"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 to-day, 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 to-morrow," 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?" inquired 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?" inquired 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. Dall 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 recognised 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 Christ Church 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 tweed-suited wanderers is unique. We have all seen them entering the table d'hote (at Spezzia, or Graetz, 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 hotel-keepers 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 organised 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 unrecognisable; 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. Dall 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 bare-headed.

"The poor old beggar!" said John, with a touch of natural feeling; "I would give ten pounds if we hadn't chivied 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 farther 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 despatch 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 to-day, get the packing-case to-night, and to-morrow 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, 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 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 note-books 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; Wiclif 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 note-book 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?" inquired 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?" inquired 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 J.P. 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 revolutionise 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," cited 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 hay-makers; 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 latch-key."

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. To-morrow 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 latch-key.

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?" inquired 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 'Will'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 3. But not if Pitman gives the business and the rest of body up to the police. my uncle's succession.

"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 3. But not if I can find a physician business and the rest of who will stick at nothing. my uncle's succession.

"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 5. But—well, that seems unhappily money in the bank. to be the case.

6. I have left the bill for 6. But if Pitman is only a dishonest eighthundred pounds in man, the presence of this bill Uncle Joseph's pocket. may lead him to keep the whole thing dark and throw the body into the New Cut.

7. Yes, but if Pitman is 7. Yes, but if I am right about dishonest and finds the Uncle Masterman, I can blackmail bill, he will know who Michael. Joseph is, and he may blackmail me.

8. But I can't blackmail Michael 8. Worse luck! (which is, besides, a very dangerous thing to do) until I find out.

9. The leather business will soon 9. But the leather business is a want money for current sinking ship. expenses, and I have none to give.

10. Yes, but it's all the ship I 10. A fact. have.

11. John will soon want money, 11. and I have none to give.

12. And the venal doctor will 12. want money down.

13. And if Pitman is dishonest 13. and don't send me to gaol, he will want a fortune.

"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 civilisation, 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 cheek. "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 latch-key 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."