
+
+'It leaves in three-quarters of an hour,' returned the innkeeper with
+alacrity. 'You can easily catch it.'
+
+Joseph's position was one of considerable weakness. On the one hand, it
+would have been well to avoid the direct line of railway, since it was
+there he might expect his nephews to lie in wait for his recapture; on
+the other, it was highly desirable, it was even strictly needful, to get
+the bill discounted ere it should be stopped. To London, therefore, he
+decided to proceed on the first train; and there remained but one point
+to be considered, how to pay his fare.
+
+Joseph's nails were never clean; he ate almost entirely with his knife.
+I doubt if you could say he had the manners of a gentleman; but he had
+better than that, a touch of genuine dignity. Was it from his stay in
+Asia Minor? Was it from a strain in the Finsbury blood sometimes
+alluded to by customers? At least, when he presented himself before the
+station-master, his salaam was truly Oriental, palm-trees appeared to
+crowd about the little office, and the simoom or the bulbul--but I leave
+this image to persons better acquainted with the East. His appearance,
+besides, was highly in his favour; the uniform of Sir Faraday, however
+inconvenient and conspicuous, was, at least, a costume in which no
+swindler could have hoped to prosper; and the exhibition of a valuable
+watch and a bill for eight hundred pounds completed what deportment had
+begun. A quarter of an hour later, when the train came up, Mr Finsbury
+was introduced to the guard and installed in a first-class compartment,
+the station-master smilingly assuming all responsibility.
+
+As the old gentleman sat waiting the moment of departure, he was the
+witness of an incident strangely connected with the fortunes of his
+house. A packing-case of cyclopean bulk was borne along the platform
+by some dozen of tottering porters, and ultimately, to the delight of a
+considerable crowd, hoisted on board the van. It is often the cheering
+task of the historian to direct attention to the designs and (if it may
+be reverently said) the artifices of Providence. In the luggage van, as
+Joseph was borne out of the station of Southampton East upon his way
+to London, the egg of his romance lay (so to speak) unhatched. The
+huge packing-case was directed to lie at Waterloo till called for, and
+addressed to one 'William Dent Pitman'; and the very next article,
+a goodly barrel jammed into the corner of the van, bore the
+superscription, 'M. Finsbury, 16 John Street, Bloomsbury. Carriage
+paid.'
+
+In this juxtaposition, the train of powder was prepared; and there was
+now wanting only an idle hand to fire it off.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. The Magistrate in the Luggage Van
+
+The city of Winchester is famed for a cathedral, a bishop--but he was
+unfortunately killed some years ago while riding--a public school, a
+considerable assortment of the military, and the deliberate passage of
+the trains of the London and South-Western line. These and many
+similar associations would have doubtless crowded on the mind of Joseph
+Finsbury; but his spirit had at that time flitted from the railway
+compartment to a heaven of populous lecture-halls and endless oratory.
+His body, in the meanwhile, lay doubled on the cushions, the forage-cap
+rakishly tilted back after the fashion of those that lie in wait for
+nursery-maids, the poor old face quiescent, one arm clutching to his
+heart Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper.
+
+To him, thus unconscious, enter and exeunt again a pair of voyagers.
+These two had saved the train and no more. A tandem urged to its last
+speed, an act of something closely bordering on brigandage at the ticket
+office, and a spasm of running, had brought them on the platform just
+as the engine uttered its departing snort. There was but one carriage
+easily within their reach; and they had sprung into it, and the leader
+and elder already had his feet upon the floor, when he observed Mr
+Finsbury.
+
+'Good God!' he cried. 'Uncle Joseph! This'll never do.'
+
+And he backed out, almost upsetting his companion, and once more closed
+the door upon the sleeping patriarch.
+
+The next moment the pair had jumped into the baggage van.
+
+'What's the row about your Uncle Joseph?' enquired the younger
+traveller, mopping his brow. 'Does he object to smoking?'
+
+'I don't know that there's anything the row with him,' returned the
+other. 'He's by no means the first comer, my Uncle Joseph, I can tell
+you! Very respectable old gentleman; interested in leather; been to Asia
+Minor; no family, no assets--and a tongue, my dear Wickham, sharper than
+a serpent's tooth.'
+
+'Cantankerous old party, eh?' suggested Wickham.
+
+'Not in the least,' cried the other; 'only a man with a solid talent
+for being a bore; rather cheery I dare say, on a desert island, but on
+a railway journey insupportable. You should hear him on Tonti, the ass
+that started tontines. He's incredible on Tonti.'
+
+'By Jove!' cried Wickham, 'then you're one of these Finsbury tontine
+fellows. I hadn't a guess of that.'
+
+'Ah!' said the other, 'do you know that old boy in the carriage is worth
+a hundred thousand pounds to me? There he was asleep, and nobody there
+but you! But I spared him, because I'm a Conservative in politics.'
+
+Mr Wickham, pleased to be in a luggage van, was flitting to and fro like
+a gentlemanly butterfly.
+
+'By Jingo!' he cried, 'here's something for you! "M. Finsbury, 16 John
+Street, Bloomsbury, London." M. stands for Michael, you sly dog; you
+keep two establishments, do you?'
+
+'O, that's Morris,' responded Michael from the other end of the van,
+where he had found a comfortable seat upon some sacks. 'He's a little
+cousin of mine. I like him myself, because he's afraid of me. He's
+one of the ornaments of Bloomsbury, and has a collection of some
+kind--birds' eggs or something that's supposed to be curious. I bet it's
+nothing to my clients!'
+
+'What a lark it would be to play billy with the labels!' chuckled Mr
+Wickham. 'By George, here's a tack-hammer! We might send all these
+things skipping about the premises like what's-his-name!'
+
+At this moment, the guard, surprised by the sound of voices, opened the
+door of his little cabin.
+
+'You had best step in here, gentlemen,' said he, when he had heard their
+story.
+
+'Won't you come, Wickham?' asked Michael.
+
+'Catch me--I want to travel in a van,' replied the youth.
+
+And so the door of communication was closed; and for the rest of the run
+Mr Wickham was left alone over his diversions on the one side, and on
+the other Michael and the guard were closeted together in familiar talk.
+
+'I can get you a compartment here, sir,' observed the official, as the
+train began to slacken speed before Bishopstoke station. 'You had best
+get out at my door, and I can bring your friend.'
+
+Mr Wickham, whom we left (as the reader has shrewdly suspected)
+beginning to 'play billy' with the labels in the van, was a young
+gentleman of much wealth, a pleasing but sandy exterior, and a highly
+vacant mind. Not many months before, he had contrived to get himself
+blackmailed by the family of a Wallachian Hospodar, resident for
+political reasons in the gay city of Paris. A common friend (to whom he
+had confided his distress) recommended him to Michael; and the lawyer
+was no sooner in possession of the facts than he instantly assumed
+the offensive, fell on the flank of the Wallachian forces, and, in the
+inside of three days, had the satisfaction to behold them routed and
+fleeing for the Danube. It is no business of ours to follow them on
+this retreat, over which the police were so obliging as to preside
+paternally. Thus relieved from what he loved to refer to as the
+Bulgarian Atrocity, Mr Wickham returned to London with the most
+unbounded and embarrassing gratitude and admiration for his saviour.
+These sentiments were not repaid either in kind or degree; indeed,
+Michael was a trifle ashamed of his new client's friendship; it had
+taken many invitations to get him to Winchester and Wickham Manor; but
+he had gone at last, and was now returning. It has been remarked by some
+judicious thinker (possibly J. F. Smith) that Providence despises to
+employ no instrument, however humble; and it is now plain to the dullest
+that both Mr Wickham and the Wallachian Hospodar were liquid lead and
+wedges in the hand of Destiny.
+
+Smitten with the desire to shine in Michael's eyes and show himself a
+person of original humour and resources, the young gentleman (who was a
+magistrate, more by token, in his native county) was no sooner alone in
+the van than he fell upon the labels with all the zeal of a reformer;
+and, when he rejoined the lawyer at Bishopstoke, his face was flushed
+with his exertions, and his cigar, which he had suffered to go out was
+almost bitten in two.
+
+'By George, but this has been a lark!' he cried. 'I've sent the
+wrong thing to everybody in England. These cousins of yours have a
+packing-case as big as a house. I've muddled the whole business up to
+that extent, Finsbury, that if it were to get out it's my belief we
+should get lynched.'
+
+It was useless to be serious with Mr Wickham. 'Take care,' said
+Michael. 'I am getting tired of your perpetual scrapes; my reputation is
+beginning to suffer.'
+
+'Your reputation will be all gone before you finish with me,' replied
+his companion with a grin. 'Clap it in the bill, my boy. "For total loss
+of reputation, six and eightpence." But,' continued Mr Wickham with more
+seriousness, 'could I be bowled out of the Commission for this
+little jest? I know it's small, but I like to be a JP. Speaking as a
+professional man, do you think there's any risk?'
+
+'What does it matter?' responded Michael, 'they'll chuck you out sooner
+or later. Somehow you don't give the effect of being a good magistrate.'
+
+'I only wish I was a solicitor,' retorted his companion, 'instead of a
+poor devil of a country gentleman. Suppose we start one of those tontine
+affairs ourselves; I to pay five hundred a year, and you to guarantee me
+against every misfortune except illness or marriage.'
+
+'It strikes me,' remarked the lawyer with a meditative laugh, as he
+lighted a cigar, 'it strikes me that you must be a cursed nuisance in
+this world of ours.'
+
+'Do you really think so, Finsbury?' responded the magistrate, leaning
+back in his cushions, delighted with the compliment. 'Yes, I suppose
+I am a nuisance. But, mind you, I have a stake in the country: don't
+forget that, dear boy.'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.  Mr Gideon Forsyth and the Gigantic Box
+
+It has been mentioned that at Bournemouth Julia sometimes made
+acquaintances; it is true she had but a glimpse of them before the
+doors of John Street closed again upon its captives, but the glimpse
+was sometimes exhilarating, and the consequent regret was tempered
+with hope. Among those whom she had thus met a year before was a young
+barrister of the name of Gideon Forsyth.
+
+About three o'clock of the eventful day when the magistrate tampered
+with the labels, a somewhat moody and distempered ramble had carried
+Mr Forsyth to the corner of John Street; and about the same moment Miss
+Hazeltine was called to the door of No. 16 by a thundering double knock.
+
+Mr Gideon Forsyth was a happy enough young man; he would have been
+happier if he had had more money and less uncle. One hundred and
+twenty pounds a year was all his store; but his uncle, Mr Edward Hugh
+Bloomfield, supplemented this with a handsome allowance and a great
+deal of advice, couched in language that would probably have been judged
+intemperate on board a pirate ship. Mr Bloomfield was indeed a figure
+quite peculiar to the days of Mr Gladstone; what we may call (for the
+lack of an accepted expression) a Squirradical. Having acquired years
+without experience, he carried into the Radical side of politics those
+noisy, after-dinner-table passions, which we are more accustomed to
+connect with Toryism in its severe and senile aspects. To the opinions
+of Mr Bradlaugh, in fact, he added the temper and the sympathies of that
+extinct animal, the Squire; he admired pugilism, he carried a formidable
+oaken staff, he was a reverent churchman, and it was hard to know which
+would have more volcanically stirred his choler--a person who should
+have defended the established church, or one who should have neglected
+to attend its celebrations. He had besides some levelling catchwords,
+justly dreaded in the family circle; and when he could not go so far
+as to declare a step un-English, he might still (and with hardly less
+effect) denounce it as unpractical. It was under the ban of this lesser
+excommunication that Gideon had fallen. His views on the study of law
+had been pronounced unpractical; and it had been intimated to him, in
+a vociferous interview punctuated with the oaken staff, that he must
+either take a new start and get a brief or two, or prepare to live on
+his own money.
+
+No wonder if Gideon was moody. He had not the slightest wish to modify
+his present habits; but he would not stand on that, since the recall of
+Mr Bloomfield's allowance would revolutionize them still more radically.
+He had not the least desire to acquaint himself with law; he had looked
+into it already, and it seemed not to repay attention; but upon this
+also he was ready to give way. In fact, he would go as far as he could
+to meet the views of his uncle, the Squirradical. But there was one part
+of the programme that appeared independent of his will. How to get
+a brief? there was the question. And there was another and a worse.
+Suppose he got one, should he prove the better man?
+
+Suddenly he found his way barred by a crowd. A garishly illuminated van
+was backed against the kerb; from its open stern, half resting on the
+street, half supported by some glistening athletes, the end of the
+largest packing-case in the county of Middlesex might have been seen
+protruding; while, on the steps of the house, the burly person of
+the driver and the slim figure of a young girl stood as upon a stage,
+disputing.
+
+'It is not for us,' the girl was saying. 'I beg you to take it away; it
+couldn't get into the house, even if you managed to get it out of the
+van.'
+
+'I shall leave it on the pavement, then, and M. Finsbury can arrange
+with the Vestry as he likes,' said the vanman.
+
+'But I am not M. Finsbury,' expostulated the girl.
+
+'It doesn't matter who you are,' said the vanman.
+
+'You must allow me to help you, Miss Hazeltine,' said Gideon, putting
+out his hand.
+
+Julia gave a little cry of pleasure. 'O, Mr Forsyth,' she cried, 'I am
+so glad to see you; we must get this horrid thing, which can only have
+come here by mistake, into the house. The man says we'll have to take
+off the door, or knock two of our windows into one, or be fined by
+the Vestry or Custom House or something for leaving our parcels on the
+pavement.'
+
+The men by this time had successfully removed the box from the van, had
+plumped it down on the pavement, and now stood leaning against it, or
+gazing at the door of No. 16, in visible physical distress and mental
+embarrassment. The windows of the whole street had filled, as if by
+magic, with interested and entertained spectators.
+
+With as thoughtful and scientific an expression as he could assume,
+Gideon measured the doorway with his cane, while Julia entered his
+observations in a drawing-book. He then measured the box, and, upon
+comparing his data, found that there was just enough space for it to
+enter. Next, throwing off his coat and waistcoat, he assisted the men to
+take the door from its hinges. And lastly, all bystanders being pressed
+into the service, the packing-case mounted the steps upon some
+fifteen pairs of wavering legs--scraped, loudly grinding, through the
+doorway--and was deposited at length, with a formidable convulsion, in
+the far end of the lobby, which it almost blocked. The artisans of this
+victory smiled upon each other as the dust subsided. It was true they
+had smashed a bust of Apollo and ploughed the wall into deep ruts; but,
+at least, they were no longer one of the public spectacles of London.
+
+'Well, sir,' said the vanman, 'I never see such a job.'
+
+Gideon eloquently expressed his concurrence in this sentiment by
+pressing a couple of sovereigns in the man's hand.
+
+'Make it three, sir, and I'll stand Sam to everybody here!' cried the
+latter, and, this having been done, the whole body of volunteer porters
+swarmed into the van, which drove off in the direction of the nearest
+reliable public-house. Gideon closed the door on their departure, and
+turned to Julia; their eyes met; the most uncontrollable mirth seized
+upon them both, and they made the house ring with their laughter. Then
+curiosity awoke in Julia's mind, and she went and examined the box, and
+more especially the label.
+
+'This is the strangest thing that ever happened,' she said, with another
+burst of laughter. 'It is certainly Morris's handwriting, and I had a
+letter from him only this morning, telling me to expect a barrel. Is
+there a barrel coming too, do you think, Mr Forsyth?'
+
+"'Statuary with Care, Fragile,'" read Gideon aloud from the painted
+warning on the box. 'Then you were told nothing about this?'
+
+'No,' responded Julia. 'O, Mr Forsyth, don't you think we might take a
+peep at it?'
+
+'Yes, indeed,' cried Gideon. 'Just let me have a hammer.'
+
+'Come down, and I'll show you where it is,' cried Julia. 'The shelf is
+too high for me to reach'; and, opening the door of the kitchen stair,
+she bade Gideon follow her. They found both the hammer and a chisel;
+but Gideon was surprised to see no sign of a servant. He also discovered
+that Miss Hazeltine had a very pretty little foot and ankle; and the
+discovery embarrassed him so much that he was glad to fall at once upon
+the packing-case.
+
+He worked hard and earnestly, and dealt his blows with the precision
+of a blacksmith; Julia the while standing silently by his side, and
+regarding rather the workman than the work. He was a handsome fellow;
+she told herself she had never seen such beautiful arms. And suddenly,
+as though he had overheard these thoughts, Gideon turned and smiled to
+her. She, too, smiled and coloured; and the double change became her
+so prettily that Gideon forgot to turn away his eyes, and, swinging the
+hammer with a will, discharged a smashing blow on his own knuckles. With
+admirable presence of mind he crushed down an oath and substituted the
+harmless comment, 'Butter fingers!' But the pain was sharp, his nerve
+was shaken, and after an abortive trial he found he must desist from
+further operations.
+
+In a moment Julia was off to the pantry; in a moment she was back again
+with a basin of water and a sponge, and had begun to bathe his wounded
+hand.
+
+'I am dreadfully sorry!' said Gideon apologetically. 'If I had had
+any manners I should have opened the box first and smashed my hand
+afterward. It feels much better,' he added. 'I assure you it does.'
+
+'And now I think you are well enough to direct operations,' said she.
+'Tell me what to do, and I'll be your workman.'
+
+'A very pretty workman,' said Gideon, rather forgetting himself.
+She turned and looked at him, with a suspicion of a frown; and
+the indiscreet young man was glad to direct her attention to the
+packing-case. The bulk of the work had been accomplished; and presently
+Julia had burst through the last barrier and disclosed a zone of straw.
+in a moment they were kneeling side by side, engaged like haymakers; the
+next they were rewarded with a glimpse of something white and polished;
+and the next again laid bare an unmistakable marble leg.
+
+'He is surely a very athletic person,' said Julia.
+
+'I never saw anything like it,' responded Gideon. 'His muscles stand out
+like penny rolls.'
+
+Another leg was soon disclosed, and then what seemed to be a third. This
+resolved itself, however, into a knotted club resting upon a pedestal.
+
+'It is a Hercules,' cried Gideon; 'I might have guessed that from his
+calf. I'm supposed to be rather partial to statuary, but when it comes
+to Hercules, the police should interfere. I should say,' he added,
+glancing with disaffection at the swollen leg, 'that this was about the
+biggest and the worst in Europe. What in heaven's name can have induced
+him to come here?'
+
+'I suppose nobody else would have a gift of him,' said Julia. 'And for
+that matter, I think we could have done without the monster very well.'
+
+'O, don't say that,' returned Gideon. 'This has been one of the most
+amusing experiences of my life.'
+
+'I don't think you'll forget it very soon,' said Julia. 'Your hand will
+remind you.'
+
+'Well, I suppose I must be going,' said Gideon reluctantly. 'No,'
+pleaded Julia. 'Why should you? Stay and have tea with me.'
+
+'If I thought you really wished me to stay,' said Gideon, looking at his
+hat, 'of course I should only be too delighted.'
+
+'What a silly person you must take me for!' returned the girl. 'Why, of
+course I do; and, besides, I want some cakes for tea, and I've nobody to
+send. Here is the latchkey.'
+
+Gideon put on his hat with alacrity, and casting one look at Miss
+Hazeltine, and another at the legs of Hercules, threw open the door and
+departed on his errand.
+
+He returned with a large bag of the choicest and most tempting of cakes
+and tartlets, and found Julia in the act of spreading a small tea-table
+in the lobby.
+
+'The rooms are all in such a state,' she cried, 'that I thought we
+should be more cosy and comfortable in our own lobby, and under our own
+vine and statuary.'
+
+'Ever so much better,' cried Gideon delightedly.
+
+'O what adorable cream tarts!' said Julia, opening the bag, 'and the
+dearest little cherry tartlets, with all the cherries spilled out into
+the cream!'
+
+'Yes,' said Gideon, concealing his dismay, 'I knew they would mix
+beautifully; the woman behind the counter told me so.'
+
+'Now,' said Julia, as they began their little festival, 'I am going
+to show you Morris's letter; read it aloud, please; perhaps there's
+something I have missed.'
+
+Gideon took the letter, and spreading it out on his knee, read as
+follows:
+
+
+DEAR JULIA, I write you from Browndean, where we are stopping over for
+a few days. Uncle was much shaken in that dreadful accident, of which,
+I dare say, you have seen the account. Tomorrow I leave him here with
+John, and come up alone; but before that, you will have received a
+barrel CONTAINING SPECIMENS FOR A FRIEND. Do not open it on any account,
+but leave it in the lobby till I come.
+
+Yours in haste,
+
+M. FINSBURY.
+
+P.S.--Be sure and leave the barrel in the lobby.
+
+
+'No,' said Gideon, 'there seems to be nothing about the monument,'
+and he nodded, as he spoke, at the marble legs. 'Miss Hazeltine,' he
+continued, 'would you mind me asking a few questions?'
+
+'Certainly not,' replied Julia; 'and if you can make me understand why
+Morris has sent a statue of Hercules instead of a barrel containing
+specimens for a friend, I shall be grateful till my dying day. And what
+are specimens for a friend?'
+
+'I haven't a guess,' said Gideon. 'Specimens are usually bits of stone,
+but rather smaller than our friend the monument. Still, that is not the
+point. Are you quite alone in this big house?'
+
+'Yes, I am at present,' returned Julia. 'I came up before them to
+prepare the house, and get another servant. But I couldn't get one I
+liked.'
+
+'Then you are utterly alone,' said Gideon in amazement. 'Are you not
+afraid?'
+
+'No,' responded Julia stoutly. 'I don't see why I should be more afraid
+than you would be; I am weaker, of course, but when I found I must sleep
+alone in the house I bought a revolver wonderfully cheap, and made the
+man show me how to use it.'
+
+'And how do you use it?' demanded Gideon, much amused at her courage.
+
+'Why,' said she, with a smile, 'you pull the little trigger thing on
+top, and then pointing it very low, for it springs up as you fire, you
+pull the underneath little trigger thing, and it goes off as well as if
+a man had done it.'
+
+'And how often have you used it?' asked Gideon.
+
+'O, I have not used it yet,' said the determined young lady; 'but I
+know how, and that makes me wonderfully courageous, especially when I
+barricade my door with a chest of drawers.'
+
+'I'm awfully glad they are coming back soon,' said Gideon. 'This
+business strikes me as excessively unsafe; if it goes on much longer,
+I could provide you with a maiden aunt of mine, or my landlady if you
+preferred.'
+
+'Lend me an aunt!' cried Julia. 'O, what generosity! I begin to think it
+must have been you that sent the Hercules.'
+
+'Believe me,' cried the young man, 'I admire you too much to send you
+such an infamous work of art..'
+
+Julia was beginning to reply, when they were both startled by a knocking
+at the door.
+
+'O, Mr Forsyth!'
+
+'Don't be afraid, my dear girl,' said Gideon, laying his hand tenderly
+on her arm.
+
+'I know it's the police,' she whispered. 'They are coming to complain
+about the statue.'
+
+The knock was repeated. It was louder than before, and more impatient.
+
+'It's Morris,' cried Julia, in a startled voice, and she ran to the door
+and opened it.
+
+It was indeed Morris that stood before them; not the Morris of ordinary
+days, but a wild-looking fellow, pale and haggard, with bloodshot eyes,
+and a two-days' beard upon his chin.
+
+'The barrel!' he cried. 'Where's the barrel that came this morning?'
+And he stared about the lobby, his eyes, as they fell upon the legs of
+Hercules, literally goggling in his head. 'What is that?' he screamed.
+'What is that waxwork? Speak, you fool! What is that? And where's the
+barrel--the water-butt?'
+
+'No barrel came, Morris,' responded Julia coldly. 'This is the only
+thing that has arrived.'
+
+'This!' shrieked the miserable man. 'I never heard of it!'
+
+'It came addressed in your hand,' replied Julia; 'we had nearly to pull
+the house down to get it in, that is all that I can tell you.'
+
+Morris gazed at her in utter bewilderment. He passed his hand over his
+forehead; he leaned against the wall like a man about to faint. Then his
+tongue was loosed, and he overwhelmed the girl with torrents of abuse.
+Such fire, such directness, such a choice of ungentlemanly language,
+none had ever before suspected Morris to possess; and the girl trembled
+and shrank before his fury.
+
+'You shall not speak to Miss Hazeltine in that way,' said Gideon
+sternly. 'It is what I will not suffer.'
+
+'I shall speak to the girl as I like,' returned Morris, with a fresh
+outburst of anger. 'I'll speak to the hussy as she deserves.'
+
+'Not a word more, sir, not one word,' cried Gideon. 'Miss Hazeltine,' he
+continued, addressing the young girl, 'you cannot stay a moment longer
+in the same house with this unmanly fellow. Here is my arm; let me take
+you where you will be secure from insult.'
+
+'Mr Forsyth,' returned Julia, 'you are right; I cannot stay here longer,
+and I am sure I trust myself to an honourable gentleman.'
+
+Pale and resolute, Gideon offered her his arm, and the pair descended
+the steps, followed by Morris clamouring for the latchkey.
+
+Julia had scarcely handed the key to Morris before an empty hansom drove
+smartly into John Street. It was hailed by both men, and as the cabman
+drew up his restive horse, Morris made a dash into the vehicle.
+
+'Sixpence above fare,' he cried recklessly. 'Waterloo Station for your
+life. Sixpence for yourself!'
+
+'Make it a shilling, guv'ner,' said the man, with a grin; 'the other
+parties were first.'
+
+'A shilling then,' cried Morris, with the inward reflection that he
+would reconsider it at Waterloo. The man whipped up his horse, and the
+hansom vanished from John Street.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. The Tribulations of Morris: Part the First
+
+As the hansom span through the streets of London, Morris sought to
+rally the forces of his mind. The water-butt with the dead body had
+miscarried, and it was essential to recover it. So much was clear; and
+if, by some blest good fortune, it was still at the station, all might
+be well. If it had been sent out, however, if it were already in the
+hands of some wrong person, matters looked more ominous. People who
+receive unexplained packages are usually keen to have them open; the
+example of Miss Hazeltine (whom he cursed again) was there to remind him
+of the circumstance; and if anyone had opened the water-butt--'O Lord!'
+cried Morris at the thought, and carried his hand to his damp forehead.
+The private conception of any breach of law is apt to be inspiriting,
+for the scheme (while yet inchoate) wears dashing and attractive
+colours. Not so in the least that part of the criminal's later
+reflections which deal with the police. That useful corps (as Morris
+now began to think) had scarce been kept sufficiently in view when
+he embarked upon his enterprise. 'I must play devilish close,' he
+reflected, and he was aware of an exquisite thrill of fear in the region
+of the spine.
+
+'Main line or loop?' enquired the cabman, through the scuttle.
+
+'Main line,' replied Morris, and mentally decided that the man should
+have his shilling after all. 'It would be madness to attract attention,'
+thought he. 'But what this thing will cost me, first and last, begins to
+be a nightmare!'
+
+He passed through the booking-office and wandered disconsolately on the
+platform. It was a breathing-space in the day's traffic. There were
+few people there, and these for the most part quiescent on the benches.
+Morris seemed to attract no remark, which was a good thing; but, on the
+other hand, he was making no progress in his quest. Something must be
+done, something must be risked. Every passing instant only added to his
+dangers. Summoning all his courage, he stopped a porter, and asked him
+if he remembered receiving a barrel by the morning train. He was anxious
+to get information, for the barrel belonged to a friend. 'It is a matter
+of some moment,' he added, 'for it contains specimens.'
+
+'I was not here this morning, sir,' responded the porter, somewhat
+reluctantly, 'but I'll ask Bill. Do you recollect, Bill, to have got a
+barrel from Bournemouth this morning containing specimens?'
+
+'I don't know about specimens,' replied Bill; 'but the party as received
+the barrel I mean raised a sight of trouble.'
+
+'What's that?' cried Morris, in the agitation of the moment pressing a
+penny into the man's hand.
+
+'You see, sir, the barrel arrived at one-thirty. No one claimed it till
+about three, when a small, sickly--looking gentleman (probably a curate)
+came up, and sez he, "Have you got anything for Pitman?" or "Wili'm Bent
+Pitman," if I recollect right. "I don't exactly know," sez I, "but I
+rather fancy that there barrel bears that name." The little man went
+up to the barrel, and seemed regularly all took aback when he saw the
+address, and then he pitched into us for not having brought what he
+wanted. "I don't care a damn what you want," sez I to him, "but if you
+are Will'm Bent Pitman, there's your barrel."'
+
+'Well, and did he take it?' cried the breathless Morris.
+
+'Well, sir,' returned Bill, 'it appears it was a packing-case he was
+after. The packing-case came; that's sure enough, because it was about
+the biggest packing-case ever I clapped eyes on. And this Pitman he
+seemed a good deal cut up, and he had the superintendent out, and
+they got hold of the vanman--him as took the packing-case. Well, sir,'
+continued Bill, with a smile, 'I never see a man in such a state.
+Everybody about that van was mortal, bar the horses. Some gen'leman (as
+well as I could make out) had given the vanman a sov.; and so that was
+where the trouble come in, you see.'
+
+'But what did he say?' gasped Morris.
+
+'I don't know as he SAID much, sir,' said Bill. 'But he offered to
+fight this Pitman for a pot of beer. He had lost his book, too, and the
+receipts, and his men were all as mortal as himself. O, they were all
+like'--and Bill paused for a simile--'like lords! The superintendent
+sacked them on the spot.'
+
+'O, come, but that's not so bad,' said Morris, with a bursting sigh. 'He
+couldn't tell where he took the packing-case, then?'
+
+'Not he,' said Bill, 'nor yet nothink else.'
+
+'And what--what did Pitman do?' asked Morris.
+
+'O, he went off with the barrel in a four-wheeler, very trembling like,'
+replied Bill. 'I don't believe he's a gentleman as has good health.'
+
+'Well, so the barrel's gone,' said Morris, half to himself.
+
+'You may depend on that, sir,' returned the porter. 'But you had better
+see the superintendent.'
+
+'Not in the least; it's of no account,' said Morris. 'It only contained
+specimens.' And he walked hastily away.
+
+Ensconced once more in a hansom, he proceeded to reconsider his
+position. Suppose (he thought), suppose he should accept defeat and
+declare his uncle's death at once? He should lose the tontine, and with
+that the last hope of his seven thousand eight hundred pounds. But on
+the other hand, since the shilling to the hansom cabman, he had begun to
+see that crime was expensive in its course, and, since the loss of the
+water-butt, that it was uncertain in its consequences. Quietly at first,
+and then with growing heat, he reviewed the advantages of backing out.
+It involved a loss; but (come to think of it) no such great loss after
+all; only that of the tontine, which had been always a toss-up, which
+at bottom he had never really expected. He reminded himself of that
+eagerly; he congratulated himself upon his constant moderation. He had
+never really expected the tontine; he had never even very definitely
+hoped to recover his seven thousand eight hundred pounds; he had been
+hurried into the whole thing by Michael's obvious dishonesty. Yes, it
+would probably be better to draw back from this high-flying venture,
+settle back on the leather business--
+
+'Great God!' cried Morris, bounding in the hansom like a Jack-in-a-box.
+'I have not only not gained the tontine--I have lost the leather
+business!'
+
+Such was the monstrous fact. He had no power to sign; he could not draw
+a cheque for thirty shillings. Until he could produce legal evidence
+of his uncle's death, he was a penniless outcast--and as soon as he
+produced it he had lost the tontine! There was no hesitation on the part
+of Morris; to drop the tontine like a hot chestnut, to concentrate
+all his forces on the leather business and the rest of his small but
+legitimate inheritance, was the decision of a single instant. And the
+next, the full extent of his calamity was suddenly disclosed to him.
+Declare his uncle's death? He couldn't! Since the body was lost Joseph
+had (in a legal sense) become immortal.
+
+There was no created vehicle big enough to contain Morris and his woes.
+He paid the hansom off and walked on he knew not whither.
+
+'I seem to have gone into this business with too much precipitation,'
+he reflected, with a deadly sigh. 'I fear it seems too ramified for a
+person of my powers of mind.'
+
+And then a remark of his uncle's flashed into his memory: If you want to
+think clearly, put it all down on paper. 'Well, the old boy knew a thing
+or two,' said Morris. 'I will try; but I don't believe the paper was
+ever made that will clear my mind.'
+
+He entered a place of public entertainment, ordered bread and cheese,
+and writing materials, and sat down before them heavily. He tried the
+pen. It was an excellent pen, but what was he to write? 'I have it,'
+cried Morris. 'Robinson Crusoe and the double columns!' He prepared his
+paper after that classic model, and began as follows:
+
+     Bad. ---- Good.
+
+     1. I have lost my uncle's body.
+
+     1. But then Pitman has found it.
+
+'Stop a bit,' said Morris. 'I am letting the spirit of antithesis run
+away with me. Let's start again.'
+
+     Bad. ---- Good.
+
+     1. I have lost my uncle's body.
+
+     1. But then I no longer require to bury it.
+
+
+     2. I have lost the tontine.
+
+     2.But I may still save that if Pitman disposes of the body, and
+     if I can find a physician who will stick at nothing.
+
+
+     3. I have lost the leather business and the rest of my uncle's
+     succession.
+
+     3. But not if Pitman gives the body up to the police.
+
+'O, but in that case I go to gaol; I had forgot that,' thought Morris.
+'Indeed, I don't know that I had better dwell on that hypothesis at all;
+it's all very well to talk of facing the worst; but in a case of this
+kind a man's first duty is to his own nerve. Is there any answer to No.
+3? Is there any possible good side to such a beastly bungle? There must
+be, of course, or where would be the use of this double-entry business?
+And--by George, I have it!' he exclaimed; 'it's exactly the same as the
+last!' And he hastily re-wrote the passage:
+
+     Bad. ---- Good.
+
+     3. I have lost the leather business and the rest of my uncle's
+     succession.
+
+     3. But not if I can find a physician who will stick at nothing.
+
+'This venal doctor seems quite a desideratum,' he reflected. 'I want him
+first to give me a certificate that my uncle is dead, so that I may get
+the leather business; and then that he's alive--but here we are again at
+the incompatible interests!' And he returned to his tabulation:
+
+     Bad. ---- Good.
+
+     4. I have almost no money.
+
+     4. But there is plenty in the bank.
+
+
+     5. Yes, but I can't get the money in the bank.
+
+     5. But--well, that seems unhappily to be the case.
+
+
+     6. I have left the bill for eight hundred pounds in Uncle
+     Joseph's pocket.
+
+     6. But if Pitman is only a dishonest man, the presence of this
+     bill may lead him to keep the whole thing dark and throw the body
+     into the New Cut.
+
+
+     7. Yes, but if Pitman is dishonest and finds the bill, he will
+     know who Joseph is, and he may blackmail me.
+
+     7. Yes, but if I am right about Uncle Masterman, I can blackmail
+     Michael.
+
+
+     8. But I can't blackmail Michael (which is, besides, a very
+     dangerous thing to do) until I find out.
+
+     8. Worse luck!
+
+
+     9. The leather business will soon want money for current
+     expenses, and I have none to give.
+
+     9. But the leather business is a sinking ship.
+
+
+     10. Yes, but it's all the ship I have.
+
+     10. A fact.
+
+
+     11. John will soon want money, and I have none to give.
+
+     11.
+
+
+     12. And the venal doctor will want money down.
+
+     12.
+
+
+     13. And if Pitman is dishonest and don't send me to gaol, he will
+     want a fortune.
+
+     13.
+
+'O, this seems to be a very one-sided business,' exclaimed Morris.
+'There's not so much in this method as I was led to think.' He crumpled
+the paper up and threw it down; and then, the next moment, picked it
+up again and ran it over. 'It seems it's on the financial point that
+my position is weakest,' he reflected. 'Is there positively no way of
+raising the wind? In a vast city like this, and surrounded by all the
+resources of civilization, it seems not to be conceived! Let us have
+no more precipitation. Is there nothing I can sell? My collection of
+signet--' But at the thought of scattering these loved treasures the
+blood leaped into Morris's check. 'I would rather die!' he exclaimed,
+and, cramming his hat upon his head, strode forth into the streets.
+
+'I MUST raise funds,' he thought. 'My uncle being dead, the money in
+the bank is mine, or would be mine but for the cursed injustice that has
+pursued me ever since I was an orphan in a commercial academy. I know
+what any other man would do; any other man in Christendom would forge;
+although I don't know why I call it forging, either, when Joseph's dead,
+and the funds are my own. When I think of that, when I think that my
+uncle is really as dead as mutton, and that I can't prove it, my gorge
+rises at the injustice of the whole affair. I used to feel bitterly
+about that seven thousand eight hundred pounds; it seems a trifle now!
+Dear me, why, the day before yesterday I was comparatively happy.'
+
+And Morris stood on the sidewalk and heaved another sobbing sigh.
+
+'Then there's another thing,' he resumed; 'can I? Am I able? Why didn't
+I practise different handwritings while I was young? How a fellow
+regrets those lost opportunities when he grows up! But there's
+one comfort: it's not morally wrong; I can try it on with a
+clear conscience, and even if I was found out, I wouldn't greatly
+care--morally, I mean. And then, if I succeed, and if Pitman is staunch,
+there's nothing to do but find a venal doctor; and that ought to be
+simple enough in a place like London. By all accounts the town's
+alive with them. It wouldn't do, of course, to advertise for a corrupt
+physician; that would be impolitic. No, I suppose a fellow has simply to
+spot along the streets for a red lamp and herbs in the window, and
+then you go in and--and--and put it to him plainly; though it seems a
+delicate step.'
+
+He was near home now, after many devious wanderings, and turned up
+John Street. As he thrust his latchkey in the lock, another mortifying
+reflection struck him to the heart.
+
+'Not even this house is mine till I can prove him dead,' he snarled, and
+slammed the door behind him so that the windows in the attic rattled.
+
+Night had long fallen; long ago the lamps and the shop-fronts had begun
+to glitter down the endless streets; the lobby was pitch--dark; and, as
+the devil would have it, Morris barked his shins and sprawled all his
+length over the pedestal of Hercules. The pain was sharp; his temper was
+already thoroughly undermined; by a last misfortune his hand closed on
+the hammer as he fell; and, in a spasm of childish irritation, he turned
+and struck at the offending statue. There was a splintering crash.
+
+'O Lord, what have I done next?' wailed Morris; and he groped his way
+to find a candle. 'Yes,' he reflected, as he stood with the light in
+his hand and looked upon the mutilated leg, from which about a pound of
+muscle was detached. 'Yes, I have destroyed a genuine antique; I may be
+in for thousands!' And then there sprung up in his bosom a sort of angry
+hope. 'Let me see,' he thought. 'Julia's got rid of--, there's nothing
+to connect me with that beast Forsyth; the men were all drunk, and
+(what's better) they've been all discharged. O, come, I think this is
+another case of moral courage! I'll deny all knowledge of the thing.'
+
+A moment more, and he stood again before the Hercules, his lips sternly
+compressed, the coal-axe and the meat-cleaver under his arm. The next,
+he had fallen upon the packing-case. This had been already seriously
+undermined by the operations of Gideon; a few well-directed blows, and
+it already quaked and gaped; yet a few more, and it fell about Morris in
+a shower of boards followed by an avalanche of straw.
+
+And now the leather-merchant could behold the nature of his task: and at
+the first sight his spirit quailed. It was, indeed, no more ambitious a
+task for De Lesseps, with all his men and horses, to attack the hills
+of Panama, than for a single, slim young gentleman, with no previous
+experience of labour in a quarry, to measure himself against that
+bloated monster on his pedestal. And yet the pair were well encountered:
+on the one side, bulk--on the other, genuine heroic fire.
+
+'Down you shall come, you great big, ugly brute!' cried Morris aloud,
+with something of that passion which swept the Parisian mob against the
+walls of the Bastille. 'Down you shall come, this night. I'll have none
+of you in my lobby.'
+
+The face, from its indecent expression, had particularly animated the
+zeal of our iconoclast; and it was against the face that he began his
+operations. The great height of the demigod--for he stood a fathom
+and half in his stocking-feet--offered a preliminary obstacle to this
+attack. But here, in the first skirmish of the battle, intellect already
+began to triumph over matter. By means of a pair of library steps,
+the injured householder gained a posture of advantage; and, with great
+swipes of the coal-axe, proceeded to decapitate the brute.
+
+Two hours later, what had been the erect image of a gigantic coal-porter
+turned miraculously white, was now no more than a medley of disjected
+members; the quadragenarian torso prone against the pedestal; the
+lascivious countenance leering down the kitchen stair; the legs, the
+arms, the hands, and even the fingers, scattered broadcast on the lobby
+floor. Half an hour more, and all the debris had been laboriously carted
+to the kitchen; and Morris, with a gentle sentiment of triumph, looked
+round upon the scene of his achievements. Yes, he could deny all
+knowledge of it now: the lobby, beyond the fact that it was partly
+ruinous, betrayed no trace of the passage of Hercules. But it was a
+weary Morris that crept up to bed; his arms and shoulders ached, the
+palms of his hands burned from the rough kisses of the coal-axe, and
+there was one smarting finger that stole continually to his mouth. Sleep
+long delayed to visit the dilapidated hero, and with the first peep of
+day it had again deserted him.
+
+The morning, as though to accord with his disastrous fortunes, dawned
+inclemently. An easterly gale was shouting in the streets; flaws of rain
+angrily assailed the windows; and as Morris dressed, the draught from
+the fireplace vividly played about his legs.
+
+'I think,' he could not help observing bitterly, 'that with all I have
+to bear, they might have given me decent weather.'
+
+There was no bread in the house, for Miss Hazeltine (like all women left
+to themselves) had subsisted entirely upon cake. But some of this was
+found, and (along with what the poets call a glass of fair, cold water)
+made up a semblance of a morning meal, and then down he sat undauntedly
+to his delicate task.
+
+Nothing can be more interesting than the study of signatures,
+written (as they are) before meals and after, during indigestion and
+intoxication; written when the signer is trembling for the life of his
+child or has come from winning the Derby, in his lawyer's office, or
+under the bright eyes of his sweetheart. To the vulgar, these seem never
+the same; but to the expert, the bank clerk, or the lithographer, they
+are constant quantities, and as recognizable as the North Star to the
+night-watch on deck.
+
+To all this Morris was alive. In the theory of that graceful art in
+which he was now embarking, our spirited leather-merchant was beyond
+all reproach. But, happily for the investor, forgery is an affair
+of practice. And as Morris sat surrounded by examples of his uncle's
+signature and of his own incompetence, insidious depression stole upon
+his spirits. From time to time the wind wuthered in the chimney at his
+back; from time to time there swept over Bloomsbury a squall so dark
+that he must rise and light the gas; about him was the chill and the
+mean disorder of a house out of commission--the floor bare, the sofa
+heaped with books and accounts enveloped in a dirty table-cloth, the
+pens rusted, the paper glazed with a thick film of dust; and yet these
+were but adminicles of misery, and the true root of his depression lay
+round him on the table in the shape of misbegotten forgeries.
+
+'It's one of the strangest things I ever heard of,' he complained. 'It
+almost seems as if it was a talent that I didn't possess.' He went once
+more minutely through his proofs. 'A clerk would simply gibe at them,'
+said he. 'Well, there's nothing else but tracing possible.'
+
+He waited till a squall had passed and there came a blink of scowling
+daylight. Then he went to the window, and in the face of all John Street
+traced his uncle's signature. It was a poor thing at the best. 'But it
+must do,' said he, as he stood gazing woefully on his handiwork. 'He's
+dead, anyway.' And he filled up the cheque for a couple of hundred and
+sallied forth for the Anglo-Patagonian Bank.
+
+There, at the desk at which he was accustomed to transact business,
+and with as much indifference as he could assume, Morris presented the
+forged cheque to the big, red-bearded Scots teller. The teller seemed to
+view it with surprise; and as he turned it this way and that, and even
+scrutinized the signature with a magnifying-glass, his surprise appeared
+to warm into disfavour. Begging to be excused for a moment, he
+passed away into the rearmost quarters of the bank; whence, after an
+appreciable interval, he returned again in earnest talk with a superior,
+an oldish and a baldish, but a very gentlemanly man.
+
+'Mr Morris Finsbury, I believe,' said the gentlemanly man, fixing Morris
+with a pair of double eye-glasses.
+
+'That is my name,' said Morris, quavering. 'Is there anything wrong.
+
+'Well, the fact is, Mr Finsbury, you see we are rather surprised at
+receiving this,' said the other, flicking at the cheque. 'There are no
+effects.'
+
+'No effects?' cried Morris. 'Why, I know myself there must be
+eight-and-twenty hundred pounds, if there's a penny.'
+
+'Two seven six four, I think,' replied the gentlemanly man; 'but it was
+drawn yesterday.'
+
+'Drawn!' cried Morris.
+
+'By your uncle himself, sir,' continued the other. 'Not only that, but
+we discounted a bill for him for--let me see--how much was it for, Mr
+Bell?'
+
+'Eight hundred, Mr Judkin,' replied the teller.
+
+'Bent Pitman!' cried Morris, staggering back.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' said Mr Judkin.
+
+'It's--it's only an expletive,' said Morris.
+
+'I hope there's nothing wrong, Mr Finsbury,' said Mr Bell.
+
+'All I can tell you,' said Morris, with a harsh laugh,' is that the
+whole thing's impossible. My uncle is at Bournemouth, unable to move.'
+
+'Really!' cried Mr Bell, and he recovered the cheque from Mr Judkin.
+'But this cheque is dated in London, and today,' he observed. 'How d'ye
+account for that, sir?'
+
+'O, that was a mistake,' said Morris, and a deep tide of colour dyed his
+face and neck.
+
+'No doubt, no doubt,' said Mr Judkin, but he looked at his customer
+enquiringly.
+
+'And--and--' resumed Morris, 'even if there were no effects--this is a
+very trifling sum to overdraw--our firm--the name of Finsbury, is surely
+good enough for such a wretched sum as this.'
+
+'No doubt, Mr Finsbury,' returned Mr Judkin; 'and if you insist I will
+take it into consideration; but I hardly think--in short, Mr Finsbury,
+if there had been nothing else, the signature seems hardly all that we
+could wish.'
+
+'That's of no consequence,' replied Morris nervously. 'I'll get my uncle
+to sign another. The fact is,' he went on, with a bold stroke, 'my uncle
+is so far from well at present that he was unable to sign this cheque
+without assistance, and I fear that my holding the pen for him may have
+made the difference in the signature.'
+
+Mr Judkin shot a keen glance into Morris's face; and then turned and
+looked at Mr Bell.
+
+'Well,' he said, 'it seems as if we had been victimized by a swindler.
+Pray tell Mr Finsbury we shall put detectives on at once. As for this
+cheque of yours, I regret that, owing to the way it was signed, the
+bank can hardly consider it--what shall I say?--businesslike,' and he
+returned the cheque across the counter.
+
+Morris took it up mechanically; he was thinking of something very
+different.
+
+'In a--case of this kind,' he began, 'I believe the loss falls on us; I
+mean upon my uncle and myself.'
+
+'It does not, sir,' replied Mr Bell; 'the bank is responsible, and
+the bank will either recover the money or refund it, you may depend on
+that.'
+
+Morris's face fell; then it was visited by another gleam of hope.
+
+'I'll tell you what,' he said, 'you leave this entirely in my hands.
+I'll sift the matter. I've an idea, at any rate; and detectives,' he
+added appealingly, 'are so expensive.'
+
+'The bank would not hear of it,' returned Mr Judkin. 'The bank stands to
+lose between three and four thousand pounds; it will spend as much more
+if necessary. An undiscovered forger is a permanent danger. We shall
+clear it up to the bottom, Mr Finsbury; set your mind at rest on that.'
+
+'Then I'll stand the loss,' said Morris boldly. 'I order you to abandon
+the search.' He was determined that no enquiry should be made.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' returned Mr Judkin, 'but we have nothing to do with
+you in this matter, which is one between your uncle and ourselves. If
+he should take this opinion, and will either come here himself or let me
+see him in his sick-room--'
+
+'Quite impossible,' cried Morris.
+
+'Well, then, you see,' said Mr Judkin, 'how my hands are tied. The whole
+affair must go at once into the hands of the police.'
+
+Morris mechanically folded the cheque and restored it to his
+pocket--book.
+
+'Good--morning,' said he, and scrambled somehow out of the bank.
+
+'I don't know what they suspect,' he reflected; 'I can't make them
+out, their whole behaviour is thoroughly unbusinesslike. But it doesn't
+matter; all's up with everything. The money has been paid; the police
+are on the scent; in two hours that idiot Pitman will be nabbed--and the
+whole story of the dead body in the evening papers.'
+
+If he could have heard what passed in the bank after his departure he
+would have been less alarmed, perhaps more mortified.
+
+'That was a curious affair, Mr Bell,' said Mr Judkin.
+
+'Yes, sir,' said Mr Bell, 'but I think we have given him a fright.'
+
+'O, we shall hear no more of Mr Morris Finsbury,' returned the other;
+'it was a first attempt, and the house have dealt with us so long that
+I was anxious to deal gently. But I suppose, Mr Bell, there can be no
+mistake about yesterday? It was old Mr Finsbury himself?'
+
+'There could be no possible doubt of that,' said Mr Bell with a chuckle.
+'He explained to me the principles of banking.'
+
+'Well, well,' said Mr Judkin. 'The next time he calls ask him to step
+into my room. It is only proper he should be warned.'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. In Which William Dent Pitman takes Legal Advice
+
+Norfolk Street, King's Road--jocularly known among Mr Pitman's lodgers
+as 'Norfolk Island'--is neither a long, a handsome, nor a pleasing
+thoroughfare. Dirty, undersized maids-of-all-work issue from it in
+pursuit of beer, or linger on its sidewalk listening to the voice of
+love. The cat's-meat man passes twice a day. An occasional organ-grinder
+wanders in and wanders out again, disgusted. In holiday-time the
+street is the arena of the young bloods of the neighbourhood, and
+the householders have an opportunity of studying the manly art of
+self-defence. And yet Norfolk Street has one claim to be respectable,
+for it contains not a single shop--unless you count the public-house at
+the corner, which is really in the King's Road.
+
+The door of No. 7 bore a brass plate inscribed with the legend 'W. D.
+Pitman, Artist'. It was not a particularly clean brass plate, nor was
+No. 7 itself a particularly inviting place of residence. And yet it
+had a character of its own, such as may well quicken the pulse of
+the reader's curiosity. For here was the home of an artist--and a
+distinguished artist too, highly distinguished by his ill-success--which
+had never been made the subject of an article in the illustrated
+magazines. No wood-engraver had ever reproduced 'a corner in the back
+drawing-room' or 'the studio mantelpiece' of No. 7; no young lady author
+had ever commented on 'the unaffected simplicity' with which Mr Pitman
+received her in the midst of his 'treasures'. It is an omission I would
+gladly supply, but our business is only with the backward parts and
+'abject rear' of this aesthetic dwelling.
+
+Here was a garden, boasting a dwarf fountain (that never played) in the
+centre, a few grimy-looking flowers in pots, two or three newly
+planted trees which the spring of Chelsea visited without noticeable
+consequence, and two or three statues after the antique, representing
+satyrs and nymphs in the worst possible style of sculptured art. On one
+side the garden was overshadowed by a pair of crazy studios, usually
+hired out to the more obscure and youthful practitioners of British
+art. Opposite these another lofty out-building, somewhat more carefully
+finished, and boasting of a communication with the house and a private
+door on the back lane, enshrined the multifarious industry of Mr Pitman.
+All day, it is true, he was engaged in the work of education at a
+seminary for young ladies; but the evenings at least were his own, and
+these he would prolong far into the night, now dashing off 'A landscape
+with waterfall' in oil, now a volunteer bust ('in marble', as he would
+gently but proudly observe) of some public character, now stooping
+his chisel to a mere 'nymph' for a gasbracket on a stair, sir', or a
+life-size 'Infant Samuel' for a religious nursery. Mr Pitman had studied
+in Paris, and he had studied in Rome, supplied with funds by a fond
+parent who went subsequently bankrupt in consequence of a fall in
+corsets; and though he was never thought to have the smallest modicum
+of talent, it was at one time supposed that he had learned his business.
+Eighteen years of what is called 'tuition' had relieved him of the
+dangerous knowledge. His artist lodgers would sometimes reason with him;
+they would point out to him how impossible it was to paint by gaslight,
+or to sculpture life-sized nymphs without a model.
+
+'I know that,' he would reply. 'No one in Norfolk Street knows it
+better; and if I were rich I should certainly employ the best models
+in London; but, being poor, I have taught myself to do without them. An
+occasional model would only disturb my ideal conception of the figure,
+and be a positive impediment in my career. As for painting by an
+artificial light,' he would continue, 'that is simply a knack I have
+found it necessary to acquire, my days being engrossed in the work of
+tuition.'
+
+At the moment when we must present him to our readers, Pitman was in his
+studio alone, by the dying light of the October day. He sat (sure enough
+with 'unaffected simplicity') in a Windsor chair, his low-crowned black
+felt hat by his side; a dark, weak, harmless, pathetic little man, clad
+in the hue of mourning, his coat longer than is usual with the laity,
+his neck enclosed in a collar without a parting, his neckcloth pale in
+hue and simply tied; the whole outward man, except for a pointed beard,
+tentatively clerical. There was a thinning on the top of Pitman's head,
+there were silver hairs at Pitman's temple. Poor gentleman, he was no
+longer young; and years, and poverty, and humble ambition thwarted, make
+a cheerless lot.
+
+In front of him, in the corner by the door, there stood a portly barrel;
+and let him turn them where he might, it was always to the barrel that
+his eyes and his thoughts returned.
+
+'Should I open it? Should I return it? Should I communicate with Mr
+Sernitopolis at once?' he wondered. 'No,' he concluded finally, 'nothing
+without Mr Finsbury's advice.' And he arose and produced a shabby
+leathern desk. It opened without the formality of unlocking, and
+displayed the thick cream-coloured notepaper on which Mr Pitman was
+in the habit of communicating with the proprietors of schools and the
+parents of his pupils. He placed the desk on the table by the window,
+and taking a saucer of Indian ink from the chimney-piece, laboriously
+composed the following letter:
+
+'My dear Mr Finsbury,' it ran, 'would it be presuming on your kindness
+if I asked you to pay me a visit here this evening? It is in no trifling
+matter that I invoke your valuable assistance, for need I say more than
+it concerns the welfare of Mr Semitopolis's statue of Hercules? I write
+you in great agitation of mind; for I have made all enquiries, and
+greatly fear that this work of ancient art has been mislaid. I labour
+besides under another perplexity, not unconnected with the first. Pray
+excuse the inelegance of this scrawl, and believe me yours in haste,
+William D. Pitman.'
+
+Armed with this he set forth and rang the bell of No. 233 King's Road,
+the private residence of Michael Finsbury. He had met the lawyer at a
+time of great public excitement in Chelsea; Michael, who had a sense of
+humour and a great deal of careless kindness in his nature, followed
+the acquaintance up, and, having come to laugh, remained to drop into
+a contemptuous kind of friendship. By this time, which was four years
+after the first meeting, Pitman was the lawyer's dog.
+
+'No,' said the elderly housekeeper, who opened the door in person, 'Mr
+Michael's not in yet. But ye're looking terribly poorly, Mr Pitman. Take
+a glass of sherry, sir, to cheer ye up.'
+
+'No, I thank you, ma'am,' replied the artist. 'It is very good in you,
+but I scarcely feel in sufficient spirits for sherry. Just give Mr
+Finsbury this note, and ask him to look round--to the door in the lane,
+you will please tell him; I shall be in the studio all evening.'
+
+And he turned again into the street and walked slowly homeward. A
+hairdresser's window caught his attention, and he stared long and
+earnestly at the proud, high--born, waxen lady in evening dress, who
+circulated in the centre of the show. The artist woke in him, in spite
+of his troubles.
+
+'It is all very well to run down the men who make these things,'
+he cried, 'but there's a something--there's a haughty, indefinable
+something about that figure. It's what I tried for in my "Empress
+Eugenie",' he added, with a sigh.
+
+And he went home reflecting on the quality. 'They don't teach you that
+direct appeal in Paris,' he thought. 'It's British. Come, I am going to
+sleep, I must wake up, I must aim higher--aim higher,' cried the little
+artist to himself. All through his tea and afterward, as he was giving
+his eldest boy a lesson on the fiddle, his mind dwelt no longer on his
+troubles, but he was rapt into the better land; and no sooner was he at
+liberty than he hastened with positive exhilaration to his studio.
+
+Not even the sight of the barrel could entirely cast him down. He flung
+himself with rising zest into his work--a bust of Mr Gladstone from a
+photograph; turned (with extraordinary success) the difficulty of
+the back of the head, for which he had no documents beyond a hazy
+recollection of a public meeting; delighted himself by his treatment
+of the collar; and was only recalled to the cares of life by Michael
+Finsbury's rattle at the door.
+
+'Well, what's wrong?' said Michael, advancing to the grate, where,
+knowing his friend's delight in a bright fire, Mr Pitman had not spared
+the fuel. 'I suppose you have come to grief somehow.'
+
+'There is no expression strong enough,' said the artist. 'Mr
+Semitopolis's statue has not turned up, and I am afraid I shall be
+answerable for the money; but I think nothing of that--what I fear, my
+dear Mr Finsbury, what I fear--alas that I should have to say it!
+is exposure. The Hercules was to be smuggled out of Italy; a thing
+positively wrong, a thing of which a man of my principles and in my
+responsible position should have taken (as I now see too late) no part
+whatever.'
+
+'This sounds like very serious work,' said the lawyer. 'It will require
+a great deal of drink, Pitman.'
+
+'I took the liberty of--in short, of being prepared for you,' replied
+the artist, pointing to a kettle, a bottle of gin, a lemon, and glasses.
+Michael mixed himself a grog, and offered the artist a cigar.
+
+'No, thank you,' said Pitman. 'I used occasionally to be rather partial
+to it, but the smell is so disagreeable about the clothes.'
+
+'All right,' said the lawyer. 'I am comfortable now. Unfold your tale.'
+
+At some length Pitman set forth his sorrows. He had gone today to
+Waterloo, expecting to receive the colossal Hercules, and he had
+received instead a barrel not big enough to hold Discobolus; yet
+the barrel was addressed in the hand (with which he was perfectly
+acquainted) of his Roman correspondent. What was stranger still, a case
+had arrived by the same train, large enough and heavy enough to
+contain the Hercules; and this case had been taken to an address now
+undiscoverable. 'The vanman (I regret to say it) had been drinking, and
+his language was such as I could never bring myself to repeat.
+
+He was at once discharged by the superintendent of the line, who behaved
+most properly throughout, and is to make enquiries at Southampton.
+In the meanwhile, what was I to do? I left my address and brought the
+barrel home; but, remembering an old adage, I determined not to open it
+except in the presence of my lawyer.'
+
+'Is that all?' asked Michael. 'I don't see any cause to worry. The
+Hercules has stuck upon the road. It will drop in tomorrow or the day
+after; and as for the barrel, depend upon it, it's a testimonial from
+one of your young ladies, and probably contains oysters.'
+
+'O, don't speak so loud!' cried the little artist. 'It would cost me my
+place if I were heard to speak lightly of the young ladies; and besides,
+why oysters from Italy? and why should they come to me addressed in
+Signor Ricardi's hand?'
+
+'Well, let's have a look at it,' said Michael. 'Let's roll it forward to
+the light.'
+
+The two men rolled the barrel from the corner, and stood it on end
+before the fire.
+
+'It's heavy enough to be oysters,' remarked Michael judiciously.
+
+'Shall we open it at once?' enquired the artist, who had grown decidedly
+cheerful under the combined effects of company and gin; and without
+waiting for a reply, he began to strip as if for a prize-fight, tossed
+his clerical collar in the wastepaper basket, hung his clerical coat
+upon a nail, and with a chisel in one hand and a hammer in the other,
+struck the first blow of the evening.
+
+'That's the style, William Dent' cried Michael. 'There's fire for--your
+money! It may be a romantic visit from one of the young ladies--a sort
+of Cleopatra business. Have a care and don't stave in Cleopatra's head.'
+
+But the sight of Pitman's alacrity was infectious. The lawyer could
+sit still no longer. Tossing his cigar into the fire, he snatched the
+instrument from the unwilling hands of the artist, and fell to himself.
+Soon the sweat stood in beads upon his large, fair brow; his stylish
+trousers were defaced with iron rust, and the state of his chisel
+testified to misdirected energies.
+
+A cask is not an easy thing to open, even when you set about it in the
+right way; when you set about it wrongly, the whole structure must be
+resolved into its elements. Such was the course pursued alike by the
+artist and the lawyer. Presently the last hoop had been removed--a
+couple of smart blows tumbled the staves upon the ground--and what
+had once been a barrel was no more than a confused heap of broken and
+distorted boards.
+
+In the midst of these, a certain dismal something, swathed in blankets,
+remained for an instant upright, and then toppled to one side and
+heavily collapsed before the fire. Even as the thing subsided, an
+eye-glass tingled to the floor and rolled toward the screaming Pitman.
+
+'Hold your tongue!' said Michael. He dashed to the house door and locked
+it; then, with a pale face and bitten lip, he drew near, pulled aside
+a corner of the swathing blanket, and recoiled, shuddering. There was a
+long silence in the studio.
+
+'Now tell me,' said Michael, in a low voice: 'Had you any hand in it?'
+and he pointed to the body.
+
+The little artist could only utter broken and disjointed sounds.
+
+Michael poured some gin into a glass. 'Drink that,' he said. 'Don't be
+afraid of me. I'm your friend through thick and thin.'
+
+Pitman put the liquor down untasted.
+
+'I swear before God,' he said, 'this is another mystery to me. In my
+worst fears I never dreamed of such a thing. I would not lay a finger on
+a sucking infant.'
+
+'That's all square,' said Michael, with a sigh of huge relief. 'I
+believe you, old boy.' And he shook the artist warmly by the hand. 'I
+thought for a moment,' he added with rather a ghastly smile, 'I thought
+for a moment you might have made away with Mr Semitopolis.'
+
+'It would make no difference if I had,' groaned Pitman. 'All is at an
+end for me. There's the writing on the wall.'
+
+'To begin with,' said Michael, 'let's get him out of sight; for to be
+quite plain with you, Pitman, I don't like your friend's appearance.'
+And with that the lawyer shuddered. 'Where can we put it?'
+
+'You might put it in the closet there--if you could bear to touch it,'
+answered the artist.
+
+'Somebody has to do it, Pitman,' returned the lawyer; 'and it seems as
+if it had to be me. You go over to the table, turn your back, and mix me
+a grog; that's a fair division of labour.'
+
+About ninety seconds later the closet-door was heard to shut.
+
+'There,' observed Michael, 'that's more homelike. You can turn now, my
+pallid Pitman. Is this the grog?' he ran on. 'Heaven forgive you, it's a
+lemonade.'
+
+'But, O, Finsbury, what are we to do with it?' walled the artist, laying
+a clutching hand upon the lawyer's arm.
+
+'Do with it?' repeated Michael. 'Bury it in one of your flowerbeds, and
+erect one of your own statues for a monument. I tell you we should look
+devilish romantic shovelling out the sod by the moon's pale ray. Here,
+put some gin in this.'
+
+'I beg of you, Mr Finsbury, do not trifle with my misery,' cried Pitman.
+'You see before you a man who has been all his life--I do not hesitate
+to say it--imminently respectable. Even in this solemn hour I can lay my
+hand upon my heart without a blush. Except on the really trifling point
+of the smuggling of the Hercules (and even of that I now humbly repent),
+my life has been entirely fit for publication. I never feared the
+light,' cried the little man; 'and now--now--!'
+
+'Cheer up, old boy,' said Michael. 'I assure you we should count this
+little contretemps a trifle at the office; it's the sort of thing that
+may occur to any one; and if you're perfectly sure you had no hand in
+it--'
+
+'What language am I to find--' began Pitman.
+
+'O, I'll do that part of it,' interrupted Michael, 'you have no
+experience.' But the point is this: If--or rather since--you know
+nothing of the crime, since the--the party in the closet--is
+neither your father, nor your brother, nor your creditor, nor your
+mother-in-law, nor what they call an injured husband--'
+
+'O, my dear sir!' interjected Pitman, horrified.
+
+'Since, in short,' continued the lawyer, 'you had no possible interest
+in the crime, we have a perfectly free field before us and a safe game
+to play. Indeed, the problem is really entertaining; it is one I have
+long contemplated in the light of an A. B. case; here it is at last
+under my hand in specie; and I mean to pull you through. Do you hear
+that?--I mean to pull you through. Let me see: it's a long time since I
+have had what I call a genuine holiday; I'll send an excuse tomorrow to
+the office. We had best be lively,' he added significantly; 'for we must
+not spoil the market for the other man.'
+
+'What do you mean?' enquired Pitman. 'What other man? The inspector of
+police?'
+
+'Damn the inspector of police!' remarked his companion. 'If you won't
+take the short cut and bury this in your back garden, we must find some
+one who will bury it in his. We must place the affair, in short, in the
+hands of some one with fewer scruples and more resources.'
+
+'A private detective, perhaps?' suggested Pitman.
+
+'There are times when you fill me with pity,' observed the lawyer. 'By
+the way, Pitman,' he added in another key, 'I have always regretted that
+you have no piano in this den of yours. Even if you don't play yourself,
+your friends might like to entertain themselves with a little music
+while you were mudding.'
+
+'I shall get one at once if you like,' said Pitman nervously, anxious to
+please. 'I play the fiddle a little as it is.'
+
+'I know you do,' said Michael; 'but what's the fiddle--above all as you
+play it? What you want is polyphonic music. And I'll tell you what it
+is--since it's too late for you to buy a piano I'll give you mine.'
+
+'Thank you,' said the artist blankly. 'You will give me yours? I am sure
+it's very good in you.'
+
+'Yes, I'll give you mine,' continued Michael, 'for the inspector of
+police to play on while his men are digging up your back garden.' Pitman
+stared at him in pained amazement.
+
+'No, I'm not insane,' Michael went on. 'I'm playful, but quite coherent.
+See here, Pitman: follow me one half minute. I mean to profit by the
+refreshing fact that we are really and truly innocent; nothing but the
+presence of the--you know what--connects us with the crime; once let us
+get rid of it, no matter how, and there is no possible clue to trace
+us by. Well, I give you my piano; we'll bring it round this very night.
+Tomorrow we rip the fittings out, deposit the--our friend--inside, plump
+the whole on a cart, and carry it to the chambers of a young gentleman
+whom I know by sight.'
+
+'Whom do you know by sight?' repeated Pitman.
+
+'And what is more to the purpose,' continued Michael, 'whose chambers I
+know better than he does himself. A friend of mine--I call him my friend
+for brevity; he is now, I understand, in Demerara and (most likely)
+in gaol--was the previous occupant. I defended him, and I got him off
+too--all saved but honour; his assets were nil, but he gave me what he
+had, poor gentleman, and along with the rest--the key of his chambers.
+It's there that I propose to leave the piano and, shall we say,
+Cleopatra?'
+
+'It seems very wild,' said Pitman. 'And what will become of the poor
+young gentleman whom you know by sight?'
+
+'It will do him good,'--said Michael cheerily. 'Just what he wants to
+steady him.'
+
+'But, my dear sir, he might be involved in a charge of--a charge of
+murder,' gulped the artist.
+
+'Well, he'll be just where we are,' returned the lawyer. 'He's
+innocent, you see. What hangs people, my dear Pitman, is the unfortunate
+circumstance of guilt.'
+
+'But indeed, indeed,' pleaded Pitman, 'the whole scheme appears to me so
+wild. Would it not be safer, after all, just to send for the police?'
+
+'And make a scandal?' enquired Michael. '"The Chelsea Mystery; alleged
+innocence of Pitman"? How would that do at the Seminary?'
+
+'It would imply my discharge,' admitted the drawing--master. 'I cannot
+deny that.'
+
+'And besides,' said Michael, 'I am not going to embark in such a
+business and have no fun for my money.'
+
+'O my dear sir, is that a proper spirit?' cried Pitman.
+
+'O, I only said that to cheer you up,' said the unabashed Michael.
+'Nothing like a little judicious levity. But it's quite needless to
+discuss. If you mean to follow my advice, come on, and let us get the
+piano at once. If you don't, just drop me the word, and I'll leave you
+to deal with the whole thing according to your better judgement.'
+
+'You know perfectly well that I depend on you entirely,' returned
+Pitman. 'But O, what a night is before me with that--horror in my
+studio! How am I to think of it on my pillow?'
+
+'Well, you know, my piano will be there too,' said Michael. 'That'll
+raise the average.'
+
+An hour later a cart came up the lane, and the lawyer's piano--a
+momentous Broadwood grand--was deposited in Mr Pitman's studio.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. In Which Michael Finsbury Enjoys a Holiday
+
+Punctually at eight o'clock next morning the lawyer rattled (according
+to previous appointment) on the studio door. He found the artist sadly
+altered for the worse--bleached, bloodshot, and chalky--a man upon
+wires, the tail of his haggard eye still wandering to the closet. Nor
+was the professor of drawing less inclined to wonder at his friend.
+Michael was usually attired in the height of fashion, with a certain
+mercantile brilliancy best described perhaps as stylish; nor could
+anything be said against him, as a rule, but that he looked a trifle
+too like a wedding guest to be quite a gentleman. Today he had fallen
+altogether from these heights. He wore a flannel shirt of washed-out
+shepherd's tartan, and a suit of reddish tweeds, of the colour known to
+tailors as 'heather mixture'; his neckcloth was black, and tied loosely
+in a sailor's knot; a rusty ulster partly concealed these advantages;
+and his feet were shod with rough walking boots. His hat was an old soft
+felt, which he removed with a flourish as he entered.
+
+'Here I am, William Dent!' he cried, and drawing from his pocket
+two little wisps of reddish hair, he held them to his cheeks like
+sidewhiskers and danced about the studio with the filmy graces of a
+ballet-girl.
+
+Pitman laughed sadly. 'I should never have known you,' said he.
+
+'Nor were you intended to,' returned Michael, replacing his false
+whiskers in his pocket. 'Now we must overhaul you and your wardrobe, and
+disguise you up to the nines.'
+
+'Disguise!' cried the artist. 'Must I indeed disguise myself. Has it
+come to that?'
+
+'My dear creature,' returned his companion, 'disguise is the spice of
+life. What is life, passionately exclaimed a French philosopher, without
+the pleasures of disguise? I don't say it's always good taste, and
+I know it's unprofessional; but what's the odds, downhearted
+drawing-master? It has to be. We have to leave a false impression on
+the minds of many persons, and in particular on the mind of Mr Gideon
+Forsyth--the young gentleman I know by sight--if he should have the bad
+taste to be at home.'
+
+'If he be at home?' faltered the artist. 'That would be the end of all.'
+
+'Won't matter a d--,' returned Michael airily. 'Let me see your clothes,
+and I'll make a new man of you in a jiffy.'
+
+In the bedroom, to which he was at once conducted, Michael examined
+Pitman's poor and scanty wardrobe with a humorous eye, picked out a
+short jacket of black alpaca, and presently added to that a pair of
+summer trousers which somehow took his fancy as incongruous. Then, with
+the garments in his hand, he scrutinized the artist closely.
+
+'I don't like that clerical collar,' he remarked. 'Have you nothing
+else?'
+
+The professor of drawing pondered for a moment, and then brightened;
+'I have a pair of low-necked shirts,' he said, 'that I used to wear in
+Paris as a student. They are rather loud.'
+
+'The very thing!' ejaculated Michael. 'You'll look perfectly beastly.
+Here are spats, too,' he continued, drawing forth a pair of those
+offensive little gaiters. 'Must have spats! And now you jump into these,
+and whistle a tune at the window for (say) three-quarters of an hour.
+After that you can rejoin me on the field of glory.'
+
+So saying, Michael returned to the studio. It was the morning of the
+easterly gale; the wind blew shrilly among the statues in the garden,
+and drove the rain upon the skylight in the studio ceiling; and at about
+the same moment of the time when Morris attacked the hundredth version
+of his uncle's signature in Bloomsbury, Michael, in Chelsea, began to
+rip the wires out of the Broadwood grand.
+
+Three-quarters of an hour later Pitman was admitted, to find the
+closet-door standing open, the closet untenanted, and the piano
+discreetly shut.
+
+'It's a remarkably heavy instrument,' observed Michael, and turned
+to consider his friend's disguise. 'You must shave off that beard of
+yours,' he said.
+
+'My beard!' cried Pitman. 'I cannot shave my beard. I cannot tamper with
+my appearance--my principals would object. They hold very strong views
+as to the appearance of the professors--young ladies are considered so
+romantic. My beard was regarded as quite a feature when I went about the
+place. It was regarded,' said the artist, with rising colour, 'it was
+regarded as unbecoming.'
+
+'You can let it grow again,' returned Michael, 'and then you'll be so
+precious ugly that they'll raise your salary.'
+
+'But I don't want to be ugly,' cried the artist.
+
+'Don't be an ass,' said Michael, who hated beards and was delighted to
+destroy one. 'Off with it like a man!'
+
+'Of course, if you insist,' said Pitman; and then he sighed, fetched
+some hot water from the kitchen, and setting a glass upon his easel,
+first clipped his beard with scissors and then shaved his chin. He
+could not conceal from himself, as he regarded the result, that his last
+claims to manhood had been sacrificed, but Michael seemed delighted.
+
+'A new man, I declare!' he cried. 'When I give you the windowglass
+spectacles I have in my pocket, you'll be the beau-ideal of a French
+commercial traveller.'
+
+Pitman did not reply, but continued to gaze disconsolately on his image
+in the glass.
+
+'Do you know,' asked Michael, 'what the Governor of South Carolina said
+to the Governor of North Carolina? "It's a long time between drinks,"
+observed that powerful thinker; and if you will put your hand into the
+top left-hand pocket of my ulster, I have an impression you will find a
+flask of brandy. Thank you, Pitman,' he added, as he filled out a glass
+for each. 'Now you will give me news of this.'
+
+The artist reached out his hand for the water-jug, but Michael arrested
+the movement.
+
+'Not if you went upon your knees!' he cried. 'This is the finest liqueur
+brandy in Great Britain.'
+
+Pitman put his lips to it, set it down again, and sighed.
+
+'Well, I must say you're the poorest companion for a holiday!' cried
+Michael. 'If that's all you know of brandy, you shall have no more of
+it; and while I finish the flask, you may as well begin business. Come
+to think of it,' he broke off, 'I have made an abominable error: you
+should have ordered the cart before you were disguised. Why, Pitman,
+what the devil's the use of you? why couldn't you have reminded me of
+that?'
+
+'I never even knew there was a cart to be ordered,' said the artist.
+'But I can take off the disguise again,' he suggested eagerly.
+
+'You would find it rather a bother to put on your beard,' observed the
+lawyer. 'No, it's a false step; the sort of thing that hangs people,' he
+continued, with eminent cheerfulness, as he sipped his brandy; 'and
+it can't be retraced now. Off to the mews with you, make all the
+arrangements; they're to take the piano from here, cart it to Victoria,
+and dispatch it thence by rail to Cannon Street, to lie till called for
+in the name of Fortune du Boisgobey.'
+
+'Isn't that rather an awkward name?' pleaded Pitman.
+
+'Awkward?' cried Michael scornfully. 'It would hang us both! Brown is
+both safer and easier to pronounce. Call it Brown.'
+
+'I wish,' said Pitman, 'for my sake, I wish you wouldn't talk so much of
+hanging.'
+
+'Talking about it's nothing, my boy!' returned Michael. 'But take your
+hat and be off, and mind and pay everything beforehand.'
+
+Left to himself, the lawyer turned his attention for some time
+exclusively to the liqueur brandy, and his spirits, which had been
+pretty fair all morning, now prodigiously rose. He proceeded to adjust
+his whiskers finally before the glass. 'Devilish rich,' he remarked, as
+he contemplated his reflection. 'I look like a purser's mate.' And at
+that moment the window-glass spectacles (which he had hitherto destined
+for Pitman) flashed into his mind; he put them on, and fell in love with
+the effect. 'Just what I required,' he said. 'I wonder what I look like
+now? A humorous novelist, I should think,' and he began to practise
+divers characters of walk, naming them to himself as--he proceeded.
+'Walk of a humorous novelist--but that would require an umbrella. Walk
+of a purser's mate. Walk of an Australian colonist revisiting the scenes
+of childhood. Walk of Sepoy colonel, ditto, ditto. And in the midst
+of the Sepoy colonel (which was an excellent assumption, although
+inconsistent with the style of his make-up), his eye lighted on the
+piano. This instrument was made to lock both at the top and at the
+keyboard, but the key of the latter had been mislaid. Michael opened
+it and ran his fingers over the dumb keys. 'Fine instrument--full, rich
+tone,' he observed, and he drew in a seat.
+
+When Mr Pitman returned to the studio, he was appalled to observe his
+guide, philosopher, and friend performing miracles of execution on the
+silent grand.
+
+'Heaven help me!' thought the little man, 'I fear he has been drinking!
+Mr Finsbury,' he said aloud; and Michael, without rising, turned upon
+him a countenance somewhat flushed, encircled with the bush of the red
+whiskers, and bestridden by the spectacles. 'Capriccio in B-flat on the
+departure of a friend,' said he, continuing his noiseless evolutions.
+
+Indignation awoke in the mind of Pitman. 'Those spectacles were to be
+mine,' he cried. 'They are an essential part of my disguise.'
+
+'I am going to wear them myself,' replied Michael; and he added, with
+some show of truth, 'There would be a devil of a lot of suspicion
+aroused if we both wore spectacles.'
+
+'O, well,' said the assenting Pitman, 'I rather counted on them; but of
+course, if you insist. And at any rate, here is the cart at the door.'
+
+While the men were at work, Michael concealed himself in the closet
+among the debris of the barrel and the wires of the piano; and as soon
+as the coast was clear the pair sallied forth by the lane, jumped into
+a hansom in the King's Road, and were driven rapidly toward town. It
+was still cold and raw and boisterous; the rain beat strongly in their
+faces, but Michael refused to have the glass let down; he had now
+suddenly donned the character of cicerone, and pointed out and lucidly
+commented on the sights of London, as they drove. 'My dear fellow,' he
+said, 'you don't seem to know anything of your native city. Suppose we
+visited the Tower? No? Well, perhaps it's a trifle out of our way.
+But, anyway--Here, cabby, drive round by Trafalgar Square!' And on that
+historic battlefield he insisted on drawing up, while he criticized the
+statues and gave the artist many curious details (quite new to history)
+of the lives of the celebrated men they represented.
+
+It would be difficult to express what Pitman suffered in the cab: cold,
+wet, terror in the capital degree, a grounded distrust of the commander
+under whom he served, a sense of imprudency in the matter of the
+low-necked shirt, a bitter sense of the decline and fall involved in the
+deprivation of his beard, all these were among the ingredients of the
+bowl. To reach the restaurant, for which they were deviously steering,
+was the first relief. To hear Michael bespeak a private room was a
+second and a still greater. Nor, as they mounted the stair under the
+guidance of an unintelligible alien, did he fail to note with gratitude
+the fewness of the persons present, or the still more cheering fact that
+the greater part of these were exiles from the land of France. It was
+thus a blessed thought that none of them would be connected with the
+Seminary; for even the French professor, though admittedly a Papist, he
+could scarce imagine frequenting so rakish an establishment.
+
+The alien introduced them into a small bare room with a single table,
+a sofa, and a dwarfish fire; and Michael called promptly for more coals
+and a couple of brandies and sodas.
+
+'O, no,' said Pitman, 'surely not--no more to drink.'
+
+'I don't know what you would be at,' said Michael plaintively. 'It's
+positively necessary to do something; and one shouldn't smoke before
+meals. I thought that was understood. You seem to have no idea
+of hygiene.' And he compared his watch with the clock upon the
+chimney-piece.
+
+Pitman fell into bitter musing; here he was, ridiculously shorn,
+absurdly disguised, in the company of a drunken man in spectacles, and
+waiting for a champagne luncheon in a restaurant painfully foreign. What
+would his principals think, if they could see him? What if they knew his
+tragic and deceitful errand?
+
+From these reflections he was aroused by the entrance of the alien with
+the brandies and sodas. Michael took one and bade the waiter pass the
+other to his friend.
+
+Pitman waved it from him with his hand. 'Don't let me lose all
+self-respect,' he said.
+
+'Anything to oblige a friend,' returned Michael. 'But I'm not going to
+drink alone. Here,' he added to the waiter, 'you take it.' And, then,
+touching glasses, 'The health of Mr Gideon Forsyth,' said he.
+
+'Meestare Gidden Borsye,' replied the waiter, and he tossed off the
+liquor in four gulps.
+
+'Have another?' said Michael, with undisguised interest. 'I never saw a
+man drink faster. It restores one's confidence in the human race.
+
+But the waiter excused himself politely, and, assisted by some one from
+without, began to bring in lunch.
+
+Michael made an excellent meal, which he washed down with a bottle of
+Heidsieck's dry monopole. As for the artist, he was far too uneasy to
+eat, and his companion flatly refused to let him share in the champagne
+unless he did.
+
+'One of us must stay sober,' remarked the lawyer, 'and I won't give you
+champagne on the strength of a leg of grouse. I have to be cautious,' he
+added confidentially. 'One drunken man, excellent business--two drunken
+men, all my eye.'
+
+On the production of coffee and departure of the waiter, Michael might
+have been observed to make portentous efforts after gravity of mien.
+He looked his friend in the face (one eye perhaps a trifle off), and
+addressed him thickly but severely.
+
+'Enough of this fooling,' was his not inappropriate exordium. 'To
+business. Mark me closely. I am an Australian. My name is John Dickson,
+though you mightn't think it from my unassuming appearance. You will be
+relieved to hear that I am rich, sir, very rich. You can't go into this
+sort of thing too thoroughly, Pitman; the whole secret is preparation,
+and I can get up my biography from the beginning, and I could tell it
+you now, only I have forgotten it.'
+
+'Perhaps I'm stupid--' began Pitman.
+
+'That's it!' cried Michael. 'Very stupid; but rich too--richer than I
+am. I thought you would enjoy it, Pitman, so I've arranged that you were
+to be literally wallowing in wealth. But then, on the other hand, you're
+only an American, and a maker of india-rubber overshoes at that. And the
+worst of it is--why should I conceal it from you?--the worst of it
+is that you're called Ezra Thomas. Now,' said Michael, with a really
+appalling seriousness of manner, 'tell me who we are.'
+
+The unfortunate little man was cross-examined till he knew these facts
+by heart.
+
+'There!' cried the lawyer. 'Our plans are laid. Thoroughly
+consistent--that's the great thing.'
+
+'But I don't understand,' objected Pitman.
+
+'O, you'll understand right enough when it comes to the point,' said
+Michael, rising.
+
+'There doesn't seem any story to it,' said the artist.
+
+'We can invent one as we go along,' returned the lawyer.
+
+'But I can't invent,' protested Pitman. 'I never could invent in all my
+life.'
+
+'You'll find you'll have to, my boy,' was Michael's easy comment, and he
+began calling for the waiter, with whom he at once resumed a sparkling
+conversation.
+
+It was a downcast little man that followed him. 'Of course he is very
+clever, but can I trust him in such a state?' he asked himself. And when
+they were once more in a hansom, he took heart of grace.
+
+'Don't you think,' he faltered, 'it would be wiser, considering all
+things, to put this business off?'
+
+'Put off till tomorrow what can be done today?' cried Michael, with
+indignation. 'Never heard of such a thing! Cheer up, it's all right, go
+in and win--there's a lion-hearted Pitman!'
+
+At Cannon Street they enquired for Mr Brown's piano, which had duly
+arrived, drove thence to a neighbouring mews, where they contracted
+for a cart, and while that was being got ready, took shelter in the
+harness-room beside the stove. Here the lawyer presently toppled against
+the wall and fell into a gentle slumber; so that Pitman found himself
+launched on his own resources in the midst of several staring loafers,
+such as love to spend unprofitable days about a stable. 'Rough day,
+sir,' observed one. 'Do you go far?'
+
+'Yes, it's a--rather a rough day,' said the artist; and then, feeling
+that he must change the conversation, 'My friend is an Australian; he is
+very impulsive,' he added.
+
+'An Australian?' said another. 'I've a brother myself in Melbourne. Does
+your friend come from that way at all?'
+
+'No, not exactly,' replied the artist, whose ideas of the geography of
+New Holland were a little scattered. 'He lives immensely far inland, and
+is very rich.'
+
+The loafers gazed with great respect upon the slumbering colonist.
+
+'Well,' remarked the second speaker, 'it's a mighty big place, is
+Australia. Do you come from thereaway too?'
+
+'No, I do not,' said Pitman. 'I do not, and I don't want to,' he added
+irritably. And then, feeling some diversion needful, he fell upon
+Michael and shook him up.
+
+'Hullo,' said the lawyer, 'what's wrong?'
+
+'The cart is nearly ready,' said Pitman sternly. 'I will not allow you
+to sleep.'
+
+'All right--no offence, old man,' replied Michael, yawning. 'A little
+sleep never did anybody any harm; I feel comparatively sober now. But
+what's all the hurry?' he added, looking round him glassily. 'I don't
+see the cart, and I've forgotten where we left the piano.'
+
+What more the lawyer might have said, in the confidence of the moment,
+is with Pitman a matter of tremulous conjecture to this day; but by the
+most blessed circumstance the cart was then announced, and Michael must
+bend the forces of his mind to the more difficult task of rising.
+
+'Of course you'll drive,' he remarked to his companion, as he clambered
+on the vehicle.
+
+'I drive!' cried Pitman. 'I never did such a thing in my life. I cannot
+drive.'
+
+'Very well,' responded Michael with entire composure, 'neither can I
+see. But just as you like. Anything to oblige a friend.'
+
+A glimpse of the ostler's darkening countenance decided Pitman. 'All
+right,' he said desperately, 'you drive. I'll tell you where to go.'
+
+On Michael in the character of charioteer (since this is not intended
+to be a novel of adventure) it would be superfluous to dwell at length.
+Pitman, as he sat holding on and gasping counsels, sole witness of this
+singular feat, knew not whether most to admire the driver's valour or
+his undeserved good fortune. But the latter at least prevailed, the
+cart reached Cannon Street without disaster; and Mr Brown's piano was
+speedily and cleverly got on board.
+
+'Well, sir,' said the leading porter, smiling as he mentally reckoned up
+a handful of loose silver, 'that's a mortal heavy piano.'
+
+'It's the richness of the tone,' returned Michael, as he drove away.
+
+It was but a little distance in the rain, which now fell thick and
+quiet, to the neighbourhood of Mr Gideon Forsyth's chambers in the
+Temple. There, in a deserted by-street, Michael drew up the horses and
+gave them in charge to a blighted shoe-black; and the pair descending
+from the cart, whereon they had figured so incongruously, set forth
+on foot for the decisive scene of their adventure. For the first time
+Michael displayed a shadow of uneasiness.
+
+'Are my whiskers right?' he asked. 'It would be the devil and all if I
+was spotted.'
+
+'They are perfectly in their place,' returned Pitman, with scant
+attention. 'But is my disguise equally effective? There is nothing more
+likely than that I should meet some of my patrons.'
+
+'O, nobody could tell you without your beard,' said Michael. 'All you
+have to do is to remember to speak slow; you speak through your nose
+already.'
+
+'I only hope the young man won't be at home,' sighed Pitman.
+
+'And I only hope he'll be alone,' returned the lawyer. 'It will save a
+precious sight of manoeuvring.'
+
+And sure enough, when they had knocked at the door, Gideon admitted them
+in person to a room, warmed by a moderate fire, framed nearly to the
+roof in works connected with the bench of British Themis, and offering,
+except in one particular, eloquent testimony to the legal zeal of the
+proprietor. The one particular was the chimney-piece, which displayed
+a varied assortment of pipes, tobacco, cigar-boxes, and yellow-backed
+French novels.
+
+'Mr Forsyth, I believe?' It was Michael who thus opened the engagement.
+'We have come to trouble you with a piece of business. I fear it's
+scarcely professional--'
+
+'I am afraid I ought to be instructed through a solicitor,' replied
+Gideon.
+
+'Well, well, you shall name your own, and the whole affair can be put
+on a more regular footing tomorrow,' replied Michael, taking a chair
+and motioning Pitman to do the same. 'But you see we didn't know any
+solicitors; we did happen to know of you, and time presses.'
+
+'May I enquire, gentlemen,' asked Gideon, 'to whom it was I am indebted
+for a recommendation?'
+
+'You may enquire,' returned the lawyer, with a foolish laugh; 'but I was
+invited not to tell you--till the thing was done.'
+
+'My uncle, no doubt,' was the barrister's conclusion.
+
+'My name is John Dickson,' continued Michael; 'a pretty well-known name
+in Ballarat; and my friend here is Mr Ezra Thomas, of the United States
+of America, a wealthy manufacturer of india-rubber overshoes.'
+
+'Stop one moment till I make a note of that,' said Gideon; any one might
+have supposed he was an old practitioner.
+
+'Perhaps you wouldn't mind my smoking a cigar?' asked Michael. He had
+pulled himself together for the entrance; now again there began to
+settle on his mind clouds of irresponsible humour and incipient slumber;
+and he hoped (as so many have hoped in the like case) that a cigar would
+clear him.
+
+'Oh, certainly,' cried Gideon blandly. 'Try one of mine; I can
+confidently recommend them.' And he handed the box to his client.
+
+'In case I don't make myself perfectly clear,' observed the Australian,
+'it's perhaps best to tell you candidly that I've been lunching. It's a
+thing that may happen to any one.'
+
+'O, certainly,' replied the affable barrister. 'But please be under no
+sense of hurry. I can give you,' he added, thoughtfully consulting his
+watch--'yes, I can give you the whole afternoon.'
+
+'The business that brings me here,' resumed the Australian with gusto,
+'is devilish delicate, I can tell you. My friend Mr Thomas, being an
+American of Portuguese extraction, unacquainted with our habits, and a
+wealthy manufacturer of Broadwood pianos--'
+
+'Broadwood pianos?' cried Gideon, with some surprise. 'Dear me, do I
+understand Mr Thomas to be a member of the firm?'
+
+'O, pirated Broadwoods,' returned Michael. 'My friend's the American
+Broadwood.'
+
+'But I understood you to say,' objected Gideon, 'I certainly have it
+so in my notes--that your friend was a manufacturer of india--rubber
+overshoes.'
+
+'I know it's confusing at first,' said the Australian, with a beaming
+smile. 'But he--in short, he combines the two professions. And many
+others besides--many, many, many others,' repeated Mr Dickson, with
+drunken solemnity. 'Mr Thomas's cotton-mills are one of the sights of
+Tallahassee; Mr Thomas's tobacco-mills are the pride of Richmond, Va.;
+in short, he's one of my oldest friends, Mr Forsyth, and I lay his case
+before you with emotion.'
+
+The barrister looked at Mr Thomas and was agreeably prepossessed by his
+open although nervous countenance, and the simplicity and timidity of
+his manner. 'What a people are these Americans!' he thought. 'Look at
+this nervous, weedy, simple little bird in a lownecked shirt, and
+think of him wielding and directing interests so extended and seemingly
+incongruous! 'But had we not better,' he observed aloud, 'had we not
+perhaps better approach the facts?'
+
+'Man of business, I perceive, sir!' said the Australian. 'Let's approach
+the facts. It's a breach of promise case.'
+
+The unhappy artist was so unprepared for this view of his position that
+he could scarce suppress a cry.
+
+'Dear me,' said Gideon, 'they are apt to be very troublesome. Tell me
+everything about it,' he added kindly; 'if you require my assistance,
+conceal nothing.'
+
+'You tell him,' said Michael, feeling, apparently, that he had done his
+share. 'My friend will tell you all about it,' he added to Gideon, with
+a yawn. 'Excuse my closing my eyes a moment; I've been sitting up with a
+sick friend.'
+
+Pitman gazed blankly about the room; rage and despair seethed in his
+innocent spirit; thoughts of flight, thoughts even of suicide, came and
+went before him; and still the barrister patiently waited, and still the
+artist groped in vain for any form of words, however insignificant.
+
+'It's a breach of promise case,' he said at last, in a low voice. 'I--I
+am threatened with a breach of promise case.' Here, in desperate quest
+of inspiration, he made a clutch at his beard; his fingers closed upon
+the unfamiliar smoothness of a shaven chin; and with that, hope and
+courage (if such expressions could ever have been appropriate in the
+case of Pitman) conjointly fled. He shook Michael roughly. 'Wake up!'
+he cried, with genuine irritation in his tones. 'I cannot do it, and you
+know I can't.'
+
+'You must excuse my friend,' said Michael; 'he's no hand as a narrator
+of stirring incident. The case is simple,' he went on. 'My friend is
+a man of very strong passions, and accustomed to a simple, patriarchal
+style of life. You see the thing from here: unfortunate visit to Europe,
+followed by unfortunate acquaintance with sham foreign count, who has a
+lovely daughter. Mr Thomas was quite carried away; he proposed, he was
+accepted, and he wrote--wrote in a style which I am sure he must
+regret today. If these letters are produced in court, sir, Mr Thomas's
+character is gone.'
+
+'Am I to understand--' began Gideon.
+
+'My dear sir,' said the Australian emphatically, 'it isn't possible to
+understand unless you saw them.'
+
+'That is a painful circumstance,' said Gideon; he glanced pityingly in
+the direction of the culprit, and, observing on his countenance every
+mark of confusion, pityingly withdrew his eyes.
+
+'And that would be nothing,' continued Mr Dickson sternly, 'but I
+wish--I wish from my heart, sir, I could say that Mr Thomas's hands were
+clean. He has no excuse; for he was engaged at the time--and is still
+engaged--to the belle of Constantinople, Ga. My friend's conduct was
+unworthy of the brutes that perish.'
+
+'Ga.?' repeated Gideon enquiringly.
+
+'A contraction in current use,' said Michael. 'Ga. for Georgia, in The
+same way as Co. for Company.'
+
+'I was aware it was sometimes so written,' returned the barrister, 'but
+not that it was so pronounced.'
+
+'Fact, I assure you,' said Michael. 'You now see for yourself, sir, that
+if this unhappy person is to be saved, some devilish sharp practice will
+be needed. There's money, and no desire to spare it. Mr Thomas could
+write a cheque tomorrow for a hundred thousand. And, Mr Forsyth,
+there's better than money. The foreign count--Count Tarnow, he calls
+himself--was formerly a tobacconist in Bayswater, and passed under
+the humble but expressive name of Schmidt; his daughter--if she is his
+daughter--there's another point--make a note of that, Mr Forsyth--his
+daughter at that time actually served in the shop--and she now proposes
+to marry a man of the eminence of Mr Thomas! Now do you see our game? We
+know they contemplate a move; and we wish to forestall 'em. Down you
+go to Hampton Court, where they live, and threaten, or bribe, or both,
+until you get the letters; if you can't, God help us, we must go to
+court and Thomas must be exposed. I'll be done with him for one,' added
+the unchivalrous friend.
+
+'There seem some elements of success,' said Gideon. 'Was Schmidt at all
+known to the police?'
+
+'We hope so,' said Michael. 'We have every ground to think so. Mark
+the neighbourhood--Bayswater! Doesn't Bayswater occur to you as very
+suggestive?'
+
+For perhaps the sixth time during this remarkable interview, Gideon
+wondered if he were not becoming light-headed. 'I suppose it's just
+because he has been lunching,' he thought; and then added aloud, 'To
+what figure may I go?'
+
+'Perhaps five thousand would be enough for today,' said Michael. 'And
+now, sir, do not let me detain you any longer; the afternoon wears
+on; there are plenty of trains to Hampton Court; and I needn't try to
+describe to you the impatience of my friend. Here is a five-pound note
+for current expenses; and here is the address.' And Michael began to
+write, paused, tore up the paper, and put the pieces in his pocket. 'I
+will dictate,' he said, 'my writing is so uncertain.'
+
+Gideon took down the address, 'Count Tarnow, Kurnaul Villa, Hampton
+Court.' Then he wrote something else on a sheet of paper. 'You said you
+had not chosen a solicitor,' he said. 'For a case of this sort, here is
+the best man in London.' And he handed the paper to Michael.
+
+'God bless me!' ejaculated Michael, as he read his own address.
+
+'O, I daresay you have seen his name connected with some rather painful
+cases,' said Gideon. 'But he is himself a perfectly honest man, and his
+capacity is recognized. And now, gentlemen, it only remains for me to
+ask where I shall communicate with you.'
+
+'The Langham, of course,' returned Michael. 'Till tonight.'
+
+'Till tonight,' replied Gideon, smiling. 'I suppose I may knock you up
+at a late hour?'
+
+'Any hour, any hour,' cried the vanishing solicitor.
+
+'Now there's a young fellow with a head upon his shoulders,' he said to
+Pitman, as soon as they were in the street.
+
+Pitman was indistinctly heard to murmur, 'Perfect fool.'
+
+'Not a bit of him,' returned Michael. 'He knows who's the best solicitor
+in London, and it's not every man can say the same. But, I say, didn't I
+pitch it in hot?'
+
+Pitman returned no answer.
+
+'Hullo!' said the lawyer, pausing, 'what's wrong with the long-suffering
+Pitman?'
+
+'You had no right to speak of me as you did,' the artist broke out;
+'your language was perfectly unjustifiable; you have wounded me deeply.'
+
+'I never said a word about you,' replied Michael. 'I spoke of Ezra
+Thomas; and do please remember that there's no such party.'
+
+'It's just as hard to bear,' said the artist.
+
+But by this time they had reached the corner of the by-street; and
+there was the faithful shoeblack, standing by the horses' heads with
+a splendid assumption of dignity; and there was the piano, figuring
+forlorn upon the cart, while the rain beat upon its unprotected sides
+and trickled down its elegantly varnished legs.
+
+The shoeblack was again put in requisition to bring five or six strong
+fellows from the neighbouring public-house; and the last battle of the
+campaign opened. It is probable that Mr Gideon Forsyth had not yet taken
+his seat in the train for Hampton Court, before Michael opened the door
+of the chambers, and the grunting porters deposited the Broadwood grand
+in the middle of the floor.
+
+'And now,' said the lawyer, after he had sent the men about their
+business, 'one more precaution. We must leave him the key of the piano,
+and we must contrive that he shall find it. Let me see.' And he built a
+square tower of cigars upon the top of the instrument, and dropped the
+key into the middle.
+
+'Poor young man,' said the artist, as they descended the stairs.
+
+'He is in a devil of a position,' assented Michael drily. 'It'll brace
+him up.'
+
+'And that reminds me,' observed the excellent Pitman, 'that I fear I
+displayed a most ungrateful temper. I had no right, I see, to resent
+expressions, wounding as they were, which were in no sense directed.'
+
+'That's all right,' cried Michael, getting on the cart. 'Not a word
+more, Pitman. Very proper feeling on your part; no man of self-respect
+can stand by and hear his alias insulted.'
+
+The rain had now ceased, Michael was fairly sober, the body had been
+disposed of, and the friends were reconciled. The return to the mews was
+therefore (in comparison with previous stages of the day's adventures)
+quite a holiday outing; and when they had returned the cart and walked
+forth again from the stable-yard, unchallenged, and even unsuspected,
+Pitman drew a deep breath of joy. 'And now,' he said, 'we can go home.'
+
+'Pitman,' said the lawyer, stopping short, 'your recklessness fills me
+with concern. What! we have been wet through the greater part of the
+day, and you propose, in cold blood, to go home! No, sir--hot Scotch.'
+
+And taking his friend's arm he led him sternly towards the nearest
+public-house. Nor was Pitman (I regret to say) wholly unwilling.
+Now that peace was restored and the body gone, a certain innocent
+skittishness began to appear in the manners of the artist; and when
+he touched his steaming glass to Michael's, he giggled aloud like a
+venturesome schoolgirl at a picnic.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. Glorious Conclusion of Michael Finsbury's Holiday
+
+I know Michael Finsbury personally; my business--I know the awkwardness
+of having such a man for a lawyer--still it's an old story now, and
+there is such a thing as gratitude, and, in short, my legal business,
+although now (I am thankful to say) of quite a placid character, remains
+entirely in Michael's hands. But the trouble is I have no natural talent
+for addresses; I learn one for every man--that is friendship's offering;
+and the friend who subsequently changes his residence is dead to me,
+memory refusing to pursue him. Thus it comes about that, as I always
+write to Michael at his office, I cannot swear to his number in the
+King's Road. Of course (like my neighbours), I have been to dinner
+there. Of late years, since his accession to wealth, neglect of
+business, and election to the club, these little festivals have become
+common. He picks up a few fellows in the smoking-room--all men of Attic
+wit--myself, for instance, if he has the luck to find me disengaged; a
+string of hansoms may be observed (by Her Majesty) bowling gaily through
+St James's Park; and in a quarter of an hour the party surrounds one of
+the best appointed boards in London.
+
+But at the time of which we write the house in the King's Road (let us
+still continue to call it No. 233) was kept very quiet; when Michael
+entertained guests it was at the halls of Nichol or Verrey that he would
+convene them, and the door of his private residence remained closed
+against his friends. The upper storey, which was sunny, was set apart
+for his father; the drawing-room was never opened; the dining-room was
+the scene of Michael's life. It is in this pleasant apartment,
+sheltered from the curiosity of King's Road by wire blinds, and entirely
+surrounded by the lawyer's unrivalled library of poetry and criminal
+trials, that we find him sitting down to his dinner after his holiday
+with Pitman. A spare old lady, with very bright eyes and a mouth
+humorously compressed, waited upon the lawyer's needs; in every line of
+her countenance she betrayed the fact that she was an old retainer;
+in every word that fell from her lips she flaunted the glorious
+circumstance of a Scottish origin; and the fear with which this powerful
+combination fills the boldest was obviously no stranger to the bosom of
+our friend. The hot Scotch having somewhat warmed up the embers of the
+Heidsieck. It was touching to observe the master's eagerness to pull
+himself together under the servant's eye; and when he remarked, 'I
+think, Teena, I'll take a brandy and soda,' he spoke like a man doubtful
+of his elocution, and not half certain of obedience.
+
+'No such a thing, Mr Michael,' was the prompt return. 'Clar't and
+water.'
+
+'Well, well, Teena, I daresay you know best,' said the master. 'Very
+fatiguing day at the office, though.'
+
+'What?' said the retainer, 'ye never were near the office!'
+
+'O yes, I was though; I was repeatedly along Fleet Street,' returned
+Michael.
+
+'Pretty pliskies ye've been at this day!' cried the old lady, with
+humorous alacrity; and then, 'Take care--don't break my crystal!' she
+cried, as the lawyer came within an ace of knocking the glasses off the
+table.
+
+'And how is he keeping?' asked Michael.
+
+'O, just the same, Mr Michael, just the way he'll be till the end,
+worthy man!' was the reply. 'But ye'll not be the first that's asked me
+that the day.'
+
+'No?' said the lawyer. 'Who else?'
+
+'Ay, that's a joke, too,' said Teena grimly. 'A friend of yours: Mr
+Morris.'
+
+'Morris! What was the little beggar wanting here?' enquired Michael.
+
+'Wantin'? To see him,' replied the housekeeper, completing her meaning
+by a movement of the thumb toward the upper storey. 'That's by his way
+of it; but I've an idee of my own. He tried to bribe me, Mr Michael.
+Bribe--me!' she repeated, with inimitable scorn. 'That's no' kind of a
+young gentleman.'
+
+'Did he so?' said Michael. 'I bet he didn't offer much.'
+
+'No more he did,' replied Teena; nor could any subsequent questioning
+elicit from her the sum with which the thrifty leather merchant had
+attempted to corrupt her. 'But I sent him about his business,' she said
+gallantly. 'He'll not come here again in a hurry.'
+
+'He mustn't see my father, you know; mind that!' said Michael. 'I'm not
+going to have any public exhibition to a little beast like him.'
+
+'No fear of me lettin' him,' replied the trusty one. 'But the joke
+is this, Mr Michael--see, ye're upsettin' the sauce, that's a clean
+tablecloth--the best of the joke is that he thinks your father's dead
+and you're keepin' it dark.'
+
+Michael whistled. 'Set a thief to catch a thief,' said he.
+
+'Exac'ly what I told him!' cried the delighted dame.
+
+'I'll make him dance for that,' said Michael.
+
+'Couldn't ye get the law of him some way?' suggested Teena truculently.
+
+'No, I don't think I could, and I'm quite sure I don't want to,'
+replied Michael. 'But I say, Teena, I really don't believe this claret's
+wholesome; it's not a sound, reliable wine. Give us a brandy and soda,
+there's a good soul.' Teena's face became like adamant. 'Well, then,'
+said the lawyer fretfully, 'I won't eat any more dinner.'
+
+'Ye can please yourself about that, Mr Michael,' said Teena, and began
+composedly to take away.
+
+'I do wish Teena wasn't a faithful servant!' sighed the lawyer, as he
+issued into Kings's Road.
+
+The rain had ceased; the wind still blew, but only with a pleasant
+freshness; the town, in the clear darkness of the night, glittered with
+street-lamps and shone with glancing rain-pools. 'Come, this is better,'
+thought the lawyer to himself, and he walked on eastward, lending a
+pleased ear to the wheels and the million footfalls of the city.
+
+Near the end of the King's Road he remembered his brandy and soda, and
+entered a flaunting public-house. A good many persons were present, a
+waterman from a cab-stand, half a dozen of the chronically unemployed, a
+gentleman (in one corner) trying to sell aesthetic photographs out of
+a leather case to another and very youthful gentleman with a yellow
+goatee, and a pair of lovers debating some fine shade (in the other).
+But the centre-piece and great attraction was a little old man, in a
+black, ready-made surtout, which was obviously a recent purchase. On
+the marble table in front of him, beside a sandwich and a glass of
+beer, there lay a battered forage cap. His hand fluttered abroad with
+oratorical gestures; his voice, naturally shrill, was plainly tuned to
+the pitch of the lecture room; and by arts, comparable to those of
+the Ancient Mariner, he was now holding spellbound the barmaid, the
+waterman, and four of the unemployed.
+
+'I have examined all the theatres in London,' he was saying; 'and pacing
+the principal entrances, I have ascertained them to be ridiculously
+disproportionate to the requirements of their audiences. The doors
+opened the wrong way--I forget at this moment which it is, but have a
+note of it at home; they were frequently locked during the performance,
+and when the auditorium was literally thronged with English people. You
+have probably not had my opportunities of comparing distant lands; but
+I can assure you this has been long ago recognized as a mark
+of aristocratic government. Do you suppose, in a country really
+self-governed, such abuses could exist? Your own intelligence, however
+uncultivated, tells you they could not. Take Austria, a country even
+possibly more enslaved than England. I have myself conversed with one of
+the survivors of the Ring Theatre, and though his colloquial German
+was not very good, I succeeded in gathering a pretty clear idea of his
+opinion of the case. But, what will perhaps interest you still more,
+here is a cutting on the subject from a Vienna newspaper, which I will
+now read to you, translating as I go. You can see for yourselves; it
+is printed in the German character.' And he held the cutting out for
+verification, much as a conjuror passes a trick orange along the front
+bench.
+
+'Hullo, old gentleman! Is this you?' said Michael, laying his hand upon
+the orator's shoulder.
+
+The figure turned with a convulsion of alarm, and showed the countenance
+of Mr Joseph Finsbury. 'You, Michael!' he cried. 'There's no one with
+you, is there?'
+
+'No,' replied Michael, ordering a brandy and soda, 'there's nobody with
+me; whom do you expect?'
+
+'I thought of Morris or John,' said the old gentleman, evidently greatly
+relieved.
+
+'What the devil would I be doing with Morris or John?' cried the nephew.
+
+'There is something in that,' returned Joseph. 'And I believe I can
+trust you. I believe you will stand by me.'
+
+'I hardly know what you mean,' said the lawyer, 'but if you are in need
+of money I am flush.'
+
+'It's not that, my dear boy,' said the uncle, shaking him by the hand.
+'I'll tell you all about it afterwards.'
+
+'All right,' responded the nephew. 'I stand treat, Uncle Joseph; what
+will you have?'
+
+'In that case,' replied the old gentleman, 'I'll take another
+sandwich. I daresay I surprise you,' he went on, 'with my presence in
+a public-house; but the fact is, I act on a sound but little-known
+principle of my own--'
+
+'O, it's better known than you suppose,' said Michael sipping his brandy
+and soda. 'I always act on it myself when I want a drink.'
+
+The old gentleman, who was anxious to propitiate Michael, laughed a
+cheerless laugh. 'You have such a flow of spirits,' said he, 'I am sure
+I often find it quite amusing. But regarding this principle of which
+I was about to speak. It is that of accommodating one's-self to the
+manners of any land (however humble) in which our lot may be cast. Now,
+in France, for instance, every one goes to a cafe for his meals; in
+America, to what is called a "two-bit house"; in England the people
+resort to such an institution as the present for refreshment. With
+sandwiches, tea, and an occasional glass of bitter beer, a man can live
+luxuriously in London for fourteen pounds twelve shillings per annum.'
+
+'Yes, I know,' returned Michael, 'but that's not including clothes,
+washing, or boots. The whole thing, with cigars and occasional sprees,
+costs me over seven hundred a year.'
+
+But this was Michael's last interruption. He listened in good-humoured
+silence to the remainder of his uncle's lecture, which speedily branched
+to political reform, thence to the theory of the weather-glass, with an
+illustrative account of a bora in the Adriatic; thence again to the best
+manner of teaching arithmetic to the deaf-and-dumb; and with that, the
+sandwich being then no more, explicuit valde feliciter. A moment later
+the pair issued forth on the King's Road.
+
+'Michael,' said his uncle, 'the reason that I am here is because I
+cannot endure those nephews of mine. I find them intolerable.'
+
+'I daresay you do,' assented Michael, 'I never could stand them for a
+moment.'
+
+'They wouldn't let me speak,' continued the old gentleman bitterly; 'I
+never was allowed to get a word in edgewise; I was shut up at once with
+some impertinent remark. They kept me on short allowance of pencils,
+when I wished to make notes of the most absorbing interest; the daily
+newspaper was guarded from me like a young baby from a gorilla. Now, you
+know me, Michael. I live for my calculations; I live for my manifold and
+ever-changing views of life; pens and paper and the productions of the
+popular press are to me as important as food and drink; and my life
+was growing quite intolerable when, in the confusion of that fortunate
+railway accident at Browndean, I made my escape. They must think
+me dead, and are trying to deceive the world for the chance of the
+tontine.'
+
+'By the way, how do you stand for money?' asked Michael kindly.
+
+'Pecuniarily speaking, I am rich,' returned the old man with
+cheerfulness. 'I am living at present at the rate of one hundred a year,
+with unlimited pens and paper; the British Museum at which to get books;
+and all the newspapers I choose to read. But it's extraordinary how
+little a man of intellectual interest requires to bother with books in a
+progressive age. The newspapers supply all the conclusions.'
+
+'I'll tell you what,' said Michael, 'come and stay with me.'
+
+'Michael,' said the old gentleman, 'it's very kind of you, but you
+scarcely understand what a peculiar position I occupy. There are some
+little financial complications; as a guardian, my efforts were not
+altogether blessed; and not to put too fine a point upon the matter, I
+am absolutely in the power of that vile fellow, Morris.'
+
+'You should be disguised,' cried Michael eagerly; 'I will lend you a
+pair of window-glass spectacles and some red side-whiskers.'
+
+'I had already canvassed that idea,' replied the old gentleman, 'but
+feared to awaken remark in my unpretentious lodgings. The aristocracy, I
+am well aware--'
+
+'But see here,' interrupted Michael, 'how do you come to have any money
+at all? Don't make a stranger of me, Uncle Joseph; I know all about the
+trust, and the hash you made of it, and the assignment you were forced
+to make to Morris.'
+
+Joseph narrated his dealings with the bank.
+
+'O, but I say, this won't do,' cried the lawyer. 'You've put your foot
+in it. You had no right to do what you did.'
+
+'The whole thing is mine, Michael,' protested the old gentleman. 'I
+founded and nursed that business on principles entirely of my own.'
+
+'That's all very fine,' said the lawyer; 'but you made an assignment,
+you were forced to make it, too; even then your position was extremely
+shaky; but now, my dear sir, it means the dock.'
+
+'It isn't possible,' cried Joseph; 'the law cannot be so unjust as
+that?'
+
+'And the cream of the thing,' interrupted Michael, with a sudden shout
+of laughter, 'the cream of the thing is this, that of course you've
+downed the leather business! I must say, Uncle Joseph, you have strange
+ideas of law, but I like your taste in humour.'
+
+'I see nothing to laugh at,' observed Mr Finsbury tartly.
+
+'And talking of that, has Morris any power to sign for the firm?' asked
+Michael.
+
+'No one but myself,' replied Joseph.
+
+'Poor devil of a Morris! O, poor devil of a Morris!' cried the lawyer in
+delight. 'And his keeping up the farce that you're at home! O, Morris,
+the Lord has delivered you into my hands! Let me see, Uncle Joseph, what
+do you suppose the leather business worth?'
+
+'It was worth a hundred thousand,' said Joseph bitterly, 'when it was
+in my hands. But then there came a Scotsman--it is supposed he had a
+certain talent--it was entirely directed to bookkeeping--no accountant
+in London could understand a word of any of his books; and then there
+was Morris, who is perfectly incompetent. And now it is worth very
+little. Morris tried to sell it last year; and Pogram and Jarris offered
+only four thousand.'
+
+'I shall turn my attention to leather,' said Michael with decision.
+
+'You?' asked Joseph. 'I advise you not. There is nothing in the whole
+field of commerce more surprising than the fluctuations of the leather
+market. Its sensitiveness may be described as morbid.'
+
+'And now, Uncle Joseph, what have you done with all that money?' asked
+the lawyer.
+
+'Paid it into a bank and drew twenty pounds,' answered Mr Finsbury
+promptly. 'Why?'
+
+'Very well,' said Michael. 'Tomorrow I shall send down a clerk with a
+cheque for a hundred, and he'll draw out the original sum and return it
+to the Anglo-Patagonian, with some sort of explanation which I will try
+to invent for you. That will clear your feet, and as Morris can't touch
+a penny of it without forgery, it will do no harm to my little scheme.'
+
+'But what am I to do?' asked Joseph; 'I cannot live upon nothing.'
+
+'Don't you hear?' returned Michael. 'I send you a cheque for a hundred;
+which leaves you eighty to go along upon; and when that's done, apply to
+me again.'
+
+'I would rather not be beholden to your bounty all the same,' said
+Joseph, biting at his white moustache. 'I would rather live on my own
+money, since I have it.'
+
+Michael grasped his arm. 'Will nothing make you believe,' he cried,
+'that I am trying to save you from Dartmoor?'
+
+His earnestness staggered the old man. 'I must turn my attention
+to law,' he said; 'it will be a new field; for though, of course, I
+understand its general principles, I have never really applied my
+mind to the details, and this view of yours, for example, comes on me
+entirely by surprise. But you may be right, and of course at my time
+of life--for I am no longer young--any really long term of imprisonment
+would be highly prejudicial. But, my dear nephew, I have no claim on
+you; you have no call to support me.'
+
+'That's all right,' said Michael; 'I'll probably get it out of the
+leather business.'
+
+And having taken down the old gentleman's address, Michael left him at
+the corner of a street.
+
+'What a wonderful old muddler!' he reflected, 'and what a singular thing
+is life! I seem to be condemned to be the instrument of Providence. Let
+me see; what have I done today? Disposed of a dead body, saved Pitman,
+saved my Uncle Joseph, brightened up Forsyth, and drunk a devil of a lot
+of most indifferent liquor. Let's top off with a visit to my cousins,
+and be the instrument of Providence in earnest. Tomorrow I can turn
+my attention to leather; tonight I'll just make it lively for 'em in a
+friendly spirit.'
+
+About a quarter of an hour later, as the clocks were striking eleven,
+the instrument of Providence descended from a hansom, and, bidding the
+driver wait, rapped at the door of No. 16 John Street.
+
+It was promptly opened by Morris.
+
+'O, it's you, Michael,' he said, carefully blocking up the narrow
+opening: 'it's very late.'
+
+Michael without a word reached forth, grasped Morris warmly by the hand,
+and gave it so extreme a squeeze that the sullen householder fell back.
+Profiting by this movement, the lawyer obtained a footing in the lobby
+and marched into the dining-room, with Morris at his heels.
+
+'Where's my Uncle Joseph?' demanded Michael, sitting down in the most
+comfortable chair.
+
+'He's not been very well lately,' replied Morris; 'he's staying at
+Browndean; John is nursing him; and I am alone, as you see.'
+
+Michael smiled to himself. 'I want to see him on particular business,'
+he said.
+
+'You can't expect to see my uncle when you won't let me see your
+father,' returned Morris.
+
+'Fiddlestick,' said Michael. 'My father is my father; but Joseph is just
+as much my uncle as he's yours; and you have no right to sequestrate his
+person.'
+
+'I do no such thing,' said Morris doggedly. 'He is not well, he is
+dangerously ill and nobody can see him.'
+
+'I'll tell you what, then,' said Michael. 'I'll make a clean breast
+of it. I have come down like the opossum, Morris; I have come to
+compromise.'
+
+Poor Morris turned as pale as death, and then a flush of wrath against
+the injustice of man's destiny dyed his very temples. 'What do you
+mean?' he cried, 'I don't believe a word of it.' And when Michael had
+assured him of his seriousness, 'Well, then,' he cried, with another
+deep flush, 'I won't; so you can put that in your pipe and smoke it.'
+
+'Oho!' said Michael queerly. 'You say your uncle is dangerously ill, and
+you won't compromise? There's something very fishy about that.'
+
+'What do you mean?' cried Morris hoarsely.
+
+'I only say it's fishy,' returned Michael, 'that is, pertaining to the
+finny tribe.'
+
+'Do you mean to insinuate anything?' cried Morris stormily, trying the
+high hand.
+
+'Insinuate?' repeated Michael. 'O, don't let's begin to use awkward
+expressions! Let us drown our differences in a bottle, like two affable
+kinsmen. The Two Affable Kinsmen, sometimes attributed to Shakespeare,'
+he added.
+
+Morris's mind was labouring like a mill. 'Does he suspect? or is this
+chance and stuff? Should I soap, or should I bully? Soap,' he concluded.
+'It gains time.' 'Well,' said he aloud, and with rather a painful
+affectation of heartiness, 'it's long since we have had an evening
+together, Michael; and though my habits (as you know) are very
+temperate, I may as well make an exception. Excuse me one moment till I
+fetch a bottle of whisky from the cellar.'
+
+'No whisky for me,' said Michael; 'a little of the old still champagne
+or nothing.'
+
+For a moment Morris stood irresolute, for the wine was very valuable:
+the next he had quitted the room without a word. His quick mind had
+perceived his advantage; in thus dunning him for the cream of the
+cellar, Michael was playing into his hand. 'One bottle?' he thought. 'By
+George, I'll give him two! this is no moment for economy; and once the
+beast is drunk, it's strange if I don't wring his secret out of him.'
+
+With two bottles, accordingly, he returned. Glasses were produced, and
+Morris filled them with hospitable grace.
+
+'I drink to you, cousin!' he cried gaily. 'Don't spare the wine-cup in
+my house.'
+
+Michael drank his glass deliberately, standing at the table; filled it
+again, and returned to his chair, carrying the bottle along with him.
+
+'The spoils of war!' he said apologetically. 'The weakest goes to the
+wall. Science, Morris, science.' Morris could think of no reply, and for
+an appreciable interval silence reigned. But two glasses of the still
+champagne produced a rapid change in Michael.
+
+'There's a want of vivacity about you, Morris,' he observed. 'You may be
+deep; but I'll be hanged if you're vivacious!'
+
+'What makes you think me deep?' asked Morris with an air of pleased
+simplicity.
+
+'Because you won't compromise,' said the lawyer. 'You're deep dog,
+Morris, very deep dog, not t' compromise--remarkable deep dog. And
+a very good glass of wine; it's the only respectable feature in the
+Finsbury family, this wine; rarer thing than a title--much rarer. Now a
+man with glass wine like this in cellar, I wonder why won't compromise?'
+
+'Well, YOU wouldn't compromise before, you know,' said the smiling
+Morris. 'Turn about is fair play.'
+
+'I wonder why _I_ wouldn' compromise? I wonder why YOU wouldn'?'
+enquired Michael. 'I wonder why we each think the other wouldn'? 'S
+quite a remarrable--remarkable problem,' he added, triumphing over oral
+obstacles, not without obvious pride. 'Wonder what we each think--don't
+you?'
+
+'What do you suppose to have been my reason?' asked Morris adroitly.
+
+Michael looked at him and winked. 'That's cool,' said he. 'Next thing,
+you'll ask me to help you out of the muddle. I know I'm emissary of
+Providence, but not that kind! You get out of it yourself, like Aesop
+and the other fellow. Must be dreadful muddle for young orphan o' forty;
+leather business and all!'
+
+'I am sure I don't know what you mean,' said Morris.
+
+'Not sure I know myself,' said Michael. 'This is exc'lent vintage,
+sir--exc'lent vintage. Nothing against the tipple. Only thing: here's a
+valuable uncle disappeared. Now, what I want to know: where's valuable
+uncle?'
+
+'I have told you: he is at Browndean,' answered Morris, furtively wiping
+his brow, for these repeated hints began to tell upon him cruelly.
+
+'Very easy say Brown--Browndee--no' so easy after all!' cried Michael.
+'Easy say; anything's easy say, when you can say it. What I don' like's
+total disappearance of an uncle. Not businesslike.' And he wagged his
+head.
+
+'It is all perfectly simple,' returned Morris, with laborious calm.
+'There is no mystery. He stays at Browndean, where he got a shake in the
+accident.'
+
+'Ah!' said Michael, 'got devil of a shake!'
+
+'Why do you say that?' cried Morris sharply.
+
+'Best possible authority. Told me so yourself,' said the lawyer. 'But if
+you tell me contrary now, of course I'm bound to believe either the one
+story or the other. Point is I've upset this bottle, still champagne's
+exc'lent thing carpet--point is, is valuable uncle dead--an'--bury?'
+
+Morris sprang from his seat. 'What's that you say?' he gasped.
+
+'I say it's exc'lent thing carpet,' replied Michael, rising. 'Exc'lent
+thing promote healthy action of the skin. Well, it's all one, anyway.
+Give my love to Uncle Champagne.'
+
+'You're not going away?' said Morris.
+
+'Awf'ly sorry, ole man. Got to sit up sick friend,' said the wavering
+Michael.
+
+'You shall not go till you have explained your hints,' returned Morris
+fiercely. 'What do you mean? What brought you here?'
+
+'No offence, I trust,' said the lawyer, turning round as he opened the
+door; 'only doing my duty as shemishery of Providence.'
+
+Groping his way to the front-door, he opened it with some difficulty,
+and descended the steps to the hansom. The tired driver looked up as he
+approached, and asked where he was to go next.
+
+Michael observed that Morris had followed him to the steps; a brilliant
+inspiration came to him. 'Anything t' give pain,' he reflected. . . .
+'Drive Shcotlan' Yard,' he added aloud, holding to the wheel to steady
+himself; 'there's something devilish fishy, cabby, about those cousins.
+Mush' be cleared up! Drive Shcotlan' Yard.'
+
+'You don't mean that, sir,' said the man, with the ready sympathy of the
+lower orders for an intoxicated gentleman. 'I had better take you home,
+sir; you can go to Scotland Yard tomorrow.'
+
+'Is it as friend or as perfessional man you advise me not to go
+Shcotlan' Yard t'night?' enquired Michael. 'All righ', never min'
+Shcotlan' Yard, drive Gaiety bar.'
+
+'The Gaiety bar is closed,' said the man.
+
+'Then home,' said Michael, with the same cheerfulness.
+
+'Where to, sir?'
+
+'I don't remember, I'm sure,' said Michael, entering the vehicle, 'drive
+Shcotlan' Yard and ask.'
+
+'But you'll have a card,' said the man, through the little aperture in
+the top, 'give me your card-case.'
+
+'What imagi--imagination in a cabby!' cried the lawyer, producing his
+card-case, and handing it to the driver.
+
+The man read it by the light of the lamp. 'Mr Michael Finsbury, 233
+King's Road, Chelsea. Is that it, sir?'
+
+'Right you are,' cried Michael, 'drive there if you can see way.'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. Gideon Forsyth and the Broadwood Grand
+
+The reader has perhaps read that remarkable work, Who Put Back the
+Clock? by E. H. B., which appeared for several days upon the railway
+bookstalls and then vanished entirely from the face of the earth.
+Whether eating Time makes the chief of his diet out of old editions;
+whether Providence has passed a special enactment on behalf of authors;
+or whether these last have taken the law into their own hand, bound
+themselves into a dark conspiracy with a password, which I would
+die rather than reveal, and night after night sally forth under some
+vigorous leader, such as Mr James Payn or Mr Walter Besant, on their
+task of secret spoliation--certain it is, at least, that the old
+editions pass, giving place to new. To the proof, it is believed there
+are now only three copies extant of Who Put Back the Clock? one in
+the British Museum, successfully concealed by a wrong entry in the
+catalogue; another in one of the cellars (the cellar where the music
+accumulates) of the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh; and a third, bound
+in morocco, in the possession of Gideon Forsyth. To account for the very
+different fate attending this third exemplar, the readiest theory is
+to suppose that Gideon admired the tale. How to explain that admiration
+might appear (to those who have perused the work) more difficult; but
+the weakness of a parent is extreme, and Gideon (and not his uncle,
+whose initials he had humorously borrowed) was the author of Who Put
+Back the Clock? He had never acknowledged it, or only to some intimate
+friends while it was still in proof; after its appearance and alarming
+failure, the modesty of the novelist had become more pressing, and the
+secret was now likely to be better kept than that of the authorship of
+Waverley.
+
+A copy of the work (for the date of my tale is already yesterday) still
+figured in dusty solitude in the bookstall at Waterloo; and Gideon, as
+he passed with his ticket for Hampton Court, smiled contemptuously at
+the creature of his thoughts. What an idle ambition was the author's!
+How far beneath him was the practice of that childish art! With his hand
+closing on his first brief, he felt himself a man at last; and the
+muse who presides over the police romance, a lady presumably of French
+extraction, fled his neighbourhood, and returned to join the dance round
+the springs of Helicon, among her Grecian sisters.
+
+Robust, practical reflection still cheered the young barrister upon his
+journey. Again and again he selected the little country-house in its
+islet of great oaks, which he was to make his future home. Like a
+prudent householder, he projected improvements as he passed; to one he
+added a stable, to another a tennis-court, a third he supplied with a
+becoming rustic boat-house.
+
+'How little a while ago,' he could not but reflect, 'I was a careless
+young dog with no thought but to be comfortable! I cared for nothing
+but boating and detective novels. I would have passed an old-fashioned
+country-house with large kitchen-garden, stabling, boat-house, and
+spacious offices, without so much as a look, and certainly would have
+made no enquiry as to the drains. How a man ripens with the years!'
+
+The intelligent reader will perceive the ravages of Miss Hazeltine.
+Gideon had carried Julia straight to Mr Bloomfield's house; and
+that gentleman, having been led to understand she was the victim of
+oppression, had noisily espoused her cause. He worked himself into
+a fine breathing heat; in which, to a man of his temperament, action
+became needful.
+
+'I do not know which is the worse,' he cried, 'the fraudulent old
+villain or the unmanly young cub. I will write to the Pall Mall and
+expose them. Nonsense, sir; they must be exposed! It's a public duty.
+Did you not tell me the fellow was a Tory? O, the uncle is a Radical
+lecturer, is he? No doubt the uncle has been grossly wronged. But of
+course, as you say, that makes a change; it becomes scarce so much a
+public duty.'
+
+And he sought and instantly found a fresh outlet for his alacrity. Miss
+Hazeltine (he now perceived) must be kept out of the way; his houseboat
+was lying ready--he had returned but a day or two before from his usual
+cruise; there was no place like a houseboat for concealment; and that
+very morning, in the teeth of the easterly gale, Mr and Mrs Bloomfield
+and Miss Julia Hazeltine had started forth on their untimely voyage.
+Gideon pled in vain to be allowed to join the party. 'No, Gid,' said his
+uncle. 'You will be watched; you must keep away from us.' Nor had the
+barrister ventured to contest this strange illusion; for he feared if
+he rubbed off any of the romance, that Mr Bloomfield might weary of the
+whole affair. And his discretion was rewarded; for the Squirradical,
+laying a heavy hand upon his nephew's shoulder, had added these notable
+expressions: 'I see what you are after, Gid. But if you're going to get
+the girl, you have to work, sir.'
+
+These pleasing sounds had cheered the barrister all day, as he sat
+reading in chambers; they continued to form the ground-base of his manly
+musings as he was whirled to Hampton Court; even when he landed at the
+station, and began to pull himself together for his delicate interview,
+the voice of Uncle Ned and the eyes of Julia were not forgotten.
+
+But now it began to rain surprises: in all Hampton Court there was no
+Kurnaul Villa, no Count Tarnow, and no count. This was strange; but,
+viewed in the light of the incoherency of his instructions, not perhaps
+inexplicable; Mr Dickson had been lunching, and he might have made some
+fatal oversight in the address. What was the thoroughly prompt, manly,
+and businesslike step? thought Gideon; and he answered himself at
+once: 'A telegram, very laconic.' Speedily the wires were flashing the
+following very important missive: 'Dickson, Langham Hotel. Villa and
+persons both unknown here, suppose erroneous address; follow self next
+train.--Forsyth.' And at the Langham Hotel, sure enough, with a brow
+expressive of dispatch and intellectual effort, Gideon descended not
+long after from a smoking hansom.
+
+I do not suppose that Gideon will ever forget the Langham Hotel. No
+Count Tarnow was one thing; no John Dickson and no Ezra Thomas, quite
+another. How, why, and what next, danced in his bewildered brain; from
+every centre of what we playfully call the human intellect incongruous
+messages were telegraphed; and before the hubbub of dismay had quite
+subsided, the barrister found himself driving furiously for his
+chambers. There was at least a cave of refuge; it was at least a place
+to think in; and he climbed the stair, put his key in the lock and
+opened the door, with some approach to hope.
+
+It was all dark within, for the night had some time fallen; but Gideon
+knew his room, he knew where the matches stood on the end of the
+chimney-piece; and he advanced boldly, and in so doing dashed himself
+against a heavy body; where (slightly altering the expressions of the
+song) no heavy body should have been. There had been nothing there when
+Gideon went out; he had locked the door behind him, he had found it
+locked on his return, no one could have entered, the furniture could not
+have changed its own position. And yet undeniably there was a something
+there. He thrust out his hands in the darkness. Yes, there was
+something, something large, something smooth, something cold.
+
+'Heaven forgive me!' said Gideon, 'it feels like a piano.'
+
+And the next moment he remembered the vestas in his waistcoat pocket and
+had struck a light.
+
+It was indeed a piano that met his doubtful gaze; a vast and costly
+instrument, stained with the rains of the afternoon and defaced
+with recent scratches. The light of the vesta was reflected from the
+varnished sides, like a staice in quiet water; and in the farther end of
+the room the shadow of that strange visitor loomed bulkily and wavered
+on the wall.
+
+Gideon let the match burn to his fingers, and the darkness closed once
+more on his bewilderment. Then with trembling hands he lit the lamp and
+drew near. Near or far, there was no doubt of the fact: the thing was
+a piano. There, where by all the laws of God and man it was impossible
+that it should be--there the thing impudently stood. Gideon threw open
+the keyboard and struck a chord. Not a sound disturbed the quiet of the
+room. 'Is there anything wrong with me?' he thought, with a pang; and
+drawing in a seat, obstinately persisted in his attempts to ravish
+silence, now with sparkling arpeggios, now with a sonata of Beethoven's
+which (in happier days) he knew to be one of the loudest pieces of that
+powerful composer. Still not a sound. He gave the Broadwood two great
+bangs with his clenched first. All was still as the grave. The young
+barrister started to his feet.
+
+'I am stark-staring mad,' he cried aloud, 'and no one knows it but
+myself. God's worst curse has fallen on me.'
+
+His fingers encountered his watch-chain; instantly he had plucked forth
+his watch and held it to his ear. He could hear it ticking.
+
+'I am not deaf,' he said aloud. 'I am only insane. My mind has quitted
+me for ever.'
+
+He looked uneasily about the room, and--gazed with lacklustre eyes at
+the chair in which Mr Dickson had installed himself. The end of a cigar
+lay near on the fender.
+
+'No,' he thought, 'I don't believe that was a dream; but God knows
+my mind is failing rapidly. I seem to be hungry, for instance; it's
+probably another hallucination. Still I might try. I shall have one more
+good meal; I shall go to the Cafe Royal, and may possibly be removed
+from there direct to the asylum.'
+
+He wondered with morbid interest, as he descended the stairs, how he
+would first betray his terrible condition--would he attack a waiter? or
+eat glass?--and when he had mounted into a cab, he bade the man drive to
+Nichol's, with a lurking fear that there was no such place.
+
+The flaring, gassy entrance of the cafe speedily set his mind at rest;
+he was cheered besides to recognize his favourite waiter; his orders
+appeared to be coherent; the dinner, when it came, was quite a sensible
+meal, and he ate it with enjoyment. 'Upon my word,' he reflected, 'I
+am about tempted to indulge a hope. Have I been hasty? Have I done what
+Robert Skill would have done?' Robert Skill (I need scarcely mention)
+was the name of the principal character in Who Put Back the Clock? It
+had occurred to the author as a brilliant and probable invention; to
+readers of a critical turn, Robert appeared scarce upon a level with his
+surname; but it is the difficulty of the police romance, that the reader
+is always a man of such vastly greater ingenuity than the writer. In the
+eyes of his creator, however, Robert Skill was a word to conjure with;
+the thought braced and spurred him; what that brilliant creature would
+have done Gideon would do also. This frame of mind is not uncommon; the
+distressed general, the baited divine, the hesitating author, decide
+severally to do what Napoleon, what St Paul, what Shakespeare would
+have done; and there remains only the minor question, What is that? In
+Gideon's case one thing was clear: Skill was a man of singular decision,
+he would have taken some step (whatever it was) at once; and the only
+step that Gideon could think of was to return to his chambers.
+
+This being achieved, all further inspiration failed him, and he stood
+pitifully staring at the instrument of his confusion. To touch the keys
+again was more than he durst venture on; whether they had maintained
+their former silence, or responded with the tones of the last trump,
+it would have equally dethroned his resolution. 'It may be a practical
+jest,' he reflected, 'though it seems elaborate and costly. And yet what
+else can it be? It MUST be a practical jest.' And just then his eye fell
+upon a feature which seemed corroborative of that view: the pagoda of
+cigars which Michael had erected ere he left the chambers. 'Why that?'
+reflected Gideon. 'It seems entirely irresponsible.' And drawing near,
+he gingerly demolished it. 'A key,' he thought. 'Why that? And why
+so conspicuously placed?' He made the circuit of the instrument, and
+perceived the keyhole at the back. 'Aha! this is what the key is for,'
+said he. 'They wanted me to look inside. Stranger and stranger.' And
+with that he turned the key and raised the lid.
+
+In what antics of agony, in what fits of flighty resolution, in what
+collapses of despair, Gideon consumed the night, it would be ungenerous
+to enquire too closely.
+
+That trill of tiny song with which the eaves-birds of London welcome
+the approach of day found him limp and rumpled and bloodshot, and with a
+mind still vacant of resource. He rose and looked forth unrejoicingly on
+blinded windows, an empty street, and the grey daylight dotted with the
+yellow lamps. There are mornings when the city seems to awake with a
+sick headache; this was one of them; and still the twittering reveille
+of the sparrows stirred in Gideon's spirit.
+
+'Day here,' he thought, 'and I still helpless! This must come to an
+end.' And he locked up the piano, put the key in his pocket, and set
+forth in quest of coffee. As he went, his mind trudged for the hundredth
+time a certain mill-road of terrors, misgivings, and regrets. To call
+in the police, to give up the body, to cover London with handbills
+describing John Dickson and Ezra Thomas, to fill the papers with
+paragraphs, Mysterious Occurrence in the Temple--Mr Forsyth admitted to
+bail, this was one course, an easy course, a safe course; but not, the
+more he reflected on it, not a pleasant one. For, was it not to publish
+abroad a number of singular facts about himself? A child ought to
+have seen through the story of these adventurers, and he had gaped and
+swallowed it. A barrister of the least self-respect should have refused
+to listen to clients who came before him in a manner so irregular, and
+he had listened. And O, if he had only listened; but he had gone upon
+their errand--he, a barrister, uninstructed even by the shadow of
+a solicitor--upon an errand fit only for a private detective; and
+alas!--and for the hundredth time the blood surged to his brow--he had
+taken their money! 'No,' said he, 'the thing is as plain as St Paul's. I
+shall be dishonoured! I have smashed my career for a five-pound note.'
+
+Between the possibility of being hanged in all innocence, and the
+certainty of a public and merited disgrace, no gentleman of spirit
+could long hesitate. After three gulps of that hot, snuffy, and muddy
+beverage, that passes on the streets of London for a decoction of the
+coffee berry, Gideon's mind was made up. He would do without the police.
+He must face the other side of the dilemma, and be Robert Skill in
+earnest. What would Robert Skill have done? How does a gentleman dispose
+of a dead body, honestly come by? He remembered the inimitable story
+of the hunchback; reviewed its course, and dismissed it for a worthless
+guide. It was impossible to prop a corpse on the corner of Tottenham
+Court Road without arousing fatal curiosity in the bosoms of the
+passers-by; as for lowering it down a London chimney, the physical
+obstacles were insurmountable. To get it on board a train and drop it
+out, or on the top of an omnibus and drop it off, were equally out
+of the question. To get it on a yacht and drop it overboard, was more
+conceivable; but for a man of moderate means it seemed extravagant. The
+hire of the yacht was in itself a consideration; the subsequent support
+of the whole crew (which seemed a necessary consequence) was simply
+not to be thought of. His uncle and the houseboat here occurred in very
+luminous colours to his mind. A musical composer (say, of the name of
+Jimson) might very well suffer, like Hogarth's musician before him, from
+the disturbances of London. He might very well be pressed for time to
+finish an opera--say the comic opera Orange Pekoe--Orange Pekoe, music
+by Jimson--'this young maestro, one of the most promising of our
+recent English school'--vigorous entrance of the drums, etc.--the whole
+character of Jimson and his music arose in bulk before the mind of
+Gideon. What more likely than Jimson's arrival with a grand piano (say,
+at Padwick), and his residence in a houseboat alone with the unfinished
+score of Orange Pekoe? His subsequent disappearance, leaving nothing
+behind but an empty piano case, it might be more difficult to account
+for. And yet even that was susceptible of explanation. For, suppose
+Jimson had gone mad over a fugal passage, and had thereupon destroyed
+the accomplice of his infamy, and plunged into the welcome river? What
+end, on the whole, more probable for a modern musician?
+
+'By Jove, I'll do it,' cried Gideon. 'Jimson is the boy!'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. The Maestro Jimson
+
+Mr Edward Hugh Bloomfield having announced his intention to stay in the
+neighbourhood of Maidenhead, what more probable than that the Maestro
+Jimson should turn his mind toward Padwick? Near this pleasant riverside
+village he remembered to have observed an ancient, weedy houseboat lying
+moored beside a tuft of willows. It had stirred in him, in his careless
+hours, as he pulled down the river under a more familiar name, a certain
+sense of the romantic; and when the nice contrivance of his story was
+already complete in his mind, he had come near pulling it all down
+again, like an ungrateful clock, in order to introduce a chapter in
+which Richard Skill (who was always being decoyed somewhere) should
+be decoyed on board that lonely hulk by Lord Bellew and the American
+desperado Gin Sling. It was fortunate he had not done so, he reflected,
+since the hulk was now required for very different purposes.
+
+Jimson, a man of inconspicuous costume, but insinuating manners,
+had little difficulty in finding the hireling who had charge of the
+houseboat, and still less in persuading him to resign his care. The rent
+was almost nominal, the entry immediate, the key was exchanged against a
+suitable advance in money, and Jimson returned to town by the afternoon
+train to see about dispatching his piano.
+
+'I will be down tomorrow,' he had said reassuringly. 'My opera is waited
+for with such impatience, you know.'
+
+And, sure enough, about the hour of noon on the following day, Jimson
+might have been observed ascending the riverside road that goes from
+Padwick to Great Haverham, carrying in one hand a basket of provisions,
+and under the other arm a leather case containing (it is to be
+conjectured) the score of Orange Pekoe. It was October weather; the
+stone-grey sky was full of larks, the leaden mirror of the Thames
+brightened with autumnal foliage, and the fallen leaves of the chestnuts
+chirped under the composer's footing. There is no time of the year
+in England more courageous; and Jimson, though he was not without his
+troubles, whistled as he went.
+
+A little above Padwick the river lies very solitary. On the opposite
+shore the trees of a private park enclose the view, the chimneys of the
+mansion just pricking forth above their clusters; on the near side the
+path is bordered by willows. Close among these lay the houseboat, a
+thing so soiled by the tears of the overhanging willows, so grown upon
+with parasites, so decayed, so battered, so neglected, such a haunt of
+rats, so advertised a storehouse of rheumatic agonies, that the heart
+of an intending occupant might well recoil. A plank, by way of flying
+drawbridge, joined it to the shore. And it was a dreary moment for
+Jimson when he pulled this after him and found himself alone on this
+unwholesome fortress. He could hear the rats scuttle and flop in the
+abhorred interior; the key cried among the wards like a thing in pain;
+the sitting-room was deep in dust, and smelt strong of bilge-water. It
+could not be called a cheerful spot, even for a composer absorbed in
+beloved toil; how much less for a young gentleman haunted by alarms and
+awaiting the arrival of a corpse!
+
+He sat down, cleared away a piece of the table, and attacked the cold
+luncheon in his basket. In case of any subsequent inquiry into the fate
+of Jimson, It was desirable he should be little seen: in other words,
+that he should spend the day entirely in the house. To this end, and
+further to corroborate his fable, he had brought in the leather case not
+only writing materials, but a ream of large-size music paper, such as he
+considered suitable for an ambitious character like Jimson's. 'And now
+to work,' said he, when he had satisfied his appetite. 'We must leave
+traces of the wretched man's activity.' And he wrote in bold characters:
+
+     ORANGE PEKOE.
+     Op. 17.
+     J. B. JIMSON.
+     Vocal and p. f. score.
+
+'I suppose they never do begin like this,' reflected Gideon; 'but then
+it's quite out of the question for me to tackle a full score, and
+Jimson was so unconventional. A dedication would be found convincing, I
+believe. "Dedicated to" (let me see) "to William Ewart Gladstone, by his
+obedient servant the composer." And now some music: I had better avoid
+the overture; it seems to present difficulties. Let's give an air for
+the tenor: key--O, something modern!--seven sharps.' And he made a
+businesslike signature across the staves, and then paused and browsed
+for a while on the handle of his pen. Melody, with no better inspiration
+than a sheet of paper, is not usually found to spring unbidden in the
+mind of the amateur; nor is the key of seven sharps a place of much
+repose to the untried. He cast away that sheet. 'It will help to build
+up the character of Jimson,' Gideon remarked, and again waited on
+the muse, in various keys and on divers sheets of paper, but all with
+results so inconsiderable that he stood aghast. 'It's very odd,' thought
+he. 'I seem to have less fancy than I thought, or this is an off-day
+with me; yet Jimson must leave something.' And again he bent himself to
+the task.
+
+Presently the penetrating chill of the houseboat began to attack the
+very seat of life. He desisted from his unremunerative trial, and, to
+the audible annoyance of the rats, walked briskly up and down the cabin.
+Still he was cold. 'This is all nonsense,' said he. 'I don't care about
+the risk, but I will not catch a catarrh. I must get out of this den.'
+
+He stepped on deck, and passing to the bow of his embarkation, looked
+for the first time up the river. He started. Only a few hundred yards
+above another houseboat lay moored among the willows. It was very
+spick-and-span, an elegant canoe hung at the stern, the windows were
+concealed by snowy curtains, a flag floated from a staff. The more
+Gideon looked at it, the more there mingled with his disgust a sense
+of impotent surprise. It was very like his uncle's houseboat; it was
+exceedingly like--it was identical. But for two circumstances, he
+could have sworn it was the same. The first, that his uncle had gone to
+Maidenhead, might be explained away by that flightiness of purpose which
+is so common a trait among the more than usually manly. The second,
+however, was conclusive: it was not in the least like Mr Bloomfield to
+display a banner on his floating residence; and if he ever did, it
+would certainly be dyed in hues of emblematical propriety. Now the
+Squirradical, like the vast majority of the more manly, had drawn
+knowledge at the wells of Cambridge--he was wooden spoon in the year
+1850; and the flag upon the houseboat streamed on the afternoon air with
+the colours of that seat of Toryism, that cradle of Puseyism, that
+home of the inexact and the effete Oxford. Still it was strangely like,
+thought Gideon.
+
+And as he thus looked and thought, the door opened, and a young lady
+stepped forth on deck. The barrister dropped and fled into his cabin--it
+was Julia Hazeltine! Through the window he watched her draw in the
+canoe, get on board of it, cast off, and come dropping downstream in his
+direction.
+
+'Well, all is up now,' said he, and he fell on a seat.
+
+'Good-afternoon, miss,' said a voice on the water. Gideon knew it for
+the voice of his landlord.
+
+'Good-afternoon,' replied Julia, 'but I don't know who you are; do I? O
+yes, I do though. You are the nice man that gave us leave to sketch from
+the old houseboat.'
+
+Gideon's heart leaped with fear.
+
+'That's it,' returned the man. 'And what I wanted to say was as you
+couldn't do it any more. You see I've let it.'
+
+'Let it!' cried Julia.
+
+'Let it for a month,' said the man. 'Seems strange, don't it? Can't see
+what the party wants with it?'
+
+'It seems very romantic of him, I think,' said Julia, 'What sort of a
+person is he?'
+
+Julia in her canoe, the landlord in his wherry, were close alongside,
+and holding on by the gunwale of the houseboat; so that not a word was
+lost on Gideon.
+
+'He's a music-man,' said the landlord, 'or at least that's what he told
+me, miss; come down here to write an op'ra.'
+
+'Really!' cried Julia, 'I never heard of anything so delightful! Why, we
+shall be able to slip down at night and hear him improvise! What is his
+name?'
+
+'Jimson,' said the man.
+
+'Jimson?' repeated Julia, and interrogated her memory in vain. But
+indeed our rising school of English music boasts so many professors that
+we rarely hear of one till he is made a baronet. 'Are you sure you have
+it right?'
+
+'Made him spell it to me,' replied the landlord. 'J-I-M-S-O-N--Jimson;
+and his op'ra's called--some kind of tea.'
+
+'SOME KIND OF TEA!' cried the girl. 'What a very singular name for an
+opera! What can it be about?' And Gideon heard her pretty laughter flow
+abroad. 'We must try to get acquainted with this Mr Jimson; I feel sure
+he must be nice.'
+
+'Well, miss, I'm afraid I must be going on. I've got to be at Haverham,
+you see.'
+
+'O, don't let me keep you, you kind man!' said Julia. 'Good afternoon.'
+
+'Good afternoon to you, miss.'
+
+Gideon sat in the cabin a prey to the most harrowing thoughts. Here he
+was anchored to a rotting houseboat, soon to be anchored to it still
+more emphatically by the presence of the corpse, and here was the
+country buzzing about him, and young ladies already proposing pleasure
+parties to surround his house at night. Well, that meant the gallows;
+and much he cared for that. What troubled him now was Julia's
+indescribable levity. That girl would scrape acquaintance with anybody;
+she had no reserve, none of the enamel of the lady. She was familiar
+with a brute like his landlord; she took an immediate interest (which
+she lacked even the delicacy to conceal) in a creature like Jimson! He
+could conceive her asking Jimson to have tea with her! And it was for a
+girl like this that a man like Gideon--Down, manly heart!
+
+He was interrupted by a sound that sent him whipping behind the door in
+a trice. Miss Hazeltine had stepped on board the houseboat. Her sketch
+was promising; judging from the stillness, she supposed Jimson not yet
+come; and she had decided to seize occasion and complete the work
+of art. Down she sat therefore in the bow, produced her block and
+water-colours, and was soon singing over (what used to be called) the
+ladylike accomplishment. Now and then indeed her song was interrupted,
+as she searched in her memory for some of the odious little receipts
+by means of which the game is practised--or used to be practised in the
+brave days of old; they say the world, and those ornaments of the world,
+young ladies, are become more sophisticated now; but Julia had probably
+studied under Pitman, and she stood firm in the old ways.
+
+Gideon, meanwhile, stood behind the door, afraid to move, afraid to
+breathe, afraid to think of what must follow, racked by confinement and
+borne to the ground with tedium. This particular phase, he felt with
+gratitude, could not last for ever; whatever impended (even the gallows,
+he bitterly and perhaps erroneously reflected) could not fail to be
+a relief. To calculate cubes occurred to him as an ingenious and even
+profitable refuge from distressing thoughts, and he threw his manhood
+into that dreary exercise.
+
+Thus, then, were these two young persons occupied--Gideon attacking the
+perfect number with resolution; Julia vigorously stippling incongruous
+colours on her block, when Providence dispatched into these waters a
+steam-launch asthmatically panting up the Thames. All along the banks
+the water swelled and fell, and the reeds rustled. The houseboat itself,
+that ancient stationary creature, became suddenly imbued with life, and
+rolled briskly at her moorings, like a sea-going ship when she begins
+to smell the harbour bar. The wash had nearly died away, and the quick
+panting of the launch sounded already faint and far off, when Gideon was
+startled by a cry from Julia. Peering through the window, he beheld
+her staring disconsolately downstream at the fast-vanishing canoe.
+The barrister (whatever were his faults) displayed on this occasion a
+promptitude worthy of his hero, Robert Skill; with one effort of his
+mind he foresaw what was about to follow; with one movement of his body
+he dropped to the floor and crawled under the table.
+
+Julia, on her part, was not yet alive to her position. She saw she had
+lost the canoe, and she looked forward with something less than avidity
+to her next interview with Mr Bloomfield; but she had no idea that she
+was imprisoned, for she knew of the plank bridge.
+
+She made the circuit of the house, and found the door open and the
+bridge withdrawn. It was plain, then, that Jimson must have come;
+plain, too, that he must be on board. He must be a very shy man to
+have suffered this invasion of his residence, and made no sign; and her
+courage rose higher at the thought. He must come now, she must force him
+from his privacy, for the plank was too heavy for her single strength;
+so she tapped upon the open door. Then she tapped again.
+
+'Mr Jimson,' she cried, 'Mr Jimson! here, come!--you must come, you
+know, sooner or later, for I can't get off without you. O, don't be so
+exceedingly silly! O, please, come!'
+
+Still there was no reply.
+
+'If he is here he must be mad,' she thought, with a little fear. And the
+next moment she remembered he had probably gone aboard like herself in
+a boat. In that case she might as well see the houseboat, and she pushed
+open the door and stepped in. Under the table, where he lay smothered
+with dust, Gideon's heart stood still.
+
+There were the remains of Jimson's lunch. 'He likes rather nice things
+to eat,' she thought. 'O, I am sure he is quite a delightful man. I
+wonder if he is as good-looking as Mr Forsyth. Mrs Jimson--I don't
+believe it sounds as nice as Mrs Forsyth; but then "Gideon" is so really
+odious! And here is some of his music too; this is delightful. Orange
+Pekoe--O, that's what he meant by some kind of tea.' And she trilled
+with laughter. 'Adagio molto espressivo, sempre legato,' she read
+next. (For the literary part of a composer's business Gideon was well
+equipped.) 'How very strange to have all these directions, and
+only three or four notes! O, here's another with some more. Andante
+patetico.' And she began to glance over the music. 'O dear me,' she
+thought, 'he must be terribly modern! It all seems discords to me. Let's
+try the air. It is very strange, it seems familiar.' She began to sing
+it, and suddenly broke off with laughter. 'Why, it's "Tommy make room
+for your Uncle!"' she cried aloud, so that the soul of Gideon was filled
+with bitterness. 'Andante patetico, indeed! The man must be a mere
+impostor.'
+
+And just at this moment there came a confused, scuffling sound from
+underneath the table; a strange note, like that of a barn-door fowl,
+ushered in a most explosive sneeze; the head of the sufferer was at
+the same time brought smartly in contact with the boards above; and the
+sneeze was followed by a hollow groan.
+
+Julia fled to the door, and there, with the salutary instinct of the
+brave, turned and faced the danger. There was no pursuit. The sounds
+continued; below the table a crouching figure was indistinctly to be
+seen jostled by the throes of a sneezing-fit; and that was all.
+
+'Surely,' thought Julia, 'this is most unusual behaviour. He cannot be a
+man of the world!'
+
+Meanwhile the dust of years had been disturbed by the young barrister's
+convulsions; and the sneezing-fit was succeeded by a passionate access
+of coughing.
+
+Julia began to feel a certain interest. 'I am afraid you are really
+quite ill,' she said, drawing a little nearer. 'Please don't let me put
+you out, and do not stay under that table, Mr Jimson. Indeed it cannot
+be good for you.'
+
+Mr Jimson only answered by a distressing cough; and the next moment
+the girl was on her knees, and their faces had almost knocked together
+under the table.
+
+'O, my gracious goodness!' exclaimed Miss Hazeltine, and sprang to her
+feet. 'Mr Forsyth gone mad!'
+
+'I am not mad,' said the gentleman ruefully, extricating himself from
+his position. 'Dearest. Miss Hazeltine, I vow to you upon my knees I am
+not mad!'
+
+'You are not!' she cried, panting.
+
+'I know,' he said, 'that to a superficial eye my conduct may appear
+unconventional.'
+
+'If you are not mad, it was no conduct at all,' cried the girl, with
+a flash of colour, 'and showed you did not care one penny for my
+feelings!'
+
+'This is the very devil and all. I know--I admit that,' cried Gideon,
+with a great effort of manly candour.
+
+'It was abominable conduct!' said Julia, with energy.
+
+'I know it must have shaken your esteem,' said the barrister. 'But,
+dearest Miss Hazeltine, I beg of you to hear me out; my behaviour,
+strange as it may seem, is not unsusceptible of explanation; and I
+positively cannot and will not consent to continue to try to exist
+without--without the esteem of one whom I admire--the moment is ill
+chosen, I am well aware of that; but I repeat the expression--one whom I
+admire.'
+
+A touch of amusement appeared on Miss Hazeltine's face. 'Very well,'
+said she, 'come out of this dreadfully cold place, and let us sit down
+on deck.' The barrister dolefully followed her. 'Now,' said she, making
+herself comfortable against the end of the house, 'go on. I will hear
+you out.' And then, seeing him stand before her with so much obvious
+disrelish to the task, she was suddenly overcome with laughter. Julia's
+laugh was a thing to ravish lovers; she rolled her mirthful descant with
+the freedom and the melody of a blackbird's song upon the river, and
+repeated by the echoes of the farther bank. It seemed a thing in its own
+place and a sound native to the open air. There was only one creature
+who heard it without joy, and that was her unfortunate admirer.
+
+'Miss Hazeltine,' he said, in a voice that tottered with annoyance, 'I
+speak as your sincere well-wisher, but this can only be called levity.'
+
+Julia made great eyes at him.
+
+'I can't withdraw the word,' he said: 'already the freedom with which I
+heard you hobnobbing with a boatman gave me exquisite pain. Then there
+was a want of reserve about Jimson--'
+
+'But Jimson appears to be yourself,' objected Julia.
+
+'I am far from denying that,' cried the barrister, 'but you did not
+know it at the time. What could Jimson be to you? Who was Jimson? Miss
+Hazeltine, it cut me to the heart.'
+
+'Really this seems to me to be very silly,' returned Julia, with severe
+decision. 'You have behaved in the most extraordinary manner; you
+pretend you are able to explain your conduct, and instead of doing so
+you begin to attack me.'
+
+'I am well aware of that,' replied Gideon. 'I--I will make a clean
+breast of it. When you know all the circumstances you will be able to
+excuse me.
+
+And sitting down beside her on the deck, he poured forth his miserable
+history.
+
+'O, Mr Forsyth,' she cried, when he had done, 'I am--so--sorry! wish
+I hadn't laughed at you--only you know you really were so exceedingly
+funny. But I wish I hadn't, and I wouldn't either if I had only known.'
+And she gave him her hand.
+
+Gideon kept it in his own. 'You do not think the worse of me for this?'
+he asked tenderly.
+
+'Because you have been so silly and got into such dreadful trouble? you
+poor boy, no!' cried Julia; and, in the warmth of the moment, reached
+him her other hand; 'you may count on me,' she added.
+
+'Really?' said Gideon.
+
+'Really and really!' replied the girl.
+
+'I do then, and I will,' cried the young man. 'I admit the moment is not
+well chosen; but I have no friends--to speak of.'
+
+'No more have I,' said Julia. 'But don't you think it's perhaps time you
+gave me back my hands?'
+
+'La ci darem la mano,' said the barrister, 'the merest moment more! I
+have so few friends,' he added.
+
+'I thought it was considered such a bad account of a young man to have
+no friends,' observed Julia.
+
+'O, but I have crowds of FRIENDS!' cried Gideon. 'That's not what I
+mean. I feel the moment is ill chosen; but O, Julia, if you could only
+see yourself!'
+
+'Mr Forsyth--'
+
+'Don't call me by that beastly name!' cried the youth. 'Call me Gideon!'
+
+'O, never that,' from Julia. 'Besides, we have known each other such a
+short time.'
+
+'Not at all!' protested Gideon. 'We met at Bournemouth ever so long ago.
+I never forgot you since. Say you never forgot me. Say you never forgot
+me, and call me Gideon!'
+
+'Isn't this rather--a want of reserve about Jimson?' enquired the girl.
+
+'O, I know I am an ass,' cried the barrister, 'and I don't care a
+halfpenny! I know I'm an ass, and you may laugh at me to your heart's
+delight.' And as Julia's lips opened with a smile, he once more dropped
+into music. 'There's the Land of Cherry Isle!' he sang, courting her
+with his eyes.
+
+'It's like an opera,' said Julia, rather faintly.
+
+'What should it be?' said Gideon. 'Am I not Jimson? It would be strange
+if I did not serenade my love. O yes, I mean the word, my Julia; and I
+mean to win you. I am in dreadful trouble, and I have not a penny of
+my own, and I have cut the silliest figure; and yet I mean to win you,
+Julia. Look at me, if you can, and tell me no!'
+
+She looked at him; and whatever her eyes may have told him, it is to be
+supposed he took a pleasure in the message, for he read it a long while.
+
+'And Uncle Ned will give us some money to go on upon in the meanwhile,'
+he said at last.
+
+'Well, I call that cool!' said a cheerful voice at his elbow.
+
+Gideon and Julia sprang apart with wonderful alacrity; the latter
+annoyed to observe that although they had never moved since they sat
+down, they were now quite close together; both presenting faces of a
+very heightened colour to the eyes of Mr Edward Hugh Bloomfield. That
+gentleman, coming up the river in his boat, had captured the truant
+canoe, and divining what had happened, had thought to steal a march upon
+Miss Hazeltine at her sketch. He had unexpectedly brought down two birds
+with one stone; and as he looked upon the pair of flushed and breathless
+culprits, the pleasant human instinct of the matchmaker softened his
+heart.
+
+'Well, I call that cool,' he repeated; 'you seem to count very securely
+upon Uncle Ned. But look here, Gid, I thought I had told you to keep
+away?'
+
+'To keep away from Maidenhead,' replied Gid. 'But how should I expect to
+find you here?'
+
+'There is something in that,' Mr Bloomfield admitted. 'You see I thought
+it better that even you should be ignorant of my address; those rascals,
+the Finsburys, would have wormed it out of you. And just to put them off
+the scent I hoisted these abominable colours. But that is not all,
+Gid; you promised me to work, and here I find you playing the fool at
+Padwick.'
+
+'Please, Mr Bloomfield, you must not be hard on Mr Forsyth,' said Julia.
+'Poor boy, he is in dreadful straits.'
+
+'What's this, Gid?' enquired the uncle. 'Have you been fighting? or is
+it a bill?'
+
+These, in the opinion of the Squirradical, were the two misfortunes
+incident to gentlemen; and indeed both were culled from his own career.
+He had once put his name (as a matter of form) on a friend's paper; it
+had cost him a cool thousand; and the friend had gone about with the
+fear of death upon him ever since, and never turned a corner without
+scouting in front of him for Mr Bloomfield and the oaken staff. As for
+fighting, the Squirradical was always on the brink of it; and once, when
+(in the character of president of a Radical club) he had cleared out
+the hall of his opponents, things had gone even further. Mr Holtum,
+the Conservative candidate, who lay so long on the bed of sickness, was
+prepared to swear to Mr Bloomfield. 'I will swear to it in any court--it
+was the hand of that brute that struck me down,' he was reported to have
+said; and when he was thought to be sinking, it was known that he had
+made an ante-mortem statement in that sense. It was a cheerful day for
+the Squirradical when Holtum was restored to his brewery.
+
+'It's much worse than that,' said Gideon; 'a combination of
+circumstances really providentially unjust--a--in fact, a syndicate of
+murderers seem to have perceived my latent ability to rid them of the
+traces of their crime. It's a legal study after all, you see!' And with
+these words, Gideon, for the second time that day, began to describe the
+adventures of the Broadwood Grand.
+
+'I must write to The Times,' cried Mr Bloomfield.
+
+'Do you want to get me disbarred?' asked Gideon.
+
+'Disbarred! Come, it can't be as bad as that,' said his uncle. 'It's
+a good, honest, Liberal Government that's in, and they would certainly
+move at my request. Thank God, the days of Tory jobbery are at an end.'
+
+'It wouldn't do, Uncle Ned,' said Gideon.
+
+'But you're not mad enough,' cried Mr Bloomfield, 'to persist in trying
+to dispose of it yourself?'
+
+'There is no other path open to me,' said Gideon.
+
+'It's not common sense, and I will not hear of it,' cried Mr Bloomfield.
+'I command you, positively, Gid, to desist from this criminal
+interference.'
+
+'Very well, then, I hand it over to you,' said Gideon, 'and you can do
+what you like with the dead body.'
+
+'God forbid!' ejaculated the president of the Radical Club, 'I'll have
+nothing to do with it.'
+
+'Then you must allow me to do the best I can,' returned his nephew.
+'Believe me, I have a distinct talent for this sort of difficulty.'
+
+'We might forward it to that pest-house, the Conservative Club,'
+observed Mr Bloomfield. 'It might damage them in the eyes of their
+constituents; and it could be profitably worked up in the local
+journal.'
+
+'If you see any political capital in the thing,' said Gideon, 'you may
+have it for me.'
+
+'No, no, Gid--no, no, I thought you might. I will have no hand in the
+thing. On reflection, it's highly undesirable that either I or Miss
+Hazeltine should linger here. We might be observed,' said the
+president, looking up and down the river; 'and in my public position
+the consequences would be painful for the party. And, at any rate, it's
+dinner-time.'
+
+'What?' cried Gideon, plunging for his watch. 'And so it is! Great
+heaven, the piano should have been here hours ago!'
+
+Mr Bloomfield was clambering back into his boat; but at these words he
+paused.
+
+'I saw it arrive myself at the station; I hired a carrier man; he had a
+round to make, but he was to be here by four at the latest,' cried the
+barrister. 'No doubt the piano is open, and the body found.'
+
+'You must fly at once,' cried Mr Bloomfield, 'it's the only manly step.'
+
+'But suppose it's all right?' wailed Gideon. 'Suppose the piano comes,
+and I am not here to receive it? I shall have hanged myself by my
+cowardice. No, Uncle Ned, enquiries must be made in Padwick; I dare
+not go, of course; but you may--you could hang about the police office,
+don't you see?'
+
+'No, Gid--no, my dear nephew,' said Mr Bloomfield, with the voice of one
+on the rack. 'I regard you with the most sacred affection; and I thank
+God I am an Englishman--and all that. But not--not the police, Gid.'
+
+'Then you desert me?' said Gideon. 'Say it plainly.'
+
+'Far from it! far from it!' protested Mr Bloomfield. 'I only propose
+caution. Common sense, Gid, should always be an Englishman's guide.'
+
+'Will you let me speak?' said Julia. 'I think Gideon had better leave
+this dreadful houseboat, and wait among the willows over there. If the
+piano comes, then he could step out and take it in; and if the police
+come, he could slip into our houseboat, and there needn't be any
+more Jimson at all. He could go to bed, and we could burn his clothes
+(couldn't we?) in the steam-launch; and then really it seems as if it
+would be all right. Mr Bloomfield is so respectable, you know, and such
+a leading character, it would be quite impossible even to fancy that he
+could be mixed up with it.'
+
+'This young lady has strong common sense,' said the Squirradical.
+
+'O, I don't think I'm at all a fool,' said Julia, with conviction.
+
+'But what if neither of them come?' asked Gideon; 'what shall I do
+then?'
+
+'Why then,' said she, 'you had better go down to the village after dark;
+and I can go with you, and then I am sure you could never be suspected;
+and even if you were, I could tell them it was altogether a mistake.'
+
+'I will not permit that--I will not suffer Miss Hazeltine to go,' cried
+Mr Bloomfield.
+
+'Why?' asked Julia.
+
+Mr Bloomfield had not the least desire to tell her why, for it was
+simply a craven fear of being drawn himself into the imbroglio; but with
+the usual tactics of a man who is ashamed of himself, he took the high
+hand. 'God forbid, my dear Miss Hazeltine, that I should dictate to a
+lady on the question of propriety--' he began.
+
+'O, is that all?' interrupted Julia. 'Then we must go all three.'
+
+'Caught!' thought the Squirradical.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. Positively the Last Appearance of the Broadwood Grand
+
+England is supposed to be unmusical; but without dwelling on the
+patronage extended to the organ-grinder, without seeking to found any
+argument on the prevalence of the jew's trump, there is surely one
+instrument that may be said to be national in the fullest acceptance
+of the word. The herdboy in the broom, already musical in the days of
+Father Chaucer, startles (and perhaps pains) the lark with this exiguous
+pipe; and in the hands of the skilled bricklayer,
+
+'The thing becomes a trumpet, whence he blows'
+
+(as a general rule) either 'The British Grenadiers' or 'Cherry Ripe'.
+The latter air is indeed the shibboleth and diploma piece of the
+penny whistler; I hazard a guess it was originally composed for this
+instrument. It is singular enough that a man should be able to gain
+a livelihood, or even to tide over a period of unemployment, by the
+display of his proficiency upon the penny whistle; still more so, that
+the professional should almost invariably confine himself to 'Cherry
+Ripe'. But indeed, singularities surround the subject, thick like
+blackberries. Why, for instance, should the pipe be called a penny
+whistle? I think no one ever bought it for a penny. Why should the
+alternative name be tin whistle? I am grossly deceived if it be made
+of tin. Lastly, in what deaf catacomb, in what earless desert, does the
+beginner pass the excruciating interval of his apprenticeship? We have
+all heard people learning the piano, the fiddle, and the cornet; but
+the young of the penny whistler (like that of the salmon) is occult from
+observation; he is never heard until proficient; and providence (perhaps
+alarmed by the works of Mr Mallock) defends human hearing from his first
+attempts upon the upper octave.
+
+A really noteworthy thing was taking place in a green lane, not far from
+Padwick. On the bench of a carrier's cart there sat a tow-headed, lanky,
+modest-looking youth; the reins were on his lap; the whip lay behind
+him in the interior of the cart; the horse proceeded without guidance
+or encouragement; the carrier (or the carrier's man), rapt into a higher
+sphere than that of his daily occupations, his looks dwelling on the
+skies, devoted himself wholly to a brand-new D penny whistle, whence he
+diffidently endeavoured to elicit that pleasing melody 'The Ploughboy'.
+To any observant person who should have chanced to saunter in that lane,
+the hour would have been thrilling. 'Here at last,' he would have said,
+'is the beginner.'
+
+The tow-headed youth (whose name was Harker) had just encored himself
+for the nineteenth time, when he was struck into the extreme of
+confusion by the discovery that he was not alone.
+
+'There you have it!' cried a manly voice from the side of the road.
+
+'That's as good as I want to hear. Perhaps a leetle oilier in the run,'
+the voice suggested, with meditative gusto. 'Give it us again.'
+
+Harker glanced, from the depths of his humiliation, at the speaker. He
+beheld a powerful, sun-brown, clean-shaven fellow, about forty years of
+age, striding beside the cart with a non-commissioned military bearing,
+and (as he strode) spinning in the air a cane. The fellow's clothes were
+very bad, but he looked clean and self-reliant.
+
+'I'm only a beginner,' gasped the blushing Harker, 'I didn't think
+anybody could hear me.'
+
+'Well, I like that!' returned the other. 'You're a pretty old beginner.
+Come, I'll give you a lead myself. Give us a seat here beside you.'
+
+The next moment the military gentleman was perched on the cart, pipe in
+hand. He gave the instrument a knowing rattle on the shaft, mouthed it,
+appeared to commune for a moment with the muse, and dashed into 'The
+girl I left behind me'. He was a great, rather than a fine, performer;
+he lacked the bird-like richness; he could scarce have extracted all
+the honey out of 'Cherry Ripe'; he did not fear--he even ostentatiously
+displayed and seemed to revel in he shrillness of the instrument; but
+in fire, speed, precision, evenness, and fluency; in linked agility of
+jimmy--a technical expression, by your leave, answering to warblers on
+the bagpipe; and perhaps, above all, in that inspiring side-glance of
+the eye, with which he followed the effect and (as by a human appeal)
+eked out the insufficiency of his performance: in these, the fellow
+stood without a rival. Harker listened: 'The girl I left behind me'
+filled him with despair; 'The Soldier's Joy' carried him beyond jealousy
+into generous enthusiasm.
+
+'Turn about,' said the military gentleman, offering the pipe.
+
+'O, not after you!' cried Harker; 'you're a professional.'
+
+'No,' said his companion; 'an amatyure like yourself. That's one style
+of play, yours is the other, and I like it best. But I began when I was
+a boy, you see, before my taste was formed. When you're my age you'll
+play that thing like a cornet-a-piston. Give us that air again; how does
+it go?' and he affected to endeavour to recall 'The Ploughboy'.
+
+A timid, insane hope sprang in the breast of Harker. Was it possible?
+Was there something in his playing? It had, indeed, seemed to him at
+times as if he got a kind of a richness out of it. Was he a genius?
+Meantime the military gentleman stumbled over the air.
+
+'No,' said the unhappy Harker, 'that's not quite it. It goes this
+way--just to show you.'
+
+And, taking the pipe between his lips, he sealed his doom. When he had
+played the air, and then a second time, and a third; when the military
+gentleman had tried it once more, and once more failed; when it became
+clear to Harker that he, the blushing debutant, was actually giving a
+lesson to this full-grown flutist--and the flutist under his care was
+not very brilliantly progressing--how am I to tell what floods of glory
+brightened the autumnal countryside; how, unless the reader were an
+amateur himself, describe the heights of idiotic vanity to which
+the carrier climbed? One significant fact shall paint the situation:
+thenceforth it was Harker who played, and the military gentleman
+listened and approved.
+
+As he listened, however, he did not forget the habit of soldierly
+precaution, looking both behind and before. He looked behind and
+computed the value of the carrier's load, divining the contents of the
+brown-paper parcels and the portly hamper, and briefly setting down the
+grand piano in the brand-new piano-case as 'difficult to get rid of'.
+He looked before, and spied at the corner of the green lane a little
+country public-house embowered in roses. 'I'll have a shy at it,'
+concluded the military gentleman, and roundly proposed a glass. 'Well,
+I'm not a drinking man,' said Harker.
+
+'Look here, now,' cut in the other, 'I'll tell you who I am: I'm
+Colour-Sergeant Brand of the Blankth. That'll tell you if I'm a drinking
+man or not.' It might and it might not, thus a Greek chorus would have
+intervened, and gone on to point out how very far it fell short of
+telling why the sergeant was tramping a country lane in tatters; or even
+to argue that he must have pretermitted some while ago his labours for
+the general defence, and (in the interval) possibly turned his attention
+to oakum. But there was no Greek chorus present; and the man of war went
+on to contend that drinking was one thing and a friendly glass another.
+
+In the Blue Lion, which was the name of the country public-house,
+Colour-Sergeant Brand introduced his new friend, Mr Harker, to a
+number of ingenious mixtures, calculated to prevent the approaches of
+intoxication. These he explained to be 'rekisite' in the service, so
+that a self-respecting officer should always appear upon parade in a
+condition honourable to his corps. The most efficacious of these devices
+was to lace a pint of mild ale with twopenceworth of London gin. I am
+pleased to hand in this recipe to the discerning reader, who may find
+it useful even in civil station; for its effect upon Mr Harker was
+revolutionary. He must be helped on board his own waggon, where he
+proceeded to display a spirit entirely given over to mirth and music,
+alternately hooting with laughter, to which the sergeant hastened to
+bear chorus, and incoherently tootling on the pipe. The man of war,
+meantime, unostentatiously possessed himself of the reins. It was plain
+he had a taste for the secluded beauties of an English landscape; for
+the cart, although it wandered under his guidance for some time, was
+never observed to issue on the dusty highway, journeying between hedge
+and ditch, and for the most part under overhanging boughs. It was plain,
+besides, he had an eye to the true interests of Mr Harker; for though
+the cart drew up more than once at the doors of public-houses, it was
+only the sergeant who set foot to ground, and, being equipped himself
+with a quart bottle, once more proceeded on his rural drive.
+
+To give any idea of the complexity of the sergeant's course, a map of
+that part of Middlesex would be required, and my publisher is averse
+from the expense. Suffice it, that a little after the night had closed,
+the cart was brought to a standstill in a woody road; where the sergeant
+lifted from among the parcels, and tenderly deposited upon the wayside,
+the inanimate form of Harker.
+
+'If you come-to before daylight,' thought the sergeant, 'I shall be
+surprised for one.'
+
+From the various pockets of the slumbering carrier he gently collected
+the sum of seventeen shillings and eightpence sterling; and, getting
+once more into the cart, drove thoughtfully away.
+
+'If I was exactly sure of where I was, it would be a good job,' he
+reflected. 'Anyway, here's a corner.'
+
+He turned it, and found himself upon the riverside. A little above him
+the lights of a houseboat shone cheerfully; and already close at hand,
+so close that it was impossible to avoid their notice, three persons, a
+lady and two gentlemen, were deliberately drawing near. The sergeant put
+his trust in the convenient darkness of the night, and drove on to meet
+them. One of the gentlemen, who was of a portly figure, walked in the
+midst of the fairway, and presently held up a staff by way of signal.
+
+'My man, have you seen anything of a carrier's cart?' he cried.
+
+Dark as it was, it seemed to the sergeant as though the slimmer of
+the two gentlemen had made a motion to prevent the other speaking, and
+(finding himself too late) had skipped aside with some alacrity. At
+another season, Sergeant Brand would have paid more attention to the
+fact; but he was then immersed in the perils of his own predicament.
+
+'A carrier's cart?' said he, with a perceptible uncertainty of voice.
+'No, sir.'
+
+'Ah!' said the portly gentleman, and stood aside to let the sergeant
+pass. The lady appeared to bend forward and study the cart with every
+mark of sharpened curiosity, the slimmer gentleman still keeping in the
+rear.
+
+'I wonder what the devil they would be at,' thought Sergeant Brand; and,
+looking fearfully back, he saw the trio standing together in the midst
+of the way, like folk consulting. The bravest of military heroes are
+not always equal to themselves as to their reputation; and fear, on some
+singular provocation, will find a lodgment in the most unfamiliar bosom.
+The word 'detective' might have been heard to gurgle in the sergeant's
+throat; and vigorously applying the whip, he fled up the riverside road
+to Great Haverham, at the gallop of the carrier's horse. The lights of
+the houseboat flashed upon the flying waggon as it passed; the beat of
+hoofs and the rattle of the vehicle gradually coalesced and died away;
+and presently, to the trio on the riverside, silence had redescended.
+
+'It's the most extraordinary thing,' cried the slimmer of the two
+gentlemen, 'but that's the cart.'
+
+'And I know I saw a piano,' said the girl.
+
+'O, it's the cart, certainly; and the extraordinary thing is, it's not
+the man,' added the first.
+
+'It must be the man, Gid, it must be,' said the portly one.
+
+'Well, then, why is he running away?' asked Gideon.
+
+'His horse bolted, I suppose,' said the Squirradical.
+
+'Nonsense! I heard the whip going like a flail,' said Gideon. 'It simply
+defies the human reason.'
+
+'I'll tell you,' broke in the girl, 'he came round that corner. Suppose
+we went and--what do you call it in books?--followed his trail? There
+may be a house there, or somebody who saw him, or something.'
+
+'Well, suppose we did, for the fun of the thing,' said Gideon.
+
+The fun of the thing (it would appear) consisted in the extremely close
+juxtaposition of himself and Miss Hazeltine. To Uncle Ned, who was
+excluded from these simple pleasures, the excursion appeared hopeless
+from the first; and when a fresh perspective of darkness opened up,
+dimly contained between park palings on the one side and a hedge and
+ditch upon the other, the whole without the smallest signal of human
+habitation, the Squirradical drew up.
+
+'This is a wild-goose chase,' said he.
+
+With the cessation of the footfalls, another sound smote upon their
+ears.
+
+'O, what's that?' cried Julia.
+
+'I can't think,' said Gideon.
+
+The Squirradical had his stick presented like a sword. 'Gid,' he began,
+'Gid, I--'
+
+'O Mr Forsyth!' cried the girl. 'O don't go forward, you don't know what
+it might be--it might be something perfectly horrid.'
+
+'It may be the devil itself,' said Gideon, disengaging himself, 'but I
+am going to see it.'
+
+'Don't be rash, Gid,' cried his uncle.
+
+The barrister drew near to the sound, which was certainly of a
+portentous character. In quality it appeared to blend the strains of
+the cow, the fog-horn, and the mosquito; and the startling manner of its
+enunciation added incalculably to its terrors. A dark object, not unlike
+the human form divine, appeared on the brink of the ditch.
+
+'It's a man,' said Gideon, 'it's only a man; he seems to be asleep and
+snoring. Hullo,' he added, a moment after, 'there must be something
+wrong with him, he won't waken.'
+
+Gideon produced his vestas, struck one, and by its light recognized the
+tow head of Harker.
+
+'This is the man,' said he, 'as drunk as Belial. I see the whole story';
+and to his two companions, who had now ventured to rejoin him, he set
+forth a theory of the divorce between the carrier and his cart, which
+was not unlike the truth.
+
+'Drunken brute!' said Uncle Ned, 'let's get him to a pump and give him
+what he deserves.'
+
+'Not at all!' said Gideon. 'It is highly undesirable he should see us
+together; and really, do you know, I am very much obliged to him, for
+this is about the luckiest thing that could have possibly occurred. It
+seems to me--Uncle Ned, I declare to heaven it seems to me--I'm clear of
+it!'
+
+'Clear of what?' asked the Squirradical.
+
+'The whole affair!' cried Gideon. 'That man has been ass enough to steal
+the cart and the dead body; what he hopes to do with it I neither know
+nor care. My hands are free, Jimson ceases; down with Jimson. Shake
+hands with me, Uncle Ned--Julia, darling girl, Julia, I--'
+
+'Gideon, Gideon!' said his uncle. 'O, it's all right, uncle, when
+we're going to be married so soon,' said Gideon. 'You know you said so
+yourself in the houseboat.'
+
+'Did I?' said Uncle Ned; 'I am certain I said no such thing.'
+
+'Appeal to him, tell him he did, get on his soft side,' cried Gideon.
+'He's a real brick if you get on his soft side.'
+
+'Dear Mr Bloomfield,' said Julia, 'I know Gideon will be such a very
+good boy, and he has promised me to do such a lot of law, and I will
+see that he does too. And you know it is so very steadying to young men,
+everybody admits that; though, of course, I know I have no money, Mr
+Bloomfield,' she added.
+
+'My dear young lady, as this rapscallion told you today on the boat,
+Uncle Ned has plenty,' said the Squirradical, 'and I can never forget
+that you have been shamefully defrauded. So as there's nobody looking,
+you had better give your Uncle Ned a kiss. There, you rogue,' resumed
+Mr Bloomfield, when the ceremony had been daintily performed, 'this very
+pretty young lady is yours, and a vast deal more than you deserve. But
+now, let us get back to the houseboat, get up steam on the launch, and
+away back to town.'
+
+'That's the thing!' cried Gideon; 'and tomorrow there will be no
+houseboat, and no Jimson, and no carrier's cart, and no piano; and when
+Harker awakes on the ditchside, he may tell himself the whole affair has
+been a dream.'
+
+'Aha!' said Uncle Ned, 'but there's another man who will have a
+different awakening. That fellow in the cart will find he has been too
+clever by half.'
+
+'Uncle Ned and Julia,' said Gideon, 'I am as happy as the King of
+Tartary, my heart is like a threepenny-bit, my heels are like feathers;
+I am out of all my troubles, Julia's hand is in mine. Is this a time
+for anything but handsome sentiments? Why, there's not room in me for
+anything that's not angelic! And when I think of that poor unhappy devil
+in the cart, I stand here in the night and cry with a single heart God
+help him!'
+
+'Amen,' said Uncle Ned.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. The Tribulations of Morris: Part the Second
+
+In a really polite age of literature I would have scorned to cast my eye
+again on the contortions of Morris. But the study is in the spirit of
+the day; it presents, besides, features of a high, almost a repulsive,
+morality; and if it should prove the means of preventing any respectable
+and inexperienced gentleman from plunging light-heartedly into crime,
+even political crime, this work will not have been penned in vain.
+
+He rose on the morrow of his night with Michael, rose from the leaden
+slumber of distress, to find his hand tremulous, his eyes closed with
+rheum, his throat parched, and his digestion obviously paralysed.
+'Lord knows it's not from eating!' Morris thought; and as he dressed
+he reconsidered his position under several heads. Nothing will so well
+depict the troubled seas in which he was now voyaging as a review
+of these various anxieties. I have thrown them (for the reader's
+convenience) into a certain order; but in the mind of one poor human
+equal they whirled together like the dust of hurricanes. With the same
+obliging preoccupation, I have put a name to each of his distresses;
+and it will be observed with pity that every individual item would have
+graced and commended the cover of a railway novel.
+
+Anxiety the First: Where is the Body? or, The Mystery of Bent Pitman. It
+was now manifestly plain that Bent Pitman (as was to be looked for from
+his ominous appellation) belonged to the darker order of the criminal
+class. An honest man would not have cashed the bill; a humane man would
+not have accepted in silence the tragic contents of the water-butt; a
+man, who was not already up to the hilts in gore, would have lacked
+the means of secretly disposing them. This process of reasoning left a
+horrid image of the monster, Pitman. Doubtless he had long ago disposed
+of the body--dropping it through a trapdoor in his back kitchen, Morris
+supposed, with some hazy recollection of a picture in a penny dreadful;
+and doubtless the man now lived in wanton splendour on the proceeds of
+the bill. So far, all was peace. But with the profligate habits of a man
+like Bent Pitman (who was no doubt a hunchback in the bargain), eight
+hundred pounds could be easily melted in a week. When they were gone,
+what would he be likely to do next? A hell-like voice in Morris's own
+bosom gave the answer: 'Blackmail me.'
+
+Anxiety the Second: The Fraud of the Tontine; or, Is my Uncle dead?
+This, on which all Morris's hopes depended, was yet a question. He had
+tried to bully Teena; he had tried to bribe her; and nothing came of
+it. He had his moral conviction still; but you cannot blackmail a sharp
+lawyer on a moral conviction. And besides, since his interview with
+Michael, the idea wore a less attractive countenance. Was Michael
+the man to be blackmailed? and was Morris the man to do it? Grave
+considerations. 'It's not that I'm afraid of him,' Morris so far
+condescended to reassure himself; 'but I must be very certain of my
+ground, and the deuce of it is, I see no way. How unlike is life to
+novels! I wouldn't have even begun this business in a novel, but what
+I'd have met a dark, slouching fellow in the Oxford Road, who'd have
+become my accomplice, and known all about how to do it, and probably
+broken into Michael's house at night and found nothing but a waxwork
+image; and then blackmailed or murdered me. But here, in real life, I
+might walk the streets till I dropped dead, and none of the criminal
+classes would look near me. Though, to be sure, there is always Pitman,'
+he added thoughtfully.
+
+Anxiety the Third: The Cottage at Browndean; or, The Underpaid
+Accomplice. For he had an accomplice, and that accomplice was blooming
+unseen in a damp cottage in Hampshire with empty pockets. What could be
+done about that? He really ought to have sent him something; if it was
+only a post-office order for five bob, enough to prove that he was kept
+in mind, enough to keep him in hope, beer, and tobacco. 'But what
+would you have?' thought Morris; and ruefully poured into his hand
+a half-crown, a florin, and eightpence in small change. For a man in
+Morris's position, at war with all society, and conducting, with the
+hand of inexperience, a widely ramified intrigue, the sum was already a
+derision. John would have to be doing; no mistake of that. 'But then,'
+asked the hell-like voice, 'how long is John likely to stand it?'
+
+Anxiety the Fourth: The Leather Business; or, The Shutters at Last: a
+Tale of the City. On this head Morris had no news. He had not yet dared
+to visit the family concern; yet he knew he must delay no longer, and
+if anything had been wanted to sharpen this conviction, Michael's
+references of the night before rang ambiguously in his ear. Well and
+good. To visit the city might be indispensable; but what was he to do
+when he was there? He had no right to sign in his own name; and, with
+all the will in the world, he seemed to lack the art of signing with
+his uncle's. Under these circumstances, Morris could do nothing to
+procrastinate the crash; and, when it came, when prying eyes began to be
+applied to every joint of his behaviour, two questions could not fail to
+be addressed, sooner or later, to a speechless and perspiring insolvent.
+Where is Mr Joseph Finsbury? and how about your visit to the bank?
+Questions, how easy to put!--ye gods, how impossible to answer! The man
+to whom they should be addressed went certainly to gaol, and--eh! what
+was this?--possibly to the gallows. Morris was trying to shave when this
+idea struck him, and he laid the razor down. Here (in Michael's words)
+was the total disappearance of a valuable uncle; here was a time of
+inexplicable conduct on the part of a nephew who had been in bad
+blood with the old man any time these seven years; what a chance for a
+judicial blunder! 'But no,' thought Morris, 'they cannot, they dare not,
+make it murder. Not that. But honestly, and speaking as a man to a man,
+I don't see any other crime in the calendar (except arson) that I don't
+seem somehow to have committed. And yet I'm a perfectly respectable man,
+and wished nothing but my due. Law is a pretty business.'
+
+With this conclusion firmly seated in his mind, Morris Finsbury
+descended to the hall of the house in John Street, still half-shaven.
+There was a letter in the box; he knew the handwriting: John at last!
+
+'Well, I think I might have been spared this,' he said bitterly, and
+tore it open.
+
+Dear Morris [it ran], what the dickens do you mean by it? I'm in an
+awful hole down here; I have to go on tick, and the parties on the spot
+don't cotton to the idea; they couldn't, because it is so plain I'm in a
+stait of Destitution. I've got no bedclothes, think of that, I must have
+coins, the hole thing's a Mockry, I wont stand it, nobody would. I would
+have come away before, only I have no money for the railway fare. Don't
+be a lunatic, Morris, you don't seem to understand my dredful situation.
+I have to get the stamp on tick. A fact.
+
+--Ever your affte. Brother,
+
+J. FINSBURY
+
+'Can't even spell!' Morris reflected, as he crammed the letter in his
+pocket, and left the house. 'What can I do for him? I have to go to the
+expense of a barber, I'm so shattered! How can I send anybody coins?
+It's hard lines, I daresay; but does he think I'm living on hot muffins?
+One comfort,' was his grim reflection, 'he can't cut and run--he's got
+to stay; he's as helpless as the dead.' And then he broke forth again:
+'Complains, does he? and he's never even heard of Bent Pitman! If he had
+what I have on my mind, he might complain with a good grace.'
+
+But these were not honest arguments, or not wholly honest; there was a
+struggle in the mind of Morris; he could not disguise from himself that
+his brother John was miserably situated at Browndean, without news,
+without money, without bedclothes, without society or any entertainment;
+and by the time he had been shaved and picked a hasty breakfast at a
+coffee tavern, Morris had arrived at a compromise.
+
+'Poor Johnny,' he said to himself, 'he's in an awful box! I can't
+send him coins, but I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll send him the Pink
+Un--it'll cheer John up; and besides, it'll do his credit good getting
+anything by post.'
+
+Accordingly, on his way to the leather business, whither he proceeded
+(according to his thrifty habit) on foot, Morris purchased and
+dispatched a single copy of that enlivening periodical, to which (in
+a sudden pang of remorse) he added at random the Athenaeum, the
+Revivalist, and the Penny Pictorial Weekly. So there was John set up
+with literature, and Morris had laid balm upon his conscience.
+
+As if to reward him, he was received in his place of business with good
+news. Orders were pouring in; there was a run on some of the back stock,
+and the figure had gone up. Even the manager appeared elated. As for
+Morris, who had almost forgotten the meaning of good news, he longed to
+sob like a little child; he could have caught the manager (a pallid
+man with startled eyebrows) to his bosom; he could have found it in
+his generosity to give a cheque (for a small sum) to every clerk in
+the counting-house. As he sat and opened his letters a chorus of airy
+vocalists sang in his brain, to most exquisite music, 'This whole
+concern may be profitable yet, profitable yet, profitable yet.'
+
+To him, in this sunny moment of relief, enter a Mr Rodgerson, a
+creditor, but not one who was expected to be pressing, for his
+connection with the firm was old and regular.
+
+'O, Finsbury,' said he, not without embarrassment, 'it's of course only
+fair to let you know--the fact is, money is a trifle tight--I have some
+paper out--for that matter, every one's complaining--and in short--'
+
+'It has never been our habit, Rodgerson,' said Morris, turning pale.
+'But give me time to turn round, and I'll see what I can do; I daresay
+we can let you have something to account.'
+
+'Well, that's just where is,' replied Rodgerson. 'I was tempted; I've
+let the credit out of MY hands.'
+
+'Out of your hands?' repeated Morris. 'That's playing rather fast and
+loose with us, Mr Rodgerson.'
+
+'Well, I got cent. for cent. for it,' said the other, 'on the nail, in a
+certified cheque.'
+
+'Cent. for cent.!' cried Morris. 'Why, that's something like thirty per
+cent. bonus; a singular thing! Who's the party?'
+
+'Don't know the man,' was the reply. 'Name of Moss.'
+
+'A Jew,' Morris reflected, when his visitor was gone. And what could a
+Jew want with a claim of--he verified the amount in the books--a claim
+of three five eight, nineteen, ten, against the house of Finsbury? And
+why should he pay cent. for cent.? The figure proved the loyalty of
+Rodgerson--even Morris admitted that. But it proved unfortunately
+something else--the eagerness of Moss. The claim must have been wanted
+instantly, for that day, for that morning even. Why? The mystery of Moss
+promised to be a fit pendant to the mystery of Pitman. 'And just when
+all was looking well too!' cried Morris, smiting his hand upon the desk.
+And almost at the same moment Mr Moss was announced.
+
+Mr Moss was a radiant Hebrew, brutally handsome, and offensively polite.
+He was acting, it appeared, for a third party; he understood nothing of
+the circumstances; his client desired to have his position regularized;
+but he would accept an antedated cheque--antedated by two months, if Mr
+Finsbury chose.
+
+'But I don't understand this,' said Morris. 'What made you pay cent. per
+cent. for it today?'
+
+Mr Moss had no idea; only his orders.
+
+'The whole thing is thoroughly irregular,' said Morris. 'It is not the
+custom of the trade to settle at this time of the year. What are your
+instructions if I refuse?'
+
+'I am to see Mr Joseph Finsbury, the head of the firm,' said Mr Moss.
+'I was directed to insist on that; it was implied you had no status
+here--the expressions are not mine.'
+
+'You cannot see Mr Joseph; he is unwell,' said Morris.
+
+'In that case I was to place the matter in the hands of a lawyer. Let
+me see,' said Mr Moss, opening a pocket-book with, perhaps, suspicious
+care, at the right place--'Yes--of Mr Michael Finsbury. A relation,
+perhaps? In that case, I presume, the matter will be pleasantly
+arranged.'
+
+To pass into the hands of Michael was too much for Morris. He struck his
+colours. A cheque at two months was nothing, after all. In two months
+he would probably be dead, or in a gaol at any rate. He bade the manager
+give Mr Moss a chair and the paper. 'I'm going over to get a cheque
+signed by Mr Finsbury,' said he, 'who is lying ill at John Street.'
+
+A cab there and a cab back; here were inroads on his wretched capital!
+He counted the cost; when he was done with Mr Moss he would be left with
+twelvepence-halfpenny in the world. What was even worse, he had now been
+forced to bring his uncle up to Bloomsbury. 'No use for poor Johnny
+in Hampshire now,' he reflected. 'And how the farce is to be kept up
+completely passes me. At Browndean it was just possible; in Bloomsbury
+it seems beyond human ingenuity--though I suppose it's what Michael
+does. But then he has accomplices--that Scotsman and the whole gang. Ah,
+if I had accomplices!'
+
+Necessity is the mother of the arts. Under a spur so immediate, Morris
+surprised himself by the neatness and dispatch of his new forgery, and
+within three-fourths of an hour had handed it to Mr Moss.
+
+'That is very satisfactory,' observed that gentleman, rising. 'I was to
+tell you it will not be presented, but you had better take care.'
+
+The room swam round Morris. 'What--what's that?' he cried, grasping the
+table. He was miserably conscious the next moment of his shrill tongue
+and ashen face. 'What do you mean--it will not be presented? Why am I to
+take care? What is all this mummery?'
+
+'I have no idea, Mr Finsbury,' replied the smiling Hebrew. 'It was a
+message I was to deliver. The expressions were put into my mouth.'
+
+'What is your client's name?' asked Morris.
+
+'That is a secret for the moment,' answered Mr Moss. Morris bent toward
+him. 'It's not the bank?' he asked hoarsely.
+
+'I have no authority to say more, Mr Finsbury,' returned Mr Moss. 'I
+will wish you a good morning, if you please.'
+
+'Wish me a good morning!' thought Morris; and the next moment, seizing
+his hat, he fled from his place of business like a madman. Three streets
+away he stopped and groaned. 'Lord! I should have borrowed from the
+manager!' he cried. 'But it's too late now; it would look dicky to go
+back; I'm penniless--simply penniless--like the unemployed.'
+
+He went home and sat in the dismantled dining-room with his head in his
+hands. Newton never thought harder than this victim of circumstances,
+and yet no clearness came. 'It may be a defect in my intelligence,' he
+cried, rising to his feet, 'but I cannot see that I am fairly used. The
+bad luck I've had is a thing to write to The Times about; it's enough to
+breed a revolution. And the plain English of the whole thing is that I
+must have money at once. I'm done with all morality now; I'm long past
+that stage; money I must have, and the only chance I see is Bent Pitman.
+Bent Pitman is a criminal, and therefore his position's weak. He must
+have some of that eight hundred left; if he has I'll force him to go
+shares; and even if he hasn't, I'll tell him the tontine affair, and
+with a desperate man like Pitman at my back, it'll be strange if I don't
+succeed.'
+
+Well and good. But how to lay hands upon Bent Pitman, except by
+advertisement, was not so clear. And even so, in what terms to ask a
+meeting? on what grounds? and where? Not at John Street, for it would
+never do to let a man like Bent Pitman know your real address; nor yet
+at Pitman's house, some dreadful place in Holloway, with a trapdoor
+in the back kitchen; a house which you might enter in a light summer
+overcoat and varnished boots, to come forth again piecemeal in a
+market-basket. That was the drawback of a really efficient accomplice,
+Morris felt, not without a shudder. 'I never dreamed I should come to
+actually covet such society,' he thought. And then a brilliant idea
+struck him. Waterloo Station, a public place, yet at certain hours of
+the day a solitary; a place, besides, the very name of which must knock
+upon the heart of Pitman, and at once suggest a knowledge of the latest
+of his guilty secrets. Morris took a piece of paper and sketched his
+advertisement.
+
+
+WILLIAM BENT PITMAN, if this should meet the eye of, he will hear of
+SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE on the far end of the main line departure
+platform, Waterloo Station, 2 to 4 P.M., Sunday next.
+
+Morris reperused this literary trifle with approbation. 'Terse,' he
+reflected. 'Something to his advantage is not strictly true; but it's
+taking and original, and a man is not on oath in an advertisement.
+All that I require now is the ready cash for my own meals and for the
+advertisement, and--no, I can't lavish money upon John, but I'll give
+him some more papers. How to raise the wind?'
+
+He approached his cabinet of signets, and the collector suddenly
+revolted in his blood. 'I will not!' he cried; 'nothing shall induce me
+to massacre my collection--rather theft!' And dashing upstairs to the
+drawing-room, he helped himself to a few of his uncle's curiosities:
+a pair of Turkish babooshes, a Smyrna fan, a water-cooler, a musket
+guaranteed to have been seized from an Ephesian bandit, and a pocketful
+of curious but incomplete seashells.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. William Bent Pitman Hears of Something to his Advantage
+
+On the morning of Sunday, William Dent Pitman rose at his usual hour,
+although with something more than the usual reluctance. The day before
+(it should be explained) an addition had been made to his family in the
+person of a lodger. Michael Finsbury had acted sponsor in the business,
+and guaranteed the weekly bill; on the other hand, no doubt with a spice
+of his prevailing jocularity, he had drawn a depressing portrait of the
+lodger's character. Mr Pitman had been led to understand his guest was
+not good company; he had approached the gentleman with fear, and had
+rejoiced to find himself the entertainer of an angel. At tea he had been
+vastly pleased; till hard on one in the morning he had sat entranced by
+eloquence and progressively fortified with information in the studio;
+and now, as he reviewed over his toilet the harmless pleasures of
+the evening, the future smiled upon him with revived attractions. 'Mr
+Finsbury is indeed an acquisition,' he remarked to himself; and as
+he entered the little parlour, where the table was already laid for
+breakfast, the cordiality of his greeting would have befitted an
+acquaintanceship already old.
+
+'I am delighted to see you, sir'--these were his expressions--'and I
+trust you have slept well.'
+
+'Accustomed as I have been for so long to a life of almost perpetual
+change,' replied the guest, 'the disturbance so often complained of by
+the more sedentary, as attending their first night in (what is called) a
+new bed, is a complaint from which I am entirely free.'
+
+'I am delighted to hear it,' said the drawing-master warmly. 'But I see
+I have interrupted you over the paper.'
+
+'The Sunday paper is one of the features of the age,' said Mr Finsbury.
+'In America, I am told, it supersedes all other literature, the bone and
+sinew of the nation finding their requirements catered for; hundreds of
+columns will be occupied with interesting details of the world's
+doings, such as water-spouts, elopements, conflagrations, and public
+entertainments; there is a corner for politics, ladies' work, chess,
+religion, and even literature; and a few spicy editorials serve to
+direct the course of public thought. It is difficult to estimate the
+part played by such enormous and miscellaneous repositories in the
+education of the people. But this (though interesting in itself)
+partakes of the nature of a digression; and what I was about to ask you
+was this: Are you yourself a student of the daily press?'
+
+'There is not much in the papers to interest an artist,' returned
+Pitman.
+
+'In that case,' resumed Joseph, 'an advertisement which has appeared
+the last two days in various journals, and reappears this morning,
+may possibly have failed to catch your eye. The name, with a trifling
+variation, bears a strong resemblance to your own. Ah, here it is. If
+you please, I will read it to you:
+
+WILIAM BENT PITMAN, if this should meet the eye of, he will hear of
+SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE at the far end of the main line departure
+platform, Waterloo Station, 2 to 4 P.M. today.
+
+'Is that in print?' cried Pitman. 'Let me see it! Bent? It must be Dent!
+SOMETHING TO MY ADVANTAGE? Mr Finsbury, excuse me offering a word of
+caution; I am aware how strangely this must sound in your ears, but
+there are domestic reasons why this little circumstance might perhaps
+be better kept between ourselves. Mrs Pitman--my dear Sir, I assure you
+there is nothing dishonourable in my secrecy; the reasons are domestic,
+merely domestic; and I may set your conscience at rest when I assure
+you all the circumstances are known to our common friend, your excellent
+nephew, Mr Michael, who has not withdrawn from me his esteem.'
+
+'A word is enough, Mr Pitman,' said Joseph, with one of his Oriental
+reverences.
+
+Half an hour later, the drawing-master found Michael in bed and reading
+a book, the picture of good-humour and repose.
+
+'Hillo, Pitman,' he said, laying down his book, 'what brings you here at
+this inclement hour? Ought to be in church, my boy!'
+
+'I have little thought of church today, Mr Finsbury,' said the
+drawing-master. 'I am on the brink of something new, Sir.' And he
+presented the advertisement.
+
+'Why, what is this?' cried Michael, sitting suddenly up. He studied
+it for half a minute with a frown. 'Pitman, I don't care about this
+document a particle,' said he.
+
+'It will have to be attended to, however,' said Pitman.
+
+'I thought you'd had enough of Waterloo,' returned the lawyer. 'Have you
+started a morbid craving? You've never been yourself anyway since you
+lost that beard. I believe now it was where you kept your senses.'
+
+'Mr Finsbury,' said the drawing-master, 'I have tried to reason this
+matter out, and, with your permission, I should like to lay before you
+the results.'
+
+'Fire away,' said Michael; 'but please, Pitman, remember it's Sunday,
+and let's have no bad language.'
+
+'There are three views open to us,' began Pitman. 'First this may
+be connected with the barrel; second, it may be connected with Mr
+Semitopolis's statue; and third, it may be from my wife's brother, who
+went to Australia. In the first case, which is of course possible, I
+confess the matter would be best allowed to drop.'
+
+'The court is with you there, Brother Pitman,' said Michael.
+
+'In the second,' continued the other, 'it is plainly my duty to leave no
+stone unturned for the recovery of the lost antique.'
+
+'My dear fellow, Semitopolis has come down like a trump; he has pocketed
+the loss and left you the profit. What more would you have?' enquired
+the lawyer.
+
+'I conceive, sir, under correction, that Mr Semitopolis's generosity
+binds me to even greater exertion,' said the drawing-master. 'The whole
+business was unfortunate; it was--I need not disguise it from you--it
+was illegal from the first: the more reason that I should try to behave
+like a gentleman,' concluded Pitman, flushing.
+
+'I have nothing to say to that,' returned the lawyer. 'I have sometimes
+thought I should like to try to behave like a gentleman myself; only
+it's such a one-sided business, with the world and the legal profession
+as they are.'
+
+'Then, in the third,' resumed the drawing-master, 'if it's Uncle Tim, of
+course, our fortune's made.'
+
+'It's not Uncle Tim, though,' said the lawyer.
+
+'Have you observed that very remarkable expression: SOMETHING TO HIS
+ADVANTAGE?' enquired Pitman shrewdly.
+
+'You innocent mutton,' said Michael, 'it's the seediest commonplace in
+the English language, and only proves the advertiser is an ass. Let me
+demolish your house of cards for you at once. Would Uncle Tim make
+that blunder in your name?--in itself, the blunder is delicious, a huge
+improvement on the gross reality, and I mean to adopt it in the future;
+but is it like Uncle Tim?'
+
+'No, it's not like him,' Pitman admitted. 'But his mind may have become
+unhinged at Ballarat.'
+
+'If you come to that, Pitman,' said Michael, 'the advertiser may be
+Queen Victoria, fired with the desire to make a duke of you. I put it
+to yourself if that's probable; and yet it's not against the laws of
+nature. But we sit here to consider probabilities; and with your genteel
+permission, I eliminate her Majesty and Uncle Tim on the threshold. To
+proceed, we have your second idea, that this has some connection with
+the statue. Possible; but in that case who is the advertiser? Not
+Ricardi, for he knows your address; not the person who got the box, for
+he doesn't know your name. The vanman, I hear you suggest, in a lucid
+interval. He might have got your name, and got it incorrectly, at the
+station; and he might have failed to get your address. I grant the
+vanman. But a question: Do you really wish to meet the vanman?'
+
+'Why should I not?' asked Pitman.
+
+'If he wants to meet you,' replied Michael, 'observe this: it is because
+he has found his address-book, has been to the house that got the
+statue, and-mark my words!--is moving at the instigation of the
+murderer.'
+
+'I should be very sorry to think so,' said Pitman; 'but I still consider
+it my duty to Mr Sernitopolis. . .'
+
+'Pitman,' interrupted Michael, 'this will not do. Don't seek to impose
+on your legal adviser; don't try to pass yourself off for the Duke of
+Wellington, for that is not your line. Come, I wager a dinner I can read
+your thoughts. You still believe it's Uncle Tim.'
+
+'Mr Finsbury,' said the drawing-master, colouring, 'you are not a man in
+narrow circumstances, and you have no family. Guendolen is growing up,
+a very promising girl--she was confirmed this year; and I think you will
+be able to enter into my feelings as a parent when I tell you she is
+quite ignorant of dancing. The boys are at the board school, which is
+all very well in its way; at least, I am the last man in the world to
+criticize the institutions of my native land. But I had fondly hoped
+that Harold might become a professional musician; and little Otho
+shows a quite remarkable vocation for the Church. I am not exactly an
+ambitious man...'
+
+'Well, well,' interrupted Michael. 'Be explicit; you think it's Uncle
+Tim?'
+
+'It might be Uncle Tim,' insisted Pitman, 'and if it were, and I
+neglected the occasion, how could I ever look my children in the face? I
+do not refer to Mrs Pitman. . .'
+
+'No, you never do,' said Michael.
+
+'. . . but in the case of her own brother returning from Ballarat. . .'
+continued Pitman.
+
+'. . . with his mind unhinged,' put in the lawyer.
+
+'. . . returning from Ballarat with a large fortune, her impatience may
+be more easily imagined than described,' concluded Pitman.
+
+'All right,' said Michael, 'be it so. And what do you propose to do?'
+
+'I am going to Waterloo,' said Pitman, 'in disguise.'
+
+'All by your little self?' enquired the lawyer. 'Well, I hope you think
+it safe. Mind and send me word from the police cells.'
+
+'O, Mr Finsbury, I had ventured to hope--perhaps you might be induced
+to--to make one of us,' faltered Pitman.
+
+'Disguise myself on Sunday?' cried Michael. 'How little you understand
+my principles!'
+
+'Mr Finsbury, I have no means of showing you my gratitude; but let me
+ask you one question,' said Pitman. 'If I were a very rich client, would
+you not take the risk?'
+
+'Diamond, Diamond, you know not what you do!' cried Michael. 'Why, man,
+do you suppose I make a practice of cutting about London with my clients
+in disguise? Do you suppose money would induce me to touch this business
+with a stick? I give you my word of honour, it would not. But I own I
+have a real curiosity to see how you conduct this interview--that tempts
+me; it tempts me, Pitman, more than gold--it should be exquisitely
+rich.' And suddenly Michael laughed. 'Well, Pitman,' said he, 'have all
+the truck ready in the studio. I'll go.'
+
+About twenty minutes after two, on this eventful day, the vast and
+gloomy shed of Waterloo lay, like the temple of a dead religion, silent
+and deserted. Here and there at one of the platforms, a train lay
+becalmed; here and there a wandering footfall echoed; the cab-horses
+outside stamped with startling reverberations on the stones; or from the
+neighbouring wilderness of railway an engine snorted forth a whistle.
+The main-line departure platform slumbered like the rest; the
+booking-hutches closed; the backs of Mr Haggard's novels, with which
+upon a weekday the bookstall shines emblazoned, discreetly hidden behind
+dingy shutters; the rare officials, undisguisedly somnambulant; and the
+customary loiterers, even to the middle-aged woman with the ulster and
+the handbag, fled to more congenial scenes. As in the inmost dells of
+some small tropic island the throbbing of the ocean lingers, so here a
+faint pervading hum and trepidation told in every corner of surrounding
+London.
+
+At the hour already named, persons acquainted with John Dickson, of
+Ballarat, and Ezra Thomas, of the United States of America, would have
+been cheered to behold them enter through the booking-office.
+
+'What names are we to take?' enquired the latter, anxiously adjusting
+the window-glass spectacles which he had been suffered on this occasion
+to assume.
+
+'There's no choice for you, my boy,' returned Michael. 'Bent Pitman
+or nothing. As for me, I think I look as if I might be called Appleby;
+something agreeably old-world about Appleby--breathes of Devonshire
+cider. Talking of which, suppose you wet your whistle? the interview is
+likely to be trying.'
+
+'I think I'll wait till afterwards,' returned Pitman; 'on the whole, I
+think I'll wait till the thing's over. I don't know if it strikes you
+as it does me; but the place seems deserted and silent, Mr Finsbury, and
+filled with very singular echoes.'
+
+'Kind of Jack-in-the-box feeling?' enquired Michael, 'as if all these
+empty trains might be filled with policemen waiting for a signal? and
+Sir Charles Warren perched among the girders with a silver whistle to
+his lips? It's guilt, Pitman.'
+
+In this uneasy frame of mind they walked nearly the whole length of
+the departure platform, and at the western extremity became aware of a
+slender figure standing back against a pillar. The figure was plainly
+sunk into a deep abstraction; he was not aware of their approach, but
+gazed far abroad over the sunlit station. Michael stopped.
+
+'Holloa!' said he, 'can that be your advertiser? If so, I'm done with
+it.' And then, on second thoughts: 'Not so, either,' he resumed more
+cheerfully. 'Here, turn your back a moment. So. Give me the specs.'
+
+'But you agreed I was to have them,' protested Pitman.
+
+'Ah, but that man knows me,' said Michael.
+
+'Does he? what's his name?' cried Pitman.
+
+'O, he took me into his confidence,' returned the lawyer. 'But I may say
+one thing: if he's your advertiser (and he may be, for he seems to
+have been seized with criminal lunacy) you can go ahead with a clear
+conscience, for I hold him in the hollow of my hand.'
+
+The change effected, and Pitman comforted with this good news, the pair
+drew near to Morris.
+
+'Are you looking for Mr William Bent Pitman?' enquired the
+drawing-master. 'I am he.'
+
+Morris raised his head. He saw before him, in the speaker, a person
+of almost indescribable insignificance, in white spats and a shirt cut
+indecently low. A little behind, a second and more burly figure
+offered little to criticism, except ulster, whiskers, spectacles,
+and deerstalker hat. Since he had decided to call up devils from the
+underworld of London, Morris had pondered deeply on the probabilities
+of their appearance. His first emotion, like that of Charoba when she
+beheld the sea, was one of disappointment; his second did more justice
+to the case. Never before had he seen a couple dressed like these; he
+had struck a new stratum.
+
+'I must speak with you alone,' said he.
+
+'You need not mind Mr Appleby,' returned Pitman. 'He knows all.'
+
+'All? Do you know what I am here to speak of?' enquired Morris--. 'The
+barrel.'
+
+Pitman turned pale, but it was with manly indignation. 'You are the
+man!' he cried. 'You very wicked person.'
+
+'Am I to speak before him?' asked Morris, disregarding these severe
+expressions.
+
+'He has been present throughout,' said Pitman. 'He opened the barrel;
+your guilty secret is already known to him, as well as to your Maker and
+myself.'
+
+'Well, then,' said Morris, 'what have you done with the money?'
+
+'I know nothing about any money,' said Pitman.
+
+'You needn't try that on,' said Morris. 'I have tracked you down; you
+came to the station sacrilegiously disguised as a clergyman, procured my
+barrel, opened it, rifled the body, and cashed the bill. I have been to
+the bank, I tell you! I have followed you step by step, and your denials
+are childish and absurd.'
+
+'Come, come, Morris, keep your temper,' said Mr Appleby.
+
+'Michael!' cried Morris, 'Michael here too!'
+
+'Here too,' echoed the lawyer; 'here and everywhere, my good fellow;
+every step you take is counted; trained detectives follow you like your
+shadow; they report to me every three-quarters of an hour; no expense is
+spared.'
+
+Morris's face took on a hue of dirty grey. 'Well, I don't care; I have
+the less reserve to keep,' he cried. 'That man cashed my bill; it's a
+theft, and I want the money back.'
+
+'Do you think I would lie to you, Morris?' asked Michael.
+
+'I don't know,' said his cousin. 'I want my money.'
+
+'It was I alone who touched the body,' began Michael.
+
+'You? Michael!' cried Morris, starting back. 'Then why haven't you
+declared the death?' 'What the devil do you mean?' asked Michael.
+
+'Am I mad? or are you?' cried Morris.
+
+'I think it must be Pitman,' said Michael.
+
+The three men stared at each other, wild-eyed.
+
+'This is dreadful,' said Morris, 'dreadful. I do not understand one word
+that is addressed to me.'
+
+'I give you my word of honour, no more do I,' said Michael.
+
+'And in God's name, why whiskers?' cried Morris, pointing in a ghastly
+manner at his cousin. 'Does my brain reel? How whiskers?'
+
+'O, that's a matter of detail,' said Michael.
+
+There was another silence, during which Morris appeared to himself to
+be shot in a trapeze as high as St Paul's, and as low as Baker Street
+Station.
+
+'Let us recapitulate,' said Michael, 'unless it's really a dream, in
+which case I wish Teena would call me for breakfast. My friend Pitman,
+here, received a barrel which, it now appears, was meant for you. The
+barrel contained the body of a man. How or why you killed him...'
+
+'I never laid a hand on him,' protested Morris. 'This is what I have
+dreaded all along. But think, Michael! I'm not that kind of man; with
+all my faults, I wouldn't touch a hair of anybody's head, and it was all
+dead loss to me. He got killed in that vile accident.'
+
+Suddenly Michael was seized by mirth so prolonged and excessive that his
+companions supposed beyond a doubt his reason had deserted him. Again
+and again he struggled to compose himself, and again and again laughter
+overwhelmed him like a tide. In all this maddening interview there had
+been no more spectral feature than this of Michael's merriment; and
+Pitman and Morris, drawn together by the common fear, exchanged glances
+of anxiety.
+
+'Morris,' gasped the lawyer, when he was at last able to articulate,
+'hold on, I see it all now. I can make it clear in one word. Here's the
+key: I NEVER GUESSED IT WAS UNCLE JOSEPH TILL THIS MOMENT.'
+
+This remark produced an instant lightening of the tension for Morris.
+For Pitman it quenched the last ray of hope and daylight. Uncle Joseph,
+whom he had left an hour ago in Norfolk Street, pasting newspaper
+cuttings?--it?--the dead body?--then who was he, Pitman? and was this
+Waterloo Station or Colney Hatch?
+
+'To be sure!' cried Morris; 'it was badly smashed, I know. How stupid
+not to think of that! Why, then, all's clear; and, my dear Michael, I'll
+tell you what--we're saved, both saved. You get the tontine--I don't
+grudge it you the least--and I get the leather business, which is really
+beginning to look up. Declare the death at once, don't mind me in the
+smallest, don't consider me; declare the death, and we're all right.'
+
+'Ah, but I can't declare it,' said Michael.
+
+'Why not?' cried Morris.
+
+'I can't produce the corpus, Morris. I've lost it,' said the lawyer.
+
+'Stop a bit,' ejaculated the leather merchant. 'How is this? It's not
+possible. I lost it.'
+
+'Well, I've lost it too, my son,' said Michael, with extreme serenity.
+'Not recognizing it, you see, and suspecting something irregular in its
+origin, I got rid of--what shall we say?--got rid of the proceeds at
+once.'
+
+'You got rid of the body? What made you do that?' walled Morris. 'But
+you can get it again? You know where it is?'
+
+'I wish I did, Morris, and you may believe me there, for it would be a
+small sum in my pocket; but the fact is, I don't,' said Michael.
+
+'Good Lord,' said Morris, addressing heaven and earth, 'good Lord, I've
+lost the leather business!'
+
+Michael was once more shaken with laughter.
+
+'Why do you laugh, you fool?' cried his cousin, 'you lose more than I.
+You've bungled it worse than even I did. If you had a spark of feeling,
+you would be shaking in your boots with vexation. But I'll tell you one
+thing--I'll have that eight hundred pound--I'll have that and go to Swan
+River--that's mine, anyway, and your friend must have forged to cash it.
+Give me the eight hundred, here, upon this platform, or I go straight to
+Scotland Yard and turn the whole disreputable story inside out.'
+
+'Morris,' said Michael, laying his hand upon his shoulder, 'hear reason.
+It wasn't us, it was the other man. We never even searched the body.'
+
+'The other man?' repeated Morris.
+
+'Yes, the other man. We palmed Uncle Joseph off upon another man,' said
+Michael.
+
+'You what? You palmed him off? That's surely a singular expression,'
+said Morris.
+
+'Yes, palmed him off for a piano,' said Michael with perfect simplicity.
+'Remarkably full, rich tone,' he added.
+
+Morris carried his hand to his brow and looked at it; it was wet with
+sweat. 'Fever,' said he.
+
+'No, it was a Broadwood grand,' said Michael. 'Pitman here will tell you
+if it was genuine or not.'
+
+'Eh? O! O yes, I believe it was a genuine Broadwood; I have played upon
+it several times myself,' said Pitman. 'The three-letter E was broken.'
+
+'Don't say anything more about pianos,' said Morris, with a strong
+shudder; 'I'm not the man I used to be! This--this other man--let's come
+to him, if I can only manage to follow. Who is he? Where can I get hold
+of him?'
+
+'Ah, that's the rub,' said Michael. 'He's been in possession of the
+desired article, let me see--since Wednesday, about four o'clock, and is
+now, I should imagine, on his way to the isles of Javan and Gadire.'
+
+'Michael,' said Morris pleadingly, 'I am in a very weak state, and I beg
+your consideration for a kinsman. Say it slowly again, and be sure you
+are correct. When did he get it?'
+
+Michael repeated his statement.
+
+'Yes, that's the worst thing yet,' said Morris, drawing in his breath.
+
+'What is?' asked the lawyer.
+
+'Even the dates are sheer nonsense,' said the leather merchant.
+
+'The bill was cashed on Tuesday. There's not a gleam of reason in the
+whole transaction.'
+
+A young gentleman, who had passed the trio and suddenly started and
+turned back, at this moment laid a heavy hand on Michael's shoulder.
+
+'Aha! so this is Mr Dickson?' said he.
+
+The trump of judgement could scarce have rung with a more dreadful note
+in the ears of Pitman and the lawyer. To Morris this erroneous name
+seemed a legitimate enough continuation of the nightmare in which he
+had so long been wandering. And when Michael, with his brand-new bushy
+whiskers, broke from the grasp of the stranger and turned to run, and
+the weird little shaven creature in the low-necked shirt followed his
+example with a bird-like screech, and the stranger (finding the rest of
+his prey escape him) pounced with a rude grasp on Morris himself,
+that gentleman's frame of mind might be very nearly expressed in the
+colloquial phrase: 'I told you so!'
+
+'I have one of the gang,' said Gideon Forsyth.
+
+'I do not understand,' said Morris dully.
+
+'O, I will make you understand,' returned Gideon grimly.
+
+'You will be a good friend to me if you can make me understand
+anything,' cried Morris, with a sudden energy of conviction.
+
+'I don't know you personally, do I?' continued Gideon, examining his
+unresisting prisoner. 'Never mind, I know your friends. They are your
+friends, are they not?'
+
+'I do not understand you,' said Morris.
+
+'You had possibly something to do with a piano?' suggested Gideon.
+
+'A piano!' cried Morris, convulsively clasping Gideon by the arm. 'Then
+you're the other man! Where is it? Where is the body? And did you cash
+the draft?'
+
+'Where is the body? This is very strange,' mused Gideon. 'Do you want
+the body?'
+
+'Want it?' cried Morris. 'My whole fortune depends upon it! I lost it.
+Where is it? Take me to it?
+
+'O, you want it, do you? And the other man, Dickson--does he want it?'
+enquired Gideon.
+
+'Who do you mean by Dickson? O, Michael Finsbury! Why, of course he
+does! He lost it too. If he had it, he'd have won the tontine tomorrow.'
+
+'Michael Finsbury! Not the solicitor?' cried Gideon. 'Yes, the
+solicitor,' said Morris. 'But where is the body?'
+
+'Then that is why he sent the brief! What is Mr Finsbury's private
+address?' asked Gideon.
+
+'233 King's Road. What brief? Where are you going? Where is the body?'
+cried Morris, clinging to Gideon's arm.
+
+'I have lost it myself,' returned Gideon, and ran out of the station.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. The Return of the Great Vance
+
+Morris returned from Waterloo in a frame of mind that baffles
+description. He was a modest man; he had never conceived an overweening
+notion of his own powers; he knew himself unfit to write a book, turn a
+table napkin-ring, entertain a Christmas party with legerdemain--grapple
+(in short) any of those conspicuous accomplishments that are usually
+classed under the head of genius. He knew--he admitted--his parts to be
+pedestrian, but he had considered them (until quite lately) fully equal
+to the demands of life. And today he owned himself defeated: life had
+the upper hand; if there had been any means of flight or place to flee
+to, if the world had been so ordered that a man could leave it like a
+place of entertainment, Morris would have instantly resigned all further
+claim on its rewards and pleasures, and, with inexpressible contentment,
+ceased to be. As it was, one aim shone before him: he could get home.
+Even as the sick dog crawls under the sofa, Morris could shut the door
+of John Street and be alone.
+
+The dusk was falling when he drew near this place of refuge; and the
+first thing that met his eyes was the figure of a man upon the step,
+alternately plucking at the bell-handle and pounding on the panels. The
+man had no hat, his clothes were hideous with filth, he had the air of a
+hop-picker. Yet Morris knew him; it was John.
+
+The first impulse of flight was succeeded, in the elder brother's
+bosom, by the empty quiescence of despair. 'What does it matter now?' he
+thought, and drawing forth his latchkey ascended the steps.
+
+John turned about; his face was ghastly with weariness and dirt and
+fury; and as he recognized the head of his family, he drew in a long
+rasping breath, and his eyes glittered.
+
+'Open that door,' he said, standing back.
+
+'I am going to,' said Morris, and added mentally, 'He looks like
+murder!'
+
+The brothers passed into the hall, the door closed behind them; and
+suddenly John seized Morris by the shoulders and shook him as a terrier
+shakes a rat. 'You mangy little cad,' he said, 'I'd serve you right to
+smash your skull!' And shook him again, so that his teeth rattled and
+his head smote upon the wall.
+
+'Don't be violent, Johnny,' said Morris. 'It can't do any good now.'
+
+'Shut your mouth,' said John, 'your time's come to listen.'
+
+He strode into the dining-room, fell into the easy-chair, and taking off
+one of his burst walking-shoes, nursed for a while his foot like one in
+agony. 'I'm lame for life,' he said. 'What is there for dinner?'
+
+'Nothing, Johnny,' said Morris.
+
+'Nothing? What do you mean by that?' enquired the Great Vance. 'Don't
+set up your chat to me!'
+
+'I mean simply nothing,' said his brother. 'I have nothing to eat, and
+nothing to buy it with. I've only had a cup of tea and a sandwich all
+this day myself.'
+
+'Only a sandwich?' sneered Vance. 'I suppose YOU'RE going to complain
+next. But you had better take care: I've had all I mean to take; and
+I can tell you what it is, I mean to dine and to dine well. Take your
+signets and sell them.'
+
+'I can't today,' objected Morris; 'it's Sunday.'
+
+'I tell you I'm going to dine!' cried the younger brother.
+
+'But if it's not possible, Johnny?' pleaded the other.
+
+'You nincompoop!' cried Vance. 'Ain't we householders? Don't they know
+us at that hotel where Uncle Parker used to come. Be off with you; and
+if you ain't back in half an hour, and if the dinner ain't good, first
+I'll lick you till you don't want to breathe, and then I'll go straight
+to the police and blow the gaff. Do you understand that, Morris
+Finsbury? Because if you do, you had better jump.'
+
+The idea smiled even upon the wretched Morris, who was sick with famine.
+He sped upon his errand, and returned to find John still nursing his
+foot in the armchair.
+
+'What would you like to drink, Johnny?' he enquired soothingly.
+
+'Fizz,' said John. 'Some of the poppy stuff from the end bin; a bottle
+of the old port that Michael liked, to follow; and see and don't shake
+the port. And look here, light the fire--and the gas, and draw down the
+blinds; it's cold and it's getting dark. And then you can lay the cloth.
+And, I say--here, you! bring me down some clothes.'
+
+The room looked comparatively habitable by the time the dinner came; and
+the dinner itself was good: strong gravy soup, fillets of sole, mutton
+chops and tomato sauce, roast beef done rare with roast potatoes,
+cabinet pudding, a piece of Chester cheese, and some early celery: a
+meal uncompromisingly British, but supporting.
+
+'Thank God!' said John, his nostrils sniffing wide, surprised by joy
+into the unwonted formality of grace. 'Now I'm going to take this chair
+with my back to the fire--there's been a strong frost these two last
+nights, and I can't get it out of my bones; the celery will be just the
+ticket--I'm going to sit here, and you are going to stand there, Morris
+Finsbury, and play butler.'
+
+'But, Johnny, I'm so hungry myself,' pleaded Morris.
+
+'You can have what I leave,' said Vance. 'You're just beginning to
+pay your score, my daisy; I owe you one-pound-ten; don't you rouse the
+British lion!' There was something indescribably menacing in the face
+and voice of the Great Vance as he uttered these words, at which the
+soul of Morris withered. 'There!' resumed the feaster, 'give us a glass
+of the fizz to start with. Gravy soup! And I thought I didn't like gravy
+soup! Do you know how I got here?' he asked, with another explosion of
+wrath.
+
+'No, Johnny; how could I?' said the obsequious Morris.
+
+'I walked on my ten toes!' cried John; 'tramped the whole way from
+Browndean; and begged! I would like to see you beg. It's not so easy
+as you might suppose. I played it on being a shipwrecked mariner from
+Blyth; I don't know where Blyth is, do you? but I thought it sounded
+natural. I begged from a little beast of a schoolboy, and he forked out
+a bit of twine, and asked me to make a clove hitch; I did, too, I know I
+did, but he said it wasn't, he said it was a granny's knot, and I was a
+what-d'ye-call-'em, and he would give me in charge. Then I begged from
+a naval officer--he never bothered me with knots, but he only gave me
+a tract; there's a nice account of the British navy!--and then from a
+widow woman that sold lollipops, and I got a hunch of bread from her.
+Another party I fell in with said you could generally always get bread;
+and the thing to do was to break a plateglass window and get into gaol;
+seemed rather a brilliant scheme. Pass the beef.'
+
+'Why didn't you stay at Browndean?' Morris ventured to enquire.
+
+'Skittles!' said John. 'On what? The Pink Un and a measly religious
+paper? I had to leave Browndean; I had to, I tell you. I got tick at
+a public, and set up to be the Great Vance; so would you, if you were
+leading such a beastly existence! And a card stood me a lot of ale and
+stuff, and we got swipey, talking about music-halls and the piles of tin
+I got for singing; and then they got me on to sing "Around her splendid
+form I weaved the magic circle," and then he said I couldn't be Vance,
+and I stuck to it like grim death I was. It was rot of me to sing, of
+course, but I thought I could brazen it out with a set of yokels. It
+settled my hash at the public,' said John, with a sigh. 'And then the
+last thing was the carpenter--'
+
+'Our landlord?' enquired Morris.
+
+'That's the party,' said John. 'He came nosing about the place, and then
+wanted to know where the water-butt was, and the bedclothes. I told him
+to go to the devil; so would you too, when there was no possible thing
+to say! And then he said I had pawned them, and did I know it was
+felony? Then I made a pretty neat stroke. I remembered he was deaf, and
+talked a whole lot of rot, very politely, just so low he couldn't hear
+a word. "I don't hear you," says he. "I know you don't, my buck, and I
+don't mean you to," says I, smiling away like a haberdasher. "I'm hard
+of hearing," he roars. "I'd be in a pretty hot corner if you weren't,"
+says I, making signs as if I was explaining everything. It was tip-top
+as long as it lasted. "Well," he said, "I'm deaf, worse luck, but I
+bet the constable can hear you." And off he started one way, and I the
+other. They got a spirit-lamp and the Pink Un, and that old religious
+paper, and another periodical you sent me. I think you must have been
+drunk--it had a name like one of those spots that Uncle Joseph used to
+hold forth at, and it was all full of the most awful swipes about poetry
+and the use of the globes. It was the kind of thing that nobody could
+read out of a lunatic asylum. The Athaeneum, that was the name! Golly,
+what a paper!'
+
+'Athenaeum, you mean,' said Morris.
+
+'I don't care what you call it,' said John, 'so as I don't require to
+take it in! There, I feel better. Now I'm going to sit by the fire in
+the easy-chair; pass me the cheese, and the celery, and the bottle of
+port--no, a champagne glass, it holds more. And now you can pitch in;
+there's some of the fish left and a chop, and some fizz. Ah,' sighed the
+refreshed pedestrian, 'Michael was right about that port; there's old
+and vatted for you! Michael's a man I like; he's clever and reads books,
+and the Athaeneum, and all that; but he's not dreary to meet, he don't
+talk Athaeneum like the other parties; why, the most of them would throw
+a blight over a skittle alley! Talking of Michael, I ain't bored myself
+to put the question, because of course I knew it from the first. You've
+made a hash of it, eh?'
+
+'Michael made a hash of it,' said Morris, flushing dark.
+
+'What have we got to do with that?' enquired John.
+
+'He has lost the body, that's what we have to do with it,' cried Morris.
+'He has lost the body, and the death can't be established.'
+
+'Hold on,' said John. 'I thought you didn't want to?'
+
+'O, we're far past that,' said his brother. 'It's not the tontine now,
+it's the leather business, Johnny; it's the clothes upon our back.'
+
+'Stow the slow music,' said John, 'and tell your story from beginning to
+end.' Morris did as he was bid.
+
+'Well, now, what did I tell you?' cried the Great Vance, when the other
+had done. 'But I know one thing: I'm not going to be humbugged out of my
+property.'
+
+'I should like to know what you mean to do,' said Morris.
+
+'I'll tell you that,' responded John with extreme decision. 'I'm going
+to put my interests in the hands of the smartest lawyer in London; and
+whether you go to quod or not is a matter of indifference to me.'
+
+'Why, Johnny, we're in the same boat!' expostulated Morris.
+
+'Are we?' cried his brother. 'I bet we're not! Have I committed forgery?
+have I lied about Uncle Joseph? have I put idiotic advertisements in the
+comic papers? have I smashed other people's statues? I like your cheek,
+Morris Finsbury. No, I've let you run my affairs too long; now they
+shall go to Michael. I like Michael, anyway; and it's time I understood
+my situation.'
+
+At this moment the brethren were interrupted by a ring at the bell,
+and Morris, going timorously to the door, received from the hands of a
+commissionaire a letter addressed in the hand of Michael. Its contents
+ran as follows:
+
+MORRIS FINSBURY, if this should meet the eye of, he will hear of
+SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE at my office, in Chancery Lane, at 10 A.M.
+tomorrow.
+
+MICHAEL FINSBURY
+
+
+So utter was Morris's subjection that he did not wait to be asked, but
+handed the note to John as soon as he had glanced at it himself.
+
+'That's the way to write a letter,' cried John. 'Nobody but Michael
+could have written that.'
+
+And Morris did not even claim the credit of priority.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. Final Adjustment of the Leather Business
+
+Finsbury brothers were ushered, at ten the next morning, into a large
+apartment in Michael's office; the Great Vance, somewhat restored from
+yesterday's exhaustion, but with one foot in a slipper; Morris, not
+positively damaged, but a man ten years older than he who had left
+Bournemouth eight days before, his face ploughed full of anxious
+wrinkles, his dark hair liberally grizzled at the temples.
+
+Three persons were seated at a table to receive them: Michael in
+the midst, Gideon Forsyth on his right hand, on his left an ancient
+gentleman with spectacles and silver hair. 'By Jingo, it's Uncle Joe!'
+cried John.
+
+But Morris approached his uncle with a pale countenance and glittering
+eyes.
+
+'I'll tell you what you did!' he cried. 'You absconded!'
+
+'Good morning, Morris Finsbury,' returned Joseph, with no less asperity;
+'you are looking seriously ill.'
+
+'No use making trouble now,' remarked Michael. 'Look the facts in the
+face. Your uncle, as you see, was not so much as shaken in the accident;
+a man of your humane disposition ought to be delighted.'
+
+'Then, if that's so,' Morris broke forth, 'how about the body? You don't
+mean to insinuate that thing I schemed and sweated for, and colported
+with my own hands, was the body of a total stranger?'
+
+'O no, we can't go as far as that,' said Michael soothingly; 'you may
+have met him at the club.'
+
+Morris fell into a chair. 'I would have found it out if it had come to
+the house,' he complained. 'And why didn't it? why did it go to Pitman?
+what right had Pitman to open it?'
+
+'If you come to that, Morris, what have you done with the colossal
+Hercules?' asked Michael.
+
+'He went through it with the meat-axe,' said John. 'It's all in
+spillikins in the back garden.'
+
+'Well, there's one thing,' snapped Morris; 'there's my uncle again, my
+fraudulent trustee. He's mine, anyway. And the tontine too. I claim the
+tontine; I claim it now. I believe Uncle Masterman's dead.'
+
+'I must put a stop to this nonsense,' said Michael, 'and that for ever.
+You say too near the truth. In one sense your uncle is dead, and has
+been so long; but not in the sense of the tontine, which it is even on
+the cards he may yet live to win. Uncle Joseph saw him this morning; he
+will tell you he still lives, but his mind is in abeyance.'
+
+'He did not know me,' said Joseph; to do him justice, not without
+emotion.
+
+'So you're out again there, Morris,' said John. 'My eye! what a fool
+you've made of yourself!'
+
+'And that was why you wouldn't compromise,' said Morris.
+
+'As for the absurd position in which you and Uncle Joseph have been
+making yourselves an exhibition,' resumed Michael, 'it is more than time
+it came to an end. I have prepared a proper discharge in full, which you
+shall sign as a preliminary.'
+
+'What?' cried Morris, 'and lose my seven thousand eight hundred pounds,
+and the leather business, and the contingent interest, and get nothing?
+Thank you.'
+
+'It's like you to feel gratitude, Morris,' began Michael.
+
+'O, I know it's no good appealing to you, you sneering devil!' cried
+Morris. 'But there's a stranger present, I can't think why, and I appeal
+to him. I was robbed of that money when I was an orphan, a mere child,
+at a commercial academy. Since then, I've never had a wish but to get
+back my own. You may hear a lot of stuff about me; and there's no doubt
+at times I have been ill-advised. But it's the pathos of my situation;
+that's what I want to show you.'
+
+'Morris,' interrupted Michael, 'I do wish you would let me add one
+point, for I think it will affect your judgement. It's pathetic too
+since that's your taste in literature.'
+
+'Well, what is it?' said Morris.
+
+'It's only the name of one of the persons who's to witness your
+signature, Morris,' replied Michael. 'His name's Moss, my dear.'
+
+There was a long silence. 'I might have been sure it was you!' cried
+Morris.
+
+'You'll sign, won't you?' said Michael.
+
+'Do you know what you're doing?' cried Morris. 'You're compounding a
+felony.'
+
+'Very well, then, we won't compound it, Morris,' returned Michael. 'See
+how little I understood the sterling integrity of your character! I
+thought you would prefer it so.'
+
+'Look here, Michael,' said John, 'this is all very fine and large; but
+how about me? Morris is gone up, I see that; but I'm not. And I was
+robbed, too, mind you; and just as much an orphan, and at the blessed
+same academy as himself.'
+
+'Johnny,' said Michael, 'don't you think you'd better leave it to me?'
+
+'I'm your man,' said John. 'You wouldn't deceive a poor orphan, I'll
+take my oath. Morris, you sign that document, or I'll start in and
+astonish your weak mind.'
+
+With a sudden alacrity, Morris proffered his willingness. Clerks were
+brought in, the discharge was executed, and there was Joseph a free man
+once more.
+
+'And now,' said Michael, 'hear what I propose to do. Here, John
+and Morris, is the leather business made over to the pair of you in
+partnership. I have valued it at the lowest possible figure, Pogram and
+Jarris's. And here is a cheque for the balance of your fortune. Now, you
+see, Morris, you start fresh from the commercial academy; and, as you
+said yourself the leather business was looking up, I suppose you'll
+probably marry before long. Here's your marriage present--from a Mr
+Moss.'
+
+Morris bounded on his cheque with a crimsoned countenance.
+
+'I don't understand the performance,' remarked John. 'It seems too good
+to be true.'
+
+'It's simply a readjustment,' Michael explained. 'I take up Uncle
+Joseph's liabilities; and if he gets the tontine, it's to be mine; if
+my father gets it, it's mine anyway, you see. So that I'm rather
+advantageously placed.'
+
+'Morris, my unconverted friend, you've got left,' was John's comment.
+
+'And now, Mr Forsyth,' resumed Michael, turning to his silent guest,
+'here are all the criminals before you, except Pitman. I really didn't
+like to interrupt his scholastic career; but you can have him arrested
+at the seminary--I know his hours. Here we are then; we're not pretty to
+look at: what do you propose to do with us?'
+
+'Nothing in the world, Mr Finsbury,' returned Gideon. 'I seem to
+understand that this gentleman'---indicating Morris--'is the fons et
+origo of the trouble; and, from what I gather, he has already paid
+through the nose. And really, to be quite frank, I do not see who is to
+gain by any scandal; not me, at least. And besides, I have to thank you
+for that brief.'
+
+Michael blushed. 'It was the least I could do to let you have some
+business,' he said. 'But there's one thing more. I don't want you to
+misjudge poor Pitman, who is the most harmless being upon earth. I
+wish you would dine with me tonight, and see the creature on his native
+heath--say at Verrey's?'
+
+'I have no engagement, Mr Finsbury,' replied Gideon. 'I shall be
+delighted. But subject to your judgement, can we do nothing for the man
+in the cart? I have qualms of conscience.'
+
+'Nothing but sympathize,' said Michael.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wrong Box, by 
+Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
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