 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 is smiling this skim as 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 the 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 vain glorious. Tonti is dead, and I never saw any one who even pretended to regret him, and as for the Tontin system, a word will suffice for all the purposes of this unvarnished narrative. A number of sprightly youths, the modern area, 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 lost 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 has won by which nobody concerned can possibly profit, but its fine sportsman-like character endeared it to our grandparents. In Joseph Finsbury and his brother Masterman were little lads in white-friiled trousers, their father, a well-to-do merchant in Cheepside, caused them to join a small but rich Tontin of seven and thirty lives. A thousand pounds was the entrance fee, and Joseph Finsbury can remember to this day the visit to the lawyers, where the members of the Tontin, 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 Tontina, 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 gentlemen in the Wellington boots, who vowed that he had been just such another at the same age. Joseph wondered to himself if he had worn at that time little Wellington's 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 numbers had decreased by six. In 1856 and 1857 business was more lively, for the crime-ear and the mutiny carried off no less than nine. They remained in 1870 but five of the original members, and at the date of my story, including the two Finnsbury's, but three. By this time Masterman was in his seventy-third year. He had long complained of the effects of age, having 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 percents all understood to be the very foundations of a green-old age. All these Masterman had eminently displayed, and here he was, abogando, at seventy-three, while Joseph, barely two years younger and in the most excellent preservation, had disgraced himself through life by idleness and eccentricity. But in the leather-trade he had early worried of business, for which he was supposed to have small parts. A taste for general information, not properly 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 whose recuperations 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 furthest-welled by the addition of a little girl, the daughter of John Henry Hazeltine Esquire, 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 Scott 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 Scott, 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 result 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 inquiry. In fact, when Joseph went over his accounts, replenishments of 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 that 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 Finnsbury 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-sulled quest of knowledge, an 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 proplexities 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 gayety-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 common places 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 hected with him in the back parlor 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, not a Brighton, not a Bournemouth, were doled out to him like Papp 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 pretense of friendly feeling. Morris had never ceased to upbrade his guardian with his defulcation, until he meant the burden 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 checks, 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 Scott, who retired, after his discharge, to the neighborhood of Banff, and built a castle with his profits. With 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 Dvidia, Elger, daughter of the Reverend Alexander McCraw, it was really supposed that Morris would have a fit. These 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 clocks 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 uncle's. For a while the leather merchant would lead his living investment back to John Street, like a puppy-dog, and having there imured 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 to 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's 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 part 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 the 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 that 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 deer. He had the volume down and his spectacles on his nose in stanta, as though to forestall some possible retraction. 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 so well worth the money it cost me. For as Abbas at first appeared, somewhat impatient, I was induced to, what I believe, singly 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, towards the end, he had ceased to depend on Joseph's frugal generosity and called for the flag 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, mock 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. If that 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 of neither greedy nor unfair. Where 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 that he could extract testimony from a stone, an interest from a goldmine. 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 the compromising correspondence, or who are being 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 clock uttered the 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 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 have underword to say. For my part I believe it's Morris. 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 kept, dear boy. Returned Michael. I can't have my business ours 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 Morris! Repeated Morris, doggedly. You always hate it and despise me from a boy. Oh, no, no, not hate it! 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. Oh, no, you won't, said Michael. Know what it shall see my father. I shall 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 pre-termit 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 upwards of one 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 Branson Woods, and by night as he turned upon his bed, and at mealtimes 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, Bob-o! 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 them up for three pound ten ahead. I wouldn't do it under fifty if I were a sore-bones, 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 done 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. Oh, don't be tedious, interrupted John. You've lost far more already, trying to get it back. End of chapter one. Chapter two of The Wrong Box. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please go to LibriVox.org. Ending by Andy Minter. The Wrong Box By Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne. Chapter two. In Which Morris Takes Action. Some days later, accordingly, the three males of this depressing family might have been observed by a reader of GPR James taking their departure from the East Station of Bournemouth. The weather was raw and changeable. 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, and immuno wine, and baker's bread. Let are nightly at ten-forty-five, and close yourself, if you please, throughout in hygienic flannel. Externally, the fur of the martin is indicated. Do not forget to procure a pair of health boots at Mrs. Dale and Crumbies. He has probably called you back, even after you have paid your fee to add with stentorian emphasis. A had forgotten one caution. Avoid kippard 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 great coat of martin's fur. The very railway porters at Bournemouth, which was a favourite station of the doctors, marked the old gentleman for a creature of Sir Faraday. There was but one evidence of personal taste, a visited forage cap, from this form of head-piece, since he had fled from a dying jackal on the plains of Ephesus, and weathered a borough in the Adriatic, nothing could divorce our traveller. The three fins-briss mounted into their compartment, and fell immediately to quarrelling, a step unseemly in itself, and, in this case, highly unfortunate for Morris. Yet 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. Oh, never heard of such a thing! He cried, resuming a discussion which had scarcely ceased all morning. The bill is not yours, it's 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. Here in 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. 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. Oh, 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 land them. 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 contentious? 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 pinken, and Morris revolving in his mind a dozen grudges and suspicions and alarms. It passed Christchurch by the sea, hern with its pine-woods, ring-wood on its mazy river. A little behind time, 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 Brown Dean. 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 Gallignani's messenger, having at length undermined his eyesight, he suddenly remembered the rivers of Assyria, and came to London to consult an occulist. From the occulist 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-a-dote at Spezia or Graz or Venice, with a gentile 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 to-morrow, 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 Tuportmanto, and these, after the proper interval, would be sold as unclaimed baggage to a Jew. Sir Faraday's butler would be a half-crump poorer at the year's end, and the hotel-keepers of Europe, at 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 gray 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 Brown Dean, however, a sudden jarring of breaks 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. Men 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 backwards towards Brown Dean, and the next moment all these various sounds were blotted out in the apocalyptic whistle and 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, as if the express was mostly hidden by the trees, and just at the turn, under the 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. Where has been an accident? thought he, and was elated at his perspicacity. Almost at the same time his eye lighted on John, who laid 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 at 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 purpose of rescue. Oh, 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 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 face 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 had 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 furs. It was a place where many bodies might like and sealed, 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 Martin, the ventilating cloth, the hygienic flannel, everything down to the health-boots from Mrs. Dale and Crumbies 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 chivit him and 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, you might almost say with dignity, and now they had gone and killed his uncle. "'Here,' he said suddenly, "'take his nails. We must get him into the woods. I'm not going to have anybody find this.' "'Oh, fudge!' said John. "'Where's the use?' "'Do what I tell you,' spurted Morris, as he taught the corpse by the shoulders. "'Oh, 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 burden 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 men 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 bailed the sand from the grave, it was often discoloured with their blood. An hour passed of unremitting energy on 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 upon 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 sculked off like animals into the thickest of the neighbouring covert. "'It's the best 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.' "'Oh, of course it's some rot about the tontine,' returned the other. "'But it's the nearest 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,' said 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 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 already 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 forever, my God's social 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're 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 a rather hash.' It was a mark of singular self-control in Morris, but he suffered this to pass unchallenged and even unresented. "'About the business in hand,' said he. "'Once we 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 lover's walk. "'Turn your mind to the real difficulty. "'How are we going to get him up to Bloomsbury?' Various schemes were mooted and rejected. The railway station at Brown Dean 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 of 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're working on the 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. The 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 we could drive ourselves, and take the box or whatever we get to Rinkwood or Blinderstor somewhere. We could label it specimens. Don't you see? Johnny, I believe I've it the nail at last.' "'Well, it sounds more feasible,' admitted John. "'Of course, we must take assumed names,' continued Morris. "'It will never do to keep our own. What do you say to a 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're playing pantomime for our amusement? There was never anybody named Vance, so it wasn't a musical singer.' "'That's the beauty of it,' returned John. "'He 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.' "'Labor, nerving, rough, tool.' "'Devil of one will I take,' returned his brother. "'I'm 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 Brownean 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 an 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. Maurice, with a view to cheapening the place, remarked on this defect. Well! returned the man, if you can't sleep to a bed, you'd better take a villa residence. And then, pursued Maurice, there's no water. How'd you get your water? We veiled 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. Maurice nudged his brother as they examined the water-but. 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 Maurice, foraging about the house, was presently delighted by discovering the lid of the water-but upon the kitchen shelf. Here, then, was the packing-case complete. With 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 Maurice, as the difficulties began to vanish from his bath, rose almost to the brink of exaltation. 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. Maurice retailed the discovery of the lid, and the great vance was pleased to applaud by beating on the table with his fork in true musical style. That's a dodge! he cried. I always said a water-butt was what you wanted for this business. Of course! said Maurice, thinking this a favourable opportunity to prepare his brother. Of course you must stay on in this place till I give the word, and I'll give out that uncle is resting in the new forest. He 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. Oh, come! he cried. You can stay in this hole yourself, I won't. The colour came into Maurice'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. Ah, and nearer sixty. But if you fail, return John, what then? What'll be the colour of our bank account in that case? I will pay all expenses. Said Maurice, with an inward struggle, you shall lose nothing. Well, said John with a laugh, if the exes are yours and half-profits mine, I don't mind remaining here for a couple of days. A couple of days, cried Maurice, who was beginning to get angry and controlled himself with difficulty. Well, you'd 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 Maurice. I take all the 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 Maurice in a more conciliatory tone. I only ask a month at the outside, and if Uncle Masterman's not dead by that time, you can go abroad. Go abroad? repeated John eagerly. Why shouldn't I go at once? Tell him that Joseph and I are seeing life in Paris. Nonsense, said Maurice. Well, but look here, said John. It's his house, it's such a pigsty, it's so dreary and damp. You said yourself that it was damp. Only to the carpenter, Maurice distinguished, and that was to reduce the rent. But really, you know nowhere 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 taunting 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, send me the pink one, and all the comic papers regularly. I'll face the music. As afternoon drew on, the cottage breathed more thrillingly of its native marsh. The 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 towards despair, Maurice would produce the whiskey bottle. At first John welcomed the diversion. Not for long. It has been said that 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 combatted 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, Maurice. The parties that lived in the Bastille would rise against a place like this. With admirable affectation of indifference, Maurice proposed a game of pitch and toss. To what will not the Diplomatist can't descend? 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 Maurice 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, Maurice, 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. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 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's service, or some valued husband de-camps to Texas with a lady held, 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. Enduring 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 even possible, 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 Brown Dean catastrophe, and he had no sooner remarked his prostrate nephews, than he understood his opportunity and fled. A man 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 cover. 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 shower-bang 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 visor, 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. Finnsbury, 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, might even cost nothing, and after years of mittens and hygienic flannel, his heart leapt out to meet the notion of exposure. Mr. Chandler was perhaps a little puzzled to find so older gentlemen, 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 ideas 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 parcel-posts of Dono's carriers of world of arm. Now, 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. They never went to the opera without first buying the book of the piece, and making myself acquainted with the principal-heirs, by picking them out on the piano with one finger. You must have seen the deals, Earl. Remarked the carrier, touching up his horse. I wish I could add 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, Earl, said Mr. Chandler. I should never 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 upwards of eighteen thousand. There have been many editions of the Bible. Wycliffe was the first to introduce it into England about the year thirteen hundred. The paragraph Bible, as it is called, is a well-known edition, and is so-called because it is divided into paragraphs. The Breaches Bible is another well-known instance, and gets its name either because it was printed by one of the breaches, or because the police of publication bore that name. The carrier remarked dryly 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 scientific fact, and reposes on the theory of the lever, the 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 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 divided the law on me, if I am not. In France now, and also, I believe, in the United States of America, you would have taken the right. Resume the old man. I would not, cried Mr. Chandler indignantly. I would have taken the left. Observe again. Continued Mr. Finsbury, scawning to reply, that you mend the dilapidated parts of your harness with string. I have always protested against this carelessness and sullevenliness of the English poor. In an essay that I once read before an appreciative audience, plain string, said the carrier sullenly. His facts read. I have always protested, resumed the old man, that in their private and domestic life, as well as in their laboring career, the lower classes of this country are improvident, thriftless, and extravagant. A stitching time, I would have the lower classes, cried the carrier. You are the lower classes yourself. If all you thought you were a blue and iris grad, I would 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 his 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 shock 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 lodgings. 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. ''Or he was thinking of my friend Watts, as keeps the house. He's a friend of mine, Newsy, 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 house?'' inquired Mr. Chandler with an air of candid appeal. ''Mock me,'' cried the old gentleman with spirit. ''It was kind of 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, Jim?'' cried a hearty voice from the stableyard. ''Coming in while myself?'' ''I only stopped here,'' Mr. Chandler explained. ''Let down, old gent, as one's food and lodging. Mind I warn you again him. He's worse than a temperance lecture.'' 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 parlor, 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 nearer a dozen present, all men, and, as Joseph exalted 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 maneuvers. 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 made erection, 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. The subject I need scarcely say highly interesting to the working clathers. I have calculated the scale of living for incomes of 80, 160, 200, and 240 pounds a year. I must confess that the income of 80 pounds has somewhat baffled me, and the others are not so exact as they could wish. For the price of washing varies very largely in foreign countries, and the different cokes, curls, and fowards fluctuate surprisingly. I will read my researches, and I hope you won't scrupled 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 80 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, Baghdad, Spitzbergen, Basora, Heligoland, the Silly Islands, Brighton, Cincinnati, and Nijini 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 Nijini Novgorod, with the income of 160 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 Silly 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 ninepence hapenny 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 doggiered 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 couldn't have ended it to me, I should be pleased to trust you. Do tell the truth. Answered the old gentleman. They were more than half inclined to stay. I am in need of funds. If a London challenge would help you to that 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 bid at the trigonal 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. Turn out 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. Oh, you don't care of 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-quarter an hour. Returned the innkeeper with alacrity. You can easily catch it. Joe's disposition 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 salam was truly oriental. Palm trees appeared to crowd about the little office, and the simoon or the bull-bull, but I leave this image to persons better acquainted with the East. His appearance, besides, was highly in his favour. The uniform of Sepharidae, 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 smiling the 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 born along the platform by a sum-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 born 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 Liatt Waterloo, till called for, and addressed to one William Dent Pittman. 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. End of Chapter 3, Chapter 4 of The Wrong Box This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information, or to volunteer, please go to LibriVox.org. Reading by Andy Mentor The Wrong Box by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osborne Chapter 4 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 a 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 rakeishly 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 an excent 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 Brigondage at the ticket office, and a spasm of running had brought them onto 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 will 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 luggage van. What's the row about your Uncle Joseph? Does he object to smoking? Enquired the younger traveller, mopping his brow. 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, being a nation minor, no family, no assets, and a tongue, my dear Wickham, sharper than a serpent's tooth. Can't anchor us, old potty? suggested Wickham. Not in the least, cried the other, only a man with a solid talent for being a bore. Rather cheery, I daresay, on a desert island, but on a railway journey, insupportable. You should hear him on Taunty, that asset started Taunty's. He's incredible on Taunty. By Joe, cried Wickham, then you're one of these Finsbury Taunty'n fellers. 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 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. The hijingo, 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? Oh, 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's attack, 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 would best step in, your gentleman, said he, when he had heard their story. Won't you come, Wickham? asked Michael. Catch me, I want to travel in the 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 Bishop Stoke station. You would best get out 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 Malaysian hospital 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 Malaysian 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 Malaysian hospital were liquid lead and wedges in the hand of destiny. Smith and 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 a lawyer at Bishop's Doke, his face was flushed with his exertions, and his cigar, which he had suffered to go out, was almost bitten in two. Hi, George, but this has been a lark! he cried. I have sent the wrong things 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 you were to get out is 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 for you finish with me, replied his companion with the grin. Clap it on the bill, my boy, for total loss of reputation six and eight pence. 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, replied 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 taunting affairs ourselves. I, to pay five hundred a year, am new 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, Vince Bray? Responded the magistrate, leaning back in his cushions, belighted 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. End of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 of The Wrong Box This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information, or to volunteer, please go to LibriVox.org. Reading by Andy Mentor The Wrong Box by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne Chapter 5 Mr. Gideon Forsythe 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 Forsythe. About three o'clock of the eventful day when the magistrate tampered with the labels, a somewhat moody and distempered ramble had carried Mr. Forsythe to the corner of John Street, and about the same moment Miss Hazeltine was called to the door of number sixteen by a thundering double-knock. Mr. Gideon Forsythe 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 in temperate 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 squire radical. 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 tourism in its severe and senile aspects. To the opinions of Mr. Bradlaw, in fact, he added the temper and sympathies of that extinct animal, the squire. He admired pugilism, he carried a formidable oak and staff, he was a reverent churchman, and it was hard to know which would have more volcanically stirred his collar, a person who should have defended the established church, or one who should have neglected to attend its celebrations. He had besides some levelling catch words 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 oak and 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 Squire Radical, but there was one part of the program 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 curb, 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's 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. No, she'll leave it on the pavement then. An 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, Ms. Hazeltine, said Gideon, putting out his hand. Julia gave a little cry of pleasure. Oh, Mr. Forsythe, she cried. I'm 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 customs 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, invisible 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, nor 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. Oh, Mikey III, sir, and I'll stand sand to everybody a year, 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's 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. Forsythe? Staturely, with care, fragile, read Gideon aloud from the painted warning on the box. Then you were told nothing about this? No, responded Julia. Oh, Mr. Forsythe, 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 bad Gideon followed her. They found both the hammer and the 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. But, 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 afterwards. It feels much better, he added. I assure you it does. And now I think you're 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 the suspicion of a frown, and the indiscreet young man was glad to be able 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's a Hercules, cried Gideon. I might have guessed that from his calf. I'm supposed to be rather partial to the 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. Oh, 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. Well, of course I do, and besides I want some cakes for tea, and I've nobody to send. Here is a latch-key. Gideon put on his hat with a lacquery, 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 were 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. Oh, what adorable cream-tarts! said Julia, opening the bag, and the dearest little cherry-tartlets with all the cherries spilling 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 Maurice's letter. Read it aloud, please, because 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 Brown Dean 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 marbled eggs. Miss Hazeltine, he continued, would you mind my asking a few questions? Certainly not, replied Julia, and if you can make me understand why Maurice has sent a statue of Hercules instead of a barrel containing specimens for a friend, I should be grateful till my dying day. And what are specimens for a friend? I haven't guessed, said Gideon. Specimens are usually bits of stone, but rather smaller than our friend the monument. Still, that's 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 to 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. And 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. Oh, 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're 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. Oh, 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. Oh, Mr. Forsythe! 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, the kindest morning? And he stared about the lobby, his eyes, as they fell upon the legs of Hercules, literally gobbling in his head. What is that? he screamed. What is that waxwork? Speak your 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've never heard of it. Came addressed in your hand, replied Julia. We had nearly to pull the house down to get it in, and that's all 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 un-gentlemanly 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. Return, 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 un-manly fellow. Here is my arm. Let me take you where you will be secure from insult. Mr. Forsythe, 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 handsome 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. Six months above fair, he cried recklessly, Waterloo Station of your life, six months for yourself. Mike, a shilling governor, 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 handsome vanished from John Street.