THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Iffilliam B. Vasels
 
 THE WRONG BOX
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 AND 
 
 LLOYD OSBOURNE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1898 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 C0P\'RICHT, 1889, BV 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 TB0W9 
 
 MINTfNQ ANb eOOKBINOINQ COMPANT, 
 
 HEW TOHK,
 
 \ : rr 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 "Nothing like a little judicious levity," says Michael 
 Finsbury in the text : nor can any better excuse be 
 found for the volume in the reader's hand. The 
 authors can but add that one of them is old enough 
 to be ashamed of himself, and the other young 
 enough to learn better. 
 
 E. L. S. 
 
 L. O. 
 
 8523P'> 
 
 »/Wi«^
 
 OOISTTEJ^TS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FAOB 
 
 In which Morris Suspects, .1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 In which Morris takes Action, 19 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 The Lecturer at Large, 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Magistrate in the Luggage Van, .... 54 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Mr. Gideon Forsyth and the Gigantic Box, . . . 60
 
 Vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Tribulations op Morris : Part the First, . . 73 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 In which William Dent Pitman takes Legal Advice, 92 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 In which Michael Finsbury Enjoys a Holiday, . . 107 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Glorious Conclusion of Michael Finsbury's Holiday, . 132 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Gideon Forsyth and the Broadwood Grand, , . 152 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 The Maestro Jimson, 164 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PosmvELY the Last Appearance of the Broadwood 
 
 Grand, 185
 
 CONTENTS. vii 
 
 CHAPTER Xin. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Tribulations of Morris : Part the Second, . . 198 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 William Bent Pitman Hears of Something to His Ad- 
 vantage, 211 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 The Return of the Great Vance, 230 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Final Adjustment op the Leather Business, . . 239
 
 THE AVRONG BOX. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS SUSPECTS. 
 
 How very little does the amateur, dwelling at home at 
 ease, comprehend the labors and perils of the author, and, 
 when he smilingly skims the surface of a work of fiction, 
 how little does he consider the hours of toil, consultation 
 of authorities, researches in the Bodleian, correspondence 
 with learned and illegible Germans — in one word, the 
 vast scaffolding that was first built up and then knocked 
 down, to while away an hour for him in a railway train ! 
 Thus I might begin this tale with a biography of Tonti — 
 birthplace, parentage, genius probably inherited from his 
 mother, remarkable instance of precocity, etc. — and a 
 complete treatise on the system to which he bequeathed 
 his name. The material is all beside me in a pigeon-hole, 
 but I scorn to appear vainglorious. Tonti is dead, and I 
 never saw anyone who even pretended to regret him ; and 
 as for the tontine system, a word will suffice for all the 
 purposes of this unvai'nished narrative.
 
 ti THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 A number of sprightly youths (the more the merrier) 
 put up a certain sum of money, which is then funded in 
 a pool under trustees ; coming on for a century later, the 
 proceeds are fluttered for a moment in the face of the last 
 survivor, who is probably deaf, so that he cannot even 
 hear of his success — and who is certainly dying, so that 
 he might just as well have lost. The peculiar poetry and 
 even humor of the scheme is now apparent, since it is one 
 by which nobody concerned can possibly profit ; but its 
 fine, sportsmanlike character endeared it to our grand- 
 parents. 
 
 "When Joseph Finsbury and his brother Masterman 
 were little lads in white-frilled trousers, their father — a 
 well-to-do merchant in Cheapside — caused them to join a 
 small but rich tontine of seven and thirty lives. A 
 thousand pounds was the entrance fee ; and Joseph Fins- 
 bury can remember to this day the visit to the lawyer's, 
 where the members of the tontine — all children like him- 
 self — were assembled together and sat in turn in the big 
 office-chau', and signed their names with the assistance of 
 a kind old gentleman in spectacles and Wellington boots. 
 He remembers playing with the children afterward on 
 the lawn at the back of the lawyer's house, and a battle 
 royal that he liad with a brother ton tin er, 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)
 
 IN WHICH MOKRIS SUSPECTS. 6 
 
 commended by the gentleman in the Wellington boots, 
 who Yowed he had been just such another at the same 
 age. Joseph wondered to himself if he had worn at that 
 time little Wellingtons and a little bald head, and when 
 (in bed at night) he gi-ew tired of telling himself stories of 
 sea-fights, he used to dress himself up as the old gentle- 
 man, and entertain other little boys and girls with cake 
 and wine. 
 
 In the year 18-40 the thirty-seven were all alive ; in 
 1850 their number had decreased by six ; in 1856 and 
 1857 business was more lively, for the Crimea and the 
 Mutiny carried off no less than nine. There remained in 
 1870 but five of the original members, and at the date of 
 my story, including the two Finsbui-j's, but three. 
 
 By this time Masterman was in his seventy-third year ; 
 he had long complained of the efiects of age, had long 
 since retired from business, and now lived in absolute 
 seclusion under the roof of his son IMichael, the well- 
 known solicitor. Joseph, on the other hand, was stiU up 
 and about, and still presented but a semi-venerable figure 
 on the streets in which he loved to wander. This was the 
 more to be deplored, because Masterman had led (even 
 to the least particular) a model British life. Industry, 
 regularity, respectability, and a preference for the four 
 per cents, are understood to be the very foundations of a 
 green old age. All these Masterman had eminently dis- 
 played, and here he was, ab agendo, at seventy-three ; while 
 Joseph, barely two years younger, and in the most ex-
 
 4 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 cellent preservation, had disgraced himself through life 
 by idleness and eccentricity. Embarked in the leather 
 trade, he had eai*ly wearied of business, for which he was 
 supposed to have small parts. A taste for general infor- 
 mation, not promptly checked, had soon begun to sap his 
 manhood. There is no passion more debilitating to the 
 mind, unless, perhaps, it be that itch of public speaking 
 which it not infrequently accompanies or begets. The 
 two were conjoined in the case of Joseph ; the acute stage 
 of this double malady, that in which the patient dehvers 
 gi'atuitous 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 text-books and the daily papers ; he did not 
 even fly as high as cyclopaedias ; life, he would say, has his 
 volume. His lectures were not meant (he would declare) 
 for college professors ; they were addressed direct to 
 "the great heai't of the people," and the heart of the peo- 
 ple must certainly be sounder than its head, for his lucu- 
 brations were received with favor. 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 Kegarded in its Kelation to the 
 Masses," read before the Working Men's Mutual Improve- 
 ment Society, Isle of Dogs, it was received with a " literal
 
 IN WHICH MORKIS SUSPECTS. 
 
 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 reputa- 
 tion among the more cultivated portion of the ignorant, 
 his domestic life was suddenly overwhelmed by orphans. 
 The death of his younger brother Jacob saddled him with 
 the charge of two boys, Morris and John ; and in the 
 course of the same year his family was still further swelled 
 by the addition of a Httle girl, the daughter of John 
 Henry Hazeltine, Esq., a gentleman of small property and 
 fewer fi'iends. He had met Joseph only once, at a lecture- 
 hall in HoUoway ; 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. Mor- 
 ris 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 inexplic- 
 able symptoms of decHne. A young but capable Scot 
 was chosen as manager to the entei-prise, and the cares of 
 business never again afflicted Joseph Finsbury. Leaving
 
 b THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 his charges in the hands of the capable Scot (who was 
 married), ho began his extensive travels on the Conti- 
 nent and in Asia IMinor. 
 
 With a i3ol3^glot Testament in one hand and a phrase- 
 book in the othei*, he groped his way among the speakers 
 of eleven European languages. The first of these guides 
 is hardly applicable to the pui*jDoses 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 an- 
 other filled' many note-books with the results of his re- 
 searches. 
 
 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 some- 
 what awkward, as the leather business was by no means 
 in a state to court inquii-y. In fact, when Joseph went 
 over his accounts preparatory to surrendering his trust, 
 he was dismayed to discover that his brother's fortune had 
 not increased by his stewardship ; even by making over to 
 his two wards every penny he had in the world, there 
 would still be a deficit of seven thousand eight hundred 
 pounds. When these facts were communicated to the 
 two brothers in the presence of a lawyer, Morris Finsbury 
 threatened his uncle with all the terrors of the law, and
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS SUSPECTS. 7 
 
 was only prevented from taking extreme steps by the ad- 
 vice of the professional man. 
 
 " You cannot get blood fi-om 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 pos- 
 sessed and assigned to his nephew his contingent interest 
 in the tontine, already quite a hopeful speculation. On 
 the other, Morris agreed to harbor 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 com- 
 plained. She was, indeed, sincerely attached to her in- 
 competent guardian. He had never been unkind ; his age 
 spoke for him loudly ; there was something appealing in 
 his whole-souled quest of knowledge and innocent delight 
 in the smallest mark of admiration ; and though the law- 
 yer had warned her she was being sacrificed, Julia had 
 refused to add to the perplexities of Uncle Joseph. 
 
 In a large, dreary house in John Street, Bloomsbury, 
 these four dwelt together ; a family in appearance, in 
 reality a financial association. Julia and Uncle Joseph 
 were, of course, slaves ; John, a gentleman with a taste for 
 the banjo, the music-hall, the Gaiety bar, and the sporting 
 papers, must have been anywhere a secondary figure ; and 
 the cares and delights of empire devolved entirely upon
 
 8 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 Moms. That these are inextricably intermixed is one of 
 the commonplaces with which the bland essayist consoles 
 the incompetent and the obscure, but in the case of Mor- 
 ris the bitter must have largely outweighed the sweet. 
 He grudged no trouble to himself, he spared none to 
 others ; he called the servants in the morning, he served 
 out the stores with his own hand, he took soundings of 
 the sherry, he numbered the remainder biscuits ; painful 
 scenes took place over the weekly bills, and the cook was 
 frequently impeached, and the tradespeople came and 
 hectored with him in the back 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 hira 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 Avas a rather 
 gambling stock in which he had invested heavily ; and he 
 spared no pains in nursing the security. The old man 
 was seen monthly by a physician, whether he was well or 
 ill. His diet, his raiment, his occasional outings, now to 
 Brighton, now to Bournemouth, were doled out to him 
 like pap to infants. In bad weather he must keep the 
 house. In good weather, by half-past nine, he must be 
 ready in the hall ; Morris would see that he had gloves 
 and that his shoes were sound ; and the pair would start 
 for the leather business ai-m in arm. The wav there mus
 
 m WHICH MORRIS SUSPECTS. 9 
 
 probably dreary enough, for there was no pretence of 
 friendly feeling ; Morris had never ceased to upbraid his 
 guardian with his defalcation and to lament the burthen 
 of Miss Hazeltine ; and Joseph, though he was a mild 
 enough soul, regarded his nephew with something very 
 near akin to hatred. But the way there was nothing to 
 the journey back ; for the mere sight of the place of busi- 
 ness, as well as every detail of its transactions, was enough 
 to poison life for any Finsbury. 
 
 Joseph's name was still over the door ; it was he who 
 still signed the cheques ; but this was only policy on the 
 part of Morris, and designed to discourage other members 
 of the Tontine. In reality, the business was entirely his ; 
 and he found it ah 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 
 l^rofits he managed to restrict. Nobody had ever made 
 money out of that concern except the capable Scot, who 
 retired (after his discharge) to the neighborhood of Banff 
 and built a castle with his profits. The memory of 
 this fallacious Caledonian, Morris would revile daily, 
 as he sat in the private office opening his mail, with 
 old Joseph at another table, sullenly awaiting orders, 
 or savagely affixing signatures to he knew not what. 
 And when the man of the heather pushed cynicism so 
 far as to send him the announcement of his second mar- 
 riage (to Davida, eldest daughter of the Rev. Alexander
 
 10 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 McCraw) it was really supposed that Morris Avould have 
 had a fit. 
 
 Business hours, in the Finsbury leather trade, had been 
 cut to the quick ; even Morris's strong sense of duty to him- 
 self was not strong enough to dally within those walls and 
 under the shadow of that bankruptcy ; and presently the 
 manager and the clerks would draw a long breath, and 
 compose themselves for another day of procrastination. 
 Eaw Haste, on the authority of my Lord Tennyson, is 
 half-sister to Delay ; but the Business Habits are certainly 
 her uncles. Meanwhile, the leather-merchant would lead 
 his living investment back to John Street like a puppy 
 dog ; and having there immured him in the hall, would 
 depart for the day on the quest of seal rings, the only 
 passion of his life. Joseph had more than the vanity of 
 man, he had that of lecturers. He owned he was in fault ; 
 although more sinned against (by the capable Scot) than 
 sinning ; but had he steeped his hands in gore, he would 
 still not deserve to be thus dragged at the chariot-wlieels 
 of a young man, to sit a captive in the halls of his own 
 leather business, to be entertained with mortifying com- 
 ments 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 iu custody, hke 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 up- 
 stairs to Julia and his note-books. The drawing-room at
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS SUSPECTS. 11 
 
 least was sacred from Morris ; it belonged to the old man 
 and the young girl; it was there that she made her 
 dresses ; it was there that he inked his spectacles over 
 the registration of disconnected facts and the calculation 
 of insignificant statistics. 
 
 Here he would sometimes lament his connection with 
 the Tontine. " If it were not for that," he cried one 
 afternoon, " he wordd not care to keep me. I might be 
 a free man, Julia. And I could so easily support myself 
 by giving lectui-es," 
 
 " To be sure you could," said she ; " and I think it one 
 of the meanest things he ever did to deprive you of that 
 amusement. There were those nice people at the Isle of 
 Cats (wasn't it ?) who wrote and asked you so very kindly 
 to give them an address. I did think he might have let 
 you go to the Isle of Cats." 
 
 "He is a man of no intelligence," cried Joseph. "He 
 lives here literally surrounded by the absorbing spectacle 
 of life, and for all the good it does him, he might just as 
 well be in his coffin. Think of his opportunities ! The 
 heart of any other yoimg man would burn within him at 
 the chance. The amount of information that I have it in 
 my power to convey, if he would only listen, is a thing 
 that beggars language, Julia." 
 
 " Whatever you do, my dear, you mustn't excite your- 
 self," said Juha ; "for you know, if you look at all ill, the 
 doctor will be sent for." 
 
 "That is very true," returned the old man, humbly, "I
 
 12 THE WROMG BOX. 
 
 will compose myself with a little study." He thumbed 
 his galleiy of note-books. " I wonder," he said, " I won- 
 der (since I see your hands are occupied) whether it 
 might not interest you " 
 
 " Why, of course it would," cried Julia. " Read me 
 one of vour nice stories, there's a dear ! 
 
 He had the volume down and his spectacles upon his 
 nose instanter, as thougli to forestall some possible re- 
 tractation. "What I propose to read to you," said he, 
 skimming through the pages, " is the notes of a liigbly 
 important conversation with a Dutch courier of the 
 name of David Abbas, which is the Latin for abbot. 
 Its results are well worth the money it cost me, for 
 as Abbas at fii'st appeared somewhat impatient, I was 
 induced to (what is, I believe, singularly called) stand 
 him drink. It runs only to about five and twenty pages. 
 Yes, here it is." He cleared his throat, and began to 
 read. 
 
 Mr. Finsbury (according to his own report) contributed 
 about four hundred and ninety-nine five-hundredtbs 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 wovdd seem as if he had consoled 
 himself by frequent applications to the bottle ; it would 
 even seem that (toward the end) he had ceased to depend 
 on Joseph's frugal generosity, and called for the flagon on 
 his own account. The effect, at least, of some mellowing
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS SUSPECTS. 13 
 
 influence was visible in the record : Abbas became suJ- 
 denly a willing Avitness ; he began to volunteer disclosui-es ; 
 and Julia had just looked up from her seam with some- 
 thin"' Hke a smile, when Morris burst into the house, eacrerlv 
 caUing 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 Lieuteuant-General Sir 
 Glascow Biggar, K.G.S.I., K.C.M.G., etc., and the prize 
 of the tontine now lav between the Finsburv brothers. 
 Here was Mox'ris's opi^ortunity at last. The brothers had 
 never, it is true, been cordiaL When word came that 
 Joseph was in Asia Minor, Masterman had expressed him- 
 self with iiTitation. "I call it simply indecent," he had 
 said. " Mark my words — we shaU hear of him next at the 
 North Pole." And these bitter expressions had been re- 
 ported to the traveller on his return. What was worse, 
 Masterman had refused to attend the lecture on " Educa- 
 tion ; its aims, objects, purpose, and desirability," although 
 invited to the platform. Since then, the brothers had not 
 met. On the other hand, they never had openly quar- 
 relled ; Joseph (by Morris's orders) was prepai*ed to waive 
 the advantage of his juniority ; Masterman had enjoyed all 
 thi'ough life the reputation of a man neither greedy nor 
 unfair. Here, then, were all the elements of compromise 
 assembled ; and Morris, suddenly beholding his seven 
 thousand eight hundred pounds restored to him, and him- 
 self dismissed from the vicissitudes of the leather trade,
 
 14 TllIC WRONG IJOX. 
 
 liastened the next moruiug 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 pro- 
 tectors, he had become a trafficker in shady affairs. He 
 was known to be the man for a lost cause, it was known ho 
 could extract testimony from a stone, and interest from a 
 gold mine ; and his office was besieged in consequence by 
 all that numerous class of persons who have still some 
 reputation to lose, and find themselves upon the point of 
 losing it ; by those who have made undesirable acquaint- 
 ances, who have mislaid a compromising correspondence, 
 or who are blackmailed by their own butlers. In private 
 life, Michael was a man of pleasure ; but it was thought 
 bis dire experience at the office had gone far to sober bim, 
 and it was known that (in the matter of investments) lie 
 prefen-ed 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 pro- 
 ceeded feverishly to set forth his scheme. For near 
 upon a quarter of an hour, the lawyer suffered him to 
 dwell upon its manifest advantages uninterrupted. Then 
 Michael rose from his seat, and ringing for his clerk, 
 uttered a single clause. 
 
 " It won't do, Morris." 
 
 It was in vain that the leather merchant pleaded and
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS SUSPECTS. 15 
 
 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 jiool. Still there came the same answer : 
 "It won't do." 
 
 " I can't see the bottom of this," he said at last. " You 
 answer none of my arguments, you haven't a word to say. 
 For my part, I believe it's malice." 
 
 The lawyer smiled at him benignly. "You may believe 
 one thing," said he ; "whatever else I do, I am not going 
 to gratify any of your curiosity. You see I am a trifle 
 more communicative to-day, because this is our last inter- 
 view upon the subject." 
 
 " Our last interview ! " cried Morris. 
 
 "The stirrup-cup, dear boy," returned Michael. "I 
 can't have my business hours encroached upon. And by 
 the by, have you no business of your own ? Are there no 
 convulsions in the leather trade ? " 
 
 " I beheve it to be malice," repeated Morris, doggedly. 
 " You always hated and despised me fi*om a boy." 
 
 "No, no — not hated," returned Michael, soothingly. 
 " I rather like you than otherwise ; there's such a per- 
 manent surprise about you, you look so dark and attrac- 
 tive 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."
 
 16 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 "Yes," said Morris, disregarding these remarks, "it's 
 no use coming here, I shall see your father." 
 
 "Oh, no. you won't," said Michael. "Nobody shall see 
 my father." 
 
 " I should like to know why," cried his cousin. 
 
 "I never make any secret of that," replied the lawyer. 
 "He is too ill." 
 
 " If he is as ill as you say," cried the other, " the more 
 reason for accepting my proposal. I will see him." 
 
 " Will you ? " said Michael, and he rose and rang for 
 his clerk. 
 
 It was now time, according to Sir Faradaj' 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 j)urer 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 indif- 
 ferent 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 preter- 
 mit these visits to the city, and have a quiet time for 
 thought. He was prepared for any sacrifice ; all he de- 
 sired was to get his money again and clear his feet of 
 leather ; and it would be strange, since he was so mod- 
 est in his desires and the pool amounted to upward of 
 a hundred and sixteen thousand pounds — it would be
 
 IN WUICII MOEKIS SUSPECTS. 17 
 
 strange, indeed, if he could find no way of influencing 
 Michael. "If I could only guess his reason," he re- 
 peated to himself ; and by day, as he walked in Branh- 
 Bome woods, and by night, as he turned upon his bed, 
 and at meal times, when he forgot to eat, and in the 
 bathing machine, when he forgot to dress himself, that 
 problem was constantly before him : why had Michael re- 
 fused ? 
 
 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 sei'vants. We shall all follow in three days." 
 
 " Oh, brayvo ! " cried John. " But why ? " 
 
 "I've found it out, John," returned his brother, gently. 
 
 " It ? What ? " inquired John. 
 
 " Why Michael won't compromise," said Morris. "It's 
 because he can't. It's because Masterman's dead, and he's 
 keeping it dark." 
 
 " Golly ! " cried the impressionable John. " But what's 
 the use ? why does he do it, anyway ? " 
 
 "To defraud us of the tontine," said his brother. 
 
 "He cotddn't ; you have to have a doctor's certificate," 
 objected John. 
 
 "Did you never hear of venal doctors?" inquired Mor- 
 ris. " They're as common as blackberries ; you can pick 
 'em up for three pound ten a head."
 
 3 8 THE WKONG BOX. 
 
 "I wouldn't do it under fifty if I were a sawbones," 
 ejaculated John. 
 
 " And tlien, Michael," continued Morris, " is in the 
 very thick of it. All his clients have come to grief ; his 
 whole business is rotten eggs. If any man could arrange 
 it, he could ; and depend upon it, he has his plan all 
 straight ; and depend upon it, it's a good one, for he's 
 clever, and be damned to him ! But I'm clever, too ; i^nd 
 I'ju desperate. I lost seven thousand eight hundred 
 pounds when I was an orphan at school." 
 
 "Oh, don't be tedious," interrupted John. "Touve 
 lost far more akeady trying to get it back."
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 IN WHICH MOREIS TAKES ACTION. 
 
 Some days later, accordingly, the tlu-ee males of this 
 depressing family might have been observed (by a reader 
 of G. P. R James) taking their departure from the East 
 Station of Bournemouth. The weather was raw and 
 changeable, and Joseph was arrayed in consequence ac- 
 cording to the principles of Sir Faraday Bond, a man no 
 less strict (as is well known) on costume than on diet. 
 There are few polite invalids who have not lived, or tried 
 to live, by that punctilious physician's orders. "Avoid 
 tea, madam," the reader has doubtless heard him say, 
 "avoid tea, fried liver, antimonial wine, and bakers' 
 bread. Retire nightly at 10.45 ; and clothe yourself (if 
 you please) throughout in hygienic flannel. Externally, 
 the fm- of the marten is indicated. Do not forget to pro- 
 cure a pair of health boots at Messrs. Dall & Grumble's." 
 And he has probably called you back, even after you have 
 paid your fee, to add with stentorian emphasis : " I had 
 forgotten one caution : avoid kippered sturgeon, as you 
 would the very devil ! " The unfortunate Joseph was cut 
 to the pattern of Sir Faraday in eveiy button ; he was 
 shod with the health boot ; his suit was of genuine venti-
 
 20 THE WRONG nox. 
 
 lating cloth ; his shirt of hygienic flannel, a somewhat 
 dingy fabric ; and he was draped to the kuees in the in- 
 evitable great-coat of marten's fur. The very railway 
 porters at Bournemouth (which was a favorite station of 
 the doctor's) marked the old gentleman for a creature of 
 Sir Faraday. There was but one evidence of personal 
 taste, a vizarded forage-cap ; from this form of headpiece, 
 since he had fled from a dying jackal on the plains of 
 Ephesus, and weathered a bora in the Adriatic, nothing 
 could divorce our traveller. 
 
 The three Finsburys mounted into their compartment, 
 and fell immediately to quarrelling, a step unseemly in it- 
 self and (in this case) highly unfortunate for Morris. Had 
 he lingered a moment longer by the window, this tale need 
 never have been written. For he might then have ob- 
 served (as the porters did not fail to do) the arrival of a 
 second passenger iu tbe uniform of Sir Faraday Bond. 
 But he had other matters on hand which he judged (God 
 knows how erroneously) to be more important. 
 
 " I never heard of such a thing," he cried, resuming a 
 discussion which had scarcely ceased all morning. "The 
 bill is not yours ; it is mine." 
 
 " It is payable to me," returned the old gentleman, with 
 an air of bitter obstinacy. "I will do what I please with 
 my own property." 
 
 The bill was one for eight hundred pounds, which had 
 been given him at breakfast to endorse, and which he had 
 simply pocketed.
 
 IN WHICH MORKIS TAKES ACTION. 21 
 
 " Hear him, Johnny ! " cried Morris. "His property ! 
 the very clothes upon his back belong to me." 
 
 " Let him alone," said John, "I'm sick of both of you." 
 
 " That is no way to speak of your uncle, sir," cried 
 Joseph. " I will not endure this disrespect. You are a 
 pair of exceedingly forward, impudent, and ignorant 
 young men, and I have quite made up my mind to put an 
 end to the whole business." 
 
 " Oh, skittles ! " said the graceful John. 
 
 Bat 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 oc- 
 casion 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 ques- 
 tion of amusement into their own hands ; and the lec- 
 turer (along with the board schoolmaster, the Baptist 
 clergyman, and a working-man's candidate, who made up 
 his bodyguard) was ultimately di'iven 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 lii)s, 
 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 Loudon." 
 
 Joseph did not so much as look at him in answer ; with
 
 22 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 tremulous hands lie produced a copy of the British Me- 
 chanic, and ostentatiously buried himself in its perusal. 
 
 "I wonder what can make him so cantankerous? " re- 
 flected 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 
 Fink Un, and Morris, revolving in his mind a dozen 
 grudges, and suspicious, and alarms. It passed Christ 
 Church by the sea, Heme with its pinewoods, Ringwood 
 on its mazy river. A little behind time, but not much for 
 the South Western, it drew up at the platform of a station, 
 in the midst of the New Forest, the real name of which (in 
 case the railway company " might have the law of me ") 
 I shall veil under the alias of Browndean. 
 
 Many passengers put their heads to the window, and 
 among the rest an old gentleman on whom I willingly 
 dwell, for I am nearly done -with him now, and (in the 
 whole course of the present nai-rative) 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 GaUgnani's Messenger having at length un- 
 dermined his eyesight, he suddenly remembered the 
 rivers of Assyria and came to London to consult an oculist. 
 From the oculist to the dentist, and from both to the
 
 m WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION. 23 
 
 physician, the step appears inevitable ; presently be 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 wan 
 derers is unique. We have all seen them entering the 
 table d'hote (at Spezzia, or Griitz, or Venice) with a gen- 
 teel 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 
 worldlj' effects were all in the van in two portmanteaus, 
 and these after the proper interval would be sold as un- 
 claimed baggage to a Jew ; Sir Faraday's butler would be 
 a half-crown poorer at the year's end, and the hotel-keepers 
 of Europe about the same date would be mourning a 
 small but quite observable decline in profits. And that 
 would be literally ail. 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 Browndean, however, 
 a sudden jarring of brakes set everybody's teeth on edge.
 
 24 THK ■WRONG BOX. 
 
 and there was a brutal stoppage. Morris Fiusbuiy was 
 aware of a confused uproar of voices, and sprang to the 
 window. Women were screaming, men were tumbling 
 from the windows on the track, the guard was crying to 
 them to stay where they wei-e ; at the same time the train 
 began to gather way and move very slowly backward 
 toward Browndean ; and the next moment, all these var- 
 ious sounds were blotted out in the apocalyptic whistle 
 and the thundering onslaught of the down express. 
 
 The actual collision Morris did not hear. Perhaps he 
 fainted. He had a wild dream of having seen the carriage 
 double up and fall to pieces like a pantomime trick ; and 
 sure enough, when he came to himself, he was lying on 
 the bare earth and under the open sky. His head ached 
 savagely ; he carried his hand to his brow and was not 
 surprised to see it red with blood. The air was filled with 
 an intolerable, throbbing roar, which he exj^ected to find 
 die away with the return of consciousness ; and instead of 
 that it seemed but to swell the louder and to pierce the 
 more cruelly through his ears. It was a raging, bellowing 
 thunder, like a boiler-riveting factory. 
 
 And now curiosity began to stir, and he sat up and 
 looked about him. The track at this point ran in a sharp 
 curve about a wooded hillock ; all of the near side was 
 heaped with the wreckage of the Bournemouth train ; 
 that of the express was mostly hidden by the trees ; and 
 just at the turn, under clouds of vomiting steam and piled 
 about with caii-ns of living coal, lay what remained of the
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION. 25 
 
 two engines, one upon the other. On the heathy mai-gin 
 of the line were many people running to and fro, and cry- 
 ing aloud as they ran, and many others lying motionless 
 like sleeping tramps. 
 
 MoiTis suddenly drew an inference. " There has been 
 an accident ! " thought he, and was elated at his perspi- 
 cacity. Almost at the same time his eye lighted on John, 
 who lay close by as white as paper. *' Poor old John ! 
 poor old cove ! " he thought, the schoolboy exj)ression 
 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 sevei'al ineffec- 
 tual movements of his lips, "What's the row?" said he, in 
 a phantom voice. 
 
 The din of that devil's smithy still thundered in their 
 ears. "Let us get away from that," Morris cried, and 
 pointed to the vomit of steam that still spouted from the 
 broken engines. And the pair helped each other up, and 
 stood and quaked and wavered and stared about them at 
 the scene of death. 
 
 Just then they were approached by a party of men who 
 had already organized themselves for the purposes of rescue. 
 
 " Are you hurt ? " cried one of these, a young fellow 
 with the sweat streaming down his pallid face, and who 
 by the way he was treated was evideutly the doctor. 
 
 Morris shook his head, and the young man, nodding 
 grimly, handed him a bottle of some spirit.
 
 26 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 "Take a drink of that," be said, "your friend looks as 
 if he needed it badly. We want every man we can get," 
 be 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 
 si^ur of the dram, awoke to the full possession of his 
 wits. 
 
 " My God ! " he cried. " Uncle Joseph ! " 
 
 "Yes," said John, " where can he be ? He can't be far 
 off. I hope the old party isn't damaged." 
 
 "Come and help me to look," said Morris, with a snap 
 of savage determination sti*angely foreign to his ordinary 
 bearing ; and then, for one moment, he broke forth, " If 
 he's dead ! " he cried, and shook his fist at heaven. 
 
 To and fro the brothers hurried, staring in the faces of 
 the wounded, or turning the dead upon their backs. 
 They must have thus examined forty people, and still 
 there was no word of Uncle Joseph. But now the course 
 of their search brought them near the centre of the colli- 
 sion, where the boilers were still blowing off steam with a 
 deafening clamor. It was a part of the field not yet 
 gleaned by the rescuing party. The gi'ound, especially' on 
 the margin of the wood, was full of inequalities — here a 
 pit, there a hillock surmounted with a bush of furze. It 
 was a place where many bodies might lie concealed, and 
 they beat it like pointers after game. Suddenly Morris, 
 who was leading, paused and reached forth his index
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION. 27 
 
 ■with a tragic gesture. Jolin followed the direction of his 
 brother's Imud. 
 
 In the bottom of a sandy hole lay something that had 
 once been human. The face had suffered severely, and it 
 was unrecognizable ; but that was not required. The 
 snowy hair, the coat of Marten, the ventilating cloth, the 
 hygienic flannel — everything down to the health boots 
 from Messrs. Dall & Crumbles, 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 we hadn't 
 chivied him in the train ! " 
 
 But there was no sentiment in the face of Morris as he 
 gazed upon the dead. Gnawing his nails, with introverted 
 eyes, his brow marked with the stamp of tragic indigna- 
 tion 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 IMiss Hazel- 
 tine, his cousin had been defrauding him of the Tontine, 
 and he had borne all this, we might almost say, with dig- 
 nity, and now they had gone and hilled his uncle ! 
 
 " Here !" he said, suddenly, "take his heels, we must 
 get him into the woods. I'm not going to have anybody 
 find this." 
 
 " Oh, fudge ! " said John, " where's the use ? "
 
 28 THE WliONa BOX, 
 
 *' Do what I tell you," si^irted Morris, as he took the 
 corpse by the shoulders. " Am I to carry him my- 
 self ? " 
 
 They were close upou the borders of the wood ; in ten 
 or twelve paces they were under cover ; and a little 
 farther back, in a sandy clearing of the trees, they laid 
 their burthen down, and stood and looked at it with 
 loathing. 
 
 " What do you mean to do ? " whispered John. 
 
 " Bury him, to be sure ! " responded Morris, and he 
 opened his pocket knife and began feverishly to dig. 
 
 " You'll never make a hand of it with that," objected 
 the other. 
 
 "If you won't help me, you cowardly shirk," screamed 
 Morris, " you can go to the devil ! " 
 
 " It's the childishest folly," said John, " but no man 
 shall call me a coward," and he began to help his brother 
 grudgingly. 
 
 The soil was sandy and light, but matted with the roots 
 of the surrounding firs. Gorse tore their hands ; and as 
 they baled the saud from the grave, it was often dis- 
 colored with their blood. An hour passed of unremitting 
 energy upon the part of Morris, of lukewarm help on that 
 of John ; and still the trench was barely nine inches in 
 depth. Into this the body was rudely flung ; sand was 
 piled upon it, and then more sand must be dug, and gorse 
 had to be cut to pile on that ; and still from one end of 
 the sordid mound a pair of feet projected and caught the
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION. 29 
 
 f 
 
 light upjn tbeir pateut-leather toes. But by this time 
 the nerves of both were shaken ; even Morris had enough 
 of his grisly task ; and they skulked off like animals into 
 the thickest of the neighboring covert. 
 
 "It's the best that we can do," said Morris, sitting 
 down. 
 
 " And now," said John, "perhaps you'll have the po- 
 liteness to tell me what it's all about." 
 
 "Upon my word," cried Morris, "if you do not under- 
 stand 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 merest nonsense. We've lost it, 
 and there's an end." 
 
 "I tell you," said Morris, "Uncle Masterman is dead. 
 I know it, there's a voice here that tells me so." 
 
 " Well, and so is Uncle Joseph," said John. 
 
 " He's not dead unless I choose," returned Morris. 
 
 " And come to that," cried John, " if you're right, and 
 Uncle Masterman's been dead ever so long, all we have to 
 do is to tell the truth and expose Michael." 
 
 "You seem to think Michael is a fool," sneered Morris. 
 " Can't you understand he's been preparing this fi-aud for 
 years? He has the whole thing ready : the nurse, the 
 doctor, the undertaker, all bought, the certificate all ready 
 but the date ! Let him get wind of this business and you 
 mark my words, Uncle Masterman will die in two days 
 and be buried in a week. But see here, Johnny ; what 
 Michael can do, I can do. If he plays a game of bluff, so
 
 30 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 can I. If his father is to live forever, by God, so shall my 
 uncle ! " 
 
 "It's illegal, ain't it ?" said John. 
 
 "A man must have some moral courage," replied Morris 
 with dignity. 
 
 "And then suppose you're wi'ong? suppose Uncle 
 Masterman's alive and kicking ? " 
 
 "Well, even then," responded the plotter, "we are no 
 worse 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," sug- 
 gested the other. " That's considered rather a hash." 
 
 It was a mark of singular self-control in Morris that he 
 suffered this to pass unchallenged and even unresented. 
 
 "About the business in hand," said he, "once we can 
 get him up to Bloomsbury, there's no sort of trouble. 
 We bury him in the cellar, which seems made for it ; and 
 then all I have to do is to start out and find a venal doc- 
 tor." 
 
 "Why can't we leave him where he is?" asked John.
 
 IX WlJICn MORRIS TAKKS ACTION. 31 
 
 "Because we know nothing abovifc the country," re- 
 torted Morris. " This wood may be a regular lovers' 
 walk. Turn your mind to the real difficulty. How are 
 we to get him up to Bloomsbury." 
 
 Various schemes were mooted and rejected. The rail- 
 way station at Browndean was of course out of the ques- 
 tion ; for it would now be a centre of cui-iosity and gossip, 
 and (of all things) they would be least able to despatch a 
 dead body without remark. Jolm feebly proposed get- 
 ting an ale-cask and sending it as beer, but the objections 
 to this course were so overwhelming that Morris scorned 
 to answer. The purchase of a packing-case seemed equally 
 hopeless ; for why should two gentlemen without bag- 
 gage of any kind require a packing-case ? They would 
 be more likely to require clean linen. 
 
 "We are working on wrong lines," cried Morris at last. 
 " The thing must be gone about more carefully. Sup- 
 pose, now," he added, excitedly, speaking by fits and starts 
 as if he were thinking aloud, " suppose we rent a cottage 
 by the mouth : a householder can buy a packing-case 
 without remark. Then suppose we clear the people out 
 to-day, get the packing-case to-night, and to-morrow I 
 hire a carnage — or a cart that we could drive ourselves — 
 and take the box, or whatever we get, to Ringwood or 
 Lyndhurst or somewhere, we could label it ' specimens,' 
 don't you see? — Johnny, I believe I've hit the nail at 
 last." 
 
 " Well, it sounds moi;e feasible," admitted John.
 
 " Of course, we must take assumed names," continued 
 Morris. " It would never do to keep our own. What do 
 you say to ' Mastermau ' itself ? It sounds quiet and 
 dignified." 
 
 " I will not take the name of Masterman," returned bis 
 brother ; " you may, if you like. I shall call myself Vance 
 — the Great Vance ; positively the last six nights. There's 
 some go in a name like that." 
 
 "Vance ! " cried Morris. "Do you think we are play- 
 ing a pantomime for our amusement ? There was never 
 anybody named Vance who wasn't a music-hall singer." 
 
 "That's the beauty of it," returned John, " it gives you 
 some standing at once. You may call yourself Fortescue 
 till all's blue, and nobody cares ; but to be Vance gives a 
 man a natural nobility." 
 
 " But there's lots of other theatrical names," cried Mor- 
 ris. " Leybourne, Irving, Bx-ough, Toole " 
 
 " Devil a one will I take," returned his brother, " I am 
 going to have my little lark out of this as well as you." 
 
 " Very well," said Morris, who perceived that John was 
 determined to carry his point, "I shall be Robert Vance." 
 
 " And I shall be George Vance," cried John, " the only 
 original George Vance ! Rally round the only orig- 
 inal ! " 
 
 Repairing as well as they were able the disoixicr of their 
 clothes, Finsbury brothers returned to Browndean by a 
 circuitous route in quest of luncheon and a suitable cot- 
 tage. It is not always easy to drop at a moment's notice
 
 IN AVHICH MORRIS TAKER ACTIOlV, 33 
 
 on a furnislied 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 un- 
 affectedly eager to supply their wants. The second place 
 they visited, standing, as it did, about a mile and a half 
 from any neighbors, caused them to exchange a glance of 
 hope. On a nearer view the place was not without depress- 
 ing features. It stoo<l in a marshy looking hollow of a 
 heath ; tall trees obscured its windows ; the thatch visibly 
 rotted on the rafters ; and the walls were stained with 
 splashes of unwholesome green. The rooms were small, 
 the ceilings low, the furniture merely nominal ; a strange 
 chill and a haunting smell of damp pervaded the kitchen ; 
 and the bedroom boasted only of one bed. 
 
 Morris, with a view to cheapening the place, remarked 
 on this defect. 
 
 " Well," returned the man, "if you can't sleep two 
 abed, you'd better take a villa residence." 
 
 "And then," pursued Morris, "there's no water; how 
 do you get your water ? " 
 
 "We fill that from the spring," replied the carpenter, 
 pointing to a big barrel that stood beside the door. "The 
 spring ain't so very far oflf, after all, and it's easy brought 
 in buckets. There's a bucket there." 
 
 Morris nudged his brother as they examined the water- 
 butt ; it was new, and very solidly constructed for its 
 office ; if anything had been wanting to decide them, this 
 eminently practicable barrel would have turned the scale.
 
 34 TUK WRONG BOX, 
 
 A bargain was promptly struck, the month's rent was paid 
 upon the nail, and about an hour later Finsbury brothers 
 miglit have been observed returning to the blighted cot- 
 tage, having along with them the key, which was the sym- 
 bol 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 whiskey in 
 Hampshire. Nor was this all they had effected ; already 
 (under the plea that they were landscape-painters) they 
 had hired for dawn on the morrow a light but solid two- 
 wheeled cart ; so that, when they entered in their new 
 character, they were able to tell themselves that the back 
 of the business was already broken. 
 
 John proceeded to get tea ; while Morris, foraging 
 about the house, was presently delighted by discovering 
 the lid of the water-butt ujdou the kitchen shelf. Here, 
 then, was the packing-case comj^lete ; in the absence of 
 straw, the blankets (which he himself, at least, had not the 
 smallest intention of using for their present purpose) 
 would exactly take the place of packing ; and Morris, as 
 the difficulties began to vanish from his path, I'ose almost 
 to the brink of exultation. There was, however, one dif- 
 ficulty 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 humor that the pair sat down to 
 the deal table, and proceeded to fall to on the pork-pie. 
 Morris retailed the discovery of the lid, and the Great
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION. 35 
 
 Vance was pleased to applaud by beating on the table 
 with his fork in true music-hall style. 
 
 " That's the dodge," he cried. " I always said a water- 
 butt was what you wanted for this business." 
 
 " Of course," said Morris, thinking this a favorable op- 
 portunity to prepare his brother, " of course you must 
 stay on in this place till I give the word ; I'll give out 
 that uncle is resting in the New Forest. It would not do 
 for both of us to appear in London ; we could never con- 
 ceal 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 color came into Morris's cheeks. He saw that he 
 must win his brother at any cost. 
 
 "You must please remember, Johnny," he said, "the 
 amount of the tontine. If I succeed, we shall have each 
 fifty thousand to place to our bank account ; ay, and 
 nearer sixty." 
 
 " But if you fail," returned John, " what then ? What'll 
 be the color of our bank account in that case ? " 
 
 "I will pay all expenses," said Morris, with an inward 
 struggle ; " you shall lose nothing." 
 
 " Well," said John, with a laugh, " if the ex-s are yours, 
 and half profits mine, I don't mind remaining here for a 
 couple of days." 
 
 " A couple of days ! " cried Morris, who was beginning to 
 get angry and controlled himself with difficulty. " Why,
 
 36 THE WKONG BOX. 
 
 you would do more to win five pounds on a horse 
 race ! " 
 
 " Perhaps I would," returned the Great Vance ; " it's 
 the artistic temperament." 
 
 " This is monstrous ! " burst out Morris. " I take all 
 risks ; I pay all expenses ; I divide profits ; and you won't 
 take the slightest pains to help me. It's not decent ; it's 
 not honest ; it's not even kind." 
 
 " But suppose," objected John, who was considerably 
 impressed by his brother's vehemence, "suppose that Un- 
 cle Masterman is alive after all, and lives ten years longer ; 
 must I rot here all that time ? " 
 
 " Of course not," responded Morris, in a more concilia- 
 tory tone. " T only ask a mouth at the outside ; and if 
 Uncle Masterman is not dead by that time you can go 
 abroad " 
 
 " Go abroad ? " repeated John, eagei'ly. " Why shouldn't 
 I go at once ? Tell 'em that Joseph and I are seeing life 
 in Paris." 
 
 " Nonsense," said Morris. 
 
 " Well, but look here," said John ; " it's this house, it's 
 such a pig-sty, it's so dreary and damp. You said your- 
 self that it was damp." 
 
 "Only to the carpenter," Morris distinguished, "and 
 that was to reduce the rent. But really you know, now 
 we're in it, I've seen worse." 
 
 " And what am I to do ? " complained the victim. " How 
 can I entertain a friend?"
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION. 37 
 
 "My dear Johnny, if you don't think the tontine worth 
 a little trouble, say so ; and I'll give the business up." 
 
 " You're dead certain of the figures, I suppose ? " asked 
 John. "Well " — with a deep sigh — "send me the Pink 
 Un and all the comic papers regularly. I'll face the 
 music." 
 
 As afternoon drew on, the cottage breathed more thrill- 
 ingly of its native marsh ; a creeping chill inhabited its 
 chambers ; the fire smoked ; and a shower of rain, coming 
 vip from the channel on a slant of wind, tingled on the 
 window-panes. At intervals, when the gloom deepened 
 toward desj)air, Mon-is would produce the whiskey bottle, 
 and at first John welcomed the diversion — not for long. 
 It has been said this spirit was the worst in Hamj)shire ; 
 only those acquainted with the county can appreciate the 
 force of that superlative ; and at length even the Gi-eat 
 Vance (who was no connoisseur) waved the decoction from 
 his lips. The approach of dusk, feebly combated with a 
 single tallow candle, added a touch of tragedy ; and John 
 suddenly stopped whistling through his fingers — an art to 
 the practice of which he had been reduced — and bitterly 
 lamented his concessions. 
 
 "I can't stay here a month," he cried. "No one 
 could. The thing's nonsense, Morris. The parties that 
 lived in the Bastille would rise against a place Hke this." 
 
 With an admirable affectation of indifference, Morris 
 proposed a game of pitch-and-toss. To what will not the 
 diplomatist condescend ! It was John's favorite game ;
 
 38 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 iudecd, his only game — he had found all the rest too in- 
 tellectual — and he played it with equal skill and good for- 
 tune. To Morris himself, ou 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 humor, and 
 his brother was prepared for any sacrifice. 
 
 By seven o'clock, Morris, with incredible agony, had 
 lost a couple of half-crowns. Even with the tontine be- 
 fore his eyes, this was as much as he could bear ; and re- 
 marking that he would take his revenge some other time, 
 he proposed a bit of supper and a grog. 
 
 Before they had made an end of this refreshment, it 
 was time to be at work. A bucket of water for present 
 necessities was withdrawn from the water-butt, which 
 was then emptied and rolled before the kitchen fire to 
 dry ; and the two brothers set forth on their adventure 
 under a starless heaven.
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 THE LECTURER AT LARGE. 
 
 Whether mankind is really partial to happiness is au 
 open question. Not a month passes by, but some cher- 
 ished son runs off into the merchant service, or some 
 valued husband decamps to Texas with a lady help ; 
 clergymen have fled from tlieir parishioners ; and even 
 judges have been known to retire. To an open mind, it 
 will ajDpear (upon the whole) less strange that Joseph 
 Finsbury should have been led to entertain ideas of es- 
 cape. 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 certainl}' a gen- 
 tleman whom I esteem ; but he was scarce a model 
 nephew. As for John, he is of course au excellent fellow ; 
 but if he was the only link that bound one to a home, I 
 think the most of us would vote for foreign travel. In the 
 case of Joseph, John (if he were a link at all) was not the 
 only one ; endearing bonds had long enchained the old 
 gentleman to Bloomsbury ; and by these expressions I do 
 not in the least refer to Julia Hazeltine (of whom, how- 
 ever, he was fond enough), but to that collection of manu- 
 script note-books in which his life lay buried. That he
 
 40 THE WKONG liOX. 
 
 should ever have made up his mind to separate himself 
 fj-oiu these collectious, and go forth upon the world with 
 no other resources than his memory supplied, is a circum- 
 stance 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 Wat- 
 erloo, or (if that should prove impossible) to slink out of 
 the house in the course of the evening and melt like a 
 dream into Ihe millions of London. By a jDeculiar inter- 
 position of providence and railway mismanagement, he 
 had not so long to wait. 
 
 He was one of the first to come to liimself and scramble 
 to his feet, after the Brovvndean catastrophe, and he had 
 no sooner remarked his prostrate nephews, than he un- 
 derstood his opportunity and fled. A man of upward of 
 seventy, who has just met with a railway accident, 
 and who is cumbered besides with the full uniform 
 of Sir Taraday Bond, is not very likely to flee far, but the 
 wood was close at hand and offered the fugitive at least 
 a temporary covert. Hither, then, the old gentleman 
 skipped with extraordinary exi^edition, and being some- 
 what winded and a good deal shaken, here he lay down in 
 a convenient grove and was jDresently overwhelmed by
 
 THE LECTUBEK AT LAKGE. 41 
 
 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 
 neighboring highroad, where a char-a-banc was bowling 
 by with some belated tourists. The sound cheered his 
 old heart, it directed his steps into the bargain, and soon 
 he was on the highway, looking east and west from under 
 his vizor, and doubtfully revolving what he ought to do. 
 A delibex'ate 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, car- 
 rier." In the infamously prosaic mind of Mr. Fiusbury, 
 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 free- 
 dom, they suggested to him the idea of continuing his 
 flight in Mr. Chandler's cart. It would be cheap ; proper- 
 ly broached, it might even cost nothing, and after years 
 of mittens and hygienic flannel, his heart leaped out to 
 meet the notion of exposure. 
 
 Mr. Chandler was perhaps a little puzzled to find so old 
 a gentleman, so strangely clothed, and begging for a lift 
 on so retired a roadside. But he was a good-natured 
 man, glad to do a service, and so he took the stranger up ;
 
 42 THK WRONG IJOX. 
 
 and he had his own idea of civility, and so he asked no 
 questions. Silence, in fact, was quite good enough for 
 Mr. Chandler ; but the cart had scarcely begun to move 
 forward ere he found himself involved in a one-sided con- 
 versation. 
 
 "I can see," began Mr. Finsbury, "by the mixture of 
 parcels and boxes that are contained in your cart, each 
 marked with its individual label, and by the good Flemish 
 mare you drive, that you occupy the post of carrier in 
 that great English system of transport, which, with all its 
 defects, is the pride of our country." 
 
 "Yes, sir," returned Mr. Chandler vaguely, for he hardly 
 knew what to reply, "them parcels' posts has done us 
 carriers a world of harm." 
 
 "I am not a prejudiced man," continued Joseph Fins- 
 bury. "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 em- 
 ployed by mariners, and acquired the technical terms. 
 At Naples, I would learn the art of making macaroni ; 
 at Nice, the principles of making candied fruit. I never 
 went to the opera without first buying the book of the 
 piece, and making myself acquainted with the principal 
 airs by picking them out on the piano with one finger." 
 
 "You must have seen a deal, sir," remarked the carrier, 
 touching up his horse ; "I wish I could have had your ad« 
 vantages." 
 
 "Do you know how often the word whip occurs in the
 
 THE LKCTDRER AT LARGE. 43 
 
 old Testafiaent?" continued the old gentleman. "One 
 hundred and (if I remember exactly) forty-seven times." 
 
 "Do it indeed, sir? "said Mr. Chandler. "I never 
 should have thought it." 
 
 "The Bible contains thx'ee million five hundred and one 
 thousand two hundred and forty-nine letters. Of verses 
 I believe there are upward of eighteen thousand. There 
 have been many editions of the Bible ; Wiclif was the 
 first to introduce it into England, about the year 1300. 
 The " Paragraph Bible," as it is called, is a well-known 
 edition, and is so called because it is divided into para- 
 graphs. The " Breeches Bible " is another well-known 
 instance, and gets its name either because it was printed 
 by one Breeches, or because the place of publication bore 
 that name." 
 
 The carrier remarked drily that he thought that was 
 only natural, and turned his attention to the more con- 
 genial 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 suc- 
 cessfully passed the cart, " that you hold your reins with 
 one hand ; you should employ two." 
 
 " Well, I like that ! " cried the carrier, contemptuously. 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " You do not understand," continued Mr. Finsbury. 
 " What I tell you is a scientific fact, and reposes on the 
 theory of the lever, a branch of mechanics. There are
 
 44 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 some very interesting little sliilling-books upon the field 
 of study, which I should think a man in youi* station would 
 take a pleasure to read. But I am afraid you have not 
 cultivated the art of observation ; at least we have now 
 di'iveu together for some time, and I cannot remember 
 that you have contributed a single fact. This is a very 
 false principle, my good man. For instance, I do not 
 know if you observed that (as you passed the haj'-cart 
 man) you took your left ? " 
 
 " Of course I did," cried the earner, who was now get- 
 ting belligerent ; " he'd have the law on me if I hadn't." 
 
 " In France, now," resumed the old man, " and also, I 
 believe, in the United States of America, you would have 
 taken the right." 
 
 "I would not," cried Mr. Chandler, indignantly. "I 
 would have taken the left." 
 
 " I observe," again continued Mr. Finsbury, scorning to 
 reply, " that you mend the dilapidated parts of your har- 
 ness with string. I have always protested against this 
 carelessness and slovenliness of the English poor. In 
 an essay that I once I'ead before an appreciative audi- 
 ence " 
 
 " It ain't string," said the carrier, sullenly, " it's pack- 
 thread." 
 
 " I have always protested," resumed the old man, " that 
 in their private and domestic life, as well as in their labor- 
 ing career, the lower classes of this country are improv- 
 ident, thriftless, and extravagant. A stitch in time "
 
 THE LECTURER AT LARGE, 45 
 
 " Who the devil are the lower classes ? " cried the car- 
 rier. " You are the lower classes yourself ! If I thought 
 jou were a blooming aristocrat, I shouldn't have given 
 you a lift." 
 
 The words were uttered with undisguised ill-feehng ; 
 it was plain the pair were not congenial, and further con- 
 versation, even to one of Mr. Finsbury's pathetic loquac- 
 ity, was out of the question. With an angry gesture he 
 pulled down the brim of the forage-cap over his eyes, and 
 producing a note-book and a blue pencil from one of his 
 innermost pockets, soon became absorbed in calculations. 
 
 On his part the carrier fell to whistling with fresh zest ; 
 and if (now and again) he glanced at the companion of 
 his drive, it was with mingled feelings of triumph and 
 alarm — triumph because he had succeeded in aiTesting 
 that prodigy of speech, and alarm lest (by any accident) 
 it should begin again. Even the shower, which presently 
 ovei'took and passed them, was endured by both in si- 
 lence ; and it was still in silence that they drove at length 
 into Southampton. 
 
 Dusk had fallen ; the shop windows glimmered forth 
 into the streets of the old seaport ; in private houses 
 lights were kindled for the evening meal ; and Mr. Fins- 
 bury began to think complacently of his night's lodging. 
 He put his papers by, cleared his throat, and looked 
 doubtfully at Mr. Chandler. 
 
 "Will you be civil enough," said he, "to recommend 
 me to an inn."
 
 4G THE WRONG DoX. 
 
 Mr. Chandler pondered for a moment 
 
 "Well," he said at last, "I wonder how about the 
 'Tregonwell Ai'ms.'" 
 
 "The 'Tregonwell Arms' will do very well," returned 
 the old man, " if it's clean and cheap, and the jDCople 
 civil." 
 
 "I wasn't thinking so much of you," returned Mi-. 
 Chandler, thoughtfully. "I was thinking of my friend 
 Watts as keeps the 'ouse ; he's a friend of mine, you 
 see, and he helped me through my trouble last year. 
 And I was thinking, would it be fair-like on Watts to 
 saddle him with an old party like you, who might be the 
 death of him with general information. Would it be 
 fair to the 'ouse ? " inquired Mr. Chandler, with an air of 
 candid appeal. 
 
 " Mark me," cried the old gentleman, with spirit. " It 
 was kind in you to bring me here for nothing, but it gives 
 you no right to address me in such terms. Here's a shil- 
 ling for yom- trouble ; and if you do not choose to set me 
 down at the ' Tregonwell Ai'ms,'I can find it for myself." 
 
 Chandler was surprised and a little startled ; mutter- 
 ing something apologetic, he returned the shilling, drove 
 in silence tbi'ough several intricate lanes and small streets, 
 drew up at length before the bright windows of an inn, 
 ami called loudly for "Mr. Watts" 
 
 "Is that you, Jem?" cried a hearty voice from the 
 stableyard. " Come in and warm yourself." 
 
 " I only stopjied here," Mr. Chandler explained, " to let
 
 THE LECTUREE AT LARGE. 47 
 
 down au old gent what wants food and lodging. Mind, I 
 warn you agin him ; he's worse nor a temperance lecturer." 
 
 Mr. Finsbury dismounted with difficulty, for he was 
 cramped with his long drive, and the shaking he had re- 
 ceived 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 
 near a dozen present, all men, and (as Josej^h exulted to 
 perceive) all working-men. Often already had he seen 
 cause to bless that appetite for disconnected fact and ro- 
 tatory 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, be seemed 
 maturely to consider some particular atatement. A
 
 ■iS THE AVIiOXG BOX. 
 
 stealthy glance about the room assured him of the su& 
 cess of his manoeuvres ; all eyes were turned on the per- 
 former, 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 tak- 
 ing at the same time the whole room into his confidence 
 with an encouraging look, " I observe that some of these 
 gentlemen are looking with curiosity in my direction ; 
 and certainly it is unusual to see anyone immersed in liter- 
 ary and scientific labors in the public apartment of an inn. 
 I have here some calculations I made this morning upon 
 the cost of living in this and other countries — a subject, I 
 need scarcely say, highly interesting to the working classes. 
 I have calculated a scale of living for incomes of eighty, 
 one hundred and sixty, two hundred, and two hundred 
 and forty pounds a year. I must confess that the income 
 of eighty pounds has somewhat baffled me, and the others 
 are not so exact as I could wish ; for the price of washing 
 varies largely in foreign countries, and the different cokes, 
 coals, and firewoods fluctuate surprisingly. I will read my 
 researches, and I hope you won't scruple to point out to 
 me any little errors that I may have committed either 
 from oversight or ignorance. I will begin, gentlemen, 
 with the income of eighty pounds a year." 
 
 Whereupon the old gentleman, with less compassion 
 than he would have had for brute beasts, delivered him- 
 self of all his tedious calculations. As he occasionally
 
 THE LECTDRER AT LARGE. 49 
 
 gave nine versions of a single income, placing the imagin- 
 ary person in London, Paris, Bagdad, Spitzbergen, Bas- 
 sorab, Heligoland, the Scilly Islands, Brighton, Cincinnati, 
 and Nijni-Novgorod, with an appropriate outfit for each 
 locality, it is no wonder that his hearers look back on that 
 evening as the most tiresome they ever spent. 
 
 Long before Mr. Finsbury had reached Nijni-Novgorod 
 with the income of one hundred and sixty pounds, the 
 company had dwindled and faded away to a few old topers 
 and the bored but affable Watts. There was a constant 
 stream of customers from the outer world, but so soon as 
 they were served they drank their liquor quickly, and de- 
 parted with the utmost celerity for the next public-house. 
 
 By the time the young man with two hundred a year 
 was vegetating in the Scilly Islands, Mr. Watts was left 
 alone with the economist ; and that imaginary person had 
 scarce commenced life at Brighton before the last of his 
 pursuers desisted from the chase. 
 
 Mr. Finsbury slept soundly after the manifold fatigues 
 
 of the day. He rose late, and after a good breakfast, 
 
 ordered the bill. Then it was that he made a discovery 
 
 which has been made by many others, both before and 
 
 since : that it is one thing to order your bill, and another 
 
 to discharge it. The items were moderate and (what does 
 
 not always follow) the total small ; but after the most 
 
 sedulous review of all his pockets, one and nine pence 
 
 halfpenny appeared to be the total of the old gentleman's 
 
 available assets. He asked to see Mr. Watts. 
 4
 
 5U THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 " Here is a bill on London for eight hnndretl pounds,' 
 said Mr. Finsbury, as that worthy appeared. " I urn afraid 
 unless you choose to discount it yourself, it may detain me 
 a day or two till I can get it cashed." 
 
 Mr. Watts looked at the bill, turned it over, and dogs- 
 eared it with his fingers. " It will lieep you a day or 
 two ? " he said, repeating the old man's words. " You 
 have no other money with you? " 
 
 "Some trifling change," responded Joseph. " Nothing 
 to speak of." 
 
 "Then you can send it me ; I should be jDleased to 
 trust you." 
 
 "To tell the ti'uth," answered the old gentleman, "I 
 am more than half inclined to stay ; I am in need of 
 funds." 
 
 "If a loan of ten shillings would help you, it is at your 
 service," responded Watts, with eagerness. 
 
 "No, I think I would rather stay," said the old man, 
 " and get my bill discounted." 
 
 " You shall not stay in my house," cried Mr. Watts. 
 " This is the last time you shall have a bed at the ' Tregon- 
 well Arms.' " 
 
 "I insist upon remaining," replied Mr. Finsbury, with 
 spirit ; "I remain by Act of Parliament; turn me out if 
 vou dare." 
 
 " Then pay your bill," said Mr. Watts. 
 
 " Take that," cried the old man, tossing him the nego- 
 tiable biU.
 
 THE LKCTURER AT LARGE, 51 
 
 "It is not legal tender," replied Mr. Watts. "You 
 must leave my house at once." 
 
 " You cannot apiDreciate 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 re- 
 fuse to pay my bill." 
 
 "I don't care for 3'our bill," resj)onded Mr. Watts. 
 " What I want is your absence," 
 
 "That you shall have!" said the old gentleman, and 
 taking up his foi-age-cap as he spoke, he crammed it on 
 his head. " Perhaps you are too insolent," he added, " to 
 inform me of the time of the next London train ? " 
 
 " It leaves in three-quarters of an hour," returned the 
 inn-keeper, with alacrity. "You can easily catch it." 
 
 Joseph's position was one of considerable weakness. 
 On the one hand, it would have been well to avoid the di- 
 rect 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
 
 62 THK WRONG BOX. 
 
 sometimes alluded to by customers ? At least, when ho 
 presented himself before the station-master, his salaam 
 was truly oriental, palm-trees appeared to crowd about 
 the little office, and the simoom or the bulbul — but I leave 
 this image to persons better acquainted with the East. 
 His appearance, besides, was highly in his favor ; the uni- 
 form of Sir Faraday, however inconvenient and conspicu- 
 ous, 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. Quarter of an hour later, 
 when the train came up, Mr. Fiusbury was introduced to 
 the guard and installed in a first-class compartment, the 
 station-master smiliugly assuming all responsibility. 
 
 As the old gentleman sat waiting the moment of de- 
 parture, he was the witness of an incident strangely con- 
 nected with the fortunes of his house. A packing-case 
 of Cyclopean bulk was borne along the platform by some 
 dozen of tottering porters, and ultimately, to the delight 
 of a considerable crowd, hoisted on board the van. It is 
 often the cheering task of the historian to direct attention 
 to the designs and (if it may be reverently said) the ar- 
 tifices of Providence. In the luggage van, as Joseph was 
 borne out of the station of Southampton East upon his 
 way to London, the egg of this romance lay (so to speak) 
 unhatched. The huge packing-case was directed " to lie 
 at Waterloo till called for," and addressed to one " Will- 
 iam Dent Pitman ; " and the verj^ next article, a goodly
 
 THE LECTUKKK AT LARGE. 53 
 
 barrel jammed into the corner of the van, bore the super- 
 scription "M. Finsbury, 16 John Street, Bloomsbury. 
 Carriage paid." 
 
 Jlu this juxtaposition, the train of powder was prepared ; 
 and there was now wanting only an idle hand to fire it
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE MAGISTRATE IN THE LUGGAGE VAN. 
 
 The city of Winchester is famed for a cathedral, a 
 bishop — but he was unfortunately killed some years ago 
 while riding — a public school, a considerable assortment 
 of the military, and the deliberate passage of the trains 
 on 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 popu- 
 lous lecture-halls and endless oratox'y. His bod}', in the 
 meanwhile, lay doubled on the cushions, the forage-cap 
 rakishly tilted back after the fashion of those that lie in 
 wait for nursery-maids, the poor old face quiescent, one 
 arm clutching to his heart Lloyd's Weekly Newx'paper. 
 
 To him, thus unconscious, enter and exeunt again a 
 pair of voyagers. These two had saved the train and no 
 more. A tandem urged to its last speed, an act of some- 
 thing closely bordering on brigandage at the ticket office, 
 and a spasm of running, had brought them on the plat- 
 form 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 ah'eady had
 
 THE MAGISTRATE IN THE LUGGAGE VAN. 55 
 
 bis feet upon the floor, when he observed Mr. Fins- 
 bury. 
 
 " Good God ! " he cried, " Uncle Joseph ! This'll never 
 do." 
 
 And he backed out, almost upsetting his companion, 
 and once more closed the door upon the sleeping patri- 
 arch. 
 
 The next moment the pair had jumped into the bag- 
 gage van. 
 
 " What's the row about your Uncle Joseph? " inquired 
 the younger traveller, mopping his brow. " Does he ob- 
 ject to smoking ? " 
 
 " I don't know that there's anything the row with him," 
 returned the other. " He's by no means the first comer, 
 my Uncle Joseph, I can tell you ! Very respectable old 
 gentleman ; interested in leather ; been to Asia Minor ; 
 no family, no assets — and a tongue, my dear Wickham, 
 sharper than a serpent's tooth." 
 
 " Cantankerous old party, eh ? " suggested Wickham. 
 
 "Not in the least," cried the other ; "only a man with 
 a solid talent for being a bore ; rather cheery, I dare say, 
 on a desert island, but on a railway journey, insupportable. 
 You should hear him on Tonti, the ass that started ton- 
 tines. He's incredible on Tonti." 
 
 "By Jove ! " cried Wickham, "then you're one of these 
 Finsbury tontine fellows. I hadn't a guess of that." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the other, " do you know, that old boy in 
 the carriage is worth a hundred thousand pounds to me ?
 
 66 THE WKONG BOX. 
 
 There he was asleep, and nobody there but you ! But 1 
 spared him, because I'm a conservative in politics." 
 
 Mr. Wickham, pleased to be in a luggage van, was flit- 
 ting to and fro like a gentlemanly butterfly. 
 
 " By Jingo ! " he cried, " here's something for you ! 
 *'M. Finsbury, 16 John Street, Bloomsbury, Loudon.' M. 
 stands for Michael, you sly dog ; you keep two establish- 
 ments, 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 IVIr. Wickham. " By George, here's a tack- 
 hammer ! We might send all these things skipping about 
 the premises like what's-his-name ! " 
 
 At this moment the guard, surprised by the sound of 
 voices, opened the door of his little cabin. 
 
 " You had best step in here, gentlemen," said he, when 
 he had heard their story. 
 
 " Won't you come, Wickham ? " asked IMichael. 
 
 " Catch me — I want to travel in a van," replied the 
 youth. 
 
 And so the door of communication was closed ; and for 
 the rest of the run Mr. Wickham was left alone over his
 
 THE MAGISTRATE EN THE LUGGAGE VAN. 57 
 
 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 had best get out at my door, and I 
 can bring your friend." 
 
 Mr. Wickham, whom we left (as the reader has shrewdly 
 suspected) beginning to " play billy " with the labels in 
 the van, was a young gentleman of much wealth, a pleas- 
 ing but sandy exterior, and a highly vacant mind. Not 
 many months before, he had contrived to get himself 
 black-mailed by the family of a Wallachian Hospodar, 
 resident for political reasons in the gay city of Paris. A 
 common friend (to whom he had confided his distress) 
 recommended him to Michael ; and the lawyer was no 
 sooner in possession of the facts, than he instantly as- 
 sumed the offensive, fell on the flank of the Wallachian 
 forces, and in the inside of three days, had the satisfaction 
 to behold them routed and fleeing for the Danube. It is 
 no business of ours to follow them on this retreat, over 
 which the police were so obliging as to preside paternally. 
 Thus relieved from what he loved to refer to as the Bul- 
 garian Atrocity, ]Mi'. "VVickham returned to London with 
 the most unbounded and emban-assing gratitude and ad- 
 miration for his savior. These sentiments were not re- 
 paid 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
 
 68 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 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 in- 
 strument, however humble ; and it is now plain to the 
 dullest that both Mr. Wickham and the Wallachian Hos- 
 podar were liquid lead and wedges in the hand of des- 
 tiny. 
 
 Smitten with the desii-e to shine in Michael's eyes and 
 show himself a person of original humor 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 re- 
 former ; and when he rejoined the lawyer at Bishopstoke, 
 his face was flushed with his exertions, and his cigar, 
 ■which he had suffei-ed to go out, was almost bitten in two. 
 
 " By George, but this has been a lark ! " he cried. "I've 
 sent the wrong thing to eveiybody 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, Fins- 
 bury, that if it wei-e to get out, it's my belief we should 
 be lynched." 
 
 It was useless to be serious with IMi'. Wickham. "Take 
 care," said Michael. " I am getting tired of your perpet- 
 ual scrapes ; my reputation is beginning to suffer." 
 
 "Your reputation will be all gone before you finish with 
 me," replied his companion, with a grin. "Clap it in the 
 bill, my boy. ' For total loss of reputation, six and eight- 
 pence.' But," continued Mr. "Wickham, with more serious-
 
 THE MAGISTRATE IN THE LUGGAGE VAN, 59 
 
 ness, " could I be bowled out of the Commission for this 
 little jest ? I know it's small, but I like to be a J. P. 
 Speaking as a professional man, do you think there's any 
 risk?" 
 
 " What does it matter ? " responded Michael. " They'll 
 chuck you out sooner or later. Somehow you don't give 
 the effect of being a good magistrate." 
 
 " I only wish I was a solicitor, " retorted his companion, 
 " instead of a poor devil of a country gentleman. Suppose 
 we start one of those tontine affairs ourselves ; I to pay 
 five hundred a year, and you to guarantee me against 
 every misfortune except illness or marriage." 
 
 " It strikes me," remarked the lawyer with a meditative 
 laugh, as he lighted a cigar ; " it strikes me that you must 
 be a cursed nuisance in this world of oiu's." 
 
 " Do you really think so, Finsbury ? " responded the 
 magistrate, leaning back in his cushions, delighted with 
 the compliment. "Yes, I suppose I am a nuisance. But 
 mind you, I have a stake in the country : dou't forget that, 
 dear boy,"
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MR. GIDEON FOKSYTH AND THE GIGANTIC BOX. 
 
 It has been mentioned that at Bournemoiath Julia some- 
 times made acquaintances ; it is true she had but a ghmi^se 
 of them before the doors of John Street closed again upon 
 its captives, but the glimpse ^Yas sometimes exhilara- 
 ting, and the consequent regret was tempered with hope. 
 Among those whom she had thus met a year before, was a 
 young banister of the name of Gideon Forsyth. 
 
 About three o'clock of the eventful day when the magis- 
 trate tampered with the labels, a somewhat moody and 
 distempered ramble had carried Mr. Forsyth to the corner 
 of John Street ; and about the same moment Miss Hazel- 
 tine was called to the door of No. 16 by a thundering 
 double knock. 
 
 Mr. Gideon Forsyth was a happy enough young man ; 
 he would have been happier if he had had more money and 
 less uncle. One hundred and twenty pounds a year was 
 all his store ; but his uncle, IVIi-. Edward Hugh Bloom- 
 field, supplemented this with a handsome allowance and a 
 great deal of advice, couched in language that would 
 probably have been judged intemperate on board a pirate 
 ship. IVIr. Bloomfield was indeed a figure quite pecuhar
 
 MR. GIDEON FOKSYTU AND THE GIGANTIC BOX. 01 
 
 to the days of Mr. Gladstone ; what we may call (for the 
 lack of an accepted expression) a Squirradical. Having 
 acquired years without experience, he carried into the 
 radical side of politics those noisy, after dinner-table pas- 
 sions, which we are more accustomed to connect witli 
 toryism in its severe and senile aspects. To the opinions 
 of Mr. Bradlaugh, in fact, he added the temper and the 
 sympathies of that extinct animal, the Squire. He ad- 
 mired pugilism, he carried a formidable oaken staff, he 
 was a reverent churchman, and it was hard to know which 
 would have more volcanically stirred his choler — a person 
 who should have defended the established church, or one 
 who should have neglected to attend its celebrations. He 
 had besides some levelling 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 un- 
 practical ; and it had been intimated to him, in a vocifer- 
 ous interview punctuated with the oaken staff, that he must 
 either take a new start and get a brief or two, or prepare 
 to hve 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 al- 
 lowance would revolutionize them still more radically. 
 He had not the least desire to acquaint himself with law ;
 
 02 THK WRONCi BOX. 
 
 he had looked into it ah'ead}', and it seemed not to repay 
 attention ; but upon this also he was ready to give way. 
 In fact, he -would go as far as he could to meet the views 
 of his uncle, the squirradical. But there was one part of 
 the programme that appeared independent of his will. 
 How to get a brief ? there was the question. And there 
 was another and a worse. Suppose he got one, should he 
 prove the better man ? 
 
 Suddenly he found his way barred by a crowd, A gar- 
 ishly illuminated van was backed against the kerb ; from 
 its open stern, half resting on the street, half supported 
 by some glistening athletes, the end of the largest packing- 
 case in the county of Middlesex might have been seen 
 protruding ; while on the steps of the house, the burly jjer- 
 son of the driver and the slim figure of a young girl stood 
 as upon a stage, disputing. 
 
 "It is not for us," the girl was saying, "I beg you to 
 take it away ; it couldn't get into the house, even if you 
 managed to get it out of the van." 
 
 "I shall leave it on the pavement, then, and j\I. Finsbury 
 can aiTange with the Vestry as he likes," said the vau- 
 man. 
 
 "But I am not M. Finsbuiy," expostulated the girl. 
 
 "It doesn't matter who you are," said the van-man. 
 
 "You must allow me to help you. Miss Hazeltine," said 
 Gideon, putting out his hand, 
 
 Julia gave a little cry of pleasure. " Oh, Mr, Forsyth," 
 she cried, " I am so glad to see you ; we must get this
 
 MR. GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE GIGAXTIO BOX. 0-3 
 
 horrid thing, which can only have come here by mistake, 
 into the house. The man says we'll have to take off the 
 door, or knock two of our windows into one, or be fined 
 by the Vestry or Custom House or something, for leaving 
 our parcels on the pavement." 
 
 The men, by this time, had successfully removed the 
 box from the van, had plumped it down on the pavement, 
 and now stood leaning against it, or gazing at the door of 
 No. 16, in visible physical distress and mental embar- 
 rassment. 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 JuUa 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 as- 
 sisted the men to take the door from its hinges. And 
 lastly, all by-standers being pressed into the service, the 
 packing-case mounted the steps upon some fifteen pairs 
 of wavering legs — scraped, loudly gi'inding, through the 
 dooi'way — 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 spec- 
 tacles of London.
 
 C4 THE AVKON'O BOX. 
 
 "Well, sir," said tlio vau-man, "I never see such a 
 job." 
 
 Gideon eloquently expressed his concurrence in tins 
 sentiment by pressing a couple of sovereigns in the man's 
 hand. 
 
 "Make it three, sir, and I'll stand Sam to everybody 
 here ! " cried the latter ; and this having been done, the 
 whole body of volunteer porters swarmed into the van, 
 which drove off iu the direction of the nearest reliable 
 public-house. Gideon closed the door on their departure 
 and turned to Julia : their eyes met ; the most uncon- 
 trollable mirth seized upon them both, and they made the 
 house ring with their laughter. Then curiosity awoke iu 
 Julia's mind, and she went and examined the box, and 
 more especially the label. 
 
 "This is the strangest thing that ever happened," she 
 said, with another burst of laughter. "It is certainly 
 Morris's handwriting, and I had a letter from him only 
 this morning telling me to expect a barrel. Is there a 
 barrel coming, too, do you think, Mr. Forsyth ? " 
 
 "Statuary with Care, Fragile," read Gideon aloud from 
 the painted warning on the box. " Then you were told 
 nothing about this ? " 
 
 "No," responded Julia. "Oh, Mr. Forsyth, don't you 
 think we might take a peep at it ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed," cried Gideon. " Just let me have a 
 hammer." 
 
 " Come down, and I'll show 3'ou where it is," cried
 
 ME. CUDEOX FORSYTH AND TTIE GIG ANTIC BOX. G5 
 
 Julia, " the slielf is too high for me to reacli ; " aiul, open- 
 ing the door of the kitchen stair, she bade Gideon follow 
 her. They found both the hammer and a chisel ; but 
 Gideon was surprised to see no sign of a servant. He also 
 discovered that Miss Hazeltine had a very pretty little 
 foot and ankle ; and the discovery embarrassed him so 
 much that he was glad to fall at once lapon 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 
 colored ; 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 com- 
 ment, "butter fingers!" But the pain was sharp, his 
 nerve was shaken, and after an abortive trial he found he 
 must desist from further operations. 
 
 In a moment Julia was off to the pantry, in a moment 
 she was back again with a basin of water and a sponge, 
 and had begun to bathe his wounded hand. 
 
 "I am dreadfully sorry," said Gideon, apologetically. 
 " If I had had any manners I should have opened the box
 
 Go TlIK AVliO.XG I'AiX. 
 
 first, and smaslied my hand afterward. It feels much bet- 
 ter," he added. " I assure you it does." 
 
 "And now I think you are well enough to direct opera- 
 tions," said she. "Tell me what to do, and I'll be your 
 workman." 
 
 " A very pretty workman," said Gideon, rather forget- 
 ting himself. She turned and looked at him, with a sus- 
 picion of a frown ; and the indiscreet young man was 
 glad to direct her attention to the packing-case. The 
 bulk of the work had been accompjished ; and presently 
 Julia had burst through the last barrier and disclosed a 
 zone of straw. In a moment they Avere kneeling side by 
 side, engaged like haymakers ; the next they were re- 
 warded with a glimpse of something white and iDolished ; 
 and the next again, laid bare an unmistakable marble leg. 
 
 " He is surely a very athletic person," said Julia. 
 
 "I never saw anything like it," responded Gideon. 
 " His muscles stand out like penny rolls." 
 
 Another leg was soon disclosed, and then what seemed 
 to be a third. This resolved itself, however, into a knotted 
 club resting upon a pedestal. 
 
 "It is a Hercules," cried Gideon; "I might have 
 guessed that from his calf. I'm supposed to be rather 
 partial to statuary, but when it comes to Hercules, the 
 police should interfere. I should say," he added, glanc- 
 ing 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?"
 
 MR. GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE GIGANTIO BOX. 67 
 
 "I suppose nobody else would have a gift of Lim," 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 exj^eriences of my life." 
 
 "I don't think you'll forget it very soon," said Julia. 
 " Your hand wiU remind you." 
 
 " Well, I suppose I must be going," said Gideon, 
 reluctantly. 
 
 "No," pleaded Julia. "Why should 3'ou? Stay and 
 have tea with me." 
 
 "If I thought you really wished me to stay," said 
 Gideon, looking at his hat, " of course I should only be 
 too delighted." 
 
 " What a silly person you must take me for ! " returned 
 the girl. " Why, of course I do ; and besides I want 
 some cakes for tea, and I've nobody to send. Here is the 
 latch-key." 
 
 Gideon put on his hat with alacrity, and casting one 
 look at Miss Hazeltine and another at the legs of Her- 
 cules, threw open the door and departed on his errand. 
 
 He returned with a large bag of the choicest and most 
 tempting of cakes and tartlets, and found Julia in the act 
 of spreading a small tea-table in the lobby. 
 
 " The rooms are all in such a state," she cried, "that I 
 thought we should be more cosy and comfortable in our 
 own lobby, and under our own vine and statuary." 
 
 " Ever so much better," cried Gideon, delightedly.
 
 68 TUK WKONG BOX. 
 
 « 
 
 " Ob, what adorable cream tarts ! " said Julia, opening 
 the bag, " and the deai'est little cherry tartlets, with all 
 the cherries spilled out into the cream ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Gideon, concealing his dismay, " I knew 
 they would mix beautifully ; the woman behind the 
 counter told me so." 
 
 "Now," said Julia, as they began their little festival, "I 
 am going to show you Morris's letter ; read it aloud, 
 please ; perhaps there's something I have missed." 
 
 Gideon took the letter, and spreading it out on his knee, 
 read as follows : 
 
 " Dear Julia : I write you from Browndean, where we 
 are stopping over for a few days. Uncle was much shaken 
 in that dreadful accident, of which, I dare say, you have 
 seen the account. To-morrow I leave him here with 
 John, and come up alone ; but before that jou 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 mar- 
 ble legs. " Miss Hazel tine," he continued, " would you 
 mind me asking a few questions ? " 
 
 "Certainly not," replied Julia ; "and if you can make 
 me understand why Morris Las sent a statue of Hercules
 
 MR. GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE GIGANTIC BOX. 69 
 
 instead of a barrel containing specimens for a friend, I 
 shall be grateful till my dying day. And what are speci- 
 mens for a friend ? " 
 
 " I haven't a guess," said Gideon. " Specimens are usu- 
 ally bits of stone, but rather smaller than our friend the 
 monument. Still, that is not the point. Are you quite 
 alone in this big house?" 
 
 " Yes, I am at present," returned Julia. " I came up be- 
 fore them to prepare the house, and get another servant. 
 But I couldn't get one I liked." 
 
 " Then you are utterly alone," said Gideon in amaze- 
 ment. " Are you not afraid ? " 
 
 "No," responded Julia, stoutly. "I don't see why I 
 should be more afraid than you would be ; I am weaker, 
 of course, but when I found I must sleep alone in the 
 house, I bought a revolver wonderfully cheap, and made 
 the man show me how to use it." 
 
 " And how do you use it ? " demanded Gideon, much 
 amused at her courage. 
 
 "Why," said she, with a smile, "you pull the little 
 trigger thing on top, and then pointing it very low, for it 
 springs up as you fire, you pull the underneath little trig- 
 ger thing, and it goes off as well as if a man had done it." 
 
 " And how often have 3'ou 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."
 
 70 THK WKONG UOX. 
 
 "I'm awfully glad they are coming back soon," said 
 Gideon. " Tliis business strikes me as excessively un- 
 safe ; if it goes on much longer, I could provide you with 
 a maiden aunt of mine, or my landlady, if you pre- 
 ferred." 
 
 " Lend me an aunt ! " cried Julia, " Oh, what generos- 
 ity ! 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 ai't." 
 
 Julia was beginning to reply, when they were both 
 startled by a knocking at the door. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Forsyth!" 
 
 "Don't be afraid, my dear girl," said Gideon, laying his 
 hand tenderly on her arm. 
 
 "I know it's the police," she whispered. " They are 
 coming to complain about the statue." 
 
 The knock was repeated. It was louder than before, 
 and more impatient. 
 
 " It's Morris," cried Julia, in a startled voice, and she 
 ran to the door and opened it. 
 
 It was indeed Morris that stood before them ; not the 
 Morris of ordinary days, but a wild-looking fellow, pale 
 and haggard, with blood-shot eyes, and a two days' beard 
 upon his chin. 
 
 "The barrel!" he cried. "Where's the barrel that 
 came this morning ? " and he stared about the lobby, his 
 eyes, as they fell upon the legs of Hercules, literally gog-
 
 MR. GIDEOJSr FORSTTir A>'D Tlli: GIGANTIC BOX. 71 
 
 gl'iDg in Lis head. "What is that?" he screamed. 
 "What is that wax--^orli? Speak, you fool! "\Miat is 
 that ? and where's the barrel — the water-butt ? " 
 
 "No baiTel came, Morris," responded Julia, coldly. 
 " This is the only thing that has arrived." 
 
 " This ! " shrieked the miserable man. "I never heard 
 of it ! " 
 
 " It came addressed in your hand," replied Julia ; " we 
 had nearly to pull the house down to get it in, and that is 
 all that I can tell you." 
 
 Morris gazed at her in utter bewilderment. He passed 
 his hand over his forehead, he leaned against the wall like 
 a man about to faint. Then his tongue was loosed, and 
 he overwhelmed the girl with torrents of abuse. Such 
 fire, such directness, such a choice of ungentlemanly lan- 
 guage, none had ever before suspected Morris to possess ; 
 and the girl trembled and shrank before his fury. 
 
 " You shall not speak to Miss Hazeltine in that way," 
 said Gideon, sternly. "It is what I will not suffer." 
 
 "I shall speak to the girl as I like," returned Morris, 
 with a fresh outburst of anger. "I'll speak to the hussy 
 as she deserves." 
 
 " Not a word more, sir, not one word," cried Gideon. 
 "Miss Hazeltine," he continued, addressing the young 
 girl, " you cannot stay a moment longer in the same house 
 with this unmanly fellow. Here is my arm, let me take 
 you where you will be secure from insult." 
 
 "!Mi'. Forsyth," returned Juha, "you are right, I cannot
 
 72 Tire AVKONG BOX. 
 
 stay here longer, and I am sure I trust myself to an hon- 
 orable gentleman." 
 
 Pale and resolute, Gideon offered her his arm, and the 
 pair descended the steps, followed by Morris clamoring 
 for the latch-hey. 
 
 Julia had scarcel}- handed the key to Morris before an 
 empty hansom drove smartly into John Street. It was 
 hailed by both men, and as the cabman drew up his res- 
 tive horse, Morris made a dash into the vehicle. 
 
 "Sixpence above fare," he cried, recklessly. ""Waterloo 
 station for your Hfe. Sixpence for yourself ! " 
 
 "Make it a shilling, Guv'ner," said the man, with a grin, 
 ** the other parties were first." 
 
 " A shilling then," cried Morris, with the inward reflec- 
 tion that he would reconsider it at Waterloo. The man 
 whipped up his horse, and the hansom vanished from 
 John Street.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS : PART THE FIRST. 
 
 As tlie hansom span through the streets of Loudon, 
 Morris sought to rally the forces of his mind. The water- 
 butt with the dead body had miscarried, and it was 
 essential to recover it. So much was clear; and if, by 
 some blest good-fortune, it was still at the station, all 
 might be well. If it had been sent out, however, if it 
 were already in the hands of some wrong person, matters 
 looked more ominous. People who receive unexplained 
 packages are usually keen to have them open ; the ex- 
 ample of Miss Hazeltine (whom he cursed again) was there 
 to remind him of the circumstance ; and if anyone had 
 opened the water-butt — " Oh, Lord," cried Morris at the 
 thought, and carried his hand to his damp forehead. The 
 private conception of any breach of law is apt to be in- 
 spiriting, for the scheme (while yet inchoate) wears dash- 
 ing and attractive colors. Not so in the least, that part 
 of the criminal's later reflections which deal with the 
 police. That useful corps (as Morris now began to think) 
 had scarce been kept sufficiently in view when he em- 
 barked upon his entei-prise. " I must play de%'ilish close,"
 
 74 thl: -wrono box. 
 
 he reflected, and Le was aware of an exquisite thrill of 
 fear in the region of the spine. , 
 
 "Main line, or loop?" inquired the cabman, through 
 the scuttle. 
 
 "Main line," replied Morris, and mentally decided thjit 
 the man should have his shilling after all. " It would be 
 madness to attract attention," thought he. "Bat what 
 this thing will cost me, fii*st and last, begins to be a night- 
 mare ! " 
 
 He passed thi'ough the booking office and wandered 
 disconsolately on the platform. It was a breathing space 
 in the day's traffic ; there were few people there, and these 
 for the most part quiescent on the benches. Morris 
 seemed to attract no remark, which was a good thing ; 
 but, on the other hand, he was making no progress in 
 his quest. Something must be done, something must 
 be risked ; every passing instant only added to his 
 dangers. Summoning all his courage, he stopped a 
 porter, and asked him if he remembered ' receiving a 
 barrel by the morning train ; he was anxious to get infor- 
 mation, for the bai-rel belonged to a friend. " It is a 
 matter of some moment," he added, "for it contains 
 specimens." 
 
 "I was not here this morning, sii*," responded the 
 porter, somewhat reluctantly, "but I'll ask Bill. Do you 
 recollect. Bill, to have got a baiTcl from Bournemouth this 
 morning containing specimens?" 
 
 " I don't know about specimens," replied Bill; "but
 
 THK TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS! PART TllK FIRST. (O 
 
 the party as received the barrel I mean, raised a sight of 
 trouble." 
 
 "What's that?" cried Morris, in the agitation of the 
 moment, pressing a penny into the man's hand. 
 
 " You see, sir, the barrel arrived at one thirty ; no one 
 claimed it till about three, when a small, sickly-looking 
 gentleman (probably a curate) came up, and sez he, 
 'Have you got anything for Pitman,' or ' Will'm Bent 
 Pitman,' if I recollect right. ' I don't exactly know,' sez 
 I, 'but I rather fancy that there barrel bears that name.' 
 The little man went up to the barrel, and seemed regu- 
 larly all took aback when he saw the address, and then he 
 pitched into us for not having brought what he wanted. 
 *I dou't care a damn what you want,' sez I to him, 'but if 
 you are Will'm Bent Pitman, there's your barrel.' " 
 
 "Well, and did he take it? " cried the breathless Morris. 
 
 " Well, sir," returned Bill, "it appears it was a packing- 
 case be was after. The packing-case came ; that's sure 
 enough, because it was about the biggest packing-case 
 ever I clapped eyes on. And this Pitman he seemed a 
 good deal cut up, and he had the superintendent out, and 
 they got hold of the van man — him as took the packing- 
 case. Well, sir," continued Bill, with a smile, " I never 
 see a man in such a state ; everybody about that van was 
 mortal, bar the horses. Some gen'leman (as well as I 
 could make out) had given the van man a sov ; and so that 
 was where the trouble come in, you see." 
 
 " But what did he say ? " gasped Morris.
 
 ro. 
 
 G THE WKONG BOX. 
 
 "I don't know as be said much, sir," said Bill. "But 
 he offered to fight this Pitman for a pot of beer. He had 
 lost his book, too, and the receipts ; and his men were all 
 as mortal as himself. Oh, they were all like — " and Bill 
 paused for a simile — " like lords ! the superintendent 
 sacked them on the spot." 
 
 " Ob, come, but that's not so bad," said Morris, with a 
 bursting sigh. " He couldn't tell where he took the Joack- 
 ing-case, then ? " 
 
 "Not be," said Bill, "nor xet nothink else." 
 
 "And what — what did Pitman do?" asked Morris. 
 
 " Oh, be went off with the barrel in a four-wheeler, very 
 trembling like," replied Bill. " I don't believe he's a 
 gentleman as has good health." 
 
 " Well, so the barrel's gone," said Morris, half to hirhself. 
 
 "You may depend on that, sir," returned the porter. 
 " But you bad better see the superintendent." 
 
 " Not in the least, it's of no account," said Morris. " It 
 only contained specimens." And he walked hastily away. 
 
 Ensconced once more in a hansom, he proceeded to re- 
 consider bis position. Suppose (he thought), suppose he 
 should accept defeat and declare bis uncle's death at once ? 
 He should lose the tontine, and with that the last hope 
 of his seven thousand eight hundred pounds. But on 
 the other band, since the shilling to the hansom cabman, 
 be bad begun to see that crime was expensive in its course, 
 and since the loss of the water-butt, that it was uncertain 
 in its consequences. Quietly at first, and then with grow-
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE FIRST. n 
 
 Lag heat, lie reviewed the advantages of backing out. It 
 involved a loss ; but (come to think of it) no such gi*eat loss 
 aftex* all ; only that of the tontine, -which had been always 
 a toss up, which at bottom he had never really expected. 
 He reminded himself of that eagei-ly ; he congratulated 
 himself upon his constant moderation. He had never 
 really expected the tontine ; he had never even very defin- 
 itely hoped to recover his seven thousand eight hundred 
 pounds ; he had been hurried into the whole thing by 
 Michael's obvious dishonesty. Yes, it would probably be 
 better to draw back from this high-flying venture, settle 
 back on the leather business — 
 
 " Great God !" cried Morris, bounding in the hansom 
 like a Jack-in-a-box. " I have not only not gained the 
 tontine — I have lost the leather business ! " 
 
 Such was the monstrous fact. He had no power to 
 sign ; he could not draw a check for thirty shilHngs ; until 
 he covdd j^roduce legal evidence of his uncle's death, he 
 was a penniless outcast — and as soon as he produced it he 
 had lost the tontine ! There was no hesitation on the part 
 of Morris ; to drop the tontine like a hot chestnut, to con- 
 centrate all his forces on the leather business and the rest 
 of his small but legitimate inheritance, was the decision of 
 a single instant. And the next, the full extent of his 
 calamity was suddenly disclosed to him. Declare his 
 uncle's death ? He couldn't ! Since the body was lost, 
 Joseph had (in a legal sense) become immortal. 
 
 There was no created vehicle big enough to contain
 
 78 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 MoiTis and his woes. He paid the hansom off and walked 
 on he knew not whither. 
 
 " I seem to have gone into this business with too much 
 precipitation," he reflected, with a deadly sigh. "I fear 
 it seems too ramified for a person of my powers of mind." 
 
 And then a remark of his uncle's flashed into his mem- 
 ory : If you want to think clearly, put it all down on 
 paper. " Well, the old boy knew a thing or two," said 
 Morris. " I will try ; but I don't beHeve the paper was 
 ever made that will clear my mind." 
 
 He entered a place of public entertainment, ordered 
 bread and cheese, and writing materials, and sat down be- 
 fore them heavily. He tried the pen ; it was an excellent 
 pen, but what was he to write? " I have it," cried Mor- 
 ris. " Robinson Crusoe and the double columns ! " He 
 prepared his paper after that classic model and began as 
 
 follows : 
 
 Bad. Good. 
 
 1. I have lost my uncle's body. 1. But then Pitman has found it. 
 
 " Stop a bit," said Morris, "lam letting the spirit of 
 antithesis run away with me. Let's start again." 
 
 Bad. Good. 
 
 1. I have lost my uncle's "body. 1. But then I no longer require 
 
 to bury it. 
 
 2. I have lost the tontine. 2. But I may still save that if 
 
 Pitman disposes of the body, 
 and if I can find a physician 
 who will stick at nothing.
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS! PART THE FIRST. 79 
 
 3. I have lost the leather busi- 3. But not if Pitman gives the 
 ness and the rest of my un- body up to the police. 
 
 cle's succession. 
 
 " Ob, but in that case I go to jail ; I had forgot that," 
 thought Morris. " Indeed, I don't know that I had better 
 dwell on that hypothesis at all ; it's all very well to talk 
 of facing the worst ; but iu a case of this kind, a man's 
 first duty is to his own nerve. Is there any answer to 
 No. 3 ? Is thei-e any possible good side to such a beastly 
 bungle ? There must be, of course, or where would be 
 the use of this double-entry business ? And — by George, 
 I have it ! " he exclaimed ; " it's exactly the same as the 
 last ! " And he hastily rewrote the passage. 
 
 Bad. Good. 
 
 3. I have lost the leather busi- 3. But not if I can find a physi- 
 
 ness and the rest of my un- cian who will stick at noth- 
 
 cle's succession. ing. 
 
 "This venal doctor seems quite a desideratum," he re- 
 flected. " I want him first to give me a certificate that 
 my uncle is dead, so that I may get the leather business ; 
 and then that he's alive — but here we are again at the in- 
 compatible interests ! " And he retui-ned to his tabu- 
 lation. 
 
 Bad. Good. 
 
 4. I have almost no money. 4. But there is plenty in the 
 
 bank.
 
 so 
 
 TIIK WRONG BOX. 
 
 5. Yes, but I can't get the money 
 in the bank. 
 
 6. I have left tlie bill for eight 
 hundred pounds iu Uncle 
 Joseph's pocket. 
 
 7. Yes, but if Pitman is dishon- 
 est and finds the bill, he 
 will know who Joseph is, 
 and lie may blackmail me. 
 
 8. But I can't blackmail Michael 
 (which is, besides, a very 
 dangerous thing to do) un- 
 til I find out. 
 
 9. The leather business will soon 
 want money for current ex- 
 penses, and I have none to 
 give. 
 
 10. Yes, but it's all the ship I 
 have. 
 
 11. John will soon want money, 
 and I have none to give. 
 
 12. And the venal doctor will 
 want money down. 
 
 13. And if Pitman is dishonest 
 and don t send me to jail, 
 he will want a fortune. 
 
 5. But — well, that .seems un- 
 happily to be the case. 
 
 6. But ii Pitman is only a dis- 
 honest man, the presence 
 of this bill may lead liiia 
 to keep the whole thing 
 dark and throw the body 
 into the New Cut. 
 
 7. Yes, but if I am right about 
 Uncle Masterman, I can 
 blackmail Michael. 
 
 8. Worse luck! 
 
 9. But the leather business is a 
 sinking ship. 
 
 10. A fact. 
 
 11. 
 
 12. 
 
 13. 
 
 " Oh, this seems to be a very one-sided business," ex- 
 claimed Morris. "There's not so much in this method as
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS! PART THE FIRST, SI 
 
 I was led to think." He crumpled the j)aper up and 
 threw it down ; and then, the next moment, picked it up 
 again and ran it over. "It seems it's on the financial 
 point that my position is weakest," he reflected. " Is 
 there positively no way of raising the wind ? In a vast 
 city like this, and surrounded by all the resources of civ- 
 ihzation, it seems not to be conceived ! Let us have no 
 more precipitation. Is there nothing I can sell ? M}' col- 
 lection of sic-net — ." But at the thou^-ht of scattering- 
 these beloved treasures, the blood leaped into Morris's 
 cheek. " I would rather die ! " he exclaimed, and cram- 
 ming his hat upon his head, strode forth into the streets. 
 
 " I must raise funds," he thought. " My uncle being 
 dead, the money in the bank is mine ; or would be mine, 
 but for the cursed injustice that has pursued me ever 
 since I was an orphan in a Commercial Academy. I know 
 •what any other man would do ; any other man in Chris- 
 tendom would forge ; although I don't know why I call it 
 forging, either, when Joseph's dead, and the funds are my 
 own. When I think of that, when I think that my uncle 
 is really as dead as mutton, and that I can't prove it, my 
 goi'ge rises at the injustice of the whole affair. I used to 
 feel bitterly about that seven thousand eight hundred 
 pounds ; it seems a trifle now ! Dear me, why, the day 
 before yesterday I was comparatively happy." 
 
 And IMorris stood on the sidewalk and heaved another 
 sobbing sigh. 
 
 "Then there's another thing," he resumed; "can I?
 
 82 
 
 THE ^VKOXG BOX. 
 
 Am I able ? "Why didu't I practise different handwritings 
 while I was young ? How a fellow regrets those lost op- 
 jwrtunities when he grows up ! But there's one comfort : 
 it's not morally wrong ; I can try it on with a clear con- 
 science, and even if I was found out, I wouldn't greatly care 
 — morally, I mean. And then, if I succeed, and if Pit- 
 man is staunch — there's nothing to do but find a venal 
 doctor ; and that ought to be simple enough in a j^laco 
 like London. By all accounts the town's alive with them. 
 It wouldn't do, of course, to advertise for a coiTupt physi- 
 cian ; that would be impolitic. No, I suppose a fellow has 
 simply to spot Along the streets for a red lamp and herbs 
 in the window, and then you go in and — and — and put it 
 to him plainly ; though it seems a delicate step." 
 
 He was near home now, after many devious wanderings, 
 and turned up John Street. As he thrust his latch-key in 
 the lock, another mortifying reflection struck him to the 
 heart. 
 
 "Not even this house is mine till I can prove him 
 dead," he snarled, and slammed the door behind him so 
 that the windows in the attic rattled. 
 
 Night had long fallen ; long ago the lamps and the shop- 
 fronts had begun to glitter down the endless streets ; the 
 lobby was pitch-dark ; and, as the devil would have it, 
 Morris barked his shins and sprawled all his length over 
 the pedestal of Hercules. The pain was sharp ; his temper 
 was already thoroughly undermined ; by a last misfortune 
 his hand closed on the hammer as he fell ; and, in a spasm
 
 THE TRIBULATIOXS OI^ MOKRIS : PART THE ITRST. 83 
 
 of chilJisli irritation, lie turned and struck at the offending 
 statue. There was a splintei-ing crash. 
 
 " O Lord, what have I done next ? " wailed Morris ; and 
 he groped his way to find a candle. " Yes," he reflected, 
 as he stood with the light in his hand and looked upon the 
 mutilated leg, from which about a pound of muscle was 
 detached. "Yes, I have destroyed a genuine antique ; I 
 may be in for thousands ! " And then there s^Drung up 
 in his bosom a sort of angry hope. " Let me see," he 
 thought. "Julia's got rid of ; there's nothing to connect 
 me with that beast, Forsyth ; the men wei-e all drunk, and 
 (what's better) they've been all discharged. Oh, come, I 
 think this is another case for moral courage ! I'll deny all 
 knowledge of the thing." '■ 
 
 A moment more, and he stood again before the Her- 
 cules, his lips sternly compressed, the coal-axe and the 
 meat-cleaver under his arm. The next, he had fallen up- 
 on the packing-case. This had been already seriously 
 undermined by the operations of Gideon ; a few Avell- 
 directed blows, audit akeady quaked and gaped ; yet a few 
 more, and it feU about Morris in a shower of boards fol- 
 lowed by an avalanche of straw. 
 
 And now the leather merchant could behold the nature 
 of his task ; and at the first sight his spirit quailed. It 
 was indeed, no more ambitious a task for De Lesseps, with 
 all his men and horses, to attack the hills of Panama, than 
 for a single, slim young gentleman, with no previous ex- 
 perience of labor in a quarry, to measiu-e himself against
 
 St Tin; WKONG BOX. 
 
 that bloated mouster on his pedestal. And yet the pair 
 were well encountered : on the one side, bulk — on tlie 
 other, genuine heroic fire. 
 
 " Down you shall come, you great big ugly brute ! 
 cried Morris aloud, with something of that passion which 
 swept the Parisian mob against the walls of the Bastille. 
 " Down you shall conic, this night. I'll have none of you 
 in my lobby. " 
 
 The face, from its indecent expression, had particularly 
 animated the zeal of our iconoclast ; and it was against the 
 face that he began his operations. The great height of 
 the demigod— for he stood a fathom and half in his stocking 
 feet — offered a preliminary obstacle to this attack. But 
 here, in the first skirmish of the battle, intellect already 
 began to triumph over matter. By means of a pair of 
 library steps, the injured householder gained a posture of 
 advantage ; and with great swipes of the coal-axe, jiro- 
 ceeded to decapitate the brute. 
 
 Two hours later, what had been the erect image of 
 a gigantic coal-porter turned miraculously white, was 
 now no more than a medley of disjected members : the 
 quadragenarian torso prone against the pedestal ; the la- 
 scivious countenance leering down the kitchen stair ; the 
 logs, the arms, the hands, and even the fingers, scattered 
 broadcast on the lobby floor. Half an hour more, and all 
 the debris had been laboriously carted to the kitchen ; 
 and Mon'is, with a gentle sentiment of triumph, looked 
 round upon the scene of his achievements. Yes, he could
 
 THE TKIBULAXrONS OF MORRIS : PART THE FIRST. 85 
 
 deny all knowledge of it now : the lobby, beyond the fact 
 that it was partly ruinous, betrayed no trace of the passage 
 of Hercules. But it was a weary Morris that crept up to 
 bed ; his arms and shoulders ached, the palms of his 
 hands burned from the rough kisses of the coal-axe, and 
 there was one smarting finger that stole continually to 
 his mouth. Sleep long delayed to visit the dilapidated 
 hero, and with the first peep of day it had again desert- 
 ed him. 
 
 The mornine:, as thoucrh to accord with his disastrous 
 fortunes, dawned inclementlv. An easterly gale was 
 shouting in the streets ; flaws of rain angrily assailed the 
 windows ; and as Morris dressed, the draught from the 
 fireplace vividly played about his legs. 
 
 " I think," he could not help observing, bitterly, " that 
 with all I have to bear, they might have given me decent 
 weather." 
 
 There was no bread in the house, for Miss Hazeltine 
 (like all women left to themselves) had subsisted entirely 
 upon cake. But some of this was found, and (along with 
 what the poets call a glass of fail*, cold water) made up a 
 semblance of a morning meal. And then down he sat 
 undauntedly to his delicate task. 
 
 Nothing can be more interesting than the study of 
 signatures, written (as they are) before meals and after, 
 during indigestion and intoxication ; written when the 
 signer is trembling for the life of his child, or has come 
 from winning the Derby, in his lawyer's ofiice, or under
 
 86 THE WKONG BOX. 
 
 the bright eyes of his sweetheart. To the vulgar, these 
 seem never the same ; but to the expert, the bank clerk, 
 or the lithographer, they are constant quantities and 
 as recognizable as the North Star to the night-watch on 
 deck. 
 
 To all this Morris was alive. In the theory of that 
 graceful art in which he was now embarking, our spirited 
 leather merchant was beyond all reproach. But happily 
 for the investor, forgery is an affair of practice. And as 
 Morris sat surrounded by examples of his uncle's sig- 
 nature, and his own incompetence, insidious depression 
 stole upon his spirits. From time to time the wind 
 wuthered in the chimney at his back ; fi'om time to time 
 there swept over Bloomsbury a squall so dark that he 
 must rise and light the gas ; about him was the chill and 
 the mean disorder of a house out of commission — the 
 floor bare, the sofa heaped with books and accounts en- 
 veloped in a dirty table-cloth, the pens rusted, the paj^er 
 glazed with a thick film of dust ; and yet these were but 
 adminicles of misery, and the true root of his depression 
 lay round him on the table in the shape of misbegotten 
 forgeries. 
 
 "It's one of the strangest things I ever heard of," he 
 complained. "It almost seems as if it was a talent that 
 I didn't jDOssess." He went once more minutely through 
 his proofs. " A clerk would simply gibe at them," said 
 he. " Well, there's nothing else but tracing possible." 
 
 He waited till a squall had passed and there came a
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS ! PART THE FIRST. 87 
 
 blink of scowling daylight. Then he went to the window, 
 and in the face of all John Street traced his uncle's signa- 
 ture. It was a poor thing at the best. " But it must 
 do," said he, as he stood gazing wofully on his handi- 
 work. " He's dead anyway." And he filled up the cheque 
 for a couple of a hundred and sallied forth for the Anglo- 
 Patagonian Bank. 
 
 There, at the desk at which he was accustomed to trans- 
 act business, and with as much indifference as he could 
 assume, Mon'is presented the forged cheque to the big, 
 red-bearded Scots teller. The teller seemed to view it 
 with surprise ; and as he turned it this way and that, and 
 even scrutinized the signature with a magnifying glass, 
 his surprise appeared to warm into disfavor. Begging to 
 be excused for a moment, he passed away into the rear- 
 most quarters of the bank ; whence, after an appreciable 
 interval, he returned again in earnest talk with a superi- 
 or, an oldish and a baldish, but a very gentlemanly man. 
 
 "Mr. Morris Finsbury, I believe," said the gentlemanly 
 man, fixing Morris with a pair of double eyeglasses. 
 
 "That is my name," said Morris, quavering. "Is there 
 anything wrong ? " 
 
 " Well, the fact is, Mr. Finsbury, you see we are rather 
 surprised at receiving this," said the other, flicking at the 
 cheque. "There are no effects." 
 
 "No effects?" cried Morris. "^\liy, I know myself 
 there must be eight and twenty hundred pounds, if there's 
 a penny. "
 
 88 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 "Two seven six four, I think," replied the gentlemanly 
 man ; "but it was drawn yesterday." 
 
 "Di-awn!" cried Morris. 
 
 "By your uncle himself, sir," continued the other. 
 " Not only that, but we discounted a bill for him for — let 
 me see — how much was it for, "Mi: Bell ? " 
 
 " Eight hundred, Mr. Judkin," replied the teller. 
 
 " Dent Pitman ! " cried Morris, staggering back. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said Mr. Judkin. 
 
 "It's — it's only an expletive," said Morris. 
 
 "I hope there's nothing wrong, Mr. Finsbur}-," said 
 Mr. BeU. 
 
 "All I can tell you," said Morris, with a harsh laugh, 
 " is that the whole thing's impossible. INIy uncle is at 
 Bournemouth, unable to move." 
 
 "Keally ! " cried Mr. Bell, and he recovered the cheque 
 from Mr. Judkin. " But this cheque is dated in London, 
 and to-day," he observed. "How d'ye account for that, 
 sir?" 
 
 "Oh, that was a mistake," said Morris, and a deep tide 
 of color dyed his face and neck. 
 
 "No doubt, no doubt," said Mr. Judkin, but he looked 
 at his customer inquiringly. 
 
 "And — and — ," resumed Morris, "even if there were 
 BO effects — this is a very trifling sum to overdraw — our 
 firm — the name of Finsbury is surely good enough for 
 such a wretched sum as this." 
 
 "No doubt, ^li'. Finsbury," retui*ned Mr. Judkin;
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MOKRIS I PART THE FIRST. 89 
 
 " and if you insist I will take it into consideration ; but I 
 hardly think — in short, Mr. Finsbur}', if there had been 
 nothing else, the signature seems hardly all that we could 
 wish." 
 
 " That's of no consequence," replied Morris, nervously, 
 " I'll get my uncle to sign another. The fact is," he went 
 on, with a bold stroke, " my uncle is so far from well at 
 present that he was unable to sign this cheque without 
 assistance, and I fear that my holding the pen for him 
 may have made the difference in the signature." 
 
 Mr. Judkin shot a keen glance into Morris's face ; and 
 then turned and looked at Mr. Bell. 
 
 " Well," he said, " it seems as if we have been victimized 
 by a swindler. Pray tell Mr. Finsbury we shall put detec- 
 tives on at once. As for this cheque of yours, I regret 
 that, owing to the way it was signed, the bank can hardly 
 consider it — what shall I say? — business-like," and he re- 
 turned the cheque across the counter. 
 
 Morris took it up mechanically, he was thinking of 
 something very different. 
 
 " In a case of this kind," he began, " I believe the loss 
 falls on us ; I mean upon my uncle and myself." 
 
 "It does not, sir," replied Mr. Bell, "the bank is re- 
 sponsible, and the bank will either recover the money or 
 refund it, you may depend on that." 
 
 Morris's face fell ; then it was visited by another gleam 
 of hope. 
 
 "I'll tell you what," he said, " you leave this entirely in
 
 90 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 my hands. I'll sift the matter. IVe an idea, at any rate ; 
 and detectives," he added appealingly, "are so expen- 
 sive." 
 
 "The bank would not hear of it," returned Mr. Judkiu. 
 " The bank stands to lose between three and four thou- 
 sand pounds ; it will spend as much more if necessaiy. 
 An undiscovered forger is a permanent danger. We 
 shall clear it up to the bottom, Mr. Fiusbury, set your 
 mind at rest on that." 
 
 "Then I'll stand the loss," said Morris, boldly. "I 
 order you to abandon the search." He was determined 
 that no inquiry should be made. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," returned ]Mr. Judkiu, "but we 
 have nothing to do with you in this matter, which is one 
 between your uncle and ourselves. If he should take this 
 opinion, and will either come here himself or will let me 
 Bee him in his sick-room " 
 
 "Quite impossible," cried Morris. 
 
 " Well then, you see," said Mr. Judkiu, "how my hands 
 are tied. The whole affair must go at once into the hands 
 of the police." 
 
 Morris mechanically folded the cheque and restored it 
 to his pocket-book. 
 
 "Good-morning," said he, and scrambled somehow out 
 of the bank. 
 
 " I don't know what they suspect," he reflected, " I 
 can't make them out, their whole behavior is thoroughly 
 uubusiness-hke. But it doesn't matter : all's up with
 
 THE TRIBFLATIONS OF MORRIS I PART THE FIRST. 91 
 
 everytliiug. The money has been paid ; the police are on 
 the scent ; in two hours, that idiot Pitman will be nabbed 
 — and the whole story of the dead body in the evening 
 papers." 
 
 If he could have heard what passed in the bank after 
 his departure, he would have been less alarmed, perhaps 
 more mortified. 
 
 "That was a curious affair, Mr. Bell," said Mr. Judkin. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Mr. Bell, " but I think we have given 
 him a fright." 
 
 "Oh, we shall hear no more of Mr. Morris Finsbury," 
 returned the other; "it was a first attempt, and the 
 house have dealt with lis so long that I was anxious to 
 deal gently. But I suppose, Mr. Bell, there can be no 
 mistake about yesterday ? It was old Mr. Finsbury him- 
 self ? " 
 
 " There could be no possible doubt of that," said Mi\ 
 BeU, with a chuckle. " He explained to me the principles 
 of banking." 
 
 "Well, well," said Mr. Judkin. "The next time he 
 calls, ask him to step into my room. It is only proper he 
 should be warned."
 
 CHAPTEE Vn. 
 
 IN WHICH WILLIAM DENT PITMAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE. 
 
 Norfolk Street, King's Eoad — jocularly known among 
 Mr. Pitman's lodgers as " Norfolk Island," is neither a long, 
 a handsome, nor a pleasing thoroughfare. Dirty, under- 
 sized maids-of-all-work issue from it in pursuit of beer, 
 or linger on its sidewalk listening to the voice of love. 
 The cat's-meat man passes twice a day. Au occasional or- 
 gan-grinder wanders in and wanders out again, disgusted. 
 In holiday time the street is the arena of the young 
 bloods of the neighborhood, and the householders have 
 an opportunity of studying the manly art of self-defence. 
 And yet Norfolk Street has one claim to be respectable, 
 for it contains not a single shop — unless you count the 
 public house at the corner, which is really in the King's 
 Eoad. 
 
 The door of No. 7 bore a brass plate inscribed with 
 the legend " W. D. Pitman, Artist." It was not a particu- 
 larly clean brass plate, nor was No. 7 itself a particularly 
 inviting -place of residence. And yet it had a character 
 of its own, such as may well quicken the pulse of the 
 reader's curiosity. For here was the home of an artist — 
 and a distinguished artist too, highly distinguished by his
 
 WILLIAM DENT PITMAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE. 93 
 
 ill-success — which had never been made the subject of an 
 article in the illustrated magazines. No wood-engraver 
 had ever reproduced " a corner in the back di-awiug-room " 
 or " the studio mantelpiece " of No. 7 ; no young lady 
 author had ever commented on " the unaffected simplicity " 
 with which Mr. Pitman received her in the midst of his 
 "treasures." It is an omission I would gladly supply, 
 but our business is only with the backward parts and 
 "abject rear" of this aesthetic dwelling. 
 
 Here was a garden, boasting a dwarf fountain (that 
 never played) in the centre, a few grimy-looking flowers 
 in pots, two or three newly-planted trees which the spring 
 of Chelsea visited without noticeable consequence, and 
 two or three statues after the antique, representing satyrs 
 and nymphs in the worst possible style of sculptured art. 
 On one side, the garden was over-shadowed by a pair of 
 crazy studios, usually hired out to the more obscure and 
 youthful practitioners of British art. Opposite these an- 
 other lofty out-building, somewhat more carefully finished, 
 and boasting of a communication with the house and a 
 private door on the back lane, enshrined the multifarious 
 industry of IVIr. Pitman. All day, it is true, he was en- 
 gaged in the work of education at a seminary for young 
 ladies ; but the evenings at least were his own, and these 
 he would prolong far into the night, now dashing off A 
 landscape with waterfall in oil, now a volunteer bust ("in 
 marble," as he would gently but proudly observe) of some 
 public chai-acter, now stooping his chisel to a mere nymph
 
 94 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 ("for a gas-bracket on a stair, sir"), or a life-size Infant 
 Samuel for a religious nursery. Mr. Pitman bad studied 
 in Paris, and be bad studied in Rome, supplied witb funds 
 by a fond parent wbo Avent subsequently bankrupt, in con- 
 sequence of a fall in corsets ; and tbougb be was never 
 tbougbt to bave tbe smallest modicum of talent, it was 
 at one time supposed tbat be bad learned bis business. 
 Eigbteen years of wbat is called " tuition " bad relieved 
 bim of tbe dangerous knowledge. His artist lodgers would 
 sometimes reason witb bim ; tbey would point out to bim 
 how impossible it was to paint by gas-ligbt, or to sculpture 
 life-sized nympbs witbout a model. 
 
 "I know tbat," be would reph% "No one in Norfolk 
 Street knows it better ; and if I were ricb I sbould cer- 
 tainly emplo}' tbe best models in London ; but being 
 poor, I bave taugbt myself to do witbout tbem. An oc- 
 casional model would only disturb my ideal conception 
 of tbe figure, and be a positive impediment in my ca- 
 reer. As for painting by an artificial li^bt," be would 
 continue, " tbat is simply a knack I bave found it neces- 
 sary to acquire, my days being engrossed in tbe work of 
 tuition." 
 
 At tbe moment wben we must present bim lo our read- 
 ers. Pitman was in bis studio alone, by tbe dying ligbt of 
 tbe October day. He sat (sure enougb witb " unaffected 
 simplicity ") in a Windsor cbair, bis low-crowned black 
 felt bat by bis side ; a dark, weak, harmless, pathetic 
 little man, clad in tbe hue of moui'niug, his coat longer
 
 WILLIAM DEXT PITMAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE. 95 
 
 than is usual with the laity, his neck enclosed in a collar 
 without a parting, his neckcloth pale in hue and simply 
 tied ; the whole outward man, except for a pointed beard, 
 tentatively clerical. There was a thinning on the top of 
 Pitman's head, there were silver hairs at Pitman's temple ; 
 poor gentleman, he was no longer young ; and years, and 
 poverty, and humble ambition thwarted, make a cheerless 
 lot. 
 
 In front of him, in the comer by the door, there stood 
 a portly bairel ; and let him turn them where he might, 
 it was always to the barrel that his eyes and his thoughts 
 returned, 
 
 "Should I open it? Should I return it? Should I 
 communicate with Mr. Semitopolis at once?" he won- 
 dered. "No," he concluded finally, "nothing without 
 Mr. Finsbury's advice." And he arose and produced a 
 shabby leathern desk. It opened without the formality 
 of unlocking, and displayed the thick cream-colored note 
 paper on which IMr. Pitman was in the habit of communi- 
 cating with the proprietors of schools and the parents of 
 his pupils. He placed the desk on the table by the win- 
 dow, and taking a saucer of Indian ink from the chimney- 
 piece, laboriously composed the following letter : 
 
 " My dear Mr. Finsbury," it ran, " would it be presum- 
 ing on your kindness if I asked you to pay me a visit here 
 this evening? It is in no trifling matter that I invoke 
 your valuable assistance, for need I say more than it con- 
 cerns the welfare of Mr. Semitopolis's statue of Hercules?
 
 y<^» TIIK WRONG i;OX. 
 
 I write you in great agitutiou of mind ; for I have made 
 all inquiries, and greatly fear that this work of ancient 
 art Las been mislaid. I labor besides under another per- 
 i:)lexity, not unconnected with the first. Pray excuse the 
 inelegance of this scrawl, and believe me yours in haste, 
 William D. Pitman." 
 
 Armed with this he set forth and rang the bell of No. 
 233 King's Eoad, the private residence of Michael Fins- 
 biu-y. He had met the lawyer at a time of great public 
 excitement in Chelsea ; Michael, who had a sense of hu- 
 mor and a great deal of careless kindness in his nature, 
 followed the acquaintance ujd, and having come to laugh, 
 remained to drop into a contemj)tuous kind of friendship. 
 By this time, which was four years after the first meeting, 
 Pitman was the lawyer's dog. 
 
 "No," said the elderly housekeeper who opened the 
 door in person, " Mr. Michael's not in yet. But ye're 
 looking terrible poorly, Mr. Pitman. Take a glass of 
 sherry, sir, to cheer ye up." 
 
 "No, I thank you, ma'am," replied the artist. " It is 
 very good in you, but I scarcely feel in sufficient si)irits 
 for sherry. Just give Mr. Fiusbury this note, and ask him 
 to look round — to the door in the lane, you will please 
 tell him ; I shall be in the studio all evening." 
 
 And he turned again into the street and walked slowly 
 homeward. A hair-dresser's window caught his attention, 
 and he stared long and earnestly at the proud, high-born, 
 waxen lady in evening dress, who circulated in the centre
 
 WILLIAM DENT PITMAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE. 97 
 
 of the show. The artist woke iii him, in spite of his 
 troubles. 
 
 " It is all veiy well to run down the men who make 
 these things," he cried, " but there's a something— there's 
 ti haughty, indefinable something about that figure. It's 
 what I tried for in my Empress Eugenie," he added, with 
 u sigh. 
 
 And he went home reflecting on the quality. " They 
 don't teach you that direct appeal in Paris," he thought. 
 " It's British. Come, I am going to sleep, I must wake 
 up, I must aim higher — aim higher," cried the little artist 
 to himself. All through his tea and afterward, as he was 
 giving his eldest boy a lesson on the fiddle, his mind 
 dwelt no longer on his troubles, but he was wrapt into the 
 better land ; and no sooner was he at liberty than he has- 
 tened with positive exhilaration to his studio. 
 
 Not even the sight of the barrel could entirely cast him 
 down. He flung himself with rising zest into his work — 
 a bust of Mr. Gladstone from a photograph ; turned (with 
 extraordinary success) the difficulty of the back of the 
 head, for which he had no documents beyond a hazy 
 recollection of a public meeting ; delighted himself by 
 his treatment of the collar ; and was only recalled to the 
 cares of life by Michael Finsbury's rattle at the door. 
 
 " Well, what's wrong ? " said Michael, advancing to the 
 grate where, knowing his friend's delight in a bright fire, 
 Mr. Pitman had not spared the fuel. "I suppose you 
 have come to grief somehow."
 
 98 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 "There is no expression strong enough," said the artist 
 •'Mr. SemitopoHs's statue has not turned up, and I am 
 afraid I shall be answerable for the money ; but I think 
 nothing of that — what I fear, my dear Mr. Finsbuiy, what 
 I fear — alas, that I should have to say it ! — is exposure. 
 The Hercules was to be smuggled out of Italy ; a thing 
 positively wrong, a thing of which a man of my princi- 
 ples and in my responsible position should have taken 
 (as I now see too late) no part whatever." 
 
 " This sounds like very serious work," snid the lawyer 
 "It will require a great deal of drink, Pitman." 
 
 " I took the liberty of — in short, of being prepared for 
 you," replied the artist, pointing to a kettle, a bottle of 
 gin, a lemon, and glasses. 
 
 Michael mixed himself a grog, and oflFered the artist a 
 cigar. 
 
 " No, thank you," said Pitman. " I used occasionally 
 to be rather partial to it, but the smell is so disagreeable 
 about the clothes." 
 
 " All right," said the lawj^er. " I am comfortable now. 
 Uufold your tale." 
 
 At some length. Pitman set forth his sorrows. He had 
 gone to-day to Waterloo, expecting to receive the colossal 
 Hercules, and he had received instead a barrel not big 
 enough to hold Discobolus ; yet the barrel was addressed 
 in the hand (with which he was perfectly acquainted) of 
 his Roman correspondent. What was stranger still, a case 
 had arrived by the same train, large enough and heavy
 
 WILLIAM DENT PITSIAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE. 99 
 
 enough to contain tlie Hercules ; and this case had been 
 taken to an address now un discoverable. " The van man 
 (I regret to say it) had been drinking, and his language 
 was such as I could never bring myself to repeat. He 
 was at once discharged by the supeiintendent of the line, 
 who behaved most properly throughout and is to make 
 inquiries at Southampton. In the meanwhile, what was I 
 to do ? I left my address and brought the barrel home ; 
 but remembering an old adage, I determined not to open 
 it except in the presence of my lawj'er." 
 
 " Is that all ? " asked Michael. " I don't see any cause 
 to worry. The Hercules has stuck upon the road. It 
 will drop in to-morrow or the day after ; and as for the 
 barrel, depend upon it, it's a testimonial from one of your 
 young ladies, and probably contains oysters." 
 
 " Oh, don't speak so loud ! " cried the little artist. " It 
 would cost me my place if I were heard to speak lightly 
 of the young ladies, and besides, why oysters from Italy ? 
 and why should they come to me addressed in Signor 
 Kicardi's hand ? " 
 
 "Well, let's have a look at it," said Michael. "Let's 
 roll it forward to the light." 
 
 The two men rolled the barrel from the comer, and 
 stood it on end before the fire. 
 
 "It's heavy enough to be oysters," remarked Michael, 
 judiciously. 
 
 " Shall we open it at once ? " inquired the artist, who 
 had grown decidedly cheerful under the combined
 
 100 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 effects of company and gin ; and without waiting for a 
 repl}', he began to strip as if for a prize-fight, tossed his 
 clerical collar in the waste-paper basket, hung his clerical 
 coat upon a nail, and with a chisel in one hand and a 
 hammer in the other, struck the first blow of the even- 
 ing. 
 
 "That's the style, William Dent!" cried Michael. 
 " There's fire for your money ! It may be a romantic 
 visit from one of the young ladies — a sort of Cleopatra bus- 
 iness. Have a care, and don't stave in Cleopatra's head." 
 
 But the siglit of Pitman's alacrity was infectious. The 
 lawyer could sit still no longer. Tossing his cigar into 
 the fire, he snatched the instrument from the unwilling 
 hands of the artist, and fell to himself. Soon the sweat 
 stood in beads ujDon his large, fair brow ; his stylish 
 trousers were defaced with iron rust, and the state of his 
 chisel testified to misdirected energies. 
 
 A cask is not an easy thing to open, even when you set 
 about it in the right way ; when you set about it wrongl}', 
 the whole structure must be resolved into its elements. 
 Such was the course pursued alike by the artist and the 
 lawyer. Presently the last hoop had been removed — a 
 couple of smart blows tumbled the staves iipon the 
 ground — and what had once been a barrel was no more 
 than a confused heap of broken and distorted boards. 
 
 In the midst of tliese, a certain dismal something, 
 swathed in blankets, remained for an instant upright, and 
 then toppled to one side and heavily collapsed before the
 
 WILLIAM DENT PITMAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE. 101 
 
 fire. Even as the thing subsided, an eye-glass tingled to 
 the floor and rolled toward the screaming Pitman. 
 
 "Hold your tongue ! " said Michael. He dashed to the 
 house door and locked it ; then, with a pale face and bit- 
 ten lip, he drew near, pulled aside a corner of the swathing 
 blanket, and recoiled, shuddering. 
 
 There was a long silence in the studio. 
 
 "Now tell me," said Michael, in a low voice : "Had you 
 any hand in it? " and he pointed to the body. 
 
 The little artist could only utter broken and disjointed 
 sounds. 
 
 Michael poured some gin into a glass. "Drink that," 
 he said. "Don't be afraid of me. I'm your friend through 
 thick and thin." 
 
 Pitman put the liquor down untasted. 
 
 "I swear before God," he said, "this is another mystery 
 to me. In my worst fears, I never dreamed of such a 
 thing. I would not lay a finger on a sucking infant." 
 
 "That's all square," said Michael, with a sigh of huge 
 relief. "I believe you, old boy." And he shook the artist 
 warmly by the hand. "I thought for a moment," he added, 
 with rather a ghastly smile, "I thought for a moment you 
 might have made way with Mr. Semitopolis." 
 
 " It would make no difference if I had," groaned Pitman. 
 "All is at an end for me. There's the writing on the 
 wall" 
 
 " To begin with, "said Michael, " let's get him out of sight ; 
 for to be quite plain with you. Pitman, I don't like your
 
 102 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 friend's appearance." And with that the lawyer shuddered 
 " Where can we put it ? " 
 
 "You might put it in the closet there — if you could 
 bear to touch it," answered the artist. 
 
 " Somebody has to do it, Pitman," returned the lawyer ; 
 " and it seems as if it had to be me. You go over to the 
 table, turn your back, and mix me a grog ; that's a fair 
 division of labor." 
 
 About ninety seconds later, the closet door was heard 
 to shut. 
 
 "There," observed Michael, "that's more home-like. 
 You can turn nOw, my pallid Pitman. Is this the grog? " 
 he ran on. " Heaven forgive you, it's a lemonade ! " 
 
 "But oh, Finsbury, what are we to do with it?" wailed 
 the artist, laying a clutching hand upon the lawyer's 
 arm. 
 
 " Do with it ?" i-epeated Michael. " Bury it in one of 
 your flower-beds, and erect one of your own statues for a 
 monument. I tell you we should look devilish romantic 
 shovelling out the sod by the moon's pale ray. Here, put 
 some gin in this." 
 
 "Ibeg of you, Mr. Finsbury, do not trifle with my misery," 
 cried Pitman. " You see before you a man who has been 
 all his life — I do not hesitate to say it — eminently respect- 
 able. Even in this solemn hour I can lay my hand upon 
 my heart without a blush. Except on the really trifling 
 point of the smuggling of the Hercules (and even of that 
 I now humbly repent), my life has been entirely fit for
 
 WILLIAM DENT PITMAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE. 103 
 
 publication. I never feared the light," cried the little 
 man ; " and now — now — ! " 
 
 " Cheer up, old boy," said Michael. "I assure you we 
 should count this little contretemps a trifle at the ofl&ce ; 
 it's the sort of thing that may occur to anyone ; and if 
 you're perfectly sure you had no hand in it " 
 
 "What language am I to find — " began Pitman. 
 
 "Oh, I'll do that part of it," interrupted Michael, "you 
 have no experience. But the point is this : If — or rather 
 since — you know nothing of the crime, since the — the 
 party in the closet — is neither your father, nor your 
 brother, nor your creditor, nor your mother-in-law, nor 
 what they call an injured husband " 
 
 " Oh, my dear sir ! " interjected Pitman, horrified. 
 
 "Since, in short," continued the lawyer, "you had no 
 possible interest in the crime, we have a perfectly free 
 field before us and a safe game to play. Indeed the prob- 
 lem is really entertaining ; it is one I have long contem- 
 plated in the light of an A. B. case ; here it is at last 
 under my hand in specie ; and I mean to pull you 
 through. Do you hear that? — I mean to pull you 
 through. Let me see : it's a long time since I have had 
 what I call a genuine holiday ; I'll send an excuse to-mor- 
 row to the office. We had best be lively," he added, sig- 
 nificantly ; " for we must not spoil the market for the 
 other man." 
 
 "What do you mean?" inquired Pitman. "What 
 other man ? The inspector of police ? "
 
 104 THE \VRO>.'0 BOX. 
 
 " Damn the inspector of police ! " remarked his com- 
 paniou. " If you won't take the short cut and bury this 
 in your back garden, we must find someone who will 
 bury it in his. We must place the atlair, in short, in the 
 hands of someone of fewer scruples and more resources," 
 
 " A private detective, perhaps ? " suggested Pitman. 
 
 "There are times when you fill me with pity," observed 
 the lawyer. "By the way. Pitman," he added, in another 
 key. "I have always regretted that you have no piano in 
 this den of yours. Even if you don't play yourself, your 
 friends might like to entertain themselves with a little 
 music while you were mudding." 
 
 "I shall get one at once if you like," said Pitman, ner- 
 vously, anxious to please. "I play the fiddle a httle as 
 it is." 
 
 " I know you do," said Michael ; " but what's the fid- 
 dle — above all as you play it ? What you want is poly- 
 phonic music. And I'll tell you what it is, since it's too 
 late for you to buy a piano I'll give you mine." 
 
 "Thank you," said the artist, blankly. "You will give 
 me 3'ours? I am sure it's very good in you." 
 
 " Yes, I'll give you mine," continued Michael, " for the 
 inspector of police to play on while his men are digging 
 up your back garden." 
 
 Pitman stared at him in pained amazement. 
 
 "No, I'm not insane," Michael went on. "I'm playful 
 but quite coherent. See here. Pitman ; follow me one 
 half minute. I mean to profit by the refreshing fact that
 
 "WILLIAM DENT PITMAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE. 105 
 
 we are really and truly innocent ; nothing but the pres- 
 ence of the — you know what — connects us with the 
 crime ; once let us get rid of it, no matter how, and there 
 is no possible clue to trace us by. Well, I give you my 
 piano ; we'll bring it round this very night. To-morrow, 
 we rip the fittings out, deposit the — our friend — mside, 
 plump the whole on a cart, and cany it to the chambers 
 of a young gentleman whom I know by sight." 
 
 "Whom do you know by sight?" repeated Pitman. 
 
 "And what is more to the purpose," continued Michael, 
 "whose chambers I know better than he does himself. 
 A friend of mine — I call him my friend for brevity ; he is 
 now, I understand, in Demerara and (most likely) in jail 
 — was the previous occupant. I defended him, and I got 
 him off too — aU saved but honor ; his assets were nil, but 
 he gave me what he had, poor gentleman, and along with 
 the rest — the key of his chambers. It's there that I pro- 
 pose to leave the piano and, shall we say, Cleopatra ? " 
 
 "It seems very wild," said Pitman. "And what will 
 become of the poor young gentleman whom you know by 
 sight?" 
 
 " It will do him good," said IMichael, cheerily. " Just 
 what he wants to steady him." 
 
 " But, my dear sir, he might be involved in a charge of 
 — a charge of murder," gulped the artist. 
 
 " Well, he'll be just where we are," returned the lawyer. 
 " He's innocent, you see. What hangs people, my dear 
 Pitman, is the unfortunate circumstance of guilt."
 
 106 Tin; WKONO BOX. 
 
 "But indeed, indeed," pleaded Pitman, "the whole 
 scheme appears to me so wild. Would it not be safer, 
 after all, just to send for the police?" 
 
 "And make a scandal?" inquired Michael. "'The 
 Chelsea Mystery ; alleged innocence of Pitman ? ' How 
 would that do at the Semiuaiy ? " 
 
 "It would imply my discharge," admitted the drawing- 
 master. "I cannot deny that." 
 
 " And besides," said Michael, " I am not going to em- 
 bark in such a business and have no fun for my money." 
 
 " Oh, my dear sir, is that a proper spirit ? " cried Pit- 
 «ian. 
 
 "Oh, I only said that to cheer you up," said the un- 
 abashed Michael. " Nothing like a little judicious levity. 
 But it's quite needless to discuss. If you mean to follow 
 my advice, come on, and let us get the piano at once. If 
 you don't, just drop me the word, and I'll leave you to 
 deal with the whole thing according to your better judg- 
 ment." 
 
 " You know perfectly well that I depend on you en- 
 tirely," returned Pitman. " But oh, what a night is before 
 me with that — horror in my studio ! How am I to think 
 of it on my pillow ? " 
 
 "Well, you know, my piano will be there too," said 
 I\lichacl. "That'll raise the average." 
 
 An hour later a cart came up the lane, and the lawyer's 
 piano — a momentous Broadwood grand — was deposited in 
 Mr. Pitman's studio.
 
 CHAPTER Vm. 
 
 EN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY. 
 
 Punctually at eight o'clock next morning the lawyer 
 rattled (according to previous appointment) on the studio 
 door. He found the artist sadly altered for the worse — 
 bleached, bloodshot, and chalky— a man upon wires, the 
 tail of his haggard eye still wandering to the closet. Nor 
 was the professor of drawing less inclined to wonder at 
 his friend. Michael was usually attired in the height of 
 fashion, with a certain mercantile brilliancy best described 
 perhaps as stylish ; nor could anything be said against 
 him, as a rule, but that he looked a trifle too like a wed- 
 ding guest to be quite a gentleman. To-day he had 
 fallen altogether from these heights. He wore a flannel 
 shirt of washed-out shepherd's tartan, and a suit of red- 
 dish tweeds, of the color known to tailors as "heather 
 mixture ; " his neckcloth was black, and tied loosely in a 
 sailor's knot ; a rusty ulster partly concealed these advan- 
 tages ; and his feet were shod with rough, walking boots. 
 His hat was an old soft felt, which he removed with a 
 flourish as he entered. 
 
 "Here I am, William Dent!" he cried, and drawing 
 from his pocket two little wisps of reddish hair, he held
 
 108 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 them to his cheeks like side- whiskers and danced about 
 the studio with the filmy graces of a ballet-girl. 
 
 Pitman laughed sadly. " I should never have known 
 you," said he. 
 
 "Nor were you intended to," returned Michael, replac- 
 ing his false whiskers in his pocket. " Now we must 
 overhaul you and your wardrobe, and disguise j'ou up to 
 the nines." 
 
 " Disguise ! " cried the artist. " Must I indeed disguise 
 myself ? Has it come to that ? " 
 
 " My dear creature," returned his companion, " disguise 
 is the spice of life. What is life, passionately exclaimed 
 the French j)hilosopher, without the pleasures of disguise ? 
 I don't say it's always good taste, and I know it's unpro- 
 fessional ; but what's the odds, down-hearted drawing- 
 master ? It has to be. We have to leave a false impres- 
 sion on the minds of many persons, and in particular on 
 the mind of Mr. Gideon Forsyth — the young gentleman I 
 know by sight — if he should have the bad taste to be at 
 home." 
 
 "If he be at home?" faltered the artist. " That would 
 be the end of all." 
 
 " AVon't matter a d ," returned IVIichael, airily. " Let 
 
 me see your clothes, and I'll make a new man of you in a 
 jiffy." 
 
 In the bedroom, to which he was at once conducted, 
 Michael examined Pitman's poor and scanty wardrobe with 
 a humorous eye, picked out a short jacket of black alpaca,
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY. 109 
 
 and presently added to that a pair of summer trousers 
 which somehow took his fancy as incongruous. Then, 
 with the garments in his hand, he scrutinized the artist 
 closely. 
 
 " I don't like that clerical collar," he remarked. "Have 
 you nothing else ? " 
 
 The professor of drawing pondered for a moment, and 
 then brightened ; "I have a pair of low-necked shirts," he 
 said, " that I used to wear in Paris as a student. They 
 are rather loud." 
 
 "The very thing!" ejaculated Michael. "You'll look 
 perfectly beastly. Here are spats, too," he continued, 
 drawing forth a pair of those offensive little gaiters. 
 " Must have spats ! And now you jump into these, and 
 whistle a tune at the window for (say) three-quarters of 
 an hour. After that you can rejoin me on the field of 
 glory." 
 
 So saying Michael returned to the studio. It was the 
 morning of the easterly gale ; the wind blew shrilly among 
 the statues in the garden, and drove the rain upon the 
 skylight in the studio ceiling ; and at about the same 
 moment of time when Morris attacked the hundredth ver- 
 sion of his uncle's signature in Bloomsbury, Michael, in 
 Chelsea, began to rip the wires out of the Broadwood 
 grand. 
 
 Three-quarters of an hour later Pitman was admitted 
 to find the closet-door standing open, the closet unten- 
 anted, and the piano discreetly shut.
 
 110 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 " It's a remarkably heavy instrument," observed 
 j\Iichael, and turned to consider his friend's disguise. 
 "You must shave off that beard of yours," he said. 
 
 "My beard!" cried Pitman. "I cannot shave my 
 beard. I cannot tamper with my appearance — my prin- 
 cipals would object They hold very strong views as to 
 the appearance of the professors — young ladies are con- 
 sidered so romantic. My beard was regarded as quite a 
 feature when I went about the place. It was regarded," 
 said the artist, with rising color, "it was regarded as un- 
 becoming." 
 
 " You can let it grow again," returned Michael, "and 
 then you'll be so precious ugly that they'U raise your 
 salary." 
 
 " But I don't want to look ugly," cried the artist. 
 
 "Don't be an ass," said Michael, who hated beards 
 and was delighted to destroy one. " Off with it like a 
 man ! 
 
 " Of course, if you insist," said Pitman ; and then he 
 sighed, fetched some hot water from the kitchen, and 
 setting a glass upon his easel, first clipped his beard with 
 scissors and then shaved his chin. He could not conceal 
 from himself, as he regarded the result, that his last 
 claims to manhood had been sacrified, but Michael seemed 
 dehghted. 
 
 " A new man, I declare ! " he cried. " When I give you 
 the window-glass spectacles I have in my pocket, you'll 
 be the beau ideal of a French commei'cial traveller."
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSSURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY. Ill 
 
 Pitman did not reply, but continued to gaze disconso- 
 lately on his image in the glass. 
 
 " Do you know," asked IMichael, " what the Governor 
 of South Carolina said to the Governor of North Caro- 
 lina? 'It's a long time between drinks,' observed that 
 powerful thinker ; and if you will put your hand into the 
 top left-hand pocket of my ulster, I have an impression 
 you will find a flask of brandy. Thank you. Pitman," he 
 added, as he filled out a glass for each. "Now you will 
 give me news of this." 
 
 The artist reached out his hand for the water-jug, but 
 Michael arrested the movement. 
 
 " Not if you went upon your knees ! " he cried. " This 
 is the finest liqueur brandy in Great Britain." 
 
 Pitman put his lips to it, set it down again, and 
 sighed. 
 
 " Well, I must say you're the poorest companion for a 
 holiday!" cried Michael. '-If that's all you know of 
 brandy, you shall have no more of it ; and while I finish 
 the flask, you may as well begin business. Come to think 
 of it," he broke off, "I have made an abominable error: 
 you should have ordered the cart before you were dis- 
 guised. Why, Pitman, what the devil's the use of you ? 
 why couldn't you have reminded me of that ? " 
 
 "I never even knew there was a cart to be ordered," 
 said the artist. "But I can take off the disguise again," 
 he suggested eagerly. 
 
 "You would find it rather a bother to put on your
 
 112 THK AVKONG BOX. 
 
 beard," observed the lawyer. "No, it's a false step ; the 
 sort of thing that hangs i^eople," he continued, with emi- 
 nent cheerfulness, as he sipped his brandy ; " and it can't 
 be retraced now. Off to the mews with you, make all the 
 arrangements ; they're to take the piano from here, cart 
 it to Victoria, and despatch it thence by rail to Cannon 
 Street, to lie till called for in the name of Fortune du 
 Boisgobey." 
 
 " Isn't that rather an awkward name ? " pleaded Pitman. 
 
 " Awkward ? " cried Michael, scornfully. " It would 
 hang us both ! Brown is both safer and easier to pro- 
 nounce. Call it Brown." 
 
 "I wish," said Pitman, "for my sake, I wish you 
 wouldn't talk so much of hanging." 
 
 " Talking about it's nothing, my boy ! " returned 
 Michael. "But take your hat and be off, and mind and 
 pay everything beforehand." 
 
 Left to himself, the lawyer turned his attention for some 
 time exclusively to the liqueur brandy, and his spirits, 
 which had been pretty fair all morning, now prodigiously 
 rose. He proceeded to adjust his whiskers finally befoi-e 
 the glass. "Devilish rich," he remarked, as he contem- 
 plated his reflection, " I look like a purser's mate." And 
 at that moment, the window-glass spectacles (which he had 
 hitherto destined for Pitman) flashed into his mind ; he 
 put them on, and fell in love with the effect. "Just what 
 I required," he said. "I wonder what I look like now? 
 A humorous novelist, I should think," and he began to
 
 IN AVHIOII MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY. 113 
 
 practise divers characters of walk, naming them to himself 
 as he proceeded. " Walk of a humorous novelist — but 
 that would require an umbrella. "Walk of a purser's mate. 
 Walk of an Australian colonist revisitinof the scenes of 
 childhood. Walk of Sepoy colonel, ditto, ditto." And in 
 the midst of the Sepoy colonel (which was an excellent 
 assumption, although inconsistent with the style of his 
 make-up), his eye lighted on the piano. This instrument 
 was made to lock both at the top and at the keyboard, 
 but the key of the latter had been mislaid. Michael 
 opened it and ran his fingers over the dumb keys. " Fine 
 instrument — full, rich tone," he observed, and he drew in 
 a seat. 
 
 When Mr. Pitman returned to the studio, he was ap- 
 palled to observe his guide, philosopher, and friend per- 
 forming miracles of execution on the silent grand. 
 
 " Heaven help me ! " thought the little man, "I fear he 
 has been drinking! Mr. Finsbury," ho said aloud; and 
 Michael, without rising, turned ujDon him a countenance 
 somewhat flushed, encircled with the bush of the red 
 whiskers, and bestridden by the spectacles. "Capriccio 
 in B-flat on the departure of a friend," said he, continuing 
 his noiseless evolutions. 
 
 Indignation awoke in the mind of Pitman. " Those 
 spectacles were to be mine," he cried. " They are an es- 
 sential part of my disguise." 
 
 "I am going to wear them myself," replied Michael; 
 and he added, with some show of truth, " there would
 
 114 
 
 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 be a devil of a lot of suspiciou aroused if we both wore 
 spectacles." 
 
 " Oil, weU," said the assenting Pitman, " I rather counted 
 on them ; but of course, if you insist ! And at any rate, 
 here is the cart at the door." 
 
 While the men were at work, Michael concealed himself 
 in the closet among the debris of the barrel and the wires 
 of the piano ; and as soon as the coast was clear, the pair 
 sallied forth by the lane, jumped into a hansom in the 
 King's Koad, and were driven rapidly toward town. It was 
 stiU cold and raw and boisterous ; the rain beat strongly 
 in their faces, but IMichael refused to have the glass let 
 down ; he had now suddenly donned the character of ci- 
 cerone, and pointed out and lucidly commented on the 
 sights of London, as they drove. "My dear fellow," he 
 said, " you don't seem to know anything of your native 
 city. Suppose we visited the Tower ? No ? Well, per- 
 haps it's a trifle out of our way. But anyway— Here, 
 Cabby, drive round by Trafalgar Square ! " And on that 
 historic battle-field he insisted on drawing up, while he 
 criticised the statues and gave the artist many curious de- 
 tails (quite new to histoiy) of the lives of the celebrated 
 men they represented. 
 
 It would be difficult to express what Pitman suffered in 
 the cab : cold, wet, terror in the capital degree, a grounded 
 distrust of the commander under whom he served, a sense 
 of impudency in the matter of the low-necked shirt, a bit- 
 ter sense of the decline and fall involved in the depriva-
 
 IX WHICH MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY. 115 
 
 tion of bis beai'd, all these were among the ingredients of 
 the bowl. To reach the restaurant, for which they were 
 deviously steering, was the first relief. To hear Michael 
 bespeak a private room was a second and a still greater. 
 Nor, as they mounted the stair under the guidance of an 
 unintelligible alien, did he fail to note with gratitude the 
 fewness of the persons present, or the still more cheering 
 fact that the greater part of these were exiles from the 
 land of France. It was thus a blessed thought that none 
 of them would be connected with the Semiuarv ; for even 
 the French professor, though admittedly a papist, he 
 could scarce imagine frequenting so rakish an establish- 
 ment. 
 
 The ahen introduced them into a small, bare room wdth 
 a single table, a sofa, and a dwarfish fire ; and Michael 
 called promptly for more coals and a couple of brandies 
 and sodas. 
 
 " Oh, no," said Pitman, "surely not; — no more to drink." 
 
 "I don't know what you would be at," said Michael, 
 plaintively. " It's positively necessary to do something ; 
 and one shouldn't smoke before meals — I thought that 
 was understood. You seem to have no idea of hygiene." 
 And he compared his watch with the clock upon the 
 chimney-piece. 
 
 Pitman fell into bitter musing ; here he was, ridicu- 
 lously shorn, absurdly disguised, in the company of a 
 drunken man in sjDectacles, and waiting for a chamj^agne 
 luncheon in a restaurant painfully foreign. What would
 
 116 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 his principals think, if they conld see him ? "What, if 
 they knew his tragic and deceitful errand ? 
 
 From these reilections he was aroused by the entrance 
 of the alien with the brandies and sodas. Michael took 
 one and bade the waiter pass the other to his friend. 
 
 Pitman waved it from him with his hand. " Don't let 
 me lose all self-respect," he said. 
 
 " Anything to oblige a friend," returned Michael. " But 
 I'm not going to driuk alone. Here," he added to the 
 waiter, "you take it." And then, touching glasses, "The 
 health of Mr. Gideon Forsyth," said he. 
 
 " Meestare Gidden Borsye," replied the waiter, and he 
 tossed off the liquor in four gulps. 
 
 "Have another?" said Michael, with undisguised inter- 
 est. " I never saw a man drink faster. It restores one's 
 confidence in the human race." 
 
 But the waiter excused himself politely, and assisted by 
 someone from without, began to bring in lunch. 
 
 Michael made an excellent meal, which he washed down 
 with a bottle of Heidsieck's dry monopole. As for the 
 artist, he was far too uneasy to eat, and his companion 
 flatly refused to let him share in the champagne unless he 
 did. 
 
 " One of us must stay sober," remarked the lawyer, 
 " and I won't give you champagne on the strength of a 
 leg of grouse. I have to be cautious," he added, confiden- 
 tially. " One drunken man, excellent business — two 
 drunken men, all my eye."
 
 IN WHICH MICHAKL FINSBUKY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY. 117 
 
 On the production of coffee and departure of the 
 waiter, Michael might have been observed to make por- 
 tentous efforts after gravity of mien. He looked his 
 friend in the face (one eye perhaps a trifle off), and ad- 
 dressed him thickly but severely. 
 
 " Enough of this fooling," was his not inappropriate 
 exordium. "To business. Mark me closely. I am an 
 Australian. My name is John Dickson, though you 
 mightn't think it from my unassuming appearance. You 
 will be relieved to hear that I am rich, sir, very rich. 
 You can't go into this sort of thing too thoroughly. Pit- 
 man ; the whole secret is preparation, and I get up my 
 biography from the beginning, and I could tell it you now, 
 only I have forgotten it." 
 
 "Perhaps I'm stupid — " began Pitman. 
 
 "That's it!" cried Michael. "Very stupid; but rich 
 too — richer than I am. I thought you Avould enjoy it. 
 Pitman, so I've arranged that you were to be literally wal- 
 lowing in wealth. But then, on the other hand, you're 
 only an American, and a maker of india-rubber overshoes 
 at that. And the worst of it is — why should I conceal it 
 from you — the worst of it is that you're called Ezra 
 Thomas. Now," said Michael, with a really appalling 
 seriousness of manner, " tell me who we are." 
 
 The unfortunate little man was cross-examined till he 
 knew these facts by heart. 
 
 "There!" cried the lawyer. "Our plans are laid. 
 Thoroughly consistent — that's the gi'eat thing."
 
 118 THE WRONG BOX, 
 
 "But I don't understand," objected Pitman. 
 
 " Oh, you'll understand right enough when it comes to 
 the point," said Michael, rising. 
 
 " There doesn't seem any story to it," said the artist. 
 
 "We can invent one as we go along," retiirned the 
 lawyer. 
 
 "But I can't invent," pi'otested Pitman. "I never 
 could invent in all my life." 
 
 " You'll find you have to, my boy," was Michael's easy 
 comment, and he began calling for the waiter, with whom 
 he at once resumed a sparkling conversation. 
 
 It was a down-cast little man that followed him. "Of 
 course he is very clever, but can I trust him in such a 
 state?" he asked himself. And when they were once 
 more in a hansom, he took heart of grace. 
 
 "Don't you think," he faltered, "it would be wiser, 
 considering all things, to put this business off?" 
 
 "Put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day?" 
 cried Michael, with indignation. " Never heard of such 
 a thing ! Cheer up, it's aU right, go in and win — there's 
 a lion-hearted Pitman ! " 
 
 At Cannon Street, they inquired for Mr. Brown's piano, 
 which had duly arrived, drove thence to a neighboring 
 mews, where they contracted for a cart, and while that 
 was being got ready, took shelter in the harness-room 
 l)eside the stove. Here the lawyer presently toppled 
 against the wall and fell into a gentle slumber ; so that 
 Pitman found himself launched on his own resources in
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBTJRY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY. 119 
 
 the midst of several staring loafers, such as love to spend 
 unprofitable days about a stable. 
 
 "Eough day, sir," observed one. "Do you go far? " 
 
 " Yes, it's a — rather a rough day," said the artist ; and 
 then, feehng that he must change the conversation, " my 
 friend is an Australian, he is very impulsive," he added. 
 
 •' An Australian ? " said another. " I've a brother my- 
 self in Melbourne. Does your friend come from that way 
 ataU?" 
 
 "No, not exactly," replied the artist, whose ideas of 
 the geography of New Holland were a little scattered. 
 " He lives immensely far inland, and is very rich." 
 
 The loafers gazed with great respect upon the slumber- 
 ing colonist. 
 
 " Well," remarked the second speaker, " it's a mighty 
 big place, is Australia. Do you come from there away 
 too ? " 
 
 " No, I do not," said Pitman. " I do not, and I don't 
 want to," He added, irritably. And then feehng some 
 diversion needful, he fell upon Michael and shook him 
 up. 
 
 "Hullo," said the lawyer, " what's wrong?" 
 
 " The cart is nearly ready," said Pitman, sternly. " I 
 will not allow you to sleep." 
 
 "All right — no offence, old man," replied Michael, 
 yawning. " A little sleep never did anybody any harm; 
 I feel comparatively sober now. But what's all the 
 hurry?" he added, looking round him glassily. "I
 
 120 Tin; WRONG BOX. 
 
 don't see the cart, and I've forgotten where we left the 
 piano." 
 
 What more the lawyer might have said, in the con- 
 fidence of the moment, is with Pitman a matter of tremu- 
 lous conjecture to this day ; but by the most blessed cir- 
 cumstance, the cart was then announced, and Michael 
 must bend the forces of his mind to the more difficult 
 task of rising. 
 
 " Of course, you'll drive," he remarked to his compan- 
 ion, as he clambered on the vehicle. 
 
 " I drive ! " cried Pitman. " I never did such a thing 
 in my life. I cannot drive." 
 
 "Very well," responded Michael, with entire compos- 
 ure, " neither can I see. But just as you like. Anything 
 to oblige a friend." 
 
 A glimpse of the ostler's darkening countenance de- 
 cided Pitman. "All right," he said, desperately, "you 
 di-ive. I'll tell you where to go." 
 
 On Michael in the character of charioteer (since this is 
 not intended to be a novel of adventure) it would be 
 superfluous to dwell at length. Pitman, as he sat hold- 
 ing on and gasping counsels, sole witness of this singular 
 feat, knew not whether most to admire the driver's valor 
 or his undeserved good fortune. But the latter at least 
 prevailed, the cart reached Cannon Street without disas- 
 ter ; and IVIr. Brown's i^iano was speedily and cleverly got 
 on board. 
 
 " Well, sir," said the leading porter, smiling as he men-
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FIXSBUKT ENJOYS A HOLIDAY. 121 
 
 tally reckonecl up a liandful of loose silver, " that's a mor- 
 tal beav}' piano." 
 
 " It's the richness of the tone," returned INIichael, as he 
 drove away. 
 
 It was but a little distance in the rain, which now fell 
 thick and quiet, to the neighborhood of IMi'. Gideon For- 
 syth's chambers in the Temple. There, in a deserted by- 
 street, Michael drew up the horses and gave them in 
 charge to a blighted shoe-black ; and the pair descending 
 from the cart, whereon they had figured so incongruously, 
 set forth on foot for the decisive scene of theii* adventure. 
 For the first time, IMichael displayed a shadow of uneasi- 
 ness. 
 
 " Ai-e my whiskers right ? " he asked. " It would be 
 the devil and all if I was spotted." 
 
 " They are perfectly in their place," returned Pitman, 
 with scant attention. "But is my disguise equally ef- 
 fective ? Thei'e is nothing more likely than that I should 
 meet some of my patrons." 
 
 " Oh, nobody could tell you without your beard," said 
 Michael. " All you have to do is to remember to speak 
 slow ; you speak through your nose already." 
 
 "I only hope the young man won't be at home," sighed 
 Pitman. 
 
 "And I only hope he'll be alone," returned the lawyer. 
 "It will save a precious sight of manceuvring." 
 
 And sure enough, when they had knocked at the door, 
 Gideon admitted them in person to a room, warmed by a
 
 122 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 modei'ate fire, framed nearly to the roof in works con- 
 nected with the bench of British Themis, and offering, 
 except in one particular, eloquent testimony to the legal 
 zeal of the proprietor. The one particular was the 
 chimney-piece, which displayed a varied assortment of 
 pipes, tobacco, cigar-boxes, and yellow-backed French 
 novels. 
 
 " Mr. Forsyth, I believe ? " It was Michael who thus 
 opened the engagement. " "We have come to trouble you 
 "with a piece of business. I fear it's scarcely profes- 
 sional " 
 
 " I am afraid I ought to be instructed through a 
 solicitor," replied Gideon. 
 
 " Well, well, you shall name your own, and the whole 
 affair can be put on a more regular footing to-morrow," 
 replied Michael, taking a chair and motioning Pitman to 
 do the same. " But you see we didn't know any solicitors ; 
 we did happen to know of you, and time presses." 
 
 " May I inquire, gentlemen," asked Gideon, " to whom 
 it was I am indebted for a recommendation ? " 
 
 " You may inquire," returned the lawyer, with a foolish 
 laugh ; " but I was invited not to tell you — till the thing 
 was done." 
 
 " My uncle, no doubt," was the barrister's conclusion. 
 
 " My name is John Dickson," continued Michael ; " a 
 pretty well-known name in Ballarat ; and my friend here 
 is Mr. Ezra Thomas, of the United States of America, a 
 wealthy manufacturer of India-rubber overshoes."
 
 IN wnicn ancHAEL finsburt enjoys a holiday. 123 
 
 "Stop one moment till I make a note of that," said 
 Gideon ; anyone might have supposed he was an old 
 practitioner. 
 
 "Perhaps you wouldn't mind my smoking a cigar?" 
 asked IMichael. He had pulled himself together for the 
 entrance ; now again there began to settle on his mind 
 clouds of irresponsible humor and incipient slumber ; and 
 he hoped (as so many have hoped in the like case) that a 
 cigar would clear him. 
 
 "Oh, certaiul}'," cried Gideon, blandly. "Try one of 
 mine ; I can confidently recommend them." And he 
 handed the box to his client, 
 
 " In case I don't make myself perfectly clear," obsei-ved 
 the Australian, " it's perhaps best to tell you candidly 
 that I've been lunching. It's a thing that may happen to 
 anyone." 
 
 " Oh, certainly," replied the affable barrister. " But 
 please be under no sense of hurry. I can give you," he 
 added, thoughtfully consulting his watch — "yes, I can 
 give you the whole afternoon." 
 
 " The business that brings me here," resumed the Aus- 
 tralian with gusto, " is deviHsh delicate, I can tell you. 
 My friend 'Mr. Thomas, being an American of Portuguese 
 extraction, unacquainted with our habits, and a wealthy 
 manufacturer of Broadwood pianos " 
 
 " Broadwood pianos ? " cried Gideon, with some sur- 
 prise. " Dear me, do I understand Mr. Thomas to be a 
 member of the firm ? "
 
 124 THE WKONO BOX. 
 
 "Oh, pirated Broaclwoods," returned Michael. "My 
 friend's the American Broadwood." 
 
 "But I understood ^'ou to say," objected Gideon, "I 
 certainly have it so in my notes— that your friend was a 
 manufacturer of India-rubber overshoes." 
 
 " I know it's confusing at first," said the Australian, with 
 a beaming smile. " But he — in short, he combines the 
 two professions. And many others besides — many, many, 
 many others," repeated Mr. Dickson, with drunken solem- 
 nity. " Mr. Thomas' cotton-mills are one of the sights 
 of Tallahassee ; Mr. Thomas' tobacco-mills are the pride 
 of Richmond, Va. ; in short, he's one of my oldest friends, 
 Mr. Forsyth, and I lay his case before you with emo- 
 tion." 
 
 The barrister looked at Mr. Thomas and was agreeably 
 prepossessed by his open although nervous countenance, 
 and the simplicity and timidity of his manner. "What a 
 people are these Americans ! " he thought. "Look at this 
 nervous, weedy, simple little bird in a low-necked shirt, 
 and think of him wielding and directing interests so ex- 
 tended and seemingly incongruous ! But had we not 
 better," he observed aloud, " had we not perhaps better 
 approach the facts ? " 
 
 " Man of business, I perceive, sir! " said the Australian. 
 *' Let's approach the facts. It's a breach of promise case." 
 
 The unhappy artist was so unprepared for this view of 
 his position that he could scarce suppress a cry. 
 
 "Dear me," said Gideon, "they are apt to be very
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBUET ENJOYS A HOLIDAY. 125 
 
 troublesome. Tell me everytliing about it," he added, 
 kindly ; "if jou require my assistance, conceal noth- 
 ing." 
 
 " You tell him," said Michael, feeling, apparently, that 
 he had done his share. "My friend will tell you all about 
 it," he added to Gideon, with a yawn. "Excuse my clos- 
 ing my eyes a moment ; I've been sitting up with a sick 
 friend." 
 
 Pitman gazed blankly about the room ; rage and de- 
 spair seethed in his innocent spirit ; thoughts of flight, 
 thoughts even of suicide, came and went before him ; and 
 still the barrister patiently waited, and still the artist 
 groped in vain for any form of words, however insigni- 
 ficant. 
 
 "It's a breach of promise case," he said at last, in a low 
 voice. " I — I am threatened with a breach of promise 
 case." Here, in desperate quest of inspiration, he made a 
 clutch at his beard ; his fingers closed upon the un- 
 familiar smoothness of a shaven chin ; and with that, 
 hope and courage (if such expressions could ever have 
 been appropriate in the case of Pitman) conjointly fled. 
 He shook Michael roughly. " Wake up ! " he cried, with 
 genuine irritation in his tones. " I cannot do it, and you 
 know I can't." 
 
 " You must excuse my friend," said Michael ; "he's no 
 hand as a narrator of stirring incident. The case is 
 simple," he went on. "My friend is a man of very strong 
 passions, and accustomed to a simple, patriarchal style of
 
 126 THE WRONO BOX. 
 
 life. You see the thing from here : unfortunate visit to 
 Europe, followed bj'' unfortunate acquaintance with sham 
 foreign count, who has a lovely daughter. Mr. Thomas 
 was quite carried away ; he proposed, he was accepted, 
 and he wrote — wrote in a style which I am sure he must 
 regret to-day. If these letters are produced in court, sir, 
 Mr. Thomas's character is gone." 
 
 "Am I to understand — " began Gideon. 
 
 " My dear sir," said the Australian, emphatically, " it 
 isn't possible to understand unless you saw them." 
 
 "That is a painful circumstance," said Gideon ; be 
 glanced pit3'iugly in the direction of the culprit, and ob- 
 serving on his countenance every mark of confusion, pity- 
 ingly withdrew his eyes. 
 
 "And that^ would be nothing, " continued Mr. Dickson, 
 sternly, " but I wish — I wish from my heart, sir, I could 
 say that Mi-. Thomas's hands were clean. He has no ex- 
 cuse ; for he was engaged at the time — and is still engaged 
 — to the belle of Constantinople, Ga. My friend's con- 
 duct was unworthy of the brutes that perish." 
 
 "Ga?" repeated Gideon, inquiringly. 
 
 "A contraction in current use, " said Michael. "Ga 
 for Georgia, in the same way as Co for Company." 
 
 "I was aware it was sometimes so written, " returned 
 the barrister, " out not that it was so pronounced. " 
 
 "Fact, I assure you, " said Michael. "You now see for 
 yoiu'self, sir, that if this unhappy person is to be saved, 
 some devilish sharp practice will be needed. There's
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBUKY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY. 127 
 
 money, and no desire to spare it. Mr. Thomas could 
 ■write a cheque to-morrow for a hundred thousand. And, 
 Mr. Forsyth, there's better than money. The foreign 
 count — Count Taruow, he calls himself — Avas formerly 
 a tobacconist in Bayswater, and passed under the humble 
 but expressive name of Schmidt ; his daughter — if she is 
 his daughter — there's another point — -make a note of that, 
 Mr. Forsyth — his daughter at that time actually served 
 in the shoj) — and she now proposes to marry a man of the 
 emiiience of Mr. Thomas ! Now do you see our game ? 
 We know they contemplate a move ; and we wish to fore- 
 stall 'em. Down you go to Hampton Court, where they 
 live, and threaten, or bribe, or both, until 3'ou get the let- 
 ters ; if you can't, God help us, we must go to court and 
 Thomas must be exposed. I'll be done with him for one," 
 added the unchivalrous friend. 
 
 " There seem some elements of success," said Gideon. 
 " Was Schmidt at all known to the police ? " 
 
 " We hope so," said Michael. " We have every ground 
 to think so. Mark the neighborhood — Bayswater ! doesn't 
 Bayswater occur to you as very suggestive ? " 
 
 For perhaps the sixth time during this remarkable in- 
 terview, Gideon wondered if he were not becoming light- 
 headed. " I suppose it's just because he has been lunch- 
 ing," he thought ; and then added aloud, " to what figure 
 may I go ? " 
 
 "Perhaps five thousand would be enough for to-day," 
 said Michael. " And now, sir, do not let me detain you
 
 128 THE WROXG BOX. 
 
 any longer ; the af tex-noou wears on ; there are plenty of 
 trains to Hampton Court ; and I needn't try to describe 
 to you the impatience of my friend. Here is a five pound 
 note for cui-rent expenses ; and here is the address." And 
 Michael began to write, paused, tore up the paper, and put 
 the pieces in his pocket. " I will dictate," he said, " my 
 writing is so uncertain." 
 
 Gideon took down the address, " Count Tarnow, Kur- 
 naul Villa, Hampton Court." Then lie wrote something 
 else on a sheet of paper. "You said you had not chosen 
 a solicitor," he said. " For a case of this sort, here is the 
 best man in London." And he handed the paper to 
 Michael. 
 
 " God bless me ! " ejaculated Michael, as he read his 
 own address. 
 
 " Oh, I dai'e say you have seen his name connected with 
 some rather painful cases," said Gideon. " But he is him- 
 self a perfectly honest man and his capacity is recognized. 
 And now, gentlemen, it only remains for me to ask where 
 I shall communicate with you." 
 
 " The Laugham, of course," returned Michael. " Till 
 to-night." 
 
 " Till to-night," replied Gideon, smiling. " I suppose 
 I may knock you up at a late hour ? " 
 
 " Any hour, any hour," cried the vanishing solicitor. 
 
 "Now there's a young fellow with a head upon his 
 shoulders," he said to Pitman, as soon as they were in the 
 street.
 
 IN AVniCH MICHAEL FINSBURY EX.IOYS A HOLIDAY. 129 
 
 Pitman was iudistiuctly heard to murmur, " Perfect 
 fool." 
 
 "Not a bit of liim," returned Michael. "He knows 
 who's the best solicitor in London, and it's not every man 
 can say the same. But, I say, didn't I pitch it iu hot ? " 
 
 Pitman returned no answer. 
 
 " Hullo ! " said the lawyer, pausing, " what's wrong with 
 the long-suffering Pitman ?" 
 
 "You had no i-ight to speak of me as you did," the 
 artist broke out ; " your language was perfectly unjustifi- 
 able ; you have wounded me deeply." 
 
 " I never said a word about you," replied Michael. " I 
 spoke of Ezra Thomas ; and do please remember that 
 there's no such party." 
 
 "It's just as hard to bear," said the artist. 
 
 But by this time they had reached the corner of the b}'- 
 street ; and there was the faithful shoeblack, standing by 
 the horses' heads with a splendid assumption of dignity ; 
 and there was the piano, pricking forlorn upon the cart, 
 while the rain beat upon its unprotected sides and trickled 
 down its elegantly vai*nished legs. 
 
 The shoeblack was again put iu requisition to bring five 
 or six strong fellows from the neighboring public-house ; 
 and the last battle of the campaign opened. It is prob- 
 able that Ml*. Gideon Forsyth had not vet taken his seat 
 iu the train for Hampton Court, before INIichael ojjened 
 the door of the chambers, and the grunting porters de- 
 posited the Broadwood grand in the middle of the floor. 
 9
 
 130 TUB WRONG BOX. 
 
 "And now," said the lawj^er, after lie had sent the men 
 about their business, " one more precaution. We must 
 leave liim the key of the piano, and wc must contrive 
 that he shall fiud it. Let me see." And he built a square 
 tower of cigars upou the toj) of the instrument, and 
 dropped the key into the middle. 
 
 "Poor young man," said the artist, as they descended 
 the stairs. 
 
 "He is in a devil of a position," assented Michael, 
 dryly. "It'll brace him up." 
 
 "And that reminds me," observed the excellent Pitman, 
 " that I fear I displayed a most ungrateful temper. I had 
 no right, I see, to resent expressions, wounding as they 
 were, which were in no sense directed." 
 
 "That's all right," cried Michael, getting on the cart. 
 " Not a word more, Pitman. Very proper feeling on your 
 part ; no man of self-respect can stand by and hear his 
 alias insulted." 
 
 The rain had now ceased, Michael was fairly sober, the 
 body had been disposed of, and the friends were recon- 
 ciled. Tiie return to the mews was therefore (in com- 
 parison with previous stages of the day's adventures) 
 quite a holiday outing ; and when they had returned the 
 cart and walked forth again from the stable-yard, unchal- 
 lenged and even unsuspected. Pitman drew a deep breath 
 of joy. 
 
 "And now," he said, "we can go home." 
 
 "Pitman," said the lawyer, stopping short, "your reck-
 
 IN WHICH >nCHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY. 131 
 
 lessness fills me with concern. What ! we have been wet 
 through the greater part of the day, and you propose, in 
 cold blood, to go home ! No, sir — hot Scotch." 
 
 And taking his friend's arm he led him sternly toward 
 the nearest public-house. Nor was Pitman (I regret to 
 say) wholly unwiUing. Now that peace was restored and 
 the body gone, a certain innocent skittishness began to 
 appear in the manners of the artist ; and when he touched 
 his steaming glass to Michael's, he giggled aloud like a 
 venturesome school-girl at a picnic.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 GLORIOUS CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL VlNSBURr's HOLIBAY. 
 
 I know Michael Finsbury personally ; my business — 
 I know the awkwardness of having such a man for a law- 
 yer — still it's an old story now, and there is such a thing 
 as gratitude, and, in short, my legal business, although now 
 (I am thankful to say) of quite a placid character, remains 
 entirely in Michael's hands. But the trouble is I have no 
 natural talent for addresses ; I learn one for every man — 
 that is friendship's offering ; and the friend who subse- 
 quently changes his residence is dead to me, memory re- 
 fusing to pursue him. Thus it comes about that, as I 
 always write to Michael at his office, I cannot swear to his 
 number in the King's Road. Of course (like my neigh- 
 bors), I have been to dinner there. Of late years, since his 
 accession to wealth, neglect of business, and election to the 
 club, these little festivals have become common. He picks 
 up a few fellows in the smoking-room — all men of attic 
 wit — myself, for instance, if he has the luck to find me dis- 
 engaged ; a string of hansoms may be observed (by her 
 Majesty) bowling gayly through St. James's Park ; and in 
 a quarter of an hour the party surrounds one of the best 
 appointed boards in London.
 
 CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBUKy's HOLIDAY. 13o 
 
 But at the time of which we write the house in the 
 King's EoaJ (let us still continue to call it No. 233) 
 was kept very quiet ; when Michael entertained guests it 
 was at the halls of Nichol or Verrey that he would convene 
 them, and the door of his private residence remained 
 closed against his friends. The upper story, which was 
 sunny, was set apart for his father ; the drawing-room was 
 never opened ; the dining-room was the scene of Michael's 
 life. It is in this pleasant apartment, sheltered from the 
 curiosity of King's Eoad by wire blinds, and entirely sur- 
 rounded by the lawyer's unrivalled library of poetry and 
 criminal trials, that we find him sitting down to his dinner 
 after his holiday with Pitman. A spare old lady, with very 
 bright eyes and a mouth humorously compressed, waited 
 upon the lawyer's needs ; in every line of her countenance 
 she betrayed the fact that she was an old retainer ; in every 
 word that fell from her lips she flaunted the glorious cir- 
 cumstance of a Scottish origin ; and the fear with which 
 this powerful combination fills the boldest was obviously 
 no stranger to the bosom of our friend. The hot Scotch 
 having somewhat warmed up the embers of the Heidsieck, 
 it was touching to observe the master's eagerness to pull 
 himself together under the servant's eye ; and when he re- 
 marked : " I think, Teena, I'll take a brandy and soda," 
 he spoke like a man doubtful of his elocution, and not half 
 certain of obedience. 
 
 " No such a thing, Mr. Michael," was the prompt re- 
 tuz-n. " Clar't and water."
 
 131 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 " Well, well, Teena, I daresay you know best," said the 
 master. "Very fatiguing day at the office, though." 
 
 "What? "said the retainer, "ye never were near the 
 office ! " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I was though ; I was repeatedly along Fleet 
 Street," returned IMichaeL 
 
 " Pretty pliskies ye've been at this day ! " cried the old 
 lady, with humorous alacrity ; and then : " Take care — 
 don't break my crystal ! " she cried, as the lawyer came 
 within an ace of knocking the glasses oflf the table. 
 
 " And how is he keeping ? " asked Michael. 
 
 " Oh, just the same, Mr. Michael, just the way he'll be 
 till the end, worthy man ! " was the reply. " But ye'll not 
 be the first that's asked me that the day." 
 
 " No ? " said the lawyer. " Who else ? " 
 
 "Ay, that's a joke, too," said Teena, grimly. " Afi'iend 
 of yours : Mr. Morris." 
 
 "Morris! What was the little beggar doing here?" 
 inquired IMichael, 
 
 "Wantin'? To see him," replied the housekeeper, 
 completing her meaning by a movement of the thumb 
 toward the upper story. " That's by his way of it ; but 
 I've an idee of my own. He tried to bribe me, Mr. 
 Michael. Bribe — me ! " she repeated, with inimitable 
 scorn. " That's no kind of a young gentleman." 
 
 "Did he so?" said Michael. "I bet he didn't offer 
 much." 
 
 " No more he did," replied Teena ; nor could any sub<
 
 COXCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBURt's HOLIDAY. 135 
 
 sequent questioning elicit from her the sum with which 
 the thrifty leather merchant had attempted to corrupt 
 her. "But I sent him about his business," she said, gal- 
 lantly. "He'll not come here again in a hurry." 
 
 " He mustn't see my father, you know ; mind that ! " 
 said Michael. " I'm not going to have any pubHc exhibi- 
 tion to a little beast like him." 
 
 " No fear of me lettin' him," repHed the trusty one. 
 " But the joke is this, INIi-. IMichael — see, ye're upsettin' 
 the sauce, that's a clean table-cloth — the best of the joke 
 is that he thinks your father's dead and you're keepin' it 
 dark." 
 
 Michael whistled. " Set a thief to catch a thief," said 
 he. 
 
 " Exac'ly what I told him ! " cried the delighted dame. 
 
 " I'll make him dance for that," said IVIichael. 
 
 " Couldn't ye get the law of him some way ? " suggested 
 Teena, truculently. 
 
 " No, I don't think I could, and I'm quite sure I don't 
 want to," replied Michael. "But I say, Teena, I really 
 don't believe this claret's wholesome ; it's not a sound, re- 
 liable wine. Give us a brandy and soda, there's a good 
 soul." Teena's face became like adamant. " Well, then," 
 said the lawyer, fretfully, " I won't eat any more dinner." 
 
 " Ye can please yourself about that, IVIr. Michael," said 
 Teena, and began composedly to take away. 
 
 " I do wish Teena wasn't a faithful servant ! " sighed 
 the lawyer, as he issued into King's Road.
 
 136 THIJ WKONO BOX. 
 
 The rain had ceased ; the wind still blew, but only with 
 a pleasant freshness ; the town, in the clear darkness of 
 the night, glittered with street-lamps and shone with 
 glancing rain-pools. " Come, this is better," thought the 
 lawyer to himself, and he walked on eastward, lending a 
 pleased ear to the wheels and the million footfalls of the 
 city. 
 
 Near the end of the King's Road he remembered his 
 brandy and soda, and entered a flaunting public house. 
 A good many persons were present, a waterman from a 
 cab-stand, half a dozen of the chronically unemployed, a 
 gentleman (in One corner) trying to sell aesthetic photo- 
 graphs out of a leather case to another and very youthful 
 gentleman with a yellow goatee, and a pair of lovers de- 
 bating some fine shade, in the other. But the centre- 
 piece and great attraction was a little old man, in a black, 
 ready-made surtout, which was obviously a recent pur- 
 chase. On the marble table in front of him, beside a 
 sandwich and a glass of beer, there lay a battered for- 
 age cap. His hand fluttered abroad with oratorical ges- 
 tures ; his voice, naturally shrill, was plainly tuned to 
 the pitch of the lecture-room ; and by arts, comparable to 
 those of the Ancient Mariner, he was now holding spell- 
 bound the barmaid, the waterman, and four of the unem- 
 ployed. 
 
 " I have examined all the theatres in Loudon," he was 
 saying ; " and pacing the principal entrances, I have as- 
 certained them to be ridiculously disproportionate to the
 
 CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBUEy's HOLIDAY. 137 
 
 requirements of their audiences. The doors opened the 
 wrong way — I forget at this moment which it is, but 
 have a note of it at home ; they were frequently locked 
 during the performance, and when the auditorium was 
 literally thronged with English people. You have prob- 
 ably not had my opportunities of comparing distant 
 lands ; but I can assure j'ou this has been long ago 
 recognized as a mark of aristocratic government. Do you 
 suppose, in a country really self-governed, such abuses 
 could exist? Your own intelligence, however unculti- 
 vated, tells you they could not. Take Austria, a country 
 even possibly more enslaved than England. I have my- 
 self conversed with one of the survivors of the Ring 
 Theatre, and though his colloquial German was not very 
 good, I succeeded in gathering a pretty clear idea of his 
 opinion of the case. But what will perhaps interest you 
 still more, here is a cutting on the subject from a Vienna 
 newspaper, which I will now read to you, translating as I 
 go. You can see for yourselves ; it is printed in the Ger- 
 man character." And he held the cutting out for verifica- 
 tion, much as a conjurer passes a trick orange along the 
 front bench. 
 
 " Hullo, old gentleman ! is this you ? " said Michael, 
 laying his hand upon the orator's shoulder. 
 
 The figure turned with a convulsion of alarm, and 
 showed the countenance of Mr. Joseph Finsbury. 
 
 " You, Michael ! " he cried. •' There's no one with you, 
 is there ? "
 
 138 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 "No," replied Michael, ordering a brandy and soda, 
 " there's nobody ■with inc ; whom do you expect ? " 
 
 " I thought of Morris or John," said tho old gentleman, 
 evidently greatly relieved. 
 
 " What the devil would I bo doing with Morris or 
 John '? " cried the nephew. 
 
 " There is something in that," returned Joseph. " And 
 I believe I can trust you. I believe you will stand by 
 me." 
 
 " I hardly know what you mean," said the lawyer, " but 
 if you are in need of money I am flush." 
 
 "It's not that, my dear boy," said the uncle, shaking 
 him by the hand. " I'll tell you all about it afterward." 
 
 "All right," responded the nephew. "I stand treat, 
 Uncle Joseph ; what will you have ? " 
 
 " In that case," replied the old gentleman, " I'll take 
 another sandwich. I dare say I surprise you," he went on, 
 "with my presence in a public-house ; but the fact is I 
 act on a sound but little known principle of my own " 
 
 " Oh, it's better known than you suppose," said Michael, 
 sipping his brandy and soda. " I always act on it myself 
 when I want a drink." 
 
 The old gentleman, who was anxious to propitiate 
 Michael, laughed a cheerless laugh. "You liave such a 
 flow of spirits," said he, " I am sure I often find it 
 quite amusing. But regarding this principle of which I 
 was about to speak. It is that of accommodating one's self 
 to the manners of any land (however humble) in which
 
 CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBURy's HOLIDAY. 139 
 
 cur lot may be cast. Now, in France, for instance, every- 
 one goes to a cafe for bis meals ; in America to what is 
 called a ' two-bit house ; ' in England the people resort to 
 such an institution as the present for refreshment. With 
 sandwiches, tea, and an occasional glass of bitter beer, a 
 man can live luxuriously in London for fourteen pounds 
 twelve shillings per annum." 
 
 "Yes, I linow," returned Michael, "but that's not in- 
 cluding clothes, washing, or boots. The whole thing, with 
 cigars and occasional sprees, coats me over seven hundred 
 a year." 
 
 But this was Michael's last interruption. He listened 
 in good-humored silence to the remainder of his uncle's 
 lecture, which ■ speedily branched to political reform, 
 thence to the theory of the weather-glass, with an illus- 
 trative account of a bora in the Adriatic ; thence again to 
 the best manner of teaching arithmetic to the deaf-and- 
 dumb ; and with that, the sandwich being then no more, 
 explicuit valde feliciter. A moment later the pair issued 
 forth on the King's Road. 
 
 "Michael," said his uncle, "the reason that I am here 
 is because I cannot endure those nephews of mine. I find 
 them intolerable." 
 
 "I dare say you do," assented Michael, "I never could 
 stand them for a moment." 
 
 " They wouldn't let me speak," continued the old gentle- 
 man, bitterly ; " I never was allowed to get a word in 
 edgewise ; I was shut up at once with some impertinent
 
 140 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 remark. They kept me on short allowance of pencils, 
 when I wished to make notes of the most absorbing in- 
 terest ; the clail}' newspaper was guarded from me like a 
 young baby from a gorilla. Now, you know me, Michael. 
 I live for my calculations ; I live for my manifold and ever- 
 changing views of life ; pens and j)aper and the produc- 
 tions of the popular press are to me as important as food 
 and drink ; and my life was growing quite intolerable 
 when, in the confusion of that fortunate railway accident 
 at Browndean, I made my escape. They must think me 
 dead, and are trying to deceive the world for the chance 
 of the tontine.'' 
 
 " By the way, how do you stand for money ? " asked 
 Michael, kindly. 
 
 " Pecuniarily speaking, I am rich," retui-ned the old 
 man, with cheerfulness. " I am living at present at the 
 rate of one hundred a year, with unlimited pens and paper ; 
 the British Museum at which to get books ; and all the 
 newsjDapers I choose to read. But it's extraordinary how 
 little a man of intellectual interest requires to bother with 
 books in a progressive age. The newspapers supply all 
 the conclusions." 
 
 " I'll tell you what," said Michael, " come and stay with 
 me." 
 
 "Michael," said the old gentleman, "it's very kind of 
 you, but you scarcely understand what a peculiar position 
 I occupy. There are some little financial complications ; 
 as a guardian my efifbrts were not altogether blessed ; and
 
 CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBURY's HOLIDAY. 141 
 
 not to put too fine a point upon the matter, I am abso- 
 lutely in the power of that vile fellow, Morris." 
 
 "You should be disguised," cried Michael, eagerly. "I 
 will lend you a pair of window-glass sjDectacles, and some 
 red side- whiskers." 
 
 " I had already canvassed that idea," replied the old 
 gentleman, " but feared to awaken remai'k in my unpre- 
 tentious lodgings. The aristocracy, I am well aware " 
 
 "But see here," interrupted Michael, "how do you 
 come to have any money at all ? Don't make a stranger 
 of me, Uncle Joseph ; I know all about the trust, and the 
 hash you made of it, and the assignment you were forced 
 to make to Morris." 
 
 Joseph narrated his dealings with the bank. 
 
 "Oh, but I say, this won't do," cried the lawyer. 
 "You've put your foot in it. You had no right to do 
 what you did." 
 
 " The whole thing is mine, Michael," protested the old 
 gentleman. "I founded and niu'sed that business on 
 principles entirely of my own." 
 
 " That's all very fine," said the lavrj-er ; " but you made 
 an assignment, you were forced to make it, too ; even 
 then your position was extremely shaky ; but now, my 
 dear sir, it means the dock." 
 
 "It isn't possible," cried Joseph ; " the law cannot be 
 so unjust as that?" 
 
 " And the cream of the thing," interrupted Michael, 
 with a sudden shout of laughter, " the cream of the thing
 
 142 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 is this, that of course you've downed the leather business ! 
 I must say, Uncle Joseph, you have strange ideas of law, 
 but I like your taste in humor." 
 
 " I see nothing to laugh at," observed Mr. Finsbury, 
 tartly. 
 
 " And talking of that, has Morris any power to sign for 
 the firm ? " asked Michael. 
 
 "No one but myself," replied Joseph. 
 
 "Poor devil of a Morris. Oh, poor devil of a Morris ! " 
 cried the lawyer in delight. "And his keeping up the 
 farce that you're at home ! " Oh, Moms, the Lord has de- 
 livered you into my hands ! Let me see, Uncle Joseph, 
 what do you suppose the leather business worth ? " 
 
 "It was worth a hundred thousand," said Joseph, bit- 
 terly, " when it was in my hands. But then there came 
 a Scotchman — it is supposed he had a certain talent — it 
 was entirely directed to book-keeping — no accountant in 
 London could understand a word of any of his books ; 
 and then there was Morris, who is perfectly incompetent. 
 And now it is worth very little. Morris tried to sell it 
 last year ; and Pogram & Jarris offered only four thou- 
 sand." 
 
 "I shall turn my attention to leather," said Michael 
 with decision. 
 
 " You ?" asked Joseph. "I advise you not. There is 
 nothing in the whole field of commerce more suiprising 
 than the fluctuations of the leather market. Its sensitive- 
 ness may be described as morbid."
 
 CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBUEy's HOLIDAY. 143 
 
 " And now, Uncle Joseph, what have you done with all 
 that money ! " asked the lawyer. 
 
 " Paid it into a bank and drew twenty pounds," an- 
 swered 'Mi: Finsbury promptly. " Why ? " 
 
 "Very well," said Michael. " To-morrow I shall send 
 down a clerk with a cheque for a hundred, and he'll draw 
 out the original sum and return it to the Auglo-Pata- 
 gonian, with some sort of explanation which I will try to 
 invent for you. That will clear your feet, and as MoitIs 
 can't touch a penny of it without forgery, it will do no 
 harm to my little scheme." 
 
 " But what am I to do ? " asked Joseph, " I cannot hve 
 upon nothing." 
 
 " Don't you. hear ? " returned Michael. " I send you a 
 cheque for a hundred ; which leaves you eighty to go along 
 upon ; and when that's done, apply to me again." 
 
 " I would rather not be beholden to your bounty all 
 the same," said Joseph, bitiug at his white moustache. 
 " I would rather live on my own money, suice I have it." 
 
 INIichael grasped his arm. "Will nothing make you 
 believe," he cried, " that I am trying to save you from 
 Dartmoor ? " 
 
 His earnestness staggered the old man. "I must turn 
 my attention to law," he said ; " it will be a new field ; 
 for though of course I understand its general principles, 
 I have never really applied my mind to the details, and 
 this view of yours, for example, comes on me entirely by 
 surprise. But you may be right, and of course at my
 
 144 THK WROXG BOX. 
 
 time of life — for I am uo longer young — any really long 
 term of imprisonment would be liigbly prejudicial. But, 
 my dear nephew, I Lave no claim on you ; you have no 
 call to support me." 
 
 "That's all right," said Michael; " I'll probably get it 
 out of the leather business." 
 
 And having taken down the old gentleman's address, 
 Michael left him at the corner of a street. 
 
 " What a wonderful old muddler ! " he reflected, "and 
 what a singular thing is life ! I seem to be condemned 
 to be the instrument of Providence. Let me see ; what 
 have I done to-day? Disposed of a dead body, saved 
 Pitman, saved my Uncle Joseph, biightened up Forsyth, 
 and drunk a devil of a lot of most indifferent liquor. 
 Let's top off with a visit to my cousins, and be the instru- 
 ment of Providence in earnest. To-morrow I can turn 
 my attention to leather ; to-night, I'll just make it lively 
 for 'em in a friendly spirit." 
 
 About a quarter of an hour later, as the clocks were 
 striking eleven, the instrument of providence descended 
 from a hansom, and bidding the driver wait, rapped at 
 the door of No. 16 John Street. 
 
 It was promptly opened by Morris, 
 
 " Oh, it's you, Michael," he said, carefully blocking up 
 the narrow opening : "it's very late." 
 
 Michael without a word reached forth, grasped Morris 
 warmly by the hand, and gave it so extreme a squeeze 
 that the sullen householder fell back. Profiting by this
 
 CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBURY's HOLIDAY. 145 
 
 movement, the lawyer obtained a footing in the lobby 
 and marched into the dining-room, with Morris at his 
 heels. 
 
 " Where's my Uncle Joseph ? " demanded Michael, sit- 
 tin"- down in the most comfortable chair. 
 
 "He's not been very well lately," replied Morris; "he's 
 staying at Browndean ; John is nursing him ; and I am 
 alone, as you see." 
 
 Michael smiled to himself. " I want to see him on 
 particular business,"' he said. 
 
 "You can't expect to see my uncle, when you won't let 
 me see your father,"' returned Morris. 
 
 " Fiddlestick," said Michael. " My father is my father ; 
 but Joseph is just as much my uncle as he's yours ; and 
 you have no right to sequestrate his person." 
 
 "I do no such thing," said Morris, doggedly. "He is 
 not well ; he is dangerously ill and nobody can see him." 
 
 "I'll tell you what, then," said Michael. "I'll make a 
 clean breast of it. I have come down like the opossum, 
 Morris ; I have come to compromise." 
 
 Poor Morris turned as pale as death, and then a flush 
 of wrath against the injustice of man's destiny dyed his 
 very temples. ""What do you mean," he cried, "I don't 
 believe a word of it ! " And when Michael had assured 
 him of his seriousness, ""Well, then," he cried, with an- 
 other deep flush, "I won't ; so you can put that in your 
 pipe and smoke it." 
 
 " Oho ! " said Michael, queerly. " You say your uncle 
 10
 
 146 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 is dangerously ill, and you won't compromise? There''; 
 something very fishy about that." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " cried Morris, hoarsely. 
 
 "I only say it's fishy," returned Michael, "that is, per- 
 taining to the finny tribe." 
 
 "Do you mean to insinuate anything?" cried Morris, 
 stormily, trying the high hand. 
 
 " Insinuate? " repeated Michael. " Oh, don't let's begin 
 to use awkward expressions ! Let us drown our differ- 
 ences in a bottle, like two affiible kinsmen. The Two Af- 
 fable Kinsmen, sometimes attributed to Shakespeare," he 
 added. 
 
 Morris' mind was laboring like a mill. " Does be sus- 
 pect ? or is this chance and stuff? Shoulil I soap, or 
 should I bully? Soap," he concluded. "It gains time. 
 Well," said he aloud, and with rather a painful affectation 
 of heartiness, " it's long since we have had an evening to- 
 gether, Michael ; and though my habits (as you know) 
 are very temjDci-ate, I may as well make an exception. 
 Excuse me one moment, till I fetch a bottle of whiskey 
 from the cellar." 
 
 "No whiskey for me," said Michael ; " a little of the old 
 still champagne or nothing." 
 
 For a moment Morris stood irresolute, for the wine was 
 very valuable ; the next he had quitted the room without 
 a word. His quick mind had perceived his advantage ; 
 in thus dunning him for the cream of the cellar, Michael 
 was playing into his hand. "One bottle?" he thought
 
 CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBURy's HOLIDAY. 147 
 
 " By George, I'll give him two ! tins is no moment for 
 economy ; and once the beast is drunk, it's strange if I 
 don't wring his secret out of him." 
 
 ^Yith two bottles, accordingly, he returned. Glasses 
 were produced, and Morris filled them with hospitable 
 grace. 
 
 "I drink to you, cousin !" he cried, gayly. "Don't 
 spare the wine-cup in my house." 
 
 IViichael drank his glass deliberately, standing at the 
 table ; filled it again, and returned to his chair, carrying 
 the bottle along with him. 
 
 •'The spoils of war!" he said, apologetically. "The 
 weakest goes to the wall. Science, Morris, science." 
 Morris could think of no reply, and for an appreciable in- 
 terval silence reigned. But two glasses of the still cham- 
 pagne produced a rapid change in Michael. 
 
 " There's a want of vivacity about you, Morris," he ob- 
 served. "You may be deep ; but I'll be hanged if you're 
 vivacious ! " 
 
 "What makes you think me deep ? " asked Moms, with 
 an air of pleased simplicity. 
 
 " Because you won't compromise," said the law^'er. 
 " You're deep dog, Morris, very deep dog, not t' com- 
 promise — remarkable deep dog. And a very good glass 
 of wine ; it's the only respectable feature in the Finsbury 
 family, this wine ; rarer thing than a title — much rarer. 
 Now, a man with glass wine like this in cellar, I wonder 
 why won't compromise ? "
 
 148 THK WRONG BOX. 
 
 " Well, yon wouldn' compromise before, you know," 
 said the smiling Morris. " Tui'u about is fair play." 
 
 " I wonder why / wouldn' compromise ? I wonder why 
 you wouldn' ? " inquired Michael. " I wonder why we 
 each think the other wouldn'? 'S quite a remarrable — 
 remarkable problem," he added, triumphing over oral 
 obstacles, not without obvious pride. " Wonder what we 
 each think —don't 3'ou ? " 
 
 "What do you suppose to have been my reason?" 
 asked Morris, adroitly. 
 
 Michael looked at him and winked. " Tha's cool," said 
 he, " Next thing, you'll ask me to help you out of the 
 muddle. I know I'm emissai*y of Providence, but not that 
 kind ! You get out of it yourself, like ^sop and the other 
 fellow. Must be dreadful muddle for young orphan o' 
 forty ; leather business and all ! " 
 
 "I am sure I don't know what you mean," said MoiTis. 
 
 "Not sure I know myself," said Michael. "This is 
 exc'lent vintage, sir — exc'lent vintage. Nothing against 
 the tipple. Only thing ; here's a valuable uncle disap- 
 peared. Now, what I want to know : where's valuable 
 uncle?" 
 
 "I have told you : he is at Browndean," answered Mor- 
 ris, furtively wiping his brow, for these repeated hints 
 began to tell upon him cruelly. 
 
 "Very easy say Brown— Browndee — no' so easy after 
 all!" cried Michael. "Easy say; anything's easy say, 
 when you can say it. What I don' like's total disappear-
 
 CONCLrSION OF MICHAEL FINSBURy''s HOLIDA-J 149 
 
 ance of an uncle. Not business-like," And he wagged 
 his head. 
 
 "It is all perfectly simple," retui'ned Moi'ris, with la- 
 borious calm. "There is no mystery. He stays at 
 Browndean, where he got a shake in the accident." 
 
 "Ah ! " said Michael, " got devil of a shake ? " 
 
 " "Why do you say that ?" cried Morris, sharply. 
 
 " Best possible authority. Told me so yourself," said 
 the lawyer. " But if you tell me contrary now, of course 
 I'm bound to believe either the one story or the other. 
 Point is — I've upset this bottle, still champagne's esc'lent 
 thing carpet — point is, is valuable uncle dead — an" — 
 bury ? " 
 
 Morris sprang from his seat. " What's that you say ? " 
 he gasped. 
 
 "I say it's exc'lent thing carpet," replied Michael, rising. 
 " Esc'lent thing promote healthy action of the skin. 
 Well, it's all one, anyway. Give my love to Uncle Cham- 
 pagne." 
 
 " You're not going away ? " said Morris. 
 
 "Awf'ly sorry, ole man. Got to sit up sick friend," 
 said the wavering Michael. 
 
 "You shall not go till you have explained your hints," 
 returned j\Iorris, fiercely. " What do you mean ? What 
 brought you here ? " 
 
 " No offence, I trust," said the lawyer, tui-ning round as 
 he opened the door ; " only doing my duty as shemishery 
 of Providence."
 
 150 THE WKOKG BOX. 
 
 Groping his way to the front-door, he opened it with 
 some diflfioulty, and descended the steps to the hansom. 
 The tired driver looked up as he approached, and asked 
 where he was to go next. 
 
 Michael observed that Morris had followed him to the 
 steps ; a brilliant inspiration came to him. " Anything t' 
 give pain," he reflected. . . . " Drive Shcotlan' Yard," 
 he added aloud, holding to the wheel to steady himself ; 
 "there's something devilish fishv, cabbv, about those 
 cousins. Mush' be cleared up ! Drive Shcotlan' Yard." 
 
 "You don't mean that, sir," said the man, with the ready 
 sympatliy of the lower orders for an intoxicated gentle- 
 man. "I had better take you home, sir ; you can go to 
 Scotland Yard to-morrow." 
 
 " Is it as friend or as perfessional man you advise me 
 not to go Shcotlan' Yard t'night?" inquired Michael. 
 "All righ', never min' Shcotlan' Yard, drive Gaiety bar." 
 
 " The Gaiety bar is closed," said the man. 
 
 " Then home," said Michael, with the same cheerful- 
 ness. 
 
 "Whereto, sir?" 
 
 " I don't remember, I'm sure," said Michael, entering 
 the vehicle, "drive Shcotlan' Yard and ask." 
 
 "But you'll have a card," said the man, through the 
 little aperture in the top, " give me your card-case." 
 
 "What imagi — imagination in a cabby!" cried the 
 lawyer, producing his card-case, and handing it to the 
 driver.
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBUKY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY. 151 
 
 The man read it by the light of the lamp. "Mr. Mi- 
 chael Finsbury, 233 King's Eoad, Chelsea. Is that it, 
 sir?" 
 
 " Eight you are," cried Michael, " drive there if you 
 can see way,"
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE BROADWOOD GRAND. 
 
 The reader has perhaps read that remarkable work, 
 Who imt back the clock ? by E. H. B., which appeared for 
 several days upon the railway bookstalls and then vanished 
 entirely from the face of the earth. Whether eating 
 Time makes the chief of his diet out of old editions ; 
 ■whether Providence has passed a special enactment on be- 
 half of authors ; or whether these last have taken the law 
 into their own hand, bound themselves into a dark con- 
 spiracy with a password, which I would die rather than 
 reveal, and night after night sally forth under some %ag- 
 orous leader, such as Mr. James Payn or Mr. Walter Be- 
 sant, on their task of secret spoHation — certain it is, at 
 least, that the old editions pass, giving place to new. To 
 the proof, it is believed there are now only three copies 
 extant of Who put hack the clock ? one in the British Mu- 
 seum, successfully concealed by a wrong entry in the 
 catalogue ; another in one of the cellars (the cellar where 
 the music accumulates) of the Advocates' Library at Edin- 
 burgh ; and a third, bound in Morocco, in the possession 
 of Gideon Forsyth. To account for the very different fate 
 attending this third exemplar, the readiest theory is to
 
 GIDKON FORSYTH AND THE BROADWOOn GRAXD. 153 
 
 suppose that Gideon admired the tale. How to explain 
 that admiration might appear (to those who have perused 
 the work) more difficult ; but the weakness of a parent is 
 extreme, and Gideon (and not his uncle, whose initials 
 he had humorously borrowed) was the author of Who i^ut 
 hack the clock f He had never acknowledged it, or only 
 to some intimate friends while it was still in proof ; after 
 its appearance and alarming failiire, the modesty of the 
 novelist had become more pressing, and the secret was 
 now likely to be better kept than that of the authorship 
 of Waverley. 
 
 A copy of the work (for the date of my tale is already 
 yesterday) still figured in dusty solitude in the bookstall 
 at Waterloo ; and Gideon, as he passed with his ticket 
 for Hampton Court, smiled contemptuously at the crea- 
 ture of his thoughts. "What an idle ambition was the 
 author's ! How far beneath him was the practice of that 
 childish art ! "With his hand closing on his first brief, 
 he felt himself a man at last ; and the muse who presides 
 over the police romance, a lady presumably of French ex- 
 ti-action, fled his neighborhood, and returned to join 
 the dance round the springs of Helicon, among her 
 Grecian sisters. 
 
 Robust, practical reflection still cheered the young bar- 
 rister upon his journey. Again and again he selected the 
 little country house in its islet of great oaks, which he was 
 to make his future home. Like a prudent householder, 
 he projected improvements as he passed ; to one he added
 
 154 THE WRONG UOX. 
 
 a stable, to another a tennis court, a tliird lie supplied 
 with a becoming, rustic boat-house. 
 
 •' How little a while ago," he could not but reflect, " I 
 was a careless young dog with no thought but to be com- 
 fortable ! I cared for nothing but boating and detective 
 novels. I would have passed an old-fashioned country 
 house with large kitchen-garden, stabling, boat-house, and 
 spacious offices, without so much as a look, and certainly 
 would have made no inqviiry as to the drains. How a 
 man ripens with the years ! " 
 
 The intelligent reader will perceive the ravages of Miss 
 Hazeltine. Gideon had carried Julia straight to Mr. 
 Bloomfield's house ; and that gentleman, having been led 
 to understand she was the victim of oppression, had noisily 
 espoused her cause. He worked himself into a fine breath- 
 ing heat ; in which, to a man of his temperament, action 
 became needful. 
 
 "I do not know which is the worse," he cried, "the 
 fraudulent old villain or the unmanly young cub. I will 
 write to the Pall Mall and expose them. Nonsense, sir ; 
 they must be exposed ! It's a public duty. Did you not 
 tell me the fellow was a tory ? Oh, the uncle is a radical 
 lecturer, is he? No doubt, the uncle has been grossly 
 wronged. But of course, as you say, that makes a change ; 
 it becomes scarce so much a public duty." 
 
 And he sought and instantly found a fresh outlet for 
 his alacrity. Miss Hazeltine (he now perceived) must be 
 kept out of the way ; his houseboat was lying ready — he
 
 tilDEON FORSYTH AND THE BROADWOOD GRAND. 155 
 
 had returned but a day or two before from liis usual 
 cruise ; there was no place like a houseboat for conceal- 
 ment ; and that very morning, in the teeth of the easterly 
 gale, Mr. and Mrs. Bloomfield and Miss Julia Hazeltine 
 had started forth on their untimely voyage, Gideon pled 
 in vain to be allowed to join the party. " No, Gid," said 
 liis uncle. "You will be watched ; you must keep away 
 from us." Nor had the barrister ventured to contest this 
 strange illusion ; for he feared if he rubbed off any of the 
 romance, that Mr. Bloomfield might weary of the whole 
 affair. And his discretion w^as rewarded ; for the Squir- 
 radical, laying a heavy hand upon his nephew's shoulder, 
 had added these notable expressions : "I see what you are 
 after, Gid. But if you're going to get the girl, you have 
 to work, sir." 
 
 These pleasing sounds had cheered the barrister all day, 
 as he sat reading in chambers ; they continued to form 
 the ground-base of his manly musings as he was whirled 
 to Hampton Court ; even when he landed at the station, 
 and began to pull himself together for his delicate inter- 
 view, the voice of Uncle Ned and the eyes of Julia were 
 not forgotten. 
 
 But now it began to rain surprises : in all Hampton 
 Court, there was no Kurnaul Villa, no Count Tarnow, and 
 no count. This was strange ; but viewed in the light of 
 the incoherency of his instructions, not perhaps inexplic- 
 able ; Mr. Dickson had been lunching, and he might have 
 made some fatal oversiprht in the addi-ess. What was the
 
 15G THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 tborouglily prompt, manly, and business-like step ? thought 
 Gideon ; and he answered himself at once: "A telegram, 
 very laconic." Speedily, the wires were flashing the fol- 
 lowing very important missive : "Dickson, Langliam Hotel. 
 Villa and persons both unknown here, suppose erroneous 
 address ; follow self next train. Forsyth." iVnd at the 
 Langham Hotel, sure enough, with a brow expressive of 
 despatch and intellectual effort, Gideon descended not 
 long after from a smoking hansom. 
 
 I do not suppose that Gideon will ever forget the Lang- 
 ham Hotel. No Count Tarnow was one thing ; no John 
 Dickson and no' Ezra Thomas, quite another. How, why, 
 and what next, danced in his bewildered brain ; from 
 every centre of what we playfully call the human intellect, 
 incongruous messages were telegraphed ; and before the 
 hubbub of dismay had quite subsided, the barrister found 
 himself driving furiously for his chambers. There was at 
 least a cave of refuge ; it was at least a place to think in ; 
 and he climbed the stair, put his key in the lock and 
 opened the door, with some approach to hope. 
 
 It was all dark within, for the night had some time 
 fallen ; but Gideon knew his room, he knew Avhere the 
 matches stood on the end of the chimney piece ; and he 
 advanced boldly, and in so doing dashed himself against 
 a heavy body, where (slightly altering the expressions of 
 the song) no heavy body should have been. There had 
 been nothing there when Gideon went out, he had locked 
 the door behind him, he had found it locked on his re«
 
 GIDEON FOESTrH AND THE BROA.DWOOD GRAND. 157 
 
 turn, BO one could have entered, the furniture could not 
 have changed its own position. And yet undeniably there 
 was a something there. He thrust out his hands in the 
 darkness. Yes, there was something, something large, 
 something smooth, something cold. 
 
 "Heaven forgive me! "said Gideon, "it feels like a 
 piano." 
 
 And the next moment he remembered the vestas in his 
 waistcoat pocket and had struck a light. 
 
 It was indeed a piano that met his doubtful gaze ; a 
 vast and costly instrument, stained with the rains of the 
 afternoon and defaced with recent scratches. The light 
 of the vesta was reflected from the varnished sides, like a 
 star in quiet water ; and in the farther end of the room, 
 the shadow of that strange visitor loomed bulkily and 
 wavered on the wall. 
 
 Gideon let the match burn to his fingers, and the dark- 
 ness close once more on his bewilderment. Then with 
 trembling hands he lit the lamp and drew near. Near or 
 far, there was no doubt of the fact : the thing was a piano. 
 There, where by all the laws of God and man it was im- 
 possible that it should be — there the thing impudently 
 stood. Gideon threw open the keyboard and struck a 
 chord. Not a sound disturbed the quiet of the room. 
 " Is there anything wrong with me ? " he thought, with a 
 pang ; and drawing in a seat, obstinately persisted in his 
 attempts to ravish silence, now with sparkling ari:)eggios, 
 now with a sonata of Beethoven's which (in happier days)
 
 158 THE >VRONG BOX. 
 
 he knew to be one of the loudest pieces of that powerful 
 composer. Still not a sound. He gave the Broadwood 
 two great bangs with his clenched fists. All was still as 
 the grave. 
 
 The young barrister started to his feet. 
 
 " I am stark-staring mad," he cried aloud, " and no one 
 knows it but myself. God's worst curse has fallen on 
 me." 
 
 His fingers encountered his watch-chain ; instantly he 
 had plucked forth his watch and held it to his ear. He 
 could hear it ticking. 
 
 " I am not deaf ," he said aloud. "I am only insane. 
 My mind has quitted me forever." 
 
 He looked uneasily about the room, and gazed with 
 lack-lustre eyes at the chair in which Mr. Dickson had 
 installed himself. The end of a cigar lay near it on the 
 fender. 
 
 "No," he thought, "I don't believe that was a dream ; 
 but God knows my mind is failing rapidly. I seem to be 
 hungry, for instance ; it's probably another hallucination. 
 Still I might try. I shall have one more good meal ; I 
 shall go to the Cafe Royal, and may possibly be removed 
 from there direct to the asylum." 
 
 He wondered with morbid interest, as he descended 
 the stairs, how he would first betray his terrible condi- 
 tion — would he attack a waiter ? or eat glass? — and when 
 he had mounted into a cab, he bade the man drive to 
 Nichol's with a lurking fear that there was no such place.
 
 GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE BEOADWOOD GRAND. 159 
 
 The flaring, gassy entrance of the cafe speedily set his 
 mind at rest ; he was cheered besides to recognize his 
 favorite waiter ; his orders appeared to be coherent ; 
 the dinner, when it came, was quite a sensible meal, and 
 he ate it with enjoyment. " Upon my word," he reflected, 
 " I am about tempted to indulge a hoj^e. Have I been 
 hasty ? Have I done what Robert Skill would have 
 done?" Robert Skill (I need scarcely mention) was the 
 name of the principal character in Who Put Back the 
 Clock? It had occurred to the author as a brilliant and 
 probable invention ; to readers of a critical turn, Robert 
 appeared scarce upon a level with his surname ; but it is 
 the difficulty of the police romance, that the reader is al- 
 ways a man of such vastly greater ingenuity than the 
 writer. In the eyes of his creator, however, Robert Skill 
 was a word to conjure with ; the thought braced and 
 spuiTed him ; what that brilliant creature would have 
 done, Gideon would do also. This frame of mind is not 
 uncommon : the distressed general, the baited divine, the 
 hesitating author, decide severally to do what Napoleon, 
 what St. Paul, what Shakespeare would have done ; and 
 there remains only the minor question. What is that ? In 
 Gideon's case, one thing was clear : Skill was a man of 
 singular decision, he would have taken some step (what- 
 ever it was) at once ; and the only step that Gideon could 
 think of was to return to his chambers. 
 
 This being achieved, all further inspiration failed him, 
 and he stood pitifully staring at the instrument of his
 
 160 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 confusion. To touch the keys again was more than he 
 durst venture on ; whether they had maintained their 
 former silence, or responded with the tones of the last 
 trump, it would have equally dethroned his resolution. 
 "It maybe a practical jest," he reflected, "though it 
 seems elaborate and costly. And yet what else can it be ? 
 It mud be a practical jest." And just then his eye fell 
 upon a feature which seemed coiToborative of that view ; 
 The pagoda of cigars which Michael had erected ere he 
 left the chambers. " Why that ? " reflected Gideon. "It 
 seems entirely irresponsible." And drawing near, he 
 gingerly demolished it. "A hey," he thought. "Why 
 that ? And why so conspicuously placed ? " He made 
 the circuit of the instrument, and perceived the keyhole 
 at the back. "Aha! this is what the key is for," said 
 he. " They wanted me to look inside. Stranger and 
 stranger." And with that, he turned the key and raised 
 the lid. 
 
 In what antics of agony, in what fits of flighty resolu- 
 tion, in what collapses of despair, Gideon consumed the 
 night, it would be ungenerous to inquire too closely. 
 
 That trill of tiny song with which the eaves-birds of 
 London welcome the approach of day, found him limp and 
 rumpled and bloodshot, and with a mind still vacant of 
 resource. He rose and looked forth unrejoicingly on 
 blinded windows, an empty street, and the gray daylight 
 dotted with the yellow lamps. There are mornings when 
 the city seems to awake with a sick headache ; this was
 
 GIDEON FOKSYTH AND THE BROADWOOD GRAND. 161 
 
 one of them ; and still the twittering reveille of the 
 sparrows stirred in Gideon's spirit. 
 
 " Day here," he thought, " and I still helpless ! This 
 must come to an end." And he locked up the piano, put 
 the key in his pocket, and set forth in quest of coffee. As 
 he went, his mind trudged for the hundredth time a cer- 
 tain mill-road of terrors, misgivings, and regi'ets. To call 
 in the police, to give up the body, to cover London with 
 handbills describing John Dickson and Ezra Thomas, to 
 fill the papers with paragraphs, Mysterious Occurrence in 
 the Temple — Mr. Forsyth admitted to hail, this was one 
 course, an easy course, a safe course ; but not, the more 
 he reflected on it, not a pleasant one. For, was it not to 
 publish abroad a number of singular facts about himself ? 
 A child ought to have seen through the story of these 
 adventurers, and he had gaped and swallowed it. A bar- 
 rister of the least self-respect should have refused to listen 
 to clients who came before him in a manner so irregular, 
 and he had listened. And Oh, if he had only listened ; but 
 he had gone upon their errand — he, a barrister, unin- 
 structed even by the shadow of a solicitor — upon an errand 
 fit only for a private detective ; and alas ! — and for the 
 hundredth time, the blood surged to his brow — he had 
 taken their money ! "No," said he, " the thing is as plain 
 as St. Paul's. I shall be dishonored ! I have smashed my 
 career for a five-pound note." 
 
 Between the possibility of being hanged in all inno- 
 cence, and the certainty of a public and merited disgrace, 
 11
 
 1G2 THE V.'RONO BOX. 
 
 no gentleman of spirit could long hesitate. After three 
 gulps of that hot, snuffy, and muddy beverage, that 
 passes on the streets of Loudon for a decoction of the 
 coffee berry, Gideon's mind was made up. He would do 
 without the police. Ho must face the other side of the 
 dilemma, and be Robert Skill in earnest. What would 
 Robert Skill have done ? How does a gentleman dispose 
 of a dead body, honestly come by ? He remembered the 
 inimitable story of the hunchback ; reviewed its course, 
 and dismissed it for a worthless guide. It was impossi- 
 ble to prop a corpse on the corner of Tottenham Court 
 Road, without arousing fatal curiosity in the bosoms of 
 the passers by ; as for lowering it down a London chim- 
 ney, the physical obstacles were insurmountable. To get 
 it on board a train and drop it out, or on the top of an 
 omnibus and drop it off, were equally out of the question. 
 To get it on a yacht and drop it overboard, was more 
 conceivable ; but for a man of moderate means, it seemed 
 extravagant. The hire of the yacht was in itself a consider- 
 ation ; the subsequent suj^port of the whole crew (which 
 seemed a necessary consequence) was simply not to be 
 thought of. His uncle and the houseboat here occurred 
 in very luminous colors to his mind. A musical com- 
 poser (say, of the name of Jimson) might very well suffer, 
 like Hogarth's musician before him, from the disturbances 
 of London. He might very well be pressed for time to 
 finish an opera — say the comic opera Orange Pekoe — > 
 Orange Pekoe, music by Jimson — "this young maestro,
 
 GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE BKOADWOOD GKAND. 163 
 
 one of the most promising of our recent English school " 
 —vigorous entrance of the drums, etc. — the whole charac- 
 ter of Jimson and his music ai'ose in bulk before the mind 
 of Gideon. What more likely than Jimson's arrival with 
 a grand piano (say, at Padwick), and his residence in a 
 houseboat alone with the unfinished score of Orange 
 Pekoe ? His subsequent disappearance, leaving nothing 
 behind but an empty piano case, it might be more diflB- 
 cult to account for. And yet even that was susceptible of 
 explanation. For, suppose Jimson had gone mad over a 
 fugal passage, and had thereupon destroyed the accom- 
 plice of his infamy, and plunged into the welcome river ? 
 What end, on the whole, more probable for a modern mu- 
 sician ? 
 
 "By jove, I'll do it," cried Gideon. "Jimson is the 
 boy ! "
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE MAESTRO jnviSON. 
 
 Mr. Edward Hugh Bloomfield having announced his in* 
 tention to stay in the neighborhood of Maidenhead, what 
 more probable than that the Maestro Jimson should turn 
 his mind toward Padwick ? Near this pleasant riverside 
 village, he remembered to have observed an ancient, weedy 
 houseboat lying moored beside a tuft of willows. It had 
 stirred in him, in his careless houi-s, as he pulled down 
 the river under a more famihar name, a certain sense of 
 the romantic ; and when the nice contrivance of his story 
 was already complete in his mind, he had come near pull- 
 ing it all down again, like an ungrateful clock, in order to 
 introduce a chapter in which Robert Skill (who was always 
 being decoyed somewhere) should bo decoyed on board 
 that lonely hulk by Lord Bellew and the American des- 
 perado Gin Sling. It was fortunate he had not done so, 
 he reflected ; since the hulk was now required for very 
 diftei-ent purposes. 
 
 Jimson, a man of inconspicuous costume, but insinuat- 
 ing manners, had little difficulty in finding the hireling 
 who had charge of the houseboat, and still less in per- 
 suading him to resign his care. The rent was almost
 
 THE MAESTKO JIMSON. 165 
 
 nominal, the entry immediate, the key was exchanged 
 against a suitable advance in money ; and Jimson re- 
 turned to town by the afternoon train to see about des- 
 patching his piano. 
 
 " I wUl be down to-morrow," he had said, reassuringly. 
 " My opera is waited for with such impatience, you 
 know." 
 
 And, sure enough, about the hour of noon on the fol- 
 lowing day, Jimson might have been observed ascending 
 the riverside road that goes from Pad wick to Great Haver- 
 ham, carrying in one hand a basket of provisions, and 
 under the other arm a leather case containing (it is to be 
 conjectui'ed) the score of Orange Pekoe. It was October 
 weather ; the stone-gray sky was full of larks, the leaden 
 mirror of the Thames brightened with autumnal foliage, 
 and the fallen leaves of the chestnuts chirped under the 
 composer's footing. There is no time of the year in Eng- 
 land more courageous ; and Jimson, though he was not 
 without his troubles, whistled as he went. 
 
 A little above Padwick, the river lies very solitary. On 
 the opposite shore the trees of a private park inclose the 
 view, the chimneys of the mansion just pricking forth 
 above their clusters ; on the near side, the path is bor- 
 dered by willows. Close among these lay the houseboat, 
 a thing so soiled by the tears of the overhanging wlUows, 
 so grown upon with parasites, so decayed, so battered, so 
 neglected, such a haunt of rats, so advertised a storehouse 
 of rheumatic agonies, that the heart of an intending oc-
 
 166 THE WKONQ BOX. 
 
 ciipaut might well recoil. A i^lank, by •wa}' of flying 
 drawbridge, joined it to the shore. And it was a dx'eary 
 moment for Jimson when he pidled this after him and 
 found himself alone on this unwholesome fortress. He 
 could hear the rats scuttle and flop in the abhorred in- 
 terior ; the key cried among the wards like a thing in 
 pain ; the sitting-room was deep in dust, and smelt strong 
 of bilge-water. It could not be called a cheerful spot, 
 even for a composer absorbed in beloved toil ; how much 
 less for a young gentleman, haunted by alarms and await- 
 ing the arrival of a corpse ! 
 
 He sat down, cleared away a piece of the table, and at- 
 tacked the cold luncheon in his basket. In case of any 
 subsequent inquiry into the fate of Jimson, it was desir- 
 able he should be little seen ; in other words, that ho 
 should spend the day entirely in the house ; to this end, 
 and further to corroborate his fable, he had brought in the 
 leather case not only writing materials, but a ream of 
 large-size music paper, such as he considered suitable for 
 an ambitious character like Jimson's. 
 
 " And now to work," said he, when he had satisfied his 
 appetite. " We must leave traces of the wretched man's 
 activity." And he wrote in bold characters: 
 
 ORANGE PEKOE. 
 
 Op. 17. 
 
 J. B. JIMSON. 
 
 Vocal and jx f. score.
 
 THE MAESTRO JIMSON. 167 
 
 " I suppose they never do begin like this," reflected 
 Gideon ; " but then it's quite out of the question for me 
 to tackle a full score, and Jimson was so unconventional. 
 A dedication would be found convincing, I believe. 
 * Dedicated to ' (let me see) ' to William Ewart Gladstone, 
 by his obedient servant the composer.' And now some 
 music : I had better avoid the overture, it seems to pre- 
 sent difficulties. Let's give an air for the tenor : Key — O, 
 something modern ! — seven sharps." And he made a 
 business-like signature across the staves, and then paused 
 and browsed for a while on the handle of his pen. Melody, 
 with no better inspiration than a sheet of paper, is not 
 usually found to spring unbidden in the mind of the ama- 
 teur ; nor is the key of seven sharps a place of much re- 
 pose to the untried. He cast away that sheet. " It will 
 help to build up the character of Jimson," Gideon re- 
 mai'ked ; and again waited on the muse, in various 
 keys and on divers sheets of paper, but all with results 
 so inconsiderable that he stood aghast. "It's very 
 odd," thought he. "I seem to have less fancy than I 
 thought ; or this is an off-day with me ; yet Jimson 
 must leave something." And again he bent himself to 
 the task. 
 
 Presently the penetrating chill of the houseboat began 
 to attack the very seat of life. He desisted from his un- 
 remunerative trial ; and to the audible annoyance of the 
 rats, walked briskly up and down the cabin. Still he was 
 cold. "This is all nonsense," said he. "I don't care
 
 168 TIIK WKONG BOX. 
 
 about the risk, but I will not catch a catarrh. I must get 
 out of this cleB." 
 
 He stepped on deck, and passing to the bow of his em- 
 barcation, looked for the first time up the river. He 
 started. Only a few hundred yards above another house- 
 boat lay moored among the willows. It was very spick 
 and sjian, an elegant canoe hung at the stem, the windows 
 were concealed by snowy curtains ; a flag floated from a 
 sta£f. The more Gideon looked at it the more there 
 mingled with his disgust a sense of impotent surprise. It 
 was very like his uncle's houseboat ; it was exceedingly 
 like, it was identical. But for two circumstances he could 
 have sworn it was the same. The first, that his uncle had 
 gone to Maidenhead, might be explained away by that 
 flightiness of j^urpose which is so common a trait among 
 the more than usually manl}-. The second, however, was 
 conclusive. It was not in the least like Mr. Bloomfield to 
 display a banner on his floating residence ; and if he ever 
 did, it would certainly be dyed in hues of emblematical 
 propriety. Now the Squirradical, like the vast majority 
 of the more manly, had drawn knowledge at the wells 
 of Cambridge — he was wooden spoon in the year 1850 ; 
 and the flag upon the houseboat streamed on the after- 
 noon air with the colors of that seat of Toryism, that cradle 
 of Puseyism, that home of the inexact and the efl'ete — ■ 
 Oxford. 
 
 Still it was strangely like, thought Gideon. 
 
 And as he thus looked and thought, the door opened,
 
 THE MAiiSTEO JIMSON. 169 
 
 and a young lady stepped forth on deck. The banister 
 dropped and fled into his cabin ; it was Juha Hazeltine ! 
 Through the window he watched her draw in the canoe, 
 get on board of it, cast off, and come dropping down 
 stream in his direction. 
 
 " Well, all is up now," said he, and he fell on a seat. 
 
 " Good-afternoon, miss," said a voice on the water. 
 Gideon knew it for the voice of his landlord. 
 
 " Good-aftemoon," replied Julia, " but I don't know who 
 you are ; do I? Oh, yes, I do though. You are the nice 
 man that gave us leave to sketch from the old house- 
 boat." 
 
 Gideon's heart leajDed with fear. 
 
 "That's it," returned the man. "And what I wanted 
 to say was as you couldn't do it any more. You see I've 
 let it." 
 
 " Let it ! " cried Julia. 
 
 "Let it for a month," said the man. " Seems strange, 
 don't it? Can't see what the party wants with it ! " 
 
 "It seems very romantic of him, I think," said Julia. 
 " What sort of a person is he ? " 
 
 Julia in her canoe, the landlord in his wherry, were 
 close alongside, and holding on by the gunwale of the 
 houseboat ; so that not a word was lost on Gideon. 
 
 " He's a music man," said the landlord, " or at least that's 
 what he told me, miss ; come down here to write an 
 op'ra." 
 
 " Really ! " cried Julia, " I never heard of anything so
 
 170 THK WRONG BOX. 
 
 delightful ! Why, we shall be able to slip down at night 
 and hear him improvise ! What is his name ? " 
 
 " Jimson," said the man. 
 
 " Jimson ? " repeated Julia, and interrogated her mem- 
 orj- in vain. But indeed our rising school of English 
 music boasts so many professors that we rarely hear of one 
 till he is made a baronet. " Ai-e you sure you have 
 it right?" 
 
 " Made him sjjell it to me," replied the landlord. 
 "J-I-M-S-O-N— Jimson ; and his op'ra's called — some kind 
 of tea." 
 
 "Some kind of tea! " cried the girl. "What a very 
 singular name for an opera ! What can it be about ? " 
 And Gideon heard her pretty laughter How abroad. " We 
 must try to get acquainted with this Mr. Jimson ; I feel 
 sure he must be nice." 
 
 " Well, miss, I'm afraid I must be going on. I've got 
 to be at Haverham, you see," 
 
 " Oh, dou't let me keep you, you kind man ! " said 
 Julia. " Good-afternoon," 
 
 "Good-afternoon to you, miss." 
 
 Gideon sat in the cabin a prey to the most harrowing 
 thoughts. Here he was anchored to a rotting houseboat, 
 soon to be anchored to it still more emphatically by the 
 presence of the corpse ; and here was the country buzz- 
 ing about him, and young ladies already proposing pleas- 
 ure parties to surround his house at night. Well, that 
 meant the gallows ; and much he cared for that. What
 
 THE MAESTliO JtMSON. 171 
 
 troubled him now was Julia's indescribable levity. That 
 girl would scrape acquaintance with anybody ; she had no 
 reserve, none of the enamel of the ladj'. She was familiar 
 with a brute like his landlord ; she took an immediate in- 
 terest (which she lacked even the delicacy to conceal) in a 
 creature like Jimson ! He could conceive her askins: 
 Jimson to have tea with her ! And it was for a girl like 
 this that a man like Gideon — Down, manly heart ! 
 
 He was interrujDted by a sound that sent him whipping 
 behind the door in a trice. Miss Hazeltine had stepped 
 on boai'd the houseboat. Her sketch was promising ; 
 judging from the stillness she supposed Jimson not yet 
 come ; and she had decided to seize occasion and com- 
 plete the work of art. Down she sat therefore in the bow, 
 produced her block and water-colors, and was soon sing- 
 ing over (what used to be called) the ladylike accomplish- 
 ment. Now and then indeed her song was interrupted, 
 as she searched in her memory for some of the odious 
 little receipts by means of which the game is practised — 
 or used to be practised in the brave days of old ; they 
 say the world, and those ornaments of the world, young 
 ladies, are become more sophisticated now ; but Julia had 
 probably studied under Pitman, and she stood firm in the 
 old ways. 
 
 Gideon, meanwhile, stood behind the door, afraid to 
 move, afraid to breathe, afraid to think of what must fol- 
 low, racked by confinement and borne to the ground with 
 tedium. This particular phase, he felt with gratitude,
 
 172 THE WKONG I!OX. 
 
 could not last forever ; whatever ijiipendecl (even the gal- 
 lows, he bitterly and perhaps erroneously reflected) could 
 not fail to be a relief. To calculate cubes occurred to him 
 as an ingenious and even pi'ofitable refuge from distress- 
 ing thoughts, and he threw his manhood into that dreary 
 exercise. 
 
 Thus, then, were these two young persons occupied, 
 Gideon attacking the perfect number with resolution; 
 Julia vigorously stippling incongruous colors on her 
 block, when Providence despatched into these waters a 
 steam launch asthmatically panting up the Thames. All 
 along the banks the water swelled and fell, and the reeds 
 rustled. The houseboat itself, that ancient stationary 
 creature, became suddenly imbued with life, and rolled 
 briskly at her moorings, like a sea-going ship when she 
 begins to smell the harbor bar. The wash had nearly 
 died away, and the quick panting of the launch sounded 
 already faint and far off, when Gideon was startled by a 
 cry from Julia. Peering through the window, he beheld 
 her stai'ing disconsolately down stream at the fast-vanish- 
 ing canoe. The barrister (whatever were his faults) dis- 
 l>layed on this occasion a promptitude worthy of his hero, 
 Robert Skill ; with one effort of his mind he foresaw what 
 was about to follow ; with one movement of his body he 
 dropped to the floor and crawled under the table. 
 
 Julia, on her part, was not j^et alive to her position. 
 She saw she had lost the canoe, and she looked forward 
 with something less than avidity to her next interview
 
 THE MAESTRO JIMSON. 173 
 
 with Mr. Bloomfield ; but she had no idea that she was 
 imprisoned, for she knew of the plank bridge. 
 
 She made the circuit of the house, and found the door 
 open and the bridge withdrawn. It was plain, then, that 
 Jimson must have comef plain, too, that he must be on 
 board. He must be a very shy man to have suffered this 
 invasion of his residence, and made no sign ; and her 
 courage rose higher at the thought. He must come now, 
 she must force him from his privacy, for the plank was 
 too heavy for her single strength ; so she tapped upon the 
 open door. Then she tapped again. 
 
 "Mr. Jimson," she cried, "Mr. Jimson ! here, come! — 
 you must come, you know, sooner or later, for I can't get 
 off without you. Oh, don't be so exceedingly silly ! Oh, 
 please, come ! " 
 
 Still there was no reply. 
 
 "If he is here he must be mad," she thought with a 
 little fear. And the next moment she remembered he 
 had probably gone abroad like herself in a boat. In that 
 case, she might as well see the houseboat, and she pushed 
 open the door and stepped in. Under the table, where 
 he lay smothered with dust, Gideon's heart stood still. 
 
 There were the remains of Jimson's lunch. " He likes 
 rather nice things to eat," she thought. " Oh, I am sure 
 he is quite a delightful man. I wonder if he is as good- 
 looking as Mi\ Forsyth. Mi's. Jimson — I don't believe it 
 sounds as nice as Mrs. Forsyth ; but then * Gideon ' is so 
 really odious ! And here is some of his music too ; this
 
 174 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 is delightful. Orange Pekoe — Ob, that's what he meant 
 by some kind of tea." Aud she trilled witli laughter. 
 ''Adagio molto espressivo, sewpre legalo,'' she read next. 
 (For the literary part of a composer's business Gideon 
 was well equipped.) " How ver\*strange to have all these 
 directions, and only three or four notes! Oh, here's 
 another with some more. Andante patetico." And she 
 began to glance over the music. "O dear me," she 
 thought, "he must be terribly modern ! It all seems dis- 
 cords to me. Let's try the air. It is very strange, it 
 seems familiar." She began to sing it, and suddenly 
 broke off with laughter. "Why, it's Tommy make roo7n 
 for your Uncle ! " she cried aloud, so that the soul of Gid- 
 eon was filled with bitterness. " Andante patetico, indeed ! 
 The man must be a mere impostor." 
 
 And just at this moment there came a confused, scuf- 
 fling sound from underneath the table ; a strange note, like 
 that of a barn-door fowl, ushered in a most explosive 
 sneeze ; the head of the sufferer was at the same time 
 brought smartly in contact with the boards above ; and 
 the sneeze was followed by a hollow groan. 
 
 Julia fled to the door, and there, with the salutary in- 
 stinct of the brave, turned and faced the danger. There 
 was no pursuit. The sounds continued ; below the table 
 a crouching figure was indistinctly to be seen jostled by 
 the throes of a sneezing fit ; and that was all. 
 
 " Surely," thought Julia, " this is most unusual behav- 
 ior. He cannot be a man of the world ! "
 
 THE MAESTBO JIMSON. 
 
 175 
 
 Meanwhile the dust of years bad been disturbed by 
 tlie young barrister's convulsions; and the sneezing fit 
 was succeeded by a passionate access of coughing. 
 
 Julia began to feel a certain interest. " I am afraid 
 you are really quite ill," she said, drawing a little nearer. 
 " Please don't let me put you out, and do not stay under 
 that table, Mr. Jimson. Indeed it cannot be good for 
 you. 
 
 Mr. Jimson only answered by a distressing cougli ; and 
 the next moment the girl was on her knees and their faces 
 had almost knocked together under the table. 
 
 " Oh, my gracious goodness ! " exclaimed Miss Hazeltine, 
 and sprang to her feet. " Mr. Forsyth gone mad !" 
 
 " I am not mad," said the gentleman ruefully, extricat- 
 ing himself from his position. " Dearest Miss Hazeltine, 
 I vow to you upon my knees I am not mad ! " 
 
 " You are not ! " she cried, panting. 
 
 "I know," he said, "that to a superficial eye my conduct 
 may appear unconventional." 
 
 "If you are not mad, it was no conduct at all," cried 
 the girl, with a flash of color, " and showed you did not 
 care one penny for my feelings ! " 
 
 " This is the very devil and all. I know — I admit that," 
 cried Gideon, with a great effect of manly candor. 
 
 " It was abominable conduct ! " said Julia, with energy. 
 
 "I know it must have shaken your esteem," said the 
 barrister. " But, dearest Miss Hazeltine, I beg of you to 
 hear me out ; my behavior, strange as it may seem, is not
 
 170 THK WUONG BOX. 
 
 unsusceptible of explaujition ; aud I positively cannot and 
 will not consent to continue to try to exist without — with- 
 out the esteem of one whom I admire — the moment is ill- 
 chosen, I am well aware of that ; but I repeat the expres- 
 sion — one whom I admire." 
 
 A touch of amusement appeared on Miss Hazeltine's 
 face. "Very well," said she, " come out of this dreadfully 
 cold place, and let us sit down on deck." The barrister 
 dolefully followed her. "Now," said she, making herself 
 comfortable against the end of the house, " go on. I will 
 hear you out." And then seeing him stand before her 
 with so much obvious disrelish to the task, she was sud- 
 denly overcome with laughter. Julia's laugh was a thing 
 to ravish lovers ; she rolled her mirthful descant with the 
 freedom and the melody of a blackbird's song upon the 
 river, and repeated by the echoes of the further bank, it 
 seemed a thing in its own place and a sound native to the 
 open ail'. There was only one creature who heard it with- 
 out joy, and that was her unfortunate admirer. 
 
 " Miss Hazeltine," he said, in a voice that tottered with 
 annoyance, "I speak as your sincere well-wisher, but this 
 can only be called levity." 
 
 Juha made great eyes at him. 
 
 " I can't withdraw the word," he said, " already the 
 freedom with which I heard you hobnobbing with a boat- 
 man gave me exquisite pain. Then there was a want of 
 reserve about Jimson " 
 
 "But Jimson appears to be yourself," objected Julia.
 
 THE ilAESTKO JIMSON. 177 
 
 "I am far from denying that," cried the barrister, "but 
 you did not know it at the time. What could Jimsou bo 
 to you ? Who was Jimsou ? Miss Hazeltine, it cut me 
 to the heai't." 
 
 " Really this seems to me to be very silly," retui-ned 
 Julia, with severe decision. " You have behaved in the 
 most extraordinary manner ; you pretend you are able to 
 explain your conduct, and instead of doing so you be- 
 gin to attack me." 
 
 " I am well aware of that," replied Gideon. " I — I will 
 make a clean breast of it. When you know all the cir- 
 cumstances you will be able to excuse me." 
 
 And sitting down beside her on the deck, he poured 
 forth his miserable history. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Forsyth," she cried, when he had done. "I 
 am — so — sorry ! I wish I hadn't laughed at you — only 
 you know you really were so exceedingly funny. But I 
 ■wish I hadn't, and I wouldn't either if I had only known." 
 And she gave him her hand. 
 
 Gideon kept it in his own. " You do not think the 
 worse of me for this? " he asked, tenderly. 
 
 "Because you have been so silly and got into such 
 dreadful trouble ? you poor boy, no ! " cried Julia ; and 
 in the warmth of the moment, reached him her other 
 hand; "you may count on me," she added. 
 
 "Really?" said Gideon. 
 
 " Really and really ! " replied the girl. 
 
 "I do then, and I will," ci'ied the young man, " I admit 
 12
 
 ITS THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 the moment is not well cliosen ; but I have no friends^ 
 to speak of." 
 
 "No more have I," said Julia. " But don't you think it's 
 perliaps time you gave me back my hands ? " 
 
 " La ci darem la mano," said the barrister, " the merest 
 moment more ! I have so few friends," he added. 
 
 "I thought it was cousidei'ed such a bad account of a 
 young man to have no friends," observed Julia. 
 
 " Oh, but I have crowds of friench ! " cried Gideon. 
 " That's not what I mean. I feel the moment is ill chosen ; 
 but oh, Julia, if you could only see yourself ! " 
 
 " Mr. Forsyth^ " 
 
 "Don't call me by that beastly name ! " cried the youth. 
 " Call me Gideon ! " 
 
 "Oh, never that!" from Julia. "Besides, we have 
 known each other such a short time." 
 
 " Not at all ! " protested Gideon. " We met at Bourne- 
 mouth ever so long ago. I never forgot you since. Say 
 you never forgot me. Say you never forgot me, and call 
 me Gideon ! " 
 
 " Isn't this rather — a want of reserve about Jimson ? " 
 inquired the girl. 
 
 " Oh, I know I am an ass," cried the barristei*, "and I 
 don't care a half-penny ! I know I'm an ass, and you may 
 laugh at me to your heart's delight." And as Julia's lips 
 opened with a smile, he once more dropped into music. 
 " There's the Land of Chen-y Isle ! " he sang, courting her 
 with hia eyes.
 
 THE MAESTRO .IIMSON. 179 
 
 -^It's like an opera," said Julia, rather faintly. 
 
 "What should it be? " said Gideon. " Am I not Jim- 
 son ? It would be strange if I did not serenade my love. 
 Oh, yes, I mean the word, my Julia ; and I mean to win 
 you. I am in dreadful trouble, and I have not a penny 
 of my own, and I have cut the silliest figure ; and yet I 
 mean to win you, Julia. Look at me, if you can, and tell 
 me no! " 
 
 She looked at him ; and whatever her eyes may have 
 told him, it is to be supposed he took a pleasure in the 
 message, for he read it a long while. 
 
 "And Uncle Ned will give us some money to go on 
 upon in the meanwhile," he said, at last. 
 
 " Well, I call that cool ! " said a cheerful voice at hia 
 elbow. 
 
 Gideon and Julia sprang apart with wonderful alacrity ; 
 the latter annoyed to observe that although they had 
 never moved since they sat down, they were now quite 
 close together ; both presenting faces of a very heightened 
 color to the eyes of Mr. Edward Hugh Bloomfield. That 
 gentleman, coming up the river in his boat, had captured 
 the truant canoe, and divining what had happened, had 
 thought to steal a march on Miss Hazeltine at her sketch. 
 He had unexpectedly brought down two birds with one 
 stone ; and as he looked upon the pair of flushed and 
 breathless culprits, the pleasant human instinct of the 
 Baatch-maker softened his heart. 
 
 ** Well, I call that cool," he repeated ; "you seem to count
 
 180 
 
 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 very securely upon Uucle Ned. But look here, Gid, 1 
 thought I had told you to keep away ? " 
 
 •' To keep away from Maidenhead," replied Gid. " But 
 how should I expect to find you here ? " 
 
 " There is something in that," Mr. Bloomfield admitted. 
 " You see I thought it better that even you should be 
 ignorant of my address ; those rascals, the Finsburys, 
 would have wormed it out of you. And just to put them 
 off the scent I hoisted these abominable colors. But that 
 is not all, Gid ; you promised me to work, and here I 
 find you playing the fool at Padwick." 
 
 " Please, Mr. Bloomfield, you must not be hard on 
 Mr. Forsyth," said Julia. " Poor boy, he is in dreadful 
 straits. " 
 
 " "What's this, Gid ?" inquired the uncle. " Have you 
 been fighting ? or is it a bill ? " 
 
 These, in the opinion of the Squirradical, were the 
 two misfortunes incident to gentlemen ; and indeed both 
 were culled from his own career. He had once put his 
 name (as a matter of form) on a friend's paper ; it had 
 cost him a cool thousand ; and the friend had gone about 
 with the fear of death upon him ever since, and never 
 turned a comer without scouting in front of him for Mr. 
 Bloomfield and the oaken staff. As for fighting, the 
 Squirradical was always on the brink of it ; and once, 
 when (in the character of president of a radical club) he 
 had cleared out the hall of his opponents, things hmj 
 gone even further. Mr. Holtum, the conservative can
 
 THE MAESTKO JIMSON. 18 
 
 didate, who lay so long on the bed of sickness, was pre- 
 pared to swear to Mr. Bloomtield. " I will swear to it in 
 any court — it was the hand of that brute that struck me 
 down," he was reported to have said ; and when he was 
 thought to be sinking, it was known that he had made an 
 ante-mortem statement in that sense. It was a cheerful 
 day for the Squirradical when Holtum was restored to 
 his brewery. 
 
 " It's much worse than that," said Gideon, " a combina- 
 tion of circumstances really providentially unjust — a — 
 in fact, a syndicate of murderers seem to have perceived 
 my latent ability to rid them of the traces of their crime. 
 It's a legal study, after all, you see ! " And with these 
 words, Gideon, for the second time that day, began to de- 
 scribe the adventures of the Broadwood Grand. 
 
 " I must write to The Times," cried IVIr. Bloomfield. 
 
 "Do you want to get me disbarred ? " asked Gideon. 
 
 " Disbarred ! Come, it can't be as bad as that," said 
 his uncle. " It's a good, honest, liberal government that's 
 in, and they would certainly move at my request. Thank 
 God, the days of tory jobbery are at an end." 
 
 "It wouldn't do, Uncle Ned," said Gideon. 
 
 "But you're not mad enough," cried Mr. Bloomfield, 
 " to persist in trying to dispose of it yourself ? " 
 
 "There is no other path open to me," said Gideon. 
 
 "It's not common-sense, and I will not hear of it," cried 
 Mr. Bloomfield. "I command you, positively, Gid, to 
 desist from this criminal interference."
 
 1S2 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 "Very well, then, I hand it over to j'ou," said Gid- 
 eon, "and you can do what you like with the dead 
 body." 
 
 " God forbid ! " ejaculated the president of the radical 
 club, "I'll have nothing to do with it." 
 
 "Then you must allow me to do the best I can," re- 
 turned his nephew. "Believe me, I have a distinct talent 
 for this sort of difficulty." 
 
 " "We might forward it to that pest-house, the Conserva- 
 tive Club," observed Mr. Bloomfield. " It might damage 
 them in the eyes of their constituents ; and it could be 
 profitably worked up in the local journal." 
 
 " If 3-ou see any political capital in the thing," said 
 Gideon, " you may have it for me." 
 
 " No, no, Gid — no, no, I thought you might. I will 
 have no hand in the thing. On reflection, it's highly un- 
 desirable that either I or Miss Hazeltiue should linger 
 here. We might be observed," said the president, look- 
 ing up and down the river ; " and in my public position, 
 the consequences would be painful for the party. And 
 at any rate, it's dinner time." 
 
 " What ? " cried Gideon, plunging for his watch. " And 
 60 it is ! Great heaven, the piano should have been here 
 hours ago ! " 
 
 Mr. Bloomfield was clambering back into his boat ; but 
 ftt these words he paused. 
 
 " I saw it arrive myself at the station ; I hired a car- 
 I'ier man ; he had a round to make, but he was to be here
 
 THE MAESTKO JIMSON. 183 
 
 by four at the latest," cried the barrister. " No doubt 
 the piano is open, and the body found." 
 
 "You must fly at once," cried Mr. Bloomfield, " it's the 
 only manly step." 
 
 "But suppose it's all right?" wailed Gideon. "Sup- 
 pose the piano comes, and I am not here to receive it ? I 
 shall have hanged mj'self by my cowardice. No, Uncle 
 Ned, inquiries must be made in Padwick ; I dare not go, 
 of course ; but you may, you could hang about the police 
 office, don't vou see ? " 
 
 "No, Gid — no, my dear nephew," said Mr. Bloomfield, 
 with the voice of one on the rack. " I regard you with 
 the most sacred affection ; and I thank God I am an 
 Englishman — ^and all that. But not — not the police, 
 Gid." 
 
 " Then you desert me ? " said Gideon. " Say it plainly." 
 
 "Far from it! far from it ! " protested Mr. Bloomfield. 
 " I only propose caution. Common-sense, Gid, should 
 always be an Englishman's guide." 
 
 " Will you let me speak ? " said Julia. " I think Gideon 
 had better leave this dreadful houseboat, and wait among 
 the willows over there. If the piano comes, then he could 
 step out and take it in ; and if the police come, he could 
 slip into our houseboat, and there needn't be any more 
 Jimson at all. He could go to bed, and we could burn 
 his clothes (couldn't we ?) in the steam launch ; and then 
 really it seems as if it would be all right. Mr. Bloomfield 
 is so respectable, you know, and such a leading char-
 
 184 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 acter, it would be quite impossible even to fancy that he 
 could be mixed up with it." 
 
 " This young lady has strong common-sense," said the 
 Squirradical. 
 
 "Oh, I don't think I'm at all a fool," said Julia, with 
 conviction. 
 
 " But what if neither of them come ? " asked Gideon ; 
 " what shall I do then ? " 
 
 " Why, then," said she, " you had better go down to the 
 village after dark ; and I can go with you, and then I am 
 sure you could never be suspected ; and even if you were, 
 I could tell them it was altogether a mistake." 
 
 "I will not permit that — I will not suffer ]Miss Hazel- 
 tine to go," cried Mr. Bloomfield. 
 
 "Why?" asked Julia. 
 
 Mr. Bloomfield had not the least desire to tell her why, 
 for it was simply a craven fear of being drawn himself 
 into the imbroglio ; but with the usual tactics of a man 
 who is ashamed of himself, he took the high hand. " God 
 forbid, my dear INIiss Hazeltine, that I should dictate to a 
 lady on the question of pi-opriety — •" he began. 
 
 "Oh, is that all? " interrupted Julia. " Then we must 
 go ail three." 
 
 " Caught ! " thought the Squii-radicaL
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 rOSITIVELY THE LAST APPEAEANCE OE THE BEOADWOOD GRAND. 
 
 England is supposed to be unmusical ; but without 
 dwelling on the patronage extended to the organ-grinder, 
 without seeking to found any argument on the prevalence 
 of the Jew's trump, there is surely one instmment that 
 may be said to be national in the fullest acceptance of the 
 word. The herdboy in the broom, ah'eady musical in 
 the days of Father Chaucer, startles (and perhaps pains) 
 the lark with this exiguous pipe ; and in the hands of the 
 skilled bricklayer, 
 
 The thing becomes a trumpet, wheuce he blows 
 
 (as a general rule) either The BHtish Grenadiers, or Cherry 
 Ripe. The latter air is indeed the shibboleth and diplo- 
 ma piece of the penny whistler ; I hazard a guess it was 
 originally composed for this instrument. It is singular 
 enough that a man should be able to gain a livelihood, or 
 even to tide over a period of unemployment, by the dis- 
 play of his proficiency upon the penny whistle ; still more 
 so, that the professional should almost invariably confine 
 himself to Cherry Ripe. But indeed, singularities sur- 
 round the subject, thick like blackberries. Why, for in-
 
 186 TiiK WRONG nox. 
 
 stance, should the pipe be called a penny whistle? I 
 think no one ever bought it for a penny. Why should 
 the alternative name be tin whistle ? I am grossly de- 
 ceived if it be made of tin. Lastly, in what deaf cata- 
 comb, in what earless desert, does the beginner pass the 
 excruciating interval of his apprenticeship ? We have all 
 heard people learning the piano, the fiddle, and the cor- 
 net ; but the young of the penny whistler (like that of the 
 salmon) is occult from observation ; he is never heard 
 until pi'oficient ; and providence (perhaps alarmed by the 
 works of Ml-, Mallock) defends human hearing from his 
 first attempts upon the upper octave. 
 
 A really noteworthy thing was taking place in a green 
 lane, not far from Padwick. On the bench of a carrier's 
 cart there sat a tow-headed, lanky, modest-looking youth; 
 the reins were on his lap ; the whip lay behind him in 
 the interior of the cart ; the horse proceeded without guid- 
 ance or encouragement ; the carrier (or the carrier's man) 
 wrapt into a higher sphere than that of his daily occupa- 
 tions, his looks dwelling on the skies, devoted himself 
 wholly to a brand new D penny whistle, whence he difii- 
 dently endeavored to elicit that pleasing melody The 
 Ploughboy. To any observant person who should have 
 chanced to saunter in that lane, the hour would have 
 been thrilling. "Here at last," he would have said, "is 
 the beginner." 
 
 The tow-headed youth (whose name was Harker) had just 
 encored himself for the nineteenth time, when he was
 
 LAST APPEARANCE OF THE BROADWOOD GRAND. 187 
 
 struck into the extreme of confusion by the discovery that 
 he was not alone. 
 
 " There you have it ! " cried a manly voice from the 
 side of the road. " That's as good as I want to hear. 
 Perhaps a leetle oilier in the run," the voice suggested, 
 with meditative gusto. " Give it us again." 
 
 Harker glanced, from the depths of his humiliation, at 
 the speaker. He beheld a powerful, sun-brown, clean- 
 shaven fellow, about forty years of age, striding beside the 
 cart with a non-commissioned militaiy bearing, and (as he 
 strode) spinning in the air a cane. The fellow's clothes 
 were very bad, but he looked clean and self-reliant. 
 
 "I'm only a beginner," gasped the blushing Harker, 
 "I didn't think anybody could hear me." 
 
 " Well, I like that ! " returned the other. " You're a 
 pretty old beginner. Come, I'll give you a lead myself. 
 Give us a seat here beside you." 
 
 The next moment the military gentleman was perched 
 on the cart, pipe in hand. He gave the instrument a 
 knowing rattle on the shaft, mouthed it, appeared to 
 commence for a moment with the muse, and dashed into 
 The girl Heft behind me. He was a great, rather than a 
 fine, performer ; he lacked the bird-like richness ; he could 
 scarce have extracted all the hone}^ out of Cherry Ripe ; he 
 did not fear — he even ostentatiously displayed and seemed 
 to revel in the shrillness of the instrument ; but in fire, 
 speed, precision, evenness, and fluency ; in linked agility 
 oi jimmy — a technical expression, by your leave, answer-
 
 1S8 TIIK -WRONG BOX. 
 
 ing to warblers on the bag-pipe ; and perhaps, above all, 
 in that inspiring side-glance of the eye, with which he 
 followed the effect and (as by a human appeal) eked out 
 the insufficiency of his performance : in these, the fellow 
 stood without a rival. Harker listeneds: The girl I left 
 behind me filled him with despair ; The soldier's joy carried 
 him beyond jealousy into generous enthusiasm. 
 
 " Turn about," said the military gentleman, offering the 
 pipe. 
 
 " Oh, not after you ! " cried Harker ; " you're a pro- 
 fessional." 
 
 " No," said his companion ; " an amatyure like yourself. 
 That's one style of play, yours is the other, and I like it 
 best. But I began when I was a boy, you see, before my 
 taste was formed. When you're my age you'll play that 
 thing like a coruet-a-piston. Give us that air again ; how 
 does it go?" and he affected to endeavor to recall The 
 Ploughboy. 
 
 A timid, insane hope sprang in the breast of Harker. 
 Was it possible? Was there something in his playing? 
 It had, indeed, seemed to him at times as if he got a kind 
 of a richness out of it. Was he a genius ? Meantime the 
 military gentleman stumbled over the air. 
 
 "No," said the unhappy Harker, "that's not quite it. 
 It goes this way — just to show you." 
 
 And, taking the pipe between his lips, he sealed his 
 doom. When he had played the air, and then a second 
 time, and a third ; when the military gentleman had tried
 
 LAST APPEAKANCE OF THE BROADWOOD GRAND, 189 
 
 it once more, and once more failed ; when it became clear 
 to Harker that he, the blushing debutant, was actually 
 giving a lesson to this full-grown flutist — and the flutist 
 under his care was not very brilliantly progressing — how 
 am I to tell what floods of glory brightened the autumnal 
 countryside : how, unless the reader were an amateur 
 himself, describe the heights of idiotic vanity to which 
 the earner climbed ? One significant fact shall paint the 
 situation : thenceforth it was Harker who played, and the 
 militaiy gentleman listened and approved. 
 
 As he listened, however, he did not forget the habit 
 of soldierly precaution, looking both behind and before. 
 He looked behind and computed the value of the carrier's 
 load, divining the contents of the brown -paper parcels and 
 the portly hamper, and briefly setting down the gTand 
 piano in the brand new piano-case as " difficult to get rid 
 of." He looked before, and spied at the corner of the 
 green lane a little country public-house embowered in 
 roses. "I'll have a shy at it," concluded the military 
 gentleman, and roundly proposed a glass. 
 
 " Well, I'm not a drinking man," said Harker. 
 
 "Look here, now," cut in the other, "I'll tell you who 
 I am : I'm Color-sergeant Brand of the Blankth. That'll 
 tell you if I'm a drinking man or not." It might and it 
 might not, thus a Greek chorus would have intervened, 
 and gone on to point out how very far it fell short of tell- 
 ing why the sergeant was trampiug a country lane in tat- 
 ters ; or even to argue that he must have jiretermitted
 
 190 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 some while ago his labors for the general defence, and (in 
 the interval) possibly turned his attention to oakum. But 
 there was no Greek chorus present ; and the man of Avar 
 went on to contend that drinking was one thing and a 
 friendly glass another. 
 
 In the Blue Lion, which was the name of the country 
 public-house, Color-sergeant Brand introduced his new 
 friend, Mr. Harker, to a number of ingenious mixtures, 
 calculated to prevent the approaches of intoxication. 
 These he explained to be "rekisite " in the service, so that 
 a self-respecting officer should always appear upon parade 
 in a condition honorable to his corps. The most effica- 
 cious of these devices was to lace a pint of mild ale with 
 twopence worth of London gin. I am pleased to hand in 
 this recipe to the discerning reader, who may find it use- 
 ful even in civil station ; for its effect upon Mr, Harker 
 was revolutionary. He must be helped on board his own 
 wagon, where he proceeded to display a spirit entirely 
 given over to mirth and music, alternately hootiug with 
 laughter, to which the sergeant hastened to bear chorus, 
 and incoherently tootling on the pipe. The man of war, 
 meantime, unostentatiously possessed himself of the reins. 
 It was plain he had a taste for the secluded beauties of an 
 English landscape ; for the cart, although it wandered 
 under his guidance for some time, was never observed to 
 issue on the dusty highway, journeying between hedge 
 and ditch, and for the most part under overliauging 
 boughs. It was plain, besides, he had an eye to the true
 
 LAST APPEARANCE OF THE BROADWOOD GRAND. 191 
 
 interests of ]\Ir. Harker ; for though the cart drew up 
 more than once at the doors of pubHc-houses, it was only 
 the sergeant who set foot to ground, and being equipped 
 himself with a quart bottle, once more proceeded on his 
 rural drive. 
 
 To give any idea of the complexity of the sergeant's 
 course, a map of that part of Middlesex would be requiredj 
 and my publisher is averse from the expense. Suffice it, 
 that a little after the night had closed, the cart was brought 
 to a standstill in a woody road ; where the sergeant lifted 
 from among the parcels, and tenderly deposited upon the 
 wayside, the inanimate form of Harker. 
 
 " If you come to before daylight," thought the sergeant. 
 "I shall be surprised for one." 
 
 From the various pockets of the slumberiug earner, he 
 gently collected the sum of seventeen shillings and eight- 
 pence sterliug ; and getting once more into the cart, drove 
 thoughtfully away. 
 
 " If I was exactly sure of where I was, it would be a 
 good job," he reflected. " Anyway, here's a corner." 
 
 He turned it, and found himself upon the riverside. A 
 little above him the lights of a house-boat shone cheer- 
 fully ; and already close at hand, so close that it was im- 
 possible to avoid their notice, three persons, a lady and 
 two gentlemen, were deliberately drawing near. The 
 sergeant put his trust in the convenient darkness of the 
 night, and drove on to meet them. One of the gentle- 
 men, who was of a portly figure, walked in the midst
 
 192 
 
 THE WKONG BOX. 
 
 of the fairway and presently held up a staff by way of 
 signal. 
 
 " My man, have you seen anything of a carrier's cart ? " 
 he cried. 
 
 Dark as it was, it seemed to the sergeant as though the 
 slimmer of the two gentlemen had made a motion to pre- 
 vent the other speaking, and (finding himself too late) had 
 skipped aside with some alacrity. At another season, 
 Sergeant Brand would have paid more attention to the 
 fact ; but he was then immersed in the perils of his own 
 predicament. 
 
 "A carrier's cart?" said he, with a perceptible uncer- 
 tainty of voice. " No, sir." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the portly gentleman, and stood aside to 
 let the sergeant pass. The lady appeared to bend for- 
 ward and study the cart with every mark of sharpened 
 curiosity ; the slimmer gentleman still keeping in the 
 rear. 
 
 "I wonder what the devil they would be at," thought 
 Sergeant Branci ; and looking fearfully back, he saw the 
 trio standing together in the midst of the way, like folk 
 consulting. The bravest of military heroes are not always 
 equal to themselves as to their reputation ; and fear, on 
 some singular provocation, will find a lodgement in the 
 most unfamiliar bosom. The word " detective " might 
 have been heard to gurgle in the sergeant's throat ; and 
 vigorously api^lying the whip, he fled up the riverside road 
 to Great Haverham, at the gallop) of the carrier's horse
 
 LAST APPEARANCE OF THE BROAD WOOD GRAND. 193 
 
 The lights of the house-boat flashed upon the flying wagoo 
 as it passed ; the beat of hoofs and the rattle of the vehicle 
 gradually coalesced and died away ; and presently, to the 
 trio on the riverside, silence had redescended. 
 
 "It's the most extraordinary thing," cried the slimmer of 
 the two gentlemen, " but that's the cart ! " 
 
 "And I know I saw a piano," said the girl. 
 
 " Oh, it's the cart, certainly ; and the extraordinary thing 
 is, it's not the man," added the first, 
 
 "It must be the man, Gid, it must be," said the portly 
 one. 
 
 " Well, then, why is he running away ? " asked Gideon. 
 
 "His horse bolted, I suppose," said the Squirradical. 
 
 " Nonsense ! I heard the whip going like a flail," said 
 Gideon. "It simply defies the human reason." 
 
 " I'll tell you," broke in the girl, " he came round that 
 corner. Suppose we went and — what do they call it in 
 books ? — followed his trail ? There may be a house there, 
 or somebody who saw him, or something," 
 
 " Well, suppose we did, for the fun of the thing," said 
 Gideon. 
 
 The fun of the thing (it would appear) consisted in the 
 extremely close juxtaposition of himself and Miss Ha- 
 zeltine. To Uncle Ned, who was excluded from these sim- 
 ple pleasures, the excursion appeared hopeless from the 
 first ; and when a fresh perspective of darkness opened 
 up, dimly contained between park palings on the one side 
 and a hedge and ditch upon the other, the whole without 
 13
 
 194 THE WKOXG BOX. 
 
 the smallest signal of human habitation, the Squirradical 
 drew up. 
 
 " This is a wild-goose chase," said he. 
 
 With the cessation of the footfalls, another sound 
 smote upon their ears. 
 
 "Oh, what's that?" cried Julia. 
 
 "I can't think," said Gideon. 
 
 The Squii-radical had his stick presented like a sword. 
 "Gid,"he began, "Gid, I " 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Forsyth!" cried the girh "Oh! don't go 
 forward, you don't know what it might be— it might be 
 something perfectly horrid." 
 
 "It may be the devil itself," said Gideon, disengaging 
 himself, " but I am going to see it." 
 
 " Don't be rash, Gid," cried his uncle. 
 
 The barrister drew near to the sound, which was cer- 
 tainly of a portentous character. In quality, it appeared 
 to blend the strains of the cow, the fog-horn, and the 
 mosquito ; and the startling manner of its enunciation 
 added incalculably to its terrors. A dark object, not un- 
 like the human form divine, appeared on the brink of the 
 ditch. 
 
 "It's a man," said Gideon, "it's only a man ; he seems 
 to be asleep and snoring. Hullo," he added, a moment 
 after, " there must be something wrong with him, he won't 
 waken." 
 
 Gideon produced his vestas, struck one, and by its 
 light recognized the tow-head of Marker.
 
 LAST APPEARANCE OF THE BROADWOOD GRAND. 105 
 
 "This is the man," said he, " as drunk as Belial. I see 
 the whole story ;" and to his two companions, who had now 
 ventured to rejoin hitn, he set forth a theory of the 
 divorce between the carrier and his cart, which was not 
 unlike the truth. 
 
 "Drunken brute!" said Uncle Ned, "let's get him to a 
 pump and give him what he deserves." 
 
 "Not at all!" said Gideon. "It is highly undesirable 
 he should see us together ; and really, do you know, I am 
 very much obliged to him, for this is about the luckiest 
 thing that could have possibly occurred. It seems to me 
 — Uncle Ned, I declare to heaven it seems to me I'm clear 
 of it ! " 
 
 "Clear of what?" asked the Squin-adical. 
 
 " The whole affair ! " cried Gideon. *' That man has been 
 ass enough to steal the cart and the dead body ; what he 
 hopes to do with it, I neither know nor care. My hands 
 are free, Jimson ceases ; down with Jimson. Shake hands 
 with me. Uncle Ned— Julia, darling girl, Julia, I " 
 
 " Gideon, Gideon ! " said his uncle. 
 
 " Oh, it's all right, uncle, when we're going to be mar- 
 ried so soon," said Gideon. "You know you said so your- 
 self in the house-boat," 
 
 "Did I?" said Uncle Ned, "I am certain I said no such 
 thing." 
 
 " Appeal to him, tell him he did, get on his soft side," 
 cried Gideon. " He's a real brick if you get on his soft 
 side."
 
 19G THE WKONO BOX. 
 
 "Dear Mr. Bloomfielrl," said Julia, "I know Gideon 
 will be such a very good boy, and he has promised me to 
 do such a lot of law, and I will see that he does too. 
 And you know it is so very steadying to young men, every- 
 body admits that ; though, of course, I know I have no 
 money, Mr. Bloomfield," she added. 
 
 " My dear young lady, as this rapscallion told you to- 
 day on the boat, Uncle Ned has plenty," said the Squir- 
 radical, "and I can never forget that you have been shame- 
 fully defrauded. So as there's nobody looking, you had 
 better give your Uncle Ned a kiss. There, you rogue," 
 resumed Mr. Bloomfield, when the ceremony had been 
 daintily performed, "this very pretty young lady is yours, 
 and a vast deal more than you deserve. But now, let us 
 get back to the house-boat, get up steam on the launch, 
 and away back to town." 
 
 "That's the thing! "cried Gideon; "and to-morrow, 
 there will be no house-boat, and no Jimson, and no car- 
 rier's cart, and no piano ; and when Harker awakes on the 
 ditch-side, he may tell himself the whole aflfuii- has been a 
 dream," 
 
 "Aha! "said Uncle Ned, "but there's another man 
 who will have a different awakening. That fellow in the 
 cart will find he has been too clever by half." 
 
 " Uncle Ned and Julia," said Gideon, " I am as happy 
 as the King of Tartary, my heart is like a threepenny bit, 
 my heels are like feathers ; I am out of all my troubles, 
 Julia's hand is in mine. Is this a time for anything but
 
 LAST APPEARANCE OF THE BKOADWOOD GRAND. 197 
 
 handsome sentiments ? Why, there's not room in me for 
 anything that's not angehc ! And when I think of that 
 poor unhappy devil in the cart, I stand here in the night 
 and cry with a single heart — God help him ! " 
 "Amen," said Uncle Ned.
 
 CHAPTER Xin. 
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS : PART THE SECOND. 
 
 In a really polite age of literature, I would have scorned 
 to cast my eye again on the contortions of Morris. But 
 the study is in the spirit of the day ; it presents, besides, 
 features of a high, almost a repulsive morality ; and if it 
 should prove -the means of preventing any respectable and 
 inexperienced gentleman fi'om plunging light-heartedly 
 into ci-ime, even political crime, this work will not have 
 been penned in vain. 
 
 He rose on the morrow of his night with Michael, rose 
 from the leaden slumber of distress, to find his hand 
 tremulous, his eyes closed with rheum, his throat parched, 
 and his digestion obviously paralyzed. " Lord knows it's 
 not from eating ! " Morris thought ; and as he dressed 
 he reconsidered his position under several heads. Noth- 
 ing will so well depict the troubled seas in which he was 
 now voyaging as a review of these various anxieties. I 
 have thrown them (for the reader's convenience) into a 
 certain order ; but in the mind of one poor human equal, 
 they whirled together like the dust of hurricanes. With 
 the same obliging preoccupation, I have put a name to 
 each of his distresses ; and it will be observed with pity
 
 TKIBULATIONS OF MOKRIS : PART THE SECOND. 199 
 
 * 
 
 that every individual item -would have graced and com- 
 mended the cover of a railway novel. 
 
 Anxiety the Fij-st : fVJiere is the Body 7 or, the Mystery 
 of Bent Pitman. It was now manifestly plain that Bent 
 Pitman (as was to be looked for from his ominous appel- 
 lation) belonged to the darker order of the criminal class. 
 An honest man would not have cashed the bill; a humane 
 man would not have accepted in silence the tragic con- 
 tents of the water-butt ; a man, who was not already up 
 to the hilts in gore, would have lacked the means of se- 
 cretly disposing them. This process of reasoning left a 
 horrid image of the monster, Pitman. * Doubtless he had 
 long ago disposed of the body — droj^ping it through a 
 trap-door in his back kitchen, Morris supposed, with some _ 
 hazy recollection of a picture in a penny dreadful ; and 
 doubtless the man now lived in wanton splendor on the 
 proceeds of the bill. So far, all was peace. But with the 
 profligate habits of a man like Bent Pitman (who was no 
 doubt a hunchback in the bargain), eight hundred pounds 
 could be easily melted in a week. When they were gone, 
 what would he be likely to do next ? A hell-like voice in 
 Morris's own bosom gave the answer : "Blackmail me." 
 
 Anxiety the Second : Tlie Fraud of the Tontine ; or, Is 
 my Uncle Dead? This, on which all Morris's hopes de- 
 pended, was yet a question. He had tried to bully 
 Teena ; he had tried to bribe her ; and nothing came of 
 it. He had his moral conviction still ; but you cannot 
 blackmail a sharp lawyer on a moral conviction. And
 
 200 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 besides, since bis intendew witb Micbael, tbe idea wore a 
 less attractive countenance. Was Micbael tbe man to be 
 blackmailed ? and was Morris tbe man to do it ? Grave 
 considerations. "It's not tbat I am afraid of bim," 
 Morris so far condescended to reassure bimself ; "but I 
 must be very certain of m}- ground, and tbe deuce of it 
 is, I see no way. How unlike is life to novels ! I wouldn't 
 liave even begun tbis business in a novel, but wbat I'd 
 bave met a dark, sloucbing fellow in tbe Oxford Road, 
 wbo'd bave become my accomplice, and known all about 
 how to do it, and probably broken into Micbael's bouse at 
 nigbt and found notbing but a wax-work image ; and 
 then blackmailed or murdered me. But bere, in real life, 
 I migbt walk tbe streets till I dropped dead, and none of 
 the criminal classes would look near me. Though, to be 
 sure, there is always Pitman," he added, thoughtfully. 
 
 Anxiety the Third : The Cottage at Broicndean ; or, The 
 Underpaid Accomplice. For he had an accomplice, and 
 that accomplice was blooming unseen in a damj) cottage 
 in Hampshire with empty pockets. What could be done 
 about tbat ? He really ought to have sent him some- 
 thing ; if it was only a post-office order for five-bob, 
 enough to prove that he was kept in mind, enough to 
 keep him in hope, beer, and tobacco. " But what would 
 you have ? " thought Morris ; and ruefully poured into his 
 hand a half-crown, a florin, and eightpence in small 
 change. For a man in Morris's position, at war with all 
 society, and conducting, with tbe hand of inexperience,
 
 TRIBULATIONS OF MOERIS ! PART THE SECOND. 201 
 
 a widely ramified intrigue, the sum was already a derision. 
 John would have to be doing ; no mistake of that. "But 
 then," asked the hell-like voice, "how long is John likely 
 to stand it?" 
 
 Anxiety the Fourth : Tlie Leather Business ; or, TJie 
 Shutters at Last ; a Tale of the City. On this head, Morris 
 had no news. He had not yet dared to visit the ftimily 
 concern ; yet he knew he must delay no longer, and if 
 anything had been wanted to sharpen this conviction, 
 ^Michael's references of the night before rang ambiguously 
 in his eai*. Well and good. To visit the city might be 
 indispensable ; but what was he to do when he was there ? 
 He had no right to sign in his own name ; and with all 
 the will in the world, he seemed to lack the art of signing 
 with his uncle's. Under these circumstances, Moms 
 could do nothing to procrastinate the crash ; and when it 
 came, when prying eyes began to be applied to every 
 joint of his behavior, two questions could not fail to be 
 addressed, sooner or later, to a speechless and perspiring 
 insolvent. Where is Mr. Joseph Finsbmy ? and how 
 about your visit to the bank? Questions, how easy to 
 put ! — ye gods, how impossible to answer ! The man to 
 whom they should be addressed went certainlj^ to jail, and 
 — eh ! what was this ? — possibly to the gallows. Morris 
 was trying to shave when this idea struck him, and he 
 laid the razor down. Here (in jMichael's words) was the 
 total disappearance of a valuable uncle ; here was a time 
 of iuespHcable conduct on the part of a nephew who had
 
 202 THE WKONG BOX. 
 
 been in bad blood with the old man any time these seven 
 years; what a chance for a judicial blunder! "But no," 
 thought Morris, "they cannot, they dare not make it 
 murder. Not that. But honestly, and speaking as a man 
 to a man, I don't see any other crime in the calendar (ex- 
 cept arson) that I don't seem somehow to have committed. 
 And yet I'm a perfectly respectable man, and wished noth- 
 ing but my due. Law is a pretty business." 
 
 With this conclusion firmly seated in his mind, Morris 
 Finsbury descended to the hall of the house in John 
 Street, still half shaven. There was a letter in the box ; 
 he knew the handwriting : John at last. 
 
 " Well, I think I might have been spared this," he said 
 bitterly, and tore it open. 
 
 "Dear Morris," it ran, "what the dickens do you mean 
 by it ? I'm in an awful hole down here ; I have to go 
 on tick, and the parties on the spot don't cotton to the 
 idea ; they couldn't, because it is so plain I'm in a stait of 
 Destitution. I've got no bed-clothes, think of that, I must 
 have coins, the hole thing's a Mockry, I won't stand it, 
 nobody would. I would have come away before, only I 
 have no money for the railway fail. Don't be a lunatic, 
 Morris, you don't seem to understand my drcdful situa- 
 tion. I have to get the stamp on tick. A fact. Ever 
 your affte. Brother, J. Finsbury." 
 
 " Can't even spell ! " Morris reflected, as he crammed 
 the letter in his pocket, and left the house, "What can 
 I do for him ? I have to go to the expense of a barber,
 
 TEIBULATIONS OF MOEKIS : PART THE SECO^^D. 203 
 
 I'm SO shattered ! How can I send anybody coins ? It's 
 hard lines, I dare say ; but does he think I'm Hving on hot 
 muffins? One comfort," was his gi'im reflection, " he can't 
 cut and run : he's got to stay, he's as helpless as the 
 dead," And then he broke forth again : " Complains, 
 does he ? and he's never even heard of Bent Pitman ! If 
 he had what I have on my mind, he might complain with 
 a good grace." 
 
 But these were not honest arguments, or not wholly 
 honest ; there was a struggle in the mind of Morris ; he 
 could not disguise from himself that his brother John was 
 miserably situated at Browndean, without news, without 
 money, without bed-clothes, without society or any enter- 
 tainment ; and by the time he had been shaved and picked 
 a hasty breakfast at a coffee-tavern, Morris had arrived at 
 a compromise. 
 
 " Poor Johnnie," he said to himself, "he's in an awful 
 box. I can't send him coins ; but FU tell you what I'll 
 do, I'll send him the Pink Un, it'll cheer John up ; and 
 besides, it'U do his credit good getting anything by post" 
 
 Accordingly, on his way to the leather business, whither 
 he proceeded (according to his thrifty habit) on foot, 
 Morris purchased and despatched a single copy of that 
 enlivening periodical, to which (in a sudden pang of re- 
 morse) he added at random the Athenceum, the Remvalist, 
 and the Penny Pictorial Weekly. So there was John set 
 up with Uterature, and Morris had laid balm upon hia 
 conscience.
 
 204 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 As if to reward him, ]io was received in Lis place of 
 business with good news. Orders were i^ouring in ; there 
 was a run on some of the back stock, and the figure had 
 gone up ; even the manager appeared elated. As for Mor- 
 ris, who had almost forgotten the meaning of good news, 
 he longed to sob like a little child ; he could have caught 
 the manager (a pallid man with startled ej'ebrows) to his 
 bosom ; he could have found it in his generosity to give a 
 check (for a small sum) to every clerk in the counting- 
 house. As he sat and opened his letters, a chorus of airy 
 vocalists sang in his brain, to most exquisite music, 
 " This old concern may be profitable yet, profitable yet, 
 profitable yet." 
 
 To him, in this sunny moment of relief, enter a Mr. 
 Eodgerson, a creditor, but not one who was expected to 
 be pressing, for his connection with the firm was old and 
 regular. 
 
 " Oh, Finsbury," said he, not without embarrassment, 
 "it's of course only fair to let you know — the fact is, 
 money is a trifle tight — I have some paper out — for that 
 matter, every one's complaining — and in short " 
 
 " It has never been our habit, Rodgerson," said Morris, 
 turning pale. " But give me time to turn round, and I'll 
 see what I can do ; I dare say we can let you have some- 
 thing to account." 
 
 "Well, that's just where it is," replied Rodgerson. "I 
 was tempted, I've let the credit out of my hands." 
 
 " Out of your hands ? " repeated Morris. " That's
 
 TR1BULATI0>;S OF MORKIS '. I'AKT THE SECOND. 2U5 
 
 playing rather fast and loose with us, Mr. Eodger- 
 son." 
 
 "Well, I got cent for cent for it," said tlie other, "on 
 the nail, in a certified cheque. " 
 
 " Cent for cent ! " cried Morris. " Why, that's some- 
 thing like thirty per cent, bonus ; a singular thing ! 
 Who's the party ? " 
 
 "Don't know the man," was the reply. "Name of 
 Moss." 
 
 " A Jew," Morris reflected, when his visitor was gone. 
 And what could a Jew want with a claim of — he verified 
 the amount in the books— a claim of three five eight, 
 nineteen, ten, against the house of Finsbury ? And why 
 should he pay cent for cent ? The figure proved the loy- 
 alty of Kodgerson, even Morris admitted that. But it 
 proved unfortunately something else : the eagerness of 
 Moss. The claim must have been wanted instantly, for 
 that day, for that morning even. Why ? The mystery of 
 Moss promised to be a fit pendant to the mystery of Pit- 
 man. "And just when all was looking well, too! " cried 
 Morris, smiting his hand upon the desk. And almost at 
 the same moment, Mr. Moss was announced. 
 
 IMr. Moss was a radiant Hebrew, brutally handsome and 
 offensively polite. He was acting (it appeared) for a third 
 party ; he understood nothing of the circumstances ; his 
 client desired to have his position regularized ; but he 
 would accept an antedated cheque — antedated by two 
 months, if IVIr, Finsbury chose.
 
 206 
 
 THE WEONG UOX. 
 
 "But I don't understand tliis," said Morris. "What 
 made you pay cent, per cent, for it to-day ? " 
 
 Mr. Moss Lad no idea ; only his orders. 
 
 "The whole thing is thoroughly irregular," said Morris. 
 " It is not the custom of the trade to settle at this time of 
 the year. What are your instructions if I refuse ? " 
 
 " I am to see Mr. Joseph Fiusbury, the head of the 
 firm," said Mr. Moss. " I was directed to insist on that ; 
 it was implied you had no status here — the expressions are 
 not mine." 
 
 " You cannot see IMr. Joseph ; he is unwell," said 
 Moms. 
 
 " In that case I was to place the matter in the hands of 
 a lawyer— let me see—" said Mr. Moss, opening a pocket- 
 book, with perhaps, suspicious care, at the right place— 
 " Yes— of Mr. Michael Finsbury. A relation, perhaps? In 
 that case, I presume, the matter will be pleasantly ar- 
 ranged." 
 
 To pass into the hands of Michael was too much for 
 Morris ; he struck his colors : a cheque at two months 
 was nothing, after all. In two months he would probably 
 be dead, or in a gaol at any rate. He bade the manager 
 give Mr. Moss a chair and the paper. " I'm going over to 
 get a cheque signed by Mr. Finsbury," said he, "who is 
 lying ill at John Street." 
 
 A cab there and a cab back, here were inroads on his 
 wretched capital ! He counted the cost ; when he was 
 do^e with Mr. Moss, he would be left with twelve-pence
 
 TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS : PART TFIE SECOND. 207 
 
 lialf-peuny in the world. What was even worse, he had 
 now been forced to bring his uncle up to Bloomsburj. 
 " No use for j^oor Johnnie in Hampshire now," he re- 
 flected. " And how the farce is to be kept up completely 
 passes me. At Browndean it was just possible ; in 
 Bloomsburj it seems beyond human ingenuity — though I 
 suppose it's what Michael does. But then he has accom- 
 plices, that Scotchman and the whole gang. Ah, if I had 
 accomplices ! " 
 
 Necessity is the mother of the arts ; under a spur so 
 immediate Morris surprised himself by the neatness and 
 despatch of his new forgery ; and within three-fourths of 
 an hour had handed it to Mr. Moss. 
 
 "That is very satisfactory," observed that gentleman, 
 rising. "I was to tell you it will not be presented, but 
 you had. better take care." 
 
 The room swam round Morris. " WTiat — what's that ! " 
 he cried, grasping the table ; he was miserably conscious, 
 the next moment, of his shrill tongue and ashen face. 
 " What do you mean — it will not be presented ? AVhy 
 am I to take care ? "WTiat is all this mummery ? " 
 
 " I have no idea, Mr. Finsbury," replied the smiling 
 Hebrew. " It was a message I was to deliver ; the ex- 
 pressions were put into my mouth." 
 
 " What is your client's name ? " asked Morris. 
 
 " That is a secret for the moment," answered Mr. Moss. 
 
 Morris bent toward him. " It's not the bank ? " he 
 asked, hoarsely.
 
 208 TlIK WUO.VCr BOX. 
 
 "I have no authority to say more, Mr. Finsbury," re- 
 turned Mr. Moss. " I will wish you a good-morning, if 
 you please." 
 
 " Wish me a good-morning ! " thought Morris ; and the 
 next moment, seizing his hat, he fled from his place of 
 business like a madman. Three streets away he stopped 
 and groaned. "Lord! I should have borrowed from the 
 manager!" he cried. "But it's too late now; it would 
 look dicky to go back ; I'm penniless — simply penniless 
 — like the unemj)loyed." 
 
 He went home and sat in the dismantled dining-room 
 with his head in his hands. Newton never thought harder 
 than this victim of circumstance, and yet no clearness 
 came. " It may be a defect in my intelligence," he cried, 
 rising to his feet, " but I cannot see that I am fairly used. 
 The bad luck I've had is a thing to write to The Times 
 about ; its enough to breed a revolution. And the plain 
 English of the whole thing is that I must have money at 
 once. I'm done with all morality now ; I'm long past 
 that stage ; money I must have, and the only chance I see 
 is Bent Pitman. Bent Pitman is a criminal, and therefore 
 his position's weak. He must have some of that eight 
 hundred left ; if he has I'll force him to go shai-es ; and 
 even if he hasn't, I'll tell him the tontine afifiiir, and with 
 a desperate man like Pitman at my back, it'll be strange 
 if I don't succeed." 
 
 Well and good. But how to lay hands upon Bent Pit- 
 man, except by advertisement, was not so clear. And even
 
 TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS t PART THE SECOND. 209 
 
 SO, in what terms to ask a meeting ? on what grounds ? 
 and where ? Not at John Street, for it would never do to 
 let a man like Bent Pitman know your real address ; nor 
 yet at Pitman's house, some dreadful place in Holloway, 
 with a trapdoor in the back kitchen ; a house which you 
 might enter in a light summer overcoat and varnished 
 boots, to come forth again piece-meal in a market-basket. 
 That was the drawback of a really efficient accomplice, 
 Morris felt, not without a shudder. "I never dreamed I 
 should come to actually covet-such society," he thought. 
 And then a brilliant idea struck him. Waterloo Station, a 
 public place, yet at certain hours of the day a sohtary ; a 
 place, besides, the very name of which must knock upon the 
 heart of Pitman, and at once suggest a knowledge of the 
 latest of his guilty secrets. Mori'is took a piece of paper 
 and sketched his advertisement. 
 
 " 'WiLLi.\M Bent Pitiian, if this should meet the eye of, 
 he will hear of so:hething to his advantage at the far end 
 of the main line departure platfoi'm, Waterloo Station, 2 
 to 4 P.M., Sunday next." 
 
 Morris reperused this literary trifle with approbation. 
 
 " Terse," he reflected. " Something to his advantage is 
 
 not strictly true ; but it's taking and original, and a man 
 
 is not on oath in an advertisement. All that I require 
 
 now is the ready cash for my own meals and for the ad- 
 
 vei-tisement, and — no, I can't lavish money upon John, 
 
 but I'll give him some more papers. How to raise the 
 
 wind?" 
 
 14
 
 210 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 He approached liis cabinet of signets, and the collectoi 
 suddenly revolted in his blood. " I will not ! " he cried, 
 " nothing shall induce nie to massacre my collection — 
 rather theft ! " And dashing upstairs to the drawing-room, 
 he helped himself to a few of his uncle's curiosities : a 
 pair of Turkish babooshes, a Smyrna fan, a water- cooler, 
 a musket guaranteed to have been seized from an Ephesiau 
 bandit, and a pocketful of curious but incomplete sea- 
 shells.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 WILLIAM BENT PITMAN HEAKS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE. 
 
 On the morning of Sunday, William Dent Pitman rose 
 at his usual houi-, although with something more than the 
 usual reluctance. The day before (it should be explained) 
 an addition had been made to his family in the person of 
 a lodger. Michael Finsbury had acted sponsor in the 
 business, and guaranteed the weekly bill ; on the other 
 hand, no doubt with a spice of his prevailing jocularity, 
 he had drawn a depressing portrait of the lodger's char- 
 acter. Mr. Pitman had been led to understand his guest 
 was not good company ; he had approached the gentle- 
 man with fear, and had rejoiced to find himself the enter- 
 tainer of an angel. At tea he had been vastly pleased ; 
 till hard on one in the morning he had sat entranced by 
 eloquence and progressively fortified with information in 
 the studio ; and now, as he reviewed over his toilet the 
 harmless pleasures of the evening, the future smiled upon 
 him with revived attractions. " Mr. Finsbury is, indeed, 
 an acquisition," he remarked to himself ; and as he en- 
 tered the little parlor, where the table was already laid for 
 breakfast, the cordiality of his greeting would have bene- 
 fited an acquaintanceship already old.
 
 212 THE WKONO nox. 
 
 "lam delighted to see you, sir" — these were his ex- 
 pressions — " and I trust you have slept well." 
 
 " Accustomed as I have been for so long to a life of 
 almost perpetual change," rej^lied the guest, " the dis- 
 turbance so often complained of by the more sedentary, 
 as attending their first night in (what is called) a new bed 
 is a complaint from which I am entirely free." 
 
 "I am delighted to hear it," said the drawing-master 
 warmly. " But I see I have interrupted you over the 
 paper." 
 
 " The Sunday paper is one of the features of the age," 
 said Mr. Finsbury. " In America, I am told, it super- 
 sedes all other literature, the bone and sinew of the nation 
 finding their requirements catered for ; hundreds of col- 
 umns will be occupied with interesting details of the 
 w'orld's doings, such as water-spouts, elopements, confla- 
 grations, and public entertainments ; there is a corner for 
 politics, ladies' work, chess, religion, and even Hterature ; 
 and a few spicj' editorials serve to direct the course of 
 public thought. It is difficult to estimate the part played 
 by such enormous and miscellaneous repositories in the 
 education of the peoj^le. But this (though interesting in 
 itself) partakes of the nature of a digression ; and what I 
 was about to ask you was this : Are you yourself a student 
 of the daily press ? " 
 
 " There is not much in the papers to interest an artist," 
 returned Pitman. 
 
 "In that case," resumed Joseph, "an advertisement
 
 PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHIISG TO HIS ADVANTAGE. 213 
 
 whicli has appeared the last two days in vai'ious journals, 
 and reappears this morning, may possibly have failed to 
 catch your eye. The name, with a trifling variation, beara 
 a strong resemblance to your own. Ah, here it is. If 
 you please, I will read it to you. 
 
 " ' William Bent Pitman, if this should meet the eye of, 
 he will hear of something to his ai)v.\ntage at the far end 
 of the main line departure platform, Waterloo Station, 2 
 to 4 P.M. to-day.'" 
 
 " Is that in print ? " cried Pitman. " Let me see it ! 
 Bent ? It must be Dent ! Something to my advantage ? 
 Mr. Finsbuiy, excuse me offering a word of caution ; I 
 am aware how strangely this must sound in your ears, 
 but there are domestic reasons why this little circum- 
 stance might perhaps be better kept between ourselves. 
 Mrs. Pitman — my dear sir, I assure you there is nothing 
 dishonorable in my secrecy ; the reasons are domestic, 
 merely domestic ; and I may set your conscience at 
 rest when I assure you all the circumstances are 
 known to our common friend, your excellent nephew, 
 Mr. Michael, who has not withdrawn from me his es- 
 teem." 
 
 " A word is enough, Mr. Pitman," said Joseph, with one 
 of his oriental reverences. 
 
 Half an hour later, the drawing-master found Michael 
 in bed and reading a book, the picture of good-humor and 
 repose. 
 
 "Hillo, Pitman," he said, laying down his book.
 
 214 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 "what brings you here at this inclement hour? Ought 
 to be in church, my boy ! " 
 
 " I have little thought of church to-day, Mr. Finsburj'," 
 said the drawing-master. " I am on the brink of some- 
 thing new, sir." And he presented the advertisement. 
 
 " Why, what is this ? " cried Michael, sitting suddenly 
 up. He studied it for half a minute with a frown. " Pit- 
 man, I don't care about this document a particle," said 
 he. 
 
 " It will have to be attended to, however," said Pit- 
 man. 
 
 "I thought you'd had enough of Waterloo," returned 
 the lawyer. " Have you started a morbid craving ? 
 You've never been yourself anyway since you lost that 
 beard. I believe now it was where you kept your senses." 
 
 " Mr. Finsburj^" said the drawing-master, " I have 
 tried to reason this matter out, and, with your permission, 
 I should like to lay before you the results." 
 
 "Fire away," said Michael ; "but please. Pitman, re- 
 member it's Sunday, and let's have no bad language." 
 
 " There are three views open to us," began Pitman. 
 *' First, this may be connected with the barrel ; second, it 
 may be connected with ]VIr. Semitopolis' statue ; and 
 third, it may be from my wife's brother, who went to 
 Australia. In the first case, which is of course possible, I 
 confess the matter would be best allowed to drop." 
 
 "The court is with you there, Brother Pitman," said 
 Michael.
 
 PITMAN HEAKS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE. 215 
 
 " In the second," continued the other, "it is plainly 
 my duty to leave no stone unturned for the recovery of 
 the lost antique." 
 
 " My dear fellow, Semitopolis has come down like a 
 trump ; he has pocketed the loss and left you the profit. 
 What more would you have ? " inquired the lawyer. 
 
 " I conceive, sir, under correction, that Mr. Semitopolis' 
 generosity binds me to even greater exertion," said the 
 drawing-master. " The whole business was unfortunate ; 
 it was — I need not disguise it from you — it was illegal 
 from the first : the more reason that I should try to be- 
 have like a gentleman," concluded Pitman, flushing. 
 
 " I have nothing to say to that," returned the lawyer. 
 " I have sometimes thought I should like to try to behave 
 like a gentleman myself ; only it's such a one-sided busi- 
 ness, with the world and the legal profession as they 
 are." 
 
 " Then, in the third," resumed the drawing-master, " if 
 it's Uncle Tim, of course, our fortune's made." 
 
 " It's not Uncle Tim, though," said the lawyer. 
 
 " Have you observed that very remarkable expression : 
 Something to his advantage?" inquired Pitman, shrewdly. 
 
 "You innocent mutton," said Michael, " it's the seediest 
 commonplace in the English language, and only proves 
 the advertiser is an ass. Let me demolish your house of 
 cards for you at once. Would Uncle Tim make that 
 blunder in your name ? — in itself, the blunder is de- 
 licious, a huge improvement on the gross reality, and I
 
 216 THE WKONG BOX. 
 
 mean to adopt it in the future ; but is it like Uncle 
 Tim ? " 
 
 "No, it's not like him," Pitman admitted. "But his 
 mind may have become unhinged at Ballarat." 
 
 "If YOU come to that, Pitman," said Michael, '• the 
 advertiser may be Queen Victoria, fired with the desire 
 to make a duke of you. I put it to yourself if that's prob- 
 able ; and yet its not against the laws of nature. But we 
 sit here to consider probabilities ; and with your genteel 
 permission, I eliminate her Majesty and Uncle Tim on the 
 threshold. To proceed, we have yovir second idea, that 
 this has some connection with the statue. Possible ; but 
 in that case who is the advertiser? Not Ricardi, for he 
 knows your address ; not the person who got the box, for 
 he doesn't know your name. The van-man, I hear you 
 suggest, in a lucid interval. He might have got your 
 name, and got it incorrectly, at the station ; and he might 
 have failed to get your address. I grant the van-man. 
 But a question : Do you really wish to meet the van- 
 man ? " 
 
 " Why should I not ? " asked Pitman. 
 
 "If he wants to meet you," replied Michael, "observe 
 this : It is because he has found his address-book, has 
 been to the house that got the statue, and — mark my 
 words ! — is moving at the instigation of the mui'derer." 
 
 " I should be very sorry to think so," said Pitman ; " but 
 I still consider it my duty to Mr. Semitopolis . . ." 
 
 "Pitman," interrupted Michael, "this will not do.
 
 PITMAN HEAKS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE. 217 
 
 Don't seek to impose on your legal adviser ; clon't try to 
 pass yourself off for the Duke of Wellington, for that is 
 not your line. Come, I wager a dinner I can read your 
 thoughts. You still believe it's Uncle Tim." 
 
 " IVIr. Finsbur}'," said the drawing-master, coloring, 
 " you are not a man in narrow circumstances, and you 
 have no family. Guendolen is growing up, a very promis- 
 ing girl — she was confirmed this year ; and I think you 
 will be able to enter into my feelings as a parent, when I 
 tell you she is quite ignorant of dancing. The boys are at 
 the board-school, which is all very well in its way ; at least, 
 I am the last man in the world to criticise the institutions 
 of my native land. But I had fondly hoped that Harold 
 might become a professional musician ; and little Otho 
 shows a quite i-emarkable vocation for the Church. I am 
 not exactly an ambitious man . . ." 
 
 "Well, well," interrupted Michael. "Be exphcit ; you 
 think it's Uncle Tim." 
 
 "It might be Uncle Tim," insisted Pitman, "and if it 
 were, and I neglected the occasion, how could I ever look 
 my children in the face? I do not refer to Airs. Pit- 
 man . . ." 
 
 "No, you never do," said Michael. 
 
 "... but in the case of her own brother return- 
 ing from Ballarat . . ." continued Pitman. 
 
 ". . . with his mind unhinged," put in the law- 
 yer. 
 
 **. . . returning from Ballarat with a large fort-
 
 218 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 une, her impatience ma,y be more easily imagined than 
 described," concluded Pitman. 
 
 "All right," said Michael, "be it so. And what do you 
 propose to do?" 
 
 "I am going to Waterloo," said Pitman, "in disguise." 
 
 " All by your little self ?" inquired the lawyer. " Well, 
 I hope you think it safe. Mind and send me word from 
 the police cells." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Finsbury, I had ventured to hope — perhaps 
 you might be induced to — to make one of us," faltered 
 Pitman. 
 
 " Disguise myself on Sunday ? " cried Michael. " How 
 little you understand my princij^les ! " 
 
 " Mr. Finsbury, I have no means of showing you my 
 gratitude; but let me ask you one question," said Pilman. 
 " If I were a very rich client, would you not take the 
 risk?" 
 
 " Diamond, Diamond, you know not what you do ! " 
 cried Michael. " Why, man, do you suppose I make a 
 practice of cutting about London with my clients in dis- 
 guise ? Do you suppose money would induce me to touch 
 this business with a stick? I give you my word of honor, 
 it would not. But I own I have a real curiosity to see 
 how you conduct this interview — that tempts me ; it 
 tempts me, Pitman, more than gold — it should be exqui- 
 sitely rich." And suddenly IVIichael laughed. "Well, Pit- 
 man," said he, " have all the truck ready in the studia 
 I'll go."
 
 PITMAN HEARS UF SOMETHING TO IIIS ADVANTAGE. 219 
 
 About twenty minutes after two, on this eventful day, 
 the vast and gloomy shed of Waterloo lay, like the temple 
 of a dead religion, silent and deserted. Here and there, 
 at one of the jDlatforms, a train lay becalmed ; here and 
 there a wandering footfall echoed ; the cab-horses outside 
 stamped with startling reverberations on the stones : or 
 from the neighboring wilderness of railway an engine 
 snorted forth a whistle. The main-line departure plat- 
 form slumbered like the rest ; the booking-hutches closed ; 
 the backs of Mr. Haggard's novels, with which upon a 
 week-day the book-stall shines emblazoned, discreetly hid- 
 den behind dingy shutters ; the rare officials, undisguis- 
 edly somnambulant ; and the customary loiterers, even to 
 the middle-aged woman with the ulster and the dandbag, 
 fled to more congenial scenes. As in the inmost dells of 
 some small tropic island the throbbing of the ocean lin- 
 gers, so here a faint pervading hum and trepidation told 
 in every corner of surrounding London. 
 
 At the hour already named, persons acquainted with 
 John Dickson, of Ballarat, and Ezra Thomas, of the United 
 States of America, would have been cheered to behold 
 them enter through the booking-office. 
 
 "What names are we to take ? " inquii-ed the latter, anx- 
 iously adjusting the window-glass spectacles which he 
 had been suffered on this occasion to assume. 
 
 "There's no choice for you, my boy," returned Michael. 
 " Bent Pitman or nothing. As for me, I think I look as 
 if I might be called Appleby ; something agreeably old-
 
 220 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 world about Appleby — breathes of Devonshire cider. 
 Talking of which, suppose you wet your whistle ? the in- 
 terview is likely to be trying." 
 
 " I think I'll wait till afterward," returned Pitman, " on 
 the whole, I think I'll wait till the thing's over. I don't 
 know if it strikes you as it does me ; but the place seems 
 deserted and silent, Mr. Finsbury, and filled with very 
 singular echoes." 
 
 "Kind of Jack-in-the-box feeling ? " inquired Michael, 
 " as if all these empty trains might be filled with police- 
 men waiting for a signal? and Sir Charles Warren 
 perched among the girders with a silver whistle to his 
 lips? It's guilt, Pitman." 
 
 In this uneasy frame of mind they walked nearly the 
 whole length of the departure platform, and at the 
 western extremity became aware of a slender figure 
 standing backed against a pillar. The figure was plainly 
 sunk into a deep abstraction ; he was not aware of their 
 approach, but gazed far abroad over the sunlit station. 
 Michael stopped. 
 
 "Holloa ! " said he, " can that be your advertiser ? If so, 
 I'm done with it." And then, on second thoughts : "Not 
 so, either," he resumed, more cheerfully. " Here, turn 
 your back a moment. So. Give me the specs." 
 
 " But you agreed I was to have them," protested Pit- 
 man. 
 
 " Ah, but that man knows me," said Michael. 
 
 " Does he ? what's his name ? " cried Pitman.
 
 PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE. 221 
 
 " Oh, he took me into his confidence," returned the 
 lawyer. " But I may say one thing : If he's your ad- 
 vertiser (and he may be, for he seems to have been 
 seized with criminal lunacy) you can go ahead with 
 a clear conscience, for I hold him in the hollow of my 
 hand." 
 
 The change effected, and Pitman comforted with this 
 good news, the pair drew near to Morris. 
 
 " Are you looking for Mr. William Bent Pitman ? " in- 
 quu'ed the drawing-master. " I am he." 
 
 Morris raised his head. He saw before him, in the 
 speaker, a person of almost indescribable insignificance, 
 in white spats and a shirt cut indecently low. A little be- 
 hind a second and more burly figure offered little to 
 criticism, except ulster, whiskers, spectacles, and deer- 
 stalker hat. Since he had decided to call up devils from 
 the underworld of London, Morris had pondered deeply 
 on the probabilities of their appearance. His first emo- 
 tion, like that of Charoba when she beheld the sea, was 
 one of disappointment ; his second did more justice to 
 the case. Never before had he seen a couple dressed like 
 these ; he had struck a new stratum. 
 
 "I must speak with you alone," said he. 
 
 "You need not mind Mr. Appleby," returned Pitman. 
 "He knows all." 
 
 " All ? Do you know what I am here to speak of ? " in- 
 quired Morris. "The barrel." 
 
 Pitman turned pale, but it was with manly indignation.
 
 222 TJiE ^vKo^rG box. 
 
 "You are the man!" he cricil. "Ynn vory wicked per« 
 son ! " 
 
 "Am I to speak before him ?" asked Morris, disregard- 
 ing these severe expressions. 
 
 " He has been present througliout," said Pitman. "He 
 opened the barrel ; your guilty secret is already known to 
 him, as well as to your Maker and myself." 
 
 "Well, then," said Morris, "what have you done with 
 the money ? " 
 
 "I know nothing about any money," said Pitman. 
 
 "You needn't try that on," said Morris. "I have 
 tracked you down ; you came to the station saciilegiously 
 disguised as a clergyman, procured my barrel, opened it, 
 rifled the body, and cashed the bill. I have been to the 
 bank, I tell you ! I have followed you step by step, and 
 your denials are childish and absurd." 
 
 "Come, come, Morris, keep your temper," said Mr. 
 Appleby. 
 
 " Michael ! " cried Morris, " Michael here too ! " 
 
 "Here too," echoed the lawyer, "here and everywhere, 
 my good fellow ; every step you take is counted ; trained 
 detectives follow yoii like your shadow ; they report 
 to me every three-quarters of an hour ; no expense is 
 spared." 
 
 Morris's face took on a hue of dirty gray. " Well, I 
 don't care ; I have the less resen^e to keep," he cried. 
 " That man cashed my bill ; it's a theft, and I want the 
 money back."
 
 PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE. 223 
 
 "Do you think I would lie to you, Morris?" asked 
 Michael. 
 
 " I don't know," said his cousin. "I want my money." 
 
 " It was I alone who touched the body," began Michael. 
 
 " You ? ^Michael ! " cried Morris, starting back. " Then 
 why haven't you declared the death ? " 
 
 " What the devil do you mean? "' asked Michael. 
 
 "Am I mad? or are you ? " cried Morris. 
 
 " I think it must be Pitman," said Michael. 
 
 The three men stared at each other, wild-eyed. 
 
 "This is dreadful," said Morris, "dreadful. I do not 
 understand one word that is addressed to me." 
 
 " I give you my word of honor, no more do I," said 
 Michael. 
 
 " And in God's name, why whiskers ? " cried Morris, 
 pointing in a ghastly manner at his cousin. " Does my 
 brain reel ? How whiskers ? " 
 
 " Oh, that's a matter of detail," said Michael. 
 
 Theis was another silence, dui-ing which Morris ap- 
 peared to himself to be shot in a trapeze as high as St. 
 Paul's, ^.nd as low as Baker Street Station. 
 
 "Le-i us recapitulate," said Michael, "unless it's really 
 a dream, in which case I wish Teena would call me for 
 breakfasit. My friend Pitman, here, received a barrel 
 which, i!; now appears, was meant for you. The barrel 
 contained the body of a man. How or why you killed 
 him . . ." 
 
 " I lift^er laid a hand on him," protested Morris. "This
 
 22i TIIK WUONG BOX. 
 
 is what I have dreaded all along. But think, Michael 1 
 I'm not that kind of man ; with all my faults, I wouldn't 
 touch a hair of anybody's head, and it was all dead loss to 
 me. He got killed iu that vile accident." 
 
 Suddenly Michael was seized by mirth so prolonged 
 and excessive that his companions supposed beyond a 
 doubt his reason had deserted him. Again and again he 
 struggled to compose himself, and again and again 
 laughter overwhelmed him like a tide. In all this mad- 
 dening interview there had been no more spectral feature 
 than this of Michael's merriment ; and Pitman and Mor- 
 ris, drawn together by the common fear, exchanged glances 
 of anxiety. 
 
 " Morris," gasped the lawyer, when he was at last able 
 to articulate, " hold on, I see it aU now. I can make it all 
 clear in one word. Here's the key : / never guessed it was 
 Uncle Joseph till this moment.''* 
 
 This remark produced an instant lightening of the ten- 
 sion for Morris ; for Pitman, it quenched the last I'ay of 
 hope and daylight. Uncle Joseph, whom he had left an 
 hour ago in Norfolk Street, pasting newspaper cuttings ? — 
 it ? — the dead body ? — then who was he. Pitman ? and 
 was this Waterloo Station or Colnev Hatch ? 
 
 " To be sure ! " cried Morris ; " it was badly smashed, 
 I know. How stupid not to think of that. Why, then, all's 
 clear; and, my dear Michael, I'll tell you what — we're 
 saved, both saved. You get the tontine — I don't grudge it 
 you the least— and I get the leather business, which is
 
 PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE. 22f» 
 
 really beginning to look up. Declare tlie death at once, 
 don't mind me in the smallest, don't consider me ; de- 
 clare the death, and we're all right." 
 
 "Ah, but I can't declare it," said Michael. 
 
 "Why not?" cried Morris. 
 
 "I can't produce the corpus, Morris. I've lost it," said 
 the lawyer. 
 
 " Stop a bit," ejaculated the leather merchant. " How 
 is this? It's not possible. I lost it." 
 
 " Well, I've lost it too, my son," said Michael, with ex- 
 treme serenity. " Not recognizing it, you see, and sus- 
 pecting something irregular in its origin, I got rid of — 
 what shall we say? — got rid of the proceeds at once." 
 
 "You got rid of the body? What made you do that? " 
 wailed Morris. " But you can get it again? You know 
 where it is ? " 
 
 " I wish I did, Morris, and you may believe me there, 
 for it would be a small sum in my pocket ; but the fact is, 
 I don't," said Michael. 
 
 "Good Lord," said Morris, addressing heaven and 
 earth, "good Lord, I've lost the leather business." 
 
 Michael was once more shaken with laughter. 
 
 " Why do you laugh, you fool ?" cried his cousin, " you 
 
 lose more than I. You've bungled it worse than even I 
 
 did. If you had a spark of feeling, you would be shaking 
 
 in your boots with vexation. But I'll tell you one thing — 
 
 I'll have that eight hundred pound — I'll have that and go 
 
 to Swan Eiver — that's mine, anyway, and your friend must 
 15
 
 220 Tin: WKONG box. 
 
 have forged to cash it. Give me the eight hundrecl, here, 
 npou this platform, or I go straight to Scotland Yard and 
 turn the whole disreputable story inside out." 
 
 "Morris," said INlichael, laying his hand upon his 
 shoulder, "hear reason. It wasn't us, it was the other 
 man. We never even searched the body." 
 
 " The other man?" rej^eated Morris. 
 
 " Yes, the other man. "We palmed Uncle Joseph oft 
 upon another man," said Michael. 
 
 "You what? You palmed him off? That's surely a 
 singular expression," said Morris. 
 
 " Yes, palm6d him off for a piano," said Michael, with 
 perfect simplicity. " Remarkably full, rich tone," he 
 added. 
 
 Morris carried his hand to his brow and looked at it ; it 
 was wet with sweat. " Fever," said he. 
 
 " No, it was a Broadwood grand," said Michael. " Pit- 
 man here will tell you if it was genuine or not." 
 
 "Eh? Oh ! Oh, yes, I believe it was a genuine Broad- 
 wood; I have played upon it several times myself," said 
 Pitman. "The three-letter E was broken." 
 
 " Don't say anything more about pianos," said Morris, 
 with a strong shudder ; "I'm not the man I used to be ! 
 This — this other man — let's come to him, if I can only 
 manage to follow. AVho is he ? Where can I get hold of 
 him?" 
 
 "Ah, that's the rub," said Michaeh "He's been in 
 possession of the desired article, let me see — since Wednes-
 
 PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE. 227 
 
 day, about four o'clock, and is now, I should imagine, on 
 his way to the isles of Javan and Godire." 
 
 "Michael," said Morris, pleadingly, "I am in a very 
 ■weak state, and I beg your consideration for a kinsman. 
 Say it slowly again, and be sure you are correct. When 
 did he get it?" 
 
 Michael repeated his statement. 
 
 " Yes, that's the worst thing yet," said Morris, drawing 
 in his breath. 
 
 " What is ? " asked the lawyer. 
 
 " Even the dates are sheer nonsense," said the leather 
 merchant. " The bill was cashed on Tuesday. There's 
 not a gleam of reason in the whole transaction." 
 
 A young gentleman, who had passed the trio and sud- 
 denly started and turned back, at this moment laid a 
 heaw hand on Michael's shoulder. 
 
 " Aha, so this is Mi*. Dickson ? " said he. 
 
 The trump of judgment could scarce have rung with a 
 more dreadful note in the ears of Pitman and the lawyer. 
 To Morris this erroneous name seemed a legitimate enough 
 continuation of the nightmare in which he had so long 
 been wandering. And when Michael, with his brand-new 
 bushy whiskers, broke from the grasp of the stranger and 
 turned to run, and the weird little shaven creature in 
 the low-necked shirt followed his examj^le with a bird- 
 like screech, and the stranger (finding the rest of his 
 prey escape him) pounced with a rude grasp on Mor- 
 ris himself, that gentleman's frame of mind might be
 
 228 THE WRONO BOX. 
 
 veiy nearly expressed in the colloquial phrase . " I told 
 you so ! " 
 
 " I have one of the gang," said Gideon Forsyth. 
 
 "I do not understand," said Morris, dully. 
 
 " Oh, I will make you understand," returned Gideon, 
 grimly. 
 
 " You will be a good friend to me if you can make me 
 understand anything," cried Morris, with a sudden energy 
 of conviction. 
 
 " I don't know you personally, do I ? " continued Gideon, 
 examining his unresisting prisoner. " Never mind, I know 
 your friends. They are your friends, are they not?" 
 
 " I do not understand you," said Morris. 
 
 " You had possibly something to do with a piano ? " 
 suggested Gideon. 
 
 " A piano ! " cried Morris, convulsively clasping Gideon 
 by the arm. " Then youVe the other man ! Where is it? 
 Where is the body ? And did you cash the draft ? " 
 
 " Where is the body ? This is very strange," mused 
 Gideon. " Do you want the body ? " 
 
 " Want it ? " cried Morris. " My whole fortune depends 
 upon it ! I lost it. Where is it ? Take me to it ! " 
 
 " Oh, you want it, do you ? And the other man, Dick- 
 son — does he want it ? " inquired Gideon. 
 
 " Who do you mean by Dickson ? Oh, Michael Fins- 
 bury ! Why, of course he does ! He lost it too. If he 
 had it he'd have won the tontine to-morrow." 
 
 " Michael Finsbury ! Not the solicitor ? " cried Gideon.
 
 PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE. 229 
 
 "Yes, the solicitor," said Morris. "But where is the 
 body ? " 
 
 " Then that is why he sent the brief ! "What is Mr. 
 Finsbury's private address ? " asked Gideon. 
 
 "233 I\ing's Koad. What brief? Where are you go- 
 ing? Where is the body?" cried Monis, clinging to Gid- 
 eon's arm. 
 
 " I have lost it myself," returned Gideon, and ran out 
 of the station.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE RETURN OF THE GREAT VANCE. 
 
 Moms returned from Waterloo in a frame of mind that 
 baffles description. He was a modest man ; he had never 
 conceived an overweening notion of his own powers ; he 
 knew himself unfit to write a book, turn a table napkin- 
 ring, entertain a Christmas party with legerdemain — grap- 
 ple (in short) any of those conspicuous accomplishments 
 that are usually classed under the head of genius. He 
 knew — he admitted — his parts to be pedestrian, but he 
 had considered them (until quite lately) full}' equal to the 
 demands of hfe. And to-day he owned himself defeated : 
 life had the upper hand ; if there had been any means of 
 flight or place to flee to, if the world had been so ordered 
 that a man could leave it like a place of entertainment, 
 Morris would have instantly resigned all further claim on 
 its rewards and pleasures, and, with inexpressible content- 
 ment, ceased to be. As it was, one aim shone before him : 
 be could get home. Even as the sick dog crawls under 
 the sofa, Morris could shut the door of John Street and 
 be alone. 
 
 The dusk was falling when ho drew near this place of
 
 THE KKTUKN OF THE GREAT VANCE. 231 
 
 refuge ; and the first tbiug that met his eyes was the fig- 
 ure of a man upon the step, alternately plucking at the 
 bell-handle and pounding on the panels. The man had 
 no hat, his clothes were hideous with filth, he had the air 
 of a hop-picker. Yet Morris knew him ; it was John. 
 
 The first impulse of flight was succeeded, in the elder 
 brother's bosom, by the empty quiescence of despair. 
 " What does it matter now ? " he thought, and drawing 
 forth his latch-key ascended the steps. 
 
 John turned about ; his face was ghastly with weariness, 
 and dirt and fury ; and as he recognized the head of his 
 famOy, he drew in a long rasping breath, and his eyes 
 glittered. 
 
 " Open that door," he said, standing back. 
 
 "I am going to," said Morris, and added, mentally, 
 " he looks like murder ! " 
 
 The brothers passed into the hall, the door closed be- 
 hind them ; and suddenly John seized Morris by the shoul- 
 ders and shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. " You 
 mangy Httle cad," he said, *' I'd serve you right to smash 
 your skull ! " And shook him again, so that his teeth 
 rattled and his head smote upon the wall. 
 
 "Don't be violent, Johnny," said Morris. "It can't 
 do any good now." 
 
 " Shut your mouth," said John, " your time's come to 
 listen." 
 
 He strode into the dining-room, fell into the easy-chair, 
 and taking off one of his burst walking-shoes, nursed for
 
 232 TIIJC WKONG B'JX. 
 
 a while his foot Hko one in agony, " I'm lame for life," 
 he said. " What is there for dinner ? " 
 
 " Nothing, Johnny," said Morris, 
 
 "Nothing? What do you mean by that?" inquired the 
 Great Vance, " Don't set up your chat to me ! " 
 
 "I mean simply nothing," said his brother. "I have 
 nothing to eat, and nothing to buy it with. I've only had 
 a cup of tea and a sandwich all this day myself." 
 
 "Only a sandwich?" sneered Vance. "I suppose 
 you're going to complain next. But you had better take 
 care : I've had all I mean to take ; and I can tell you what 
 it is, I mean to dine and to dine well. Take your signets 
 and sell them," 
 
 "I can't to-day," objected Morris, "it's Sunday." 
 
 " I tell you I'm going to dine ! " cried the younger 
 brother. 
 
 " But if it's not possible, Johnny ? " pleaded the other. 
 
 "You nincompoop!" cried Vance. "Ain't we house- 
 holders ? Don't they know us at that hotel where Uncle 
 Parker used to come? Be off with you ; and if you ain't 
 back in half an hour, and if the dinner ain't good, first 
 I'll lick you till you don't want to breathe, and then I'll go 
 straight to the poHce and blow the gaff. Do you under- 
 stand that, Morris Finsbury ? Because if you do you had 
 better jump." 
 
 The idea smiled even upon the Avretched Morris, who 
 was sick with famine. He sped upon his errand, and re- 
 turned to find John still nursing his foot in the arm-chair.
 
 THE RETURN OF THE GREAT VANCE. 233 
 
 "What woTild you like to drink, Johnny?" he inquired, 
 soothingly. 
 
 " Fizz," said John. " Some of the poppy stuff from the 
 end bin ; a bottle of the old port that Michael liked, to 
 follow ; and see and don't shake the port. And look here, 
 light the fire — and the gas, and draw down the blinds ; 
 it's cold and it's getting dark. And then you can lay the 
 cloth. And, I say — here, you ! bring me down some 
 clothes." 
 
 The room looked comparatively habitable by the time 
 the dinner came ; and the dinner itself was good : strong 
 gravy soup, filets of sole, mutton chops and tomato sauce, 
 roast beef done rare with roast potatoes, cabinet pudding, 
 a piece of Chester cheese, and some early celery : a meal 
 uncompromisingly British, but supporting. 
 
 " Thank God ! " said John, his nostrils sniffing wide, 
 surprised by joy into the unwonted formality of grace. 
 " Now I'm going to take this chair with my back to the 
 fire — there's been a strong frost these two last nights, 
 and I can't get it out of my bones ; the celery will be just 
 the ticket — I'm going to sit here, and you are going to 
 stand there, Morris Finsbury, and play butler." 
 
 "But, Johnny, I'm so hungry myself," pleaded Morris. 
 
 " You can have what I leave," said Vance. " You're just 
 beginning to pay your score, my daisy ; I owe you one 
 ITound ten ; don't you rouse the British lion ! " There 
 was something indescribably menacing in the face and 
 voice of the Great Vance as he uttered these words, at
 
 234 THi: WKONO box. 
 
 which the soul of Morris withered. " There ! " resumed 
 the feaster, " give us a glass of the fizz to start with. 
 Gravy soup ! And I thought I didu't Hke gravy soup ! 
 Do you know how I got here ? " he asked, with another 
 explosion of wrath. 
 
 " No, Johnny, how could I ? " said the obsequious 
 Morris. 
 
 "I walked on my ten toes!" cried John; "tramped 
 the whole way from Browndean ; and begged ! I would 
 like to see you beg. It's not so easy as you might sup- 
 pose. I played it on being a shipwrecked mariner from 
 Blyth ; I don't know where Blyth is, do you ? but I thought 
 it sounded natural. I begged from a little beast of a 
 school-boy, and he forked out a bit of twine, and asked 
 me to make a clove-hitch ; I did, too, I know I did, but he 
 said it wasn't, he said it was a granny's knot, and I was a 
 what d'ye call 'em, and he would give me in charge. Then 
 I begged from a naval officer — he never bothered me with 
 knots, but he only gave me a tract ; there's a nice account 
 of the British navy ! — and then from a widow woman that 
 sold lollipops, and I got a hunch of bread from her. An- 
 other i^arty I fell in with said you could generally always 
 get bread ; and the thing to do was to break a plate-glass 
 window and get into jail ; seemed rather a brilliant scheme. 
 Pass the beef. " 
 
 " Why didn't you stay at Browndean ? " Morris ventured 
 to inquu'e. 
 
 " Skittles !" said John. "On what? The Pink Cn and
 
 THE RETUIiN OF THE GREAT VANCE. 235 
 
 a measly religious papei- ? I bad to leave Browndean ; I 
 had to, I tell you. I got tick at a public, and set uj) to 
 be the Great Vauce ; so would you, if you were leading 
 such a beastly existence ! And a card stood me a lot of 
 ale and stuff, and we got swipey, talking about music-halls 
 and the piles of tin I got for singing ; and then they got 
 me on to sing ' Around her splendid form I weaved the 
 magic circle,' and then he said I couldn't be Vance, and I 
 stuck to it like grim death I was. It was rot of me to 
 sing, of course, but I thought I could brazen it out with a 
 set of yokels. It settled my hash at the publi(!," said John, 
 with a sigh. " And then the last thing wari r-ue car- 
 penter " 
 
 " Our landlord ? " inquired Morris. 
 
 " That's the party," said John. "He came nosing about 
 the place, and then wanted to know where the water-butt 
 was, and the bed-clothes. I told him to go to the devil ; 
 so would you too, when there was no possible thing to 
 say ! And then he said I had pawned them, and did I 
 know it was felony ? Then I made a pretty neat stroke. 
 I remembered he was deaf, and talked a whole lot of rot, 
 very politely, just so low he couldn't hear a word. 'I 
 don't hear you,' says he. ' I know you don't, my buck, 
 and I don't mean you to,' says I, smiling away like a 
 haberdasher. 'I'm hard of hearing,' he roars. 'I'd be 
 in a pretty hot corner if you weren't,' says I, making 
 signs as if I was explaining everything. It was tip-top as 
 long as it lasted. 'Well,' he said, 'I'm deaf, worse luck,
 
 23G THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 but I bet the constable can hear you,' And off he started 
 one way, and I the other. They got a spirit-lamp, and 
 the Pink 'Un, and that old religious paper, and another 
 periodical you sent me, I think you must have been 
 drunk — it had a name like one of those spots that Uncle 
 Joseph used to hold forth at, and it was all full of the 
 most awful swipes about poetry and the use of the globes. 
 It was the kind of thing that nobody could read out of a 
 lunatic asylum. The Athceneum, that was the name ! 
 Golly, what a paper ! " 
 
 " Athenceum, you mean," said Morris. 
 
 " I don't cafe what you call it," said John, " so as I 
 don't require to take it in ! There, I feel better. Now 
 I'm going to sit by the fire in the easy chair ; pass me the 
 cheese, and the celery, and the bottle of jDort — no, a cham- 
 pagne glass, it holds more. And now you can pitch in, 
 there's some of the fish left, and a chop, and some fizz. 
 Ah," sighed the refreshed pedestrian, "IViichael was right 
 about that port ; there's old and vatted for you ! Michael's 
 a man I like ; he's clever and reads books, and the Athce- 
 neum, and all that ; but he's not dreary to meet, he don't 
 talk Athceneum like the other parties ; why, the most of 
 them would throw a blight over a skittle alley ! Talking of 
 Michael, I ain't bored myself to put the question, because 
 of course I knew it from the first. You've made a hash of 
 it, eh?" 
 
 "Michael made a bash of it," said Morris, flushing 
 dark.
 
 THE RKTUEN OP THE GEEAT VANCE. 237 
 
 " What have we got to do with that ? " inquired John. 
 
 "He has lost the body, that's what we have to do with 
 it," cried Morris. "He has lost the body, and the death 
 can't be established." 
 
 "Hold on," said John. "I thought you didn't want 
 to?" 
 
 "Oh, we're far past that," said his brother. "It's not 
 the tontine now, it's the leather business, Johnny ; it's 
 the clothes upon our back." 
 
 "Stow the slow music," said John, "and tell your 
 story from beginning to end." 
 
 Morris did as he was bid. 
 
 " Well, now, what did I tell you ? " cried the Great 
 Vance, when the other had done. " But I know one thing ; 
 I'm not going to be humbugged out of my property." 
 
 " I should like to know what you mean to do, "said Mor- 
 ris. 
 
 " I'll tell you that, " responded John, with extreme de- 
 cision. "I'm going to put my interests iu the hands of 
 the smartest lawyer in London ; and whether you go to 
 quod or not is a matter of indifference to me." 
 
 "Why, Johnny, we're in the same boat ! " expostulated 
 Morris. 
 
 " Are we ? " cried his brother. "I bet we're not ! Have 
 I committed forgery ? have I lied about Uncle Joseph ? have 
 I put idiotic advertisements in the comic papers? have 
 I smashed other people's statues ? I like your cheek, Morris 
 Finsbm-y. No, I've let you run my affaii-s too long ; now
 
 238 THE WKONO UOX. 
 
 they shall go to Michael. I like Michael, anyway ; and it's 
 time I understoocl my situation." 
 
 At this moment the brethi-en were inten'upted by a 
 ring at the bell, and Morris going timorously to the door, 
 received from the hands of a commissionnaire a letter ad- 
 dressed in the hand of Michael. Its contents ran as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " Morris Finsbury, if this should meet the eye of, he will 
 hear of Something to his Advantage at my office, in Chan- 
 cery Lane, at 10 a. m. to-morrow. 
 
 * " Michael Finsbury." 
 
 So utter was Morris's subjection that he did not wait to 
 be asked, but handed the note to John as soon as he had 
 glanced at it himself. 
 
 " That's the way to write a letter," cried John. " No- 
 body but Michael could have written that." 
 
 And Morris did not even claim the credit of priority.
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 FINAL ADJUSTMENT OF THE LEATHEE BUSINESS. 
 
 Finsbury brothers were ushered, at ten the next morn- 
 ing, into a large apartment in Michael's ofl&ce ; the Great 
 Vance, somewhat restored from yesterday's exhaustion, 
 but with one foot in a slipper ; Morris, not positively 
 damaged, but a man ten years older than he who had left 
 Bournemouth eight days before, his face ploughed full of 
 anxious wrinkles, his dark hair liberally grizzled at the 
 temples. 
 
 Three persons were seated at a table to receive them : 
 Michael in the midst, Gideon Forsyth at his right hand, 
 on his left an ancient gentleman with spectacles and sil- 
 ver hair. 
 
 " By Jings, it's Uncle Joe ! " cried John. 
 
 But Morris approached his uncle with a pale counte- 
 nance and glittering eyes. 
 
 "I'll tell you what you did! "he cried. "You ab- 
 sconded ! " 
 
 "Good-morning, Morris Finsbury," returned Joseph, 
 with no less asperity ; "you are looking seriously ill." 
 
 "No use making trouble now," remarked MichaeL
 
 240 THE WKONG BOX. 
 
 " Look the facts in the face. Your uncle, as you see, was 
 not so much as shaken in the accident ; a man of your 
 humane disposition ought to be delighted." 
 
 "Then, if that's so," Morris broke forth, "how about 
 the body? You don't mean to insinuate that thing I 
 schemed and sweated for, and colported with my own 
 hands, was the body of a total stranger ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, we can't go as far as that," said Michael, sooth- 
 iuglj ; " you may have met him at the club." 
 
 Morris fell into a chair. " I would have found it out if 
 it had come to the house," he complained. " And why 
 didn't it ? why did it go to Pitman ? what right had Pit- 
 man to open it? " 
 
 " If you come to that, Morris, what have you done with 
 the colossal Hercules ? " asked Michael. 
 
 " He went through it with the meat-axe," said John. 
 " Its all in spillikens in the back garden." 
 
 " Well, there's one thing," snapped Morris ; " there's 
 my uncle again, my fraudulent trustee. He's mine, any- 
 way. And the tontine, too. I claim the tontine ; I claim 
 it now. I believe Uncle Masterman's dead." 
 
 "I must put a stop to this nonsense," said Michael, 
 "and that forever. You say too near the truth. In one 
 sense your uncle is dead, and has been so long ; but not in 
 the sense of the tontine, which it is even on the cards he 
 may yet live to win. Uncle Joseph saw him this morn- 
 ing ; he will tell you he still lives, but his mind is in 
 abeyance."
 
 FINAL ADJUSTMENT OF THE LEATHER BUSINESS. 241 
 
 " He did not know me," said Joseph ; to do liim justice^ 
 not without emotion. 
 
 " So you're out again there, Morris," said John. "My 
 eye, what a fool you've made of yourself ! " 
 
 " And that was why you wouldn't compromise," said 
 Morris. 
 
 "As for the absurd position in which you and Uncle 
 Joseph have been making yourselves an exhibition," re- 
 sumed Michael, " it is more than time it came to an end. 
 I have prepared a proper discharge in full, which you 
 shall sign as a preliminary." 
 
 "What!" cried Morris, "and lose my seven thousand 
 eight hundred pounds, and the leather business, and the 
 contingent interest, and get nothing ? Thank you ! " 
 
 " It's like you to feel gratitude, Morris," began Mi- 
 chael. 
 
 "Oh, I know it's no good appealing to you, you sneer- 
 ing devil ! " cried Morris. " But there's a stranger pres- 
 ent, I can't think why, and I appeal to him. I Avas robbed 
 of this money when I was an orphan, a mere child, at a 
 commercial academv. Since then I've never had a wish 
 but to get back my own. You may hear a~ lot of stuff 
 about me ; and there's no doubt at times I have been ill- 
 advised. But it's the pathos of my situation ; that's what 
 I want to show you." 
 
 " Mon-is," interrupted Michael, " I do wish you would let 
 
 me add one point, for I think it will affect your judgment 
 
 It's pathetic too — since that's your taste in literature." 
 16
 
 242 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 " Well, what is it ? " said Morris. 
 
 " It's only the name of one of the persons who's to wit- 
 ness your signature, Morris," replied IVIichael. "Hia 
 name's Moss, my dear." 
 
 There was a long silence. "I might have been sure 
 it was you ! " cried Morris. 
 
 " You'll sign, won't you ? " said Michael. 
 
 "Do you know Avhat you're doing?" cried Morris. 
 " You're compounding a felony," 
 
 "Very well, then, we won't compound it. Morris," re- 
 turned Michael. " See how little I understood the ster- 
 ling integrity of your character ! I thought you would 
 prefer it so." 
 
 " Look here, Michael," said John, " this is all very fine 
 and large ; but how about me ? Morris is gone up, I see 
 that; but I'm not. And I was robbed too, mind you; 
 and just as much an orphan, and at the blessed same 
 academy as himself." 
 
 "Johnnie," said Michael, "don't you think you'd better 
 leave it to me ? " 
 
 "I'm your man," said John. "You wouldn't deceive a 
 poor orphan, I'll take my oath. Morris, you sign that 
 document, or I'll start in and astonish your weak mind." 
 
 With a sudden alacrity, Morris profferred his willing- 
 ness ; clerks were brought in ; the discharge was executed ; 
 and there was Joseph a free man once more. 
 
 "And now," said Michael, "hear what I propose to do. 
 Here, John and Morris, is the leather business made over
 
 FINAL ADJUSTMENT OF THE LEATHER BUSINESS. 243 
 
 to the pair of you in partnership ; I have valued it at the 
 lowest possible figure, Pozram and Jenis's. And here is a 
 cheque for the balance of your fortune. Now you see, 
 Morris, you start fresh from the Commercial Academy ; 
 and as you said yourself the leather business was looking 
 up, I suppose you'll probably marry before long. Here's 
 j'our maiTiage present ; from a Mr. Moss." 
 
 Morris bounded on his check with a crimsoned coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 "I don't understand the performance," remarked John. 
 "It seems too good to be true." 
 
 "It's simply a re-adjustment," Michael explained. "I 
 take up Uncle Joseph's habilities ; and if he gets the ton- 
 tine, it's to be mine. If my father gets it, it's mine any- 
 way, you see. So that I'm rather advantageously placed." 
 
 " Morris, my unconverted friend, you've got left," was 
 John's comment. 
 
 " And now, Mi*. Forsyth," resumed IMichael, turning to 
 his silent guest, " here are all the criminals before you, ex- 
 cept Pitman. I really didn't like to interrupt his scholas- 
 tic career ; but you can have him arrested at the Semin- 
 ary : I know his hours. Here we are, then ; we're not 
 pretty to look at ; what do you propose to do with us ? " 
 
 " Nothing in the world, Mr. Finsbury," returned Gid- 
 eon. " I seem to understand that this gentleman " — in- 
 dicating Morris — " is the /o/is et origo of the trouble ; and 
 from what I gather, he has already paid through the nose. 
 And really, to be quite frank, I do not see who is to gain
 
 244 THE WRONG BOX. 
 
 by any scandal ; not me, at least. And besides, I have to 
 thank you for that brief." 
 
 Michael blushed. " It was the least I could do to let 
 you have some business," he said. " But there's one thing 
 more. I don't want you to misjudge poor Pitman, who is 
 the most harmless being upon earth ; I wish you would 
 dine with me to-night, and see the creature on his native 
 heath — say, at Yerrey's ? " 
 
 " I have no engagement, Mr. Finsbur}'," replied Gideon. 
 " I shall be delighted. But — subject to your judgment — 
 can we do nothing for the man in the cart ? I have qualmg 
 of conscience." ' 
 
 "Nothing but sympathize," said Michael.
 
 THE WORKS OF 
 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 The following volumes^ 12 mo, red cloth^ 24 volumes^ 
 in a box, $30.00. 
 
 In the South Seas. 
 
 With Map. i2mo, $1.50. 
 
 This volume is made up of selections from the interesting sketches contributed 
 to periodicals by Mr. Stevenson, narrating his experiences and observations in the 
 Marquesas (the scene of Melville's" Typee,"), Paumotus, and the Gilbert Islands, 
 gathered in the course of two cruises on the yacht " Casco " (1888) and the 
 schooner " Equator" (1889). 
 
 Weir of Hermiston. 
 
 i2mo, $1.50. 
 
 "That splendid tragic fragment."— Henrv Ja.mes. 
 
 " Surely no son of Scotland has died, leaving with his last breath a worthier 
 tribute to the land he loved." — Sidney Colvin. 
 
 Poems and Ballads. 
 
 i2mo, $1.50. 
 
 Comprising all the poems contained in "A Child's Garden of Verses," 
 "Ballads," " Underwoods," and, in addition, over forty pieces of verse written 
 since the publication of those volumes. 
 
 Kidnapped. 
 
 Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751. 
 With 16 full-page illustrations by WiUiam Hole. i2mo, $1.50. 
 
 " Mr. Stevenson has never appeared to greater advantage than in ' Kidnapped.' 
 No better book of its kind has ever been written." — The Nation. 
 
 David Balfour. 
 
 Being INIemoirs of his Adventures at Home and Abroad. i2mo, $1.50. 
 
 " Surely the rarest and noblest work of fiction in the English language produced 
 in the year." — Ne%v York Times. 
 
 " Nothing better in the field of historical fiction has been produced since Scott." 
 
 — Philadelphia Telegraph. 
 
 Treasure Island. 
 
 A Story of the Spanish Main. Illustrated. i2mo, $1.00. 
 
 " Buried treasure is one of the very foundations of romance. . . . This is 
 the theory on which Mr. Stevenson has written ' Treasure Island.' Primarily it is 
 a book for boys, but it is a book which will be delightful to all grown men who 
 have the sentiment of treasure hunting. . . . Like all Mr. Stevenson's good 
 work, it is touched with genius. . . . A masterpiece of narrative." 
 
 — The Saturday Review. 
 
 The Master of Ballantrae. 
 
 A W^inter's Tale. With 10 full-page illustrations by William Hole. 
 
 i2mo, $1.50. 
 
 " We have here a fresh and striking example of Mr. Stevenson's remarkable 
 intellectual versatility and flexibility. It is a fine novel, realistic and romantic by 
 turns, marked by rare skill of draughtmanship and vigor of imagination, aa honor 
 to the author and a credit to literature." — New York Tribune,
 
 THE WORKS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 The Wrecker. 
 
 By Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne. With 12 
 
 full-page illustrations by William Hole and W. L. Metcalf. 
 
 i2mo, Si. 50. 
 
 " It seems much the most enticing romance at present before the world." 
 
 — Anprew Lang. 
 " A stirring story, full of romantic incident, shifting scene, and dash and ko." 
 
 — Hart/ord Courant. 
 
 Prince Otto. 
 
 A Romance. i2mo, Si-oo. 
 
 " A graceful and unusual romance, full of surprises, full of that individuality 
 which is so charming in every page this author has published, and so unhackneyed 
 that one knows not what to e.\pcct from any one paragraph to the next." 
 
 — Boston Courier, 
 
 The Merry Men, 
 
 And Other Tales and Fables, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 
 
 i2mo, $1.25. 
 
 " Everything in the collection is worthy of its remarkable author." 
 
 — J'he Independent. 
 
 "There are intensely dramatic scenes which sustain the interest of the reader, 
 and a freshness, a novelty of plot which convince him that all the stories have not 
 yet ' been told.' " — The Churchman. 
 
 ' The Black Arrow. 
 
 A Tale of the Two Roses. Illustrated by Will H. Low and Alfred 
 Brennan. i2mo, $1.25. 
 
 " It has all the good qualities of his other stories — their invention, their spirit 
 and their charming English. The hand that wrote ' Kidnapped ' is visible in its 
 stirring pages." — R. H. Stoddard. 
 
 " The story is full of the atmosphere of adventure, and is one of the strongest 
 pieces of romantic writing ever done by Mr. Stevenson." — The Boston Times. 
 
 New Arabian Nights. 
 
 i2mo, $1.25. 
 
 " There is something in his work which engages and fixes the attention from 
 the first page to the last, which shapes itself before the mind's eye while reading, 
 and which refuses to be forgotten long after the book has been put away." 
 
 — K. H. Stoddard. 
 
 The Dynamiter. 
 
 More New Arabian Nights. By Robert Louis Stevenson and 
 Mrs. Stevenson. i2mo, $1.25. 
 
 " There is no writer in the English language to-day who can alternately touch 
 the springs of tears and laughter as does this man, who weaves as delicious fancies 
 as ever passed through the brain." — Pliiladclphia Times. 
 
 Island Nights' Entertainments. 
 
 Illustrated. l2mo, $1.25. 
 
 "The book will be reckoned among the finest of Mr. Stevenson's works. The 
 art of it is so nearly perfect that it seems spontaneous, and the matter is absolutely 
 unique." — Boston Beacon. 
 
 The Wrong Box. 
 
 By Robert Louis Stevenson and Llovu Osbourne. i2mo, $1.25. 
 
 " It brings out more strongly than any of Mr. Stevenson's preceding works his 
 facile wit and irresistible humor." — Chicago Tribune. 
 
 " As a work of imagination it equals any that Mr. Stevenson has ever written." 
 
 —Philadelphia Bulletin.
 
 THE WORKS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 Virginibus Puerisque. 
 
 And Other Papers. i2mo, $1.25. 
 
 " Avowedly the book of a young man taking account of life from the starting 
 point. There is a great deal in it which is individual, suggestive, and direct from 
 life. There are sayings about Truth of Intercourse which penetrate a long way. 
 There are passages concerning youth which probe to the quick some of its ailments 
 and nxxoxi." — Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 Memories and Portraits. 
 
 i2mo, $1.25. 
 
 " The grace and delicacy, the just artistic instinct, the curious aptness of phrase 
 which distinguish these essays, can be fully appreciated only by a reader who loves 
 to go back to them again and again after a first perusal." —Li/piticott' s Magazine. 
 
 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin. 
 
 i2mo, $1.25. 
 
 " The glimpses that we get of Mr. Stevenson himself in this book are charming 
 and add greatly to its edifying and entertaining character. The style of the nar- 
 rative is original, lucid, and spirited." — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 
 
 Familiar Studies of Men and Books. 
 
 i2mo, $1.25. 
 
 Contents : Victor Hugo's Romances, Some Aspects of Robert Burns, Walt 
 Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Yoshida Torajiro, Francois Villon, Charles of 
 Orleans, Samuel Pepys, John Knox, and Women. 
 
 An Inland Voyage. 
 
 i2mo, $1.00. 
 
 *' Mr. StevenSon does not make canoeing itself his main theme, but delights in 
 charming bits of description that, in their close attention to picturesque detail, 
 remind one of the work of a skilled ' genre ' painter. Nor does he hesitate .... 
 to indulge in a strain of gently humorous reflection that furnishes some of the 
 pleasantest passages of the book." — Good Literature. 
 
 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 In the Cevennes. i2mo, $1.00. 
 
 " The author sees everything with the eye of a philosopher. He has a steady 
 flow of humor that is as apparently spontaneous as a mountain brook, and he 
 views a landscape or a human figure, not only as a tourist seeking subjects for a 
 book, but as an artist to whom the slightest line or tint carries a definite impres- 
 sion." — Boston Courier. 
 
 The Silverado Squatters. 
 
 With a frontispiece by Walter Crane. i2mo, $1.00. 
 
 " The interest of the book centres in graphic style and keen observation of the 
 author. He has the power of describing places and characters with such vividness 
 that you seem to have made personal acquaintance with both." — N. Y, World, 
 
 Across the Plains. 
 
 With Other Memories and Essays. i2mo, $1.25. 
 
 " The book sets us again to wondering at the facility with which Mr. Stevenson 
 makes phrases and builds parag:raphs ; moreover, we renew our admiration for a 
 style as subtle as ether and as brilliant as fire opal." — T!ie Independent. 
 
 A Foot=Note to History. 
 
 Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa. i2mo, $1.50. 
 
 "A story well worth reading. We have first a description of the curious and 
 comple.x elements of discord, both native and foreign, in Samoa, and then a mar- 
 velous story of how these discordant elements have been at work during eight 
 years." — Public Opinion.
 
 THE WORKS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 The follmuing volumes, i6/uo, green buckram, 6 volumes, 
 
 in a box, $6.^0. 
 
 Fables. i6mo, fi.oo. 
 
 In ihese delightful fables will bu found a new and interesting expression of 
 Mr. Stevenson's genius. They are here collected and issued for the first time in 
 book form, attractively bound, in uniform style with the "Vailima Letters." 
 
 Vailima Letters. 2 vols., i6mo, $2.25. 
 
 "The work is full of charm, of brightness, of changeful light and shadow and 
 thick-coming fancies. Again it is readable in a high degree, and will, we make no 
 doubt, delight thousands of readers." — London Spectator. 
 
 The Ebb Tide. i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 The Amateur Emigrant. 
 
 i6mo, §1.25. 
 
 Macaire. A Melodramatic 
 Farce. By R. L. Stevenson 
 and W. E. Henlev. i6mo, 
 $1.00. 
 
 IN SPECIAL EDITIONS. 
 A Child's Garden of Verses. 
 
 New Edition. Profusely and beautifully illustrated by Charles 
 Robinson. i2mo, $1.50. 
 
 " An edition to be recommended in every way. An artist possessing a graceful 
 fancy and a sure decorative sense has supplied a profusion of illustrations. The 
 letter-press is beautiful." — N. Y, Evening Post, 
 
 Ballads. i2mo, |i.oo. 
 
 A Child's Garden of Verses. 
 
 i2nio, $1.00. 
 
 Virginibus Puerisque, and 
 
 Other Papers. Cameo Edition. 
 i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 Underwoods. i2mo, $1.00. 
 
 Three Plays. — Deacon Brodie, 
 
 Beau Austin, Admiral Guinea. 
 
 By R. L. Stevenson and \Y. 
 
 E. Henley. 8vo, $2.00 net. 
 The Suicide Club. {Ivory 
 
 .S'jv/i'j.] i6mo, 75 cents. 
 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 
 
 i2mo, $1.00. 
 
 THE STEVENSON SONG BOOK. 
 
 Verses from " A Child's Garden." With music by various com- 
 posers. A companion volume to the " Field-DeKoven Song 
 Book.' 8vo, $2.00. 
 
 THE THISTLE EDITION. 
 
 21 vols. Sold only by Subscription. Each vol. Svo. $2.00 net. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 •53=157 Fifth Avenue, - - - New York
 
 ^'V - (, 
 
 A 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 / - ^ V 
 
 THE LIBRAftY 
 
 LOS ANGMhim^^^
 
 ^MA^ 
 
 y 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 376 867