“If I thought you really wished me to stay,” said Gideon, looking at his hat, “of course I should only be too delighted.”

“What a silly person you must take me for!” returned the girl. “Why, of course I do; and, besides, I want some cakes for tea, and I’ve nobody to send. Here is the latch-key.”

Gideon put on his hat with alacrity, and casting one look at Miss Hazeltine, and another at the legs of Hercules, threw open the door and departed on his errand.

He returned with a large bag of the choicest and most tempting of cakes and tartlets, and found Julia in the act of spreading a small tea-table in the lobby.

“The rooms are all in such a state,” she cried, “that I thought we should be more cosy and comfortable in our own lobby, and under our own vine and statuary.”

“Ever so much better,” cried Gideon delightedly.

“O what adorable cream tarts!” said Julia, opening the bag, “and the dearest little cherry tartlets, with all the cherries spilled out into the cream!”

“Yes,” said Gideon, concealing his dismay, “I knew they would mix beautifully; the woman behind the counter told me so.”

“Now,” said Julia, as they began their little festival, “I am going to show you Morris’s letter; read it aloud, please; perhaps there’s something I have missed.”

Gideon took the letter, and spreading it out on his knee, read as follows:—

“No,” said Gideon, “there seems to be nothing about the monument,” and he nodded, as he spoke, at the marble legs. “Miss Hazeltine,” he continued, “would you mind me asking a few questions?”

“Certainly not,” replied Julia; “and if you can make me understand why Morris has sent a statue of Hercules instead of a barrel containing specimens for a friend, I shall be grateful till my dying day. And what are specimens for a friend?”

“I haven’t a guess,” said Gideon. “Specimens are usually bits of stone, but rather smaller than our friend the monument. Still, that is not the point. Are you quite alone in this big house?”

“Yes, I am at present,” returned Julia. “I came up before them to prepare the house, and get another servant. But I couldn’t get one I liked.”

“Then you are utterly alone,” said Gideon in amazement. “Are you not afraid?”

“No,” responded Julia stoutly. “I don’t see why I should be more afraid than you would be; I am weaker, of course, but when I found I must sleep alone in the house I bought a revolver wonderfully cheap, and made the man show me how to use it.”

“And how do you use it?” demanded Gideon, much amused at her courage.

“Why,” said she, with a smile, “you pull the little trigger thing on top, and then pointing it very low, for it springs up as you fire, you pull the underneath little trigger thing, and it goes off as well as if a man had done it.”

“And how often have you used it?” asked Gideon.

“O, I have not used it yet,” said the determined young lady; “but I know how, and that makes me wonderfully courageous, especially when I barricade my door with a chest of drawers.”

“I’m awfully glad they are coming back soon,” said Gideon. “This business strikes me as excessively unsafe; if it goes on much longer, I could provide you with a maiden aunt of mine, or my landlady if you preferred.”

“Lend me an aunt!” cried Julia. “O, what generosity! I begin to think it must have been you that sent the Hercules.”

“Believe me,” cried the young man, “I admire you too much to send you such an infamous work of art.”

Julia was beginning to reply, when they were both startled by a knocking at the door.

“O, Mr. Forsyth!”

“Don’t be afraid, my dear girl,” said Gideon, laying his hand tenderly on her arm.

“I know it’s the police,” she whispered. “They are coming to complain about the statue.”

The knock was repeated. It was louder than before, and more impatient.

“It’s Morris,” cried Julia, in a startled voice, and she ran to the door and opened it.

It was indeed Morris that stood before them; not the Morris of ordinary days, but a wild-looking fellow, pale and haggard, with bloodshot eyes, and a two-days’ beard upon his chin.

“The barrel!” he cried. “Where’s the barrel that came this morning?” And he stared about the lobby, his eyes, as they fell upon the legs of Hercules, literally goggling in his head. “What is that?” he screamed. “What is that waxwork? Speak, you fool! What is that? And where’s the barrel—the water-butt?”

“No barrel came, Morris,” responded Julia coldly. “This is the only thing that has arrived.”

“This!” shrieked the miserable man. “I never heard of it!”

“It came addressed in your hand,” replied Julia; “we had nearly to pull the house down to get it in, that is all that I can tell you.”

Morris gazed at her in utter bewilderment. He passed his hand over his forehead; he leaned against the wall like a man about to faint. Then his tongue was loosed, and he overwhelmed the girl with torrents of abuse. Such fire, such directness, such a choice of ungentlemanly language, none had ever before suspected Morris to possess; and the girl trembled and shrank before his fury.

“You shall not speak to Miss Hazeltine in that way,” said Gideon sternly. “It is what I will not suffer.”

“I shall speak to the girl as I like,” returned Morris, with a fresh outburst of anger. “I’ll speak to the hussy as she deserves.”

“Not a word more, sir, not one word,” cried Gideon. “Miss Hazeltine,” he continued, addressing the young girl, “you cannot stay a moment longer in the same house with this unmanly fellow. Here is my arm; let me take you where you will be secure from insult.”

“Mr. Forsyth,” returned Julia, “you are right; I cannot stay here longer, and I am sure I trust myself to an honourable gentleman.”

Pale and resolute, Gideon offered her his arm, and the pair descended the steps, followed by Morris clamouring for the latch-key.

Julia had scarcely handed the key to Morris before an empty hansom drove smartly into John Street. It was hailed by both men, and as the cabman drew up his restive horse, Morris made a dash into the vehicle.

“Sixpence above fare,” he cried recklessly. “Waterloo Station for your life. Sixpence for yourself!”

“Make it a shilling, guv’ner,” said the man, with a grin; “the other parties were first.”

“A shilling then,” cried Morris, with the inward reflection that he would reconsider it at Waterloo. The man whipped up his horse, and the hansom vanished from John Street.

CHAPTER VI

THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE FIRST

As the hansom span through the streets of London, Morris sought to rally the forces of his mind. The water-butt with the dead body had miscarried, and it was essential to recover it. So much was clear; and if, by some blest good fortune, it was still at the station, all might be well. If it had been sent out, however, if it were already in the hands of some wrong person, matters looked more ominous. People who receive unexplained packages are usually keen to have them open; the example of Miss Hazeltine (whom he cursed again) was there to remind him of the circumstance; and if anyone had opened the water-butt—“O Lord!” cried Morris at the thought, and carried his hand to his damp forehead. The private conception of any breach of law is apt to be inspiriting, for the scheme (while yet inchoate) wears dashing and attractive colours. Not so in the least that part of the criminal’s later reflections which deal with the police. That useful corps (as Morris now began to think) had scarce been kept sufficiently in view when he embarked upon his enterprise. “I must play devilish close,” he reflected, and he was aware of an exquisite thrill of fear in the region of the spine.

“Main line or loop?” inquired the cabman, through the scuttle.

“Main line,” replied Morris, and mentally decided that the man should have his shilling after all. “It would be madness to attract attention,” thought he. “But what this thing will cost me, first and last, begins to be a nightmare!”

He passed through the booking-office and wandered disconsolately on the platform. It was a breathing-space in the day’s traffic. There were few people there, and these for the most part quiescent on the benches. Morris seemed to attract no remark, which was a good thing; but, on the other hand, he was making no progress in his quest. Something must be done, something must be risked. Every passing instant only added to his dangers. Summoning all his courage, he stopped a porter, and asked him if he remembered receiving a barrel by the morning train. He was anxious to get information, for the barrel belonged to a friend. “It is a matter of some moment,” he added, “for it contains specimens.”

“I was not here this morning, sir,” responded the porter, somewhat reluctantly, “but I’ll ask Bill. Do you recollect, Bill, to have got a barrel from Bournemouth this morning containing specimens?”

“I don’t know about specimens,” replied Bill; “but the party as received the barrel I mean raised a sight of trouble.”

“What’s that?” cried Morris, in the agitation of the moment pressing a penny into the man’s hand.

“You see, sir, the barrel arrived at one-thirty. No one claimed it till about three, when a small, sickly-looking gentleman (probably a curate) came up, and sez he, ‘Have you got anything for Pitman?’ or ‘Will’m Bent Pitman,’ if I recollect right.’ ‘I don’t exactly know,’ sez I, ‘but I rather fancy that there barrel bears that name.’ The little man went up to the barrel, and seemed regularly all took aback when he saw the address, and then he pitched into us for not having brought what he wanted. ‘I don’t care a damn what you want,’ sez I to him, ‘but if you are Will’m Bent Pitman, there’s your barrel.’”

“Well, and did he take it?” cried the breathless Morris.

“Well, sir,” returned Bill, “it appears it was a packing-case he was after. The packing-case came; that’s sure enough, because it was about the biggest packing-case ever I clapped eyes on. And this Pitman he seemed a good deal cut up, and he had the superintendent out, and they got hold of the vanman—him as took the packing-case. Well, sir,” continued Bill, with a smile, “I never see a man in such a state. Everybody about that van was mortal, bar the horses. Some gen’leman (as well as I could make out) had given the vanman a sov.; and so that was where the trouble come in, you see.”

“But what did he say?” gasped Morris.

“I don’t know as he said much, sir,” said Bill. “But he offered to fight this Pitman for a pot of beer. He had lost his book, too, and the receipts, and his men were all as mortal as himself. O, they were all like”—and Bill paused for a simile—“like lords! The superintendent sacked them on the spot.”

“O, come, but that’s not so bad,” said Morris, with a bursting sigh. “He couldn’t tell where he took the packing-case, then?”

“Not he,” said Bill, “nor yet nothink else.”

“And what—what did Pitman do?” asked Morris.

“O, he went off with the barrel in a four-wheeler, very trembling like,” replied Bill. “I don’t believe he’s a gentleman as has good health.”

“Well, so the barrel’s gone,” said Morris, half to himself.

“You may depend on that, sir,” returned the porter. “But you had better see the superintendent.”

“Not in the least; it’s of no account,” said Morris. “It only contained specimens.” And he walked hastily away.

Ensconced once more in a hansom, he proceeded to reconsider his position. Suppose (he thought), suppose he should accept defeat and declare his uncle’s death at once? He should lose the tontine, and with that the last hope of his seven thousand eight hundred pounds. But on the other hand, since the shilling to the hansom cabman, he had begun to see that crime was expensive in its course, and, since the loss of the water-butt, that it was uncertain in its consequences. Quietly at first, and then with growing heat, he reviewed the advantages of backing out. It involved a loss; but (come to think of it) no such great loss after all; only that of the tontine, which had been always a toss-up, which at bottom he had never really expected. He reminded himself of that eagerly; he congratulated himself upon his constant moderation. He had never really expected the tontine; he had never even very definitely hoped to recover his seven thousand eight hundred pounds; he had been hurried into the whole thing by Michael’s obvious dishonesty. Yes, it would probably be better to draw back from this high-flying venture, settle back on the leather business——

“Great God!” cried Morris, bounding in the hansom like a Jack-in-a-box. “I have not only not gained the tontine—I have lost the leather business!”

Such was the monstrous fact. He had no power to sign; he could not draw a cheque for thirty shillings. Until he could produce legal evidence of his uncle’s death, he was a penniless outcast—and as soon as he produced it he had lost the tontine! There was no hesitation on the part of Morris; to drop the tontine like a hot chestnut, to concentrate all his forces on the leather business and the rest of his small but legitimate inheritance, was the decision of a single instant. And the next, the full extent of his calamity was suddenly disclosed to him. Declare his uncle’s death? He couldn’t! Since the body was lost Joseph had (in a legal sense) become immortal.

There was no created vehicle big enough to contain Morris and his woes. He paid the hansom off and walked on he knew not whither.

“I seem to have gone into this business with too much precipitation,” he reflected, with a deadly sigh. “I fear it seems too ramified for a person of my powers of mind.”

And then a remark of his uncle’s flashed into his memory: If you want to think clearly, put it all down on paper. “Well, the old boy knew a thing or two,” said Morris. “I will try; but I don’t believe the paper was ever made that will clear my mind.”

He entered a place of public entertainment, ordered bread and cheese, and writing materials, and sat down before them heavily. He tried the pen. It was an excellent pen, but what was he to write? “I have it,” cried Morris. “Robinson Crusoe and the double columns!” He prepared his paper after that classic model, and began as follows:—

“Stop a bit,” said Morris. “I am letting the spirit of antithesis run away with me. Let’s start again.”

“O, but in that case I go to gaol; I had forgot that,” thought Morris. “Indeed, I don’t know that I had better dwell on that hypothesis at all; it’s all very well to talk of facing the worst; but in a case of this kind a man’s first duty is to his own nerve. Is there any answer to No. 3? Is there any possible good side to such a beastly bungle? There must be, of course, or where would be the use of this double-entry business? And—by George, I have it!” he exclaimed; “it’s exactly the same as the last!” And he hastily re-wrote the passage:

“This venal doctor seems quite a desideratum,” he reflected. “I want him first to give me a certificate that my uncle is dead, so that I may get the leather business; and then that he’s alive—but here we are again at the incompatible interests!” And he returned to his tabulation:

“O, this seems to be a very one-sided business,” exclaimed Morris. “There’s not so much in this method as I was led to think.” He crumpled the paper up and threw it down; and then, the next moment, picked it up again and ran it over. “It seems it’s on the financial point that my position is weakest,” he reflected. “Is there positively no way of raising the wind? In a vast city like this, and surrounded by all the resources of civilisation, it seems not to be conceived! Let us have no more precipitation. Is there nothing I can sell? My collection of signet——” But at the thought of scattering these loved treasures the blood leaped into Morris’s cheek. “I would rather die!” he exclaimed, and, cramming his hat upon his head, strode forth into the streets.

“I must raise funds,” he thought. “My uncle being dead, the money in the bank is mine, or would be mine but for the cursed injustice that has pursued me ever since I was an orphan in a commercial academy. I know what any other man would do; any other man in Christendom would forge; although I don’t know why I call it forging, either, when Joseph’s dead, and the funds are my own. When I think of that, when I think that my uncle is really as dead as mutton, and that I can’t prove it, my gorge rises at the injustice of the whole affair. I used to feel bitterly about that seven thousand eight hundred pounds; it seems a trifle now! Dear me, why, the day before yesterday I was comparatively happy.”

And Morris stood on the sidewalk and heaved another sobbing sigh.

“Then there’s another thing,” he resumed; “can I? Am I able? Why didn’t I practise different handwritings while I was young? How a fellow regrets those lost opportunities when he grows up! But there’s one comfort: it’s not morally wrong; I can try it on with a clear conscience, and even if I was found out, I wouldn’t greatly care—morally, I mean. And then, if I succeed, and if Pitman is staunch—there’s nothing to do but find a venal doctor; and that ought to be simple enough in a place like London. By all accounts the town’s alive with them. It wouldn’t do, of course, to advertise for a corrupt physician; that would be impolitic. No, I suppose a fellow has simply to spot along the streets for a red lamp and herbs in the window, and then you go in and—and—and put it to him plainly; though it seems a delicate step.”

He was near home now, after many devious wanderings, and turned up John Street. As he thrust his latch-key in the lock, another mortifying reflection struck him to the heart.

“Not even this house is mine till I can prove him dead,” he snarled, and slammed the door behind him so that the windows in the attic rattled.

Night had long fallen; long ago the lamps and the shop-fronts had begun to glitter down the endless streets; the lobby was pitch-dark; and, as the devil would have it, Morris barked his shins and sprawled all his length over the pedestal of Hercules. The pain was sharp; his temper was already thoroughly undermined; by a last misfortune his hand closed on the hammer as he fell; and, in a spasm of childish irritation, he turned and struck at the offending statue. There was a splintering crash.

“O Lord, what have I done next?” wailed Morris; and he groped his way to find a candle. “Yes,” he reflected, as he stood with the light in his hand and looked upon the mutilated leg, from which about a pound of muscle was detached. “Yes, I have destroyed a genuine antique; I may be in for thousands!” And then there sprung up in his bosom a sort of angry hope. “Let me see,” he thought. “Julia’s got rid of; there’s nothing to connect me with that beast Forsyth; the men were all drunk, and (what’s better) they’ve been all discharged. O, come, I think this is another case of moral courage! I’ll deny all knowledge of the thing.”

A moment more, and he stood again before the Hercules, his lips sternly compressed, the coal-axe and the meat-cleaver under his arm. The next, he had fallen upon the packing-case. This had been already seriously undermined by the operations of Gideon; a few well-directed blows, and it already quaked and gaped; yet a few more, and it fell about Morris in a shower of boards followed by an avalanche of straw.

And now the leather-merchant could behold the nature of his task: and at the first sight his spirit quailed. It was, indeed, no more ambitious a task for De Lesseps, with all his men and horses, to attack the hills of Panama, than for a single, slim young gentleman, with no previous experience of labour in a quarry, to measure himself against that bloated monster on his pedestal. And yet the pair were well encountered: on the one side, bulk—on the other, genuine heroic fire.

“Down you shall come, you great big ugly brute!” cried Morris aloud, with something of that passion which swept the Parisian mob against the walls of the Bastille. “Down you shall come, this night. I’ll have none of you in my lobby.”

The face, from its indecent expression, had particularly animated the zeal of our iconoclast; and it was against the face that he began his operations. The great height of the demigod—for he stood a fathom and half in his stocking-feet—offered a preliminary obstacle to this attack. But here, in the first skirmish of the battle, intellect already began to triumph over matter. By means of a pair of library steps, the injured householder gained a posture of advantage; and, with great swipes of the coal-axe, proceeded to decapitate the brute.

Two hours later, what had been the erect image of a gigantic coal-porter turned miraculously white, was now no more than a medley of disjected members; the quadragenarian torso prone against the pedestal; the lascivious countenance leering down the kitchen stair; the legs, the arms, the hands, and even the fingers, scattered broadcast on the lobby floor. Half an hour more, and all the débris had been laboriously carted to the kitchen; and Morris, with a gentle sentiment of triumph, looked round upon the scene of his achievements. Yes, he could deny all knowledge of it now: the lobby, beyond the fact that it was partly ruinous, betrayed no trace of the passage of Hercules. But it was a weary Morris that crept up to bed; his arms and shoulders ached, the palms of his hands burned from the rough kisses of the coal-axe, and there was one smarting finger that stole continually to his mouth. Sleep long delayed to visit the dilapidated hero, and with the first peep of day it had again deserted him.

The morning, as though to accord with his disastrous fortunes, dawned inclemently. An easterly gale was shouting in the streets; flaws of rain angrily assailed the windows; and as Morris dressed, the draught from the fireplace vividly played about his legs.

“I think,” he could not help observing bitterly, “that with all I have to bear, they might have given me decent weather.”

There was no bread in the house, for Miss Hazeltine (like all women left to themselves) had subsisted entirely upon cake. But some of this was found, and (along with what the poets call a glass of fair, cold water) made up a semblance of a morning meal, and then down he sat undauntedly to his delicate task.

Nothing can be more interesting than the study of signatures, written (as they are) before meals and after, during indigestion and intoxication; written when the signer is trembling for the life of his child or has come from winning the Derby, in his lawyer’s office, or under the bright eyes of his sweetheart. To the vulgar, these seem never the same; but to the expert, the bank clerk, or the lithographer, they are constant quantities, and as recognisable as the North Star to the night-watch on deck.

To all this Morris was alive. In the theory of that graceful art in which he was now embarking, our spirited leather-merchant was beyond all reproach. But, happily for the investor, forgery is an affair of practice. And as Morris sat surrounded by examples of his uncle’s signature and of his own incompetence, insidious depression stole upon his spirits. From time to time the wind wuthered in the chimney at his back; from time to time there swept over Bloomsbury a squall so dark that he must rise and light the gas; about him was the chill and the mean disorder of a house out of commission—the floor bare, the sofa heaped with books and accounts enveloped in a dirty table-cloth, the pens rusted, the paper glazed with a thick film of dust; and yet these were but adminicles of misery, and the true root of his depression lay round him on the table in the shape of misbegotten forgeries.

“It’s one of the strangest things I ever heard of,” he complained. “It almost seems as if it was a talent that I didn’t possess.” He went once more minutely through his proofs. “A clerk would simply gibe at them,” said he. “Well, there’s nothing else but tracing possible.”

He waited till a squall had passed and there came a blink of scowling daylight. Then he went to the window, and in the face of all John Street traced his uncle’s signature. It was a poor thing at the best. “But it must do,” said he, as he stood gazing woefully on his handiwork. “He’s dead, anyway.” And he filled up the cheque for a couple of hundred and sallied forth for the Anglo-Patagonian Bank.

There, at the desk at which he was accustomed to transact business, and with as much indifference as he could assume, Morris presented the forged cheque to the big, red-bearded Scots teller. The teller seemed to view it with surprise; and as he turned it this way and that, and even scrutinised the signature with a magnifying-glass, his surprise appeared to warm into disfavour. Begging to be excused for a moment, he passed away into the rearmost quarters of the bank; whence, after an appreciable interval, he returned again in earnest talk with a superior, an oldish and a baldish, but a very gentlemanly man.

“Mr. Morris Finsbury, I believe,” said the gentlemanly man, fixing Morris with a pair of double eye-glasses.

“That is my name,” said Morris, quavering. “Is there anything wrong?”

“Well, the fact is, Mr. Finsbury, you see we are rather surprised at receiving this,” said the other, flicking at the cheque. “There are no effects.”

“No effects?” cried Morris. “Why, I know myself there must be eight-and-twenty hundred pounds, if there’s a penny.”

“Two seven six four, I think,” replied the gentlemanly man; “but it was drawn yesterday.”

“Drawn!” cried Morris.

“By your uncle himself, sir,” continued the other. “Not only that, but we discounted a bill for him for—let me see—how much was it for, Mr. Bell?”

“Eight hundred, Mr. Judkin,” replied the teller.

“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. Finsbury,” said Mr. Bell.

“All I can tell you,” said Morris, with a harsh laugh, “is that the whole thing’s impossible. My uncle is at Bournemouth, unable to move.”

“Really!” cried Mr. Bell, and he recovered the cheque from Mr. Judkin. “But this cheque is dated in London, and to-day,” he observed. “How d’ye account for that, sir?”

“O, that was a mistake,” said Morris, and a deep tide of colour dyed his face and neck.

“No doubt, no doubt,” said Mr. Judkin, but he looked at his customer inquiringly.

“And—and—” resumed Morris, “even if there were no effects—this is a very trifling sum to overdraw—our firm—the name of Finsbury, is surely good enough for such a wretched sum as this.”

“No doubt, Mr. Finsbury,” returned Mr. Judkin; “and if you insist I will take it into consideration; but I hardly think—in short, Mr. Finsbury, if there had been nothing else, the signature seems hardly all that we could wish.”

“That’s of no consequence,” replied Morris nervously. “I’ll get my uncle to sign another. The fact is,” he went on, with a bold stroke, “my uncle is so far from well at present that he was unable to sign this cheque without assistance, and I fear that my holding the pen for him may have made the difference in the signature.”

Mr. Judkin shot a keen glance into Morris’s face; and then turned and looked at Mr. Bell.

“Well,” he said, “it seems as if we had been victimised by a swindler. Pray tell Mr. Finsbury we shall put detectives on at once. As for this cheque of yours, I regret that, owing to the way it was signed, the bank can hardly consider it—what shall I say?—business-like,” and he returned the cheque across the counter.

Morris took it up mechanically; he was thinking of something very different.

“In a case of this kind,” he began, “I believe the loss falls on us; I mean upon my uncle and myself.”

“It does not, sir,” replied Mr. Bell; “the bank is responsible, and the bank will either recover the money or refund it, you may depend on that.”

Morris’s face fell; then it was visited by another gleam of hope.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, “you leave this entirely in my hands. I’ll sift the matter. I’ve an idea, at any rate; and detectives,” he added appealingly, “are so expensive.”

“The bank would not hear of it,” returned Mr. Judkin. “The bank stands to lose between three and four thousand pounds; it will spend as much more if necessary. An undiscovered forger is a permanent danger. We shall clear it up to the bottom, Mr. Finsbury; set your mind at rest on that.”

“Then I’ll stand the loss,” said Morris boldly. “I order you to abandon the search.” He was determined that no inquiry should be made.

“I beg your pardon,” returned Mr. Judkin, “but we have nothing to do with you in this matter, which is one between your uncle and ourselves. If he should take this opinion, and will either come here himself or let me see him in his sick-room——”

“Quite impossible,” cried Morris.

“Well, then, you see,” said Mr. Judkin, “how my hands are tied. The whole affair must go at once into the hands of the police.”

Morris mechanically folded the cheque and restored it to his pocket-book.

“Good-morning,” said he, and scrambled somehow out of the bank.

“I don’t know what they suspect,” he reflected; “I can’t make them out, their whole behaviour is thoroughly unbusiness-like. But it doesn’t matter; all’s up with everything. The money has been paid; the police are on the scent; in two hours that idiot Pitman will be nabbed—and the whole story of the dead body in the evening papers.”

If he could have heard what passed in the bank after his departure he would have been less alarmed, perhaps more mortified.

“That was a curious affair, Mr. Bell,” said Mr. Judkin.

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Bell, “but I think we have given him a fright.”

“O, we shall hear no more of Mr. Morris Finsbury,” returned the other; “it was a first attempt, and the house have dealt with us so long that I was anxious to deal gently. But I suppose, Mr. Bell, there can be no mistake about yesterday? It was old Mr. Finsbury himself?”

“There could be no possible doubt of that,” said Mr. Bell with a chuckle. “He explained to me the principles of banking.”

“Well, well,” said Mr. Judkin. “The next time he calls ask him to step into my room. It is only proper he should be warned.”

CHAPTER VII

IN WHICH WILLIAM DENT PITMAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE

Norfolk Street, King’s Road—jocularly known among Mr. Pitman’s lodgers as “Norfolk Island”—is neither a long, a handsome, nor a pleasing thoroughfare. Dirty, undersized maids-of-all-work issue from it in pursuit of beer, or linger on its sidewalk listening to the voice of love. The cat’s-meat man passes twice a day. An occasional organ-grinder wanders in and wanders out again, disgusted. In holiday-time the street is the arena of the young bloods of the neighbourhood, and the house-holders have an opportunity of studying the manly art of self-defence. And yet Norfolk Street has one claim to be respectable, for it contains not a single shop—unless you count the public-house at the corner, which is really in the King’s Road.

The door of No. 7 bore a brass plate inscribed with the legend “W.D. Pitman, Artist.” It was not a particularly clean brass plate, nor was No. 7 itself a particularly inviting place of residence. And yet it had a character of its own, such as may well quicken the pulse of the reader’s curiosity. For here was the home of an artist—and a distinguished artist too, highly distinguished by his ill-success—which had never been made the subject of an article in the illustrated magazines. No wood-engraver had ever reproduced “a corner in the back drawing-room” or “the studio mantelpiece” of No. 7; no young lady author had ever commented on “the unaffected simplicity” with which Mr. Pitman received her in the midst of his “treasures.” It is an omission I would gladly supply, but our business is only with the backward parts and “abject rear” of this æsthetic dwelling.

Here was a garden, boasting a dwarf fountain (that never played) in the centre, a few grimy-looking flowers in pots, two or three newly-planted trees which the spring of Chelsea visited without noticeable consequence, and two or three statues after the antique, representing satyrs and nymphs in the worst possible style of sculptured art. On one side the garden was overshadowed by a pair of crazy studios, usually hired out to the more obscure and youthful practitioners of British art. Opposite these another lofty out-building, somewhat more carefully finished, and boasting of a communication with the house and a private door on the back lane, enshrined the multifarious industry of Mr. Pitman. All day, it is true, he was engaged in the work of education at a seminary for young ladies; but the evenings at least were his own, and these he would prolong far into the night, now dashing off “A landscape with waterfall” in oil, now a volunteer bust (“in marble,” as he would gently but proudly observe) of some public character, now stooping his chisel to a mere “nymph” (“for a gas-bracket on a stair, sir “), or a life-size “Infant Samuel” for a religious nursery. Mr. Pitman had studied in Paris, and he had studied in Rome, supplied with funds by a fond parent who went subsequently bankrupt in consequence of a fall in corsets; and though he was never thought to have the smallest modicum of talent, it was at one time supposed that he had learned his business. Eighteen years of what is called “tuition” had relieved him of the dangerous knowledge. His artist lodgers would sometimes reason with him; they would point out to him how impossible it was to paint by gas-light, or to sculpture life-sized nymphs without a model.

“I know that,” he would reply. “No one in Norfolk Street knows it better; and if I were rich I should certainly employ the best models in London; but, being poor, I have taught myself to do without them. An occasional model would only disturb my ideal conception of the figure, and be a positive impediment in my career. As for painting by an artificial light,” he would continue, “that is simply a knack I have found it necessary to acquire, my days being engrossed in the work of tuition.”

At the moment when we must present him to our readers, Pitman was in his studio alone, by the dying light of the October day. He sat (sure enough with “unaffected simplicity“) in a Windsor chair, his low-crowned black felt hat by his side; a dark, weak, harmless, pathetic little man, clad in the hue of mourning, his coat longer than is usual with the laity, his neck enclosed in a collar without a parting, his neckcloth pale in hue and simply tied; the whole outward man, except for a pointed beard, tentatively clerical. There was a thinning on the top of Pitman’s head, there were silver hairs at Pitman’s temple. Poor gentleman, he was no longer young; and years, and poverty, and humble ambition thwarted, make a cheerless lot.

In front of him, in the corner by the door, there stood a portly barrel; and let him turn them where he might, it was always to the barrel that his eyes and his thoughts returned.

“Should I open it? Should I return it? Should I communicate with Mr. Semitopolis at once?” he wondered. “No,” he concluded finally, “nothing without Mr. Finsbury’s advice.” And he arose and produced a shabby leathern desk. It opened without the formality of unlocking, and displayed the thick cream-coloured note-paper on which Mr. Pitman was in the habit of communicating with the proprietors of schools and the parents of his pupils. He placed the desk on the table by the window, and taking a saucer of Indian ink from the chimney-piece, laboriously composed the following letter:

“My dear Mr. Finsbury,” it ran, “would it be presuming on your kindness if I asked you to pay me a visit here this evening? It is in no trifling matter that I invoke your valuable assistance, for need I say more than it concerns the welfare of Mr. Semitopolis’s statue of Hercules? I write you in great agitation of mind; for I have made all inquiries, and greatly fear that this work of ancient art has been mislaid. I labour besides under another perplexity, not unconnected with the first. Pray excuse the inelegance of this scrawl, and believe me yours in haste, William D. Pitman.”

Armed with this he set forth and rang the bell of No. 233 King’s Road, the private residence of Michael Finsbury. He had met the lawyer at a time of great public excitement in Chelsea; Michael, who had a sense of humour and a great deal of careless kindness in his nature, followed the acquaintance up, and, having come to laugh, remained to drop into a contemptuous kind of friendship. By this time, which was four years after the first meeting, Pitman was the lawyer’s dog.

“No,” said the elderly housekeeper, who opened the door in person, “Mr. Michael’s not in yet. But ye’re looking terribly poorly, Mr. Pitman. Take a glass of sherry, sir, to cheer ye up.”

“No, I thank you, ma’am,” replied the artist. “It is very good in you, but I scarcely feel in sufficient spirits for sherry. Just give Mr. Finsbury this note, and ask him to look round—to the door in the lane, you will please tell him; I shall be in the studio all evening.”

And he turned again into the street and walked slowly homeward. A 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 of the show. The artist woke in him, in spite of his troubles.

“It is all very well to run down the men who make these things,” he cried, “but there’s a something—there’s a haughty, indefinable something about that figure. It’s what I tried for in my ‘Empress Eugénie,’” he added, with a sigh.

And he went home reflecting on the quality. “They don’t teach you that direct appeal in Paris,” he thought. “It’s British. Come, I am going to sleep, I must wake up, I must aim higher—aim higher,” cried the little artist to himself. All through his tea and afterward, as he was giving his eldest boy a lesson on the fiddle, his mind dwelt no longer on his troubles, but he was rapt into the better land; and no sooner was he at liberty than he hastened with positive exhilaration to his studio.

Not even the sight of the barrel could entirely cast him down. He flung himself with rising zest into his work—a bust of Mr. Gladstone from a photograph; turned (with extraordinary success) the difficulty of the back of the head, for which he had no documents beyond a hazy recollection of a public meeting; delighted himself by his treatment of the collar; and was only recalled to the cares of life by Michael Finsbury’s rattle at the door.

“Well, what’s wrong?” said Michael, advancing to the grate, where, knowing his friend’s delight in a bright fire, Mr. Pitman had not spared the fuel. “I suppose you have come to grief somehow.”

“There is no expression strong enough,” said the artist. “Mr. Semitopolis’s statue has not turned up, and I am afraid I shall be answerable for the money; but I think nothing of that—what I fear, my dear Mr. Finsbury, what I fear—alas that I should have to say it!—is exposure. The Hercules was to be smuggled out of Italy; a thing positively wrong, a thing of which a man of my principles and in my responsible position should have taken (as I now see too late) no part whatever.”

“This sounds like very serious work,” said the lawyer. “It will require a great deal of drink, Pitman.”

“I took the liberty of—in short, of being prepared for you,” replied the artist, pointing to a kettle, a bottle of gin, a lemon, and glasses.

Michael mixed himself a grog, and offered the artist a cigar.

“No, thank you,” said Pitman. “I used occasionally to be rather partial to it, but the smell is so disagreeable about the clothes.”

“All right,” said the lawyer. “I am comfortable now. Unfold your tale.”

At some length Pitman set forth his sorrows. He had gone 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 enough to contain the Hercules; and this case had been taken to an address now undiscoverable. “The vanman (I regret to say it) had been drinking, and his language was such as I could never bring myself to repeat. He was at once discharged by the superintendent of the line, who behaved most properly throughout, and is to make 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 lawyer.”

“Is that all?” asked Michael. “I don’t see any cause to worry. The Hercules has stuck upon the road. It will drop in 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.”

“O, don’t speak so loud!” cried the little artist. “It would cost me my place if I were heard to speak lightly of the young ladies; and besides, why oysters from Italy? and why should they come to me addressed in Signor Ricardi’s hand?”

“Well, let’s have a look at it,” said Michael. “Let’s roll it forward to the light.”

The two men rolled the barrel from the corner, and stood it on end before the fire.

“It’s heavy enough to be oysters,” remarked Michael judiciously.

“Shall we open it at once?” inquired the artist, who had grown decidedly cheerful under the combined effects of company and gin; and without waiting for a reply, he began to strip as if for a prize-fight, tossed his clerical collar in the 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 evening.

“That’s the style, William Dent!” cried Michael. “There’s fire for your money! It may be a romantic visit from one of the young ladies—a sort of Cleopatra business. Have a care and don’t stave in Cleopatra’s head.”

But the sight of Pitman’s alacrity was infectious. The lawyer could sit still no longer. Tossing his cigar into the fire, he snatched the instrument from the unwilling hands of the artist, and fell to himself. Soon the sweat stood in beads upon his large, fair brow; his stylish trousers were defaced with iron rust, and the state of his chisel testified to misdirected energies.

A cask is not an easy thing to open, even when you set about it in the right way; when you set about it wrongly, the whole structure must be resolved into its elements. Such was the course pursued alike by the artist and the lawyer. Presently the last hoop had been removed—a couple of smart blows tumbled the staves upon the ground—and what had once been a barrel was no more than a confused heap of broken and distorted boards.

In the midst of these, a certain dismal something, swathed in blankets, remained for an instant upright, and then toppled to one side and heavily collapsed before the fire. Even as the thing subsided, an eye-glass tingled to the floor and rolled toward the screaming Pitman.

“Hold your tongue!” said Michael. He dashed to the house door and locked it; then, with a pale face and bitten lip, he drew near, pulled aside a corner of the swathing blanket, and recoiled, shuddering.

There was a long silence in the studio.

“Now tell me,” said Michael, in a low voice: “Had you any hand in it?” and he pointed to the body.

The little artist could only utter broken and disjointed sounds.

Michael poured some gin into a glass. “Drink that,” he said. “Don’t be afraid of me. I’m your friend through thick and thin.”

Pitman put the liquor down untasted.

“I swear before God,” he said, “this is another mystery to me. In my worst fears I never dreamed of such a thing. I would not lay a finger on a sucking infant.”

“That’s all square,” said Michael, with a sigh of huge relief. “I believe you, old boy.” And he shook the artist warmly by the hand. “I thought for a moment,” he added with rather a ghastly smile, “I thought for a moment you might have made away with Mr. Semitopolis.”

“It would make no difference if I had,” groaned Pitman. “All is at an end for me. There’s the writing on the wall.”

“To begin with,” said Michael, “let’s get him out of sight; for to be quite plain with you, Pitman, I don’t like your friend’s appearance.” And with that the lawyer shuddered. “Where can we put it?”

“You might put it in the closet there—if you could bear to touch it,” answered the artist.

“Somebody has to do it, Pitman,” returned the lawyer; “and it seems as if it had to be me. You go over to the table, turn your back, and mix me a grog; that’s a fair division of labour.”

About ninety seconds later the closet-door was heard to shut.

“There,” observed Michael, “that’s more home-like. You can turn now, my pallid Pitman. Is this the grog?” he ran on. “Heaven forgive you, it’s a lemonade.”

“But, O, Finsbury, what are we to do with it?” wailed the artist, laying a clutching hand upon the lawyer’s arm.

“Do with it?” repeated 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.”

“I beg of you, Mr. Finsbury, do not trifle with my misery,” cried Pitman. “You see before you a man who has been all his life—I do not hesitate to say it—eminently respectable. Even in this solemn hour I can lay my hand upon my heart without a blush. Except on the really trifling point of the smuggling of the Hercules (and even of that I now humbly repent), my life has been entirely fit for publication. I never feared the light,” cried the little man; “and now—now——!”

“Cheer up, old boy,” said Michael. “I assure you we should count this little contretemps a trifle at the office; it’s the sort of thing that may occur to any one; and if you’re perfectly sure you had no hand in it——”

“What language am I to find——” began Pitman.

“O, I’ll do that part of it,” interrupted Michael, “you have no experience. But the point is this: If—or rather since—you know nothing of the crime, since the—the party in the closet—is neither your father, nor your brother, nor your creditor, nor your mother-in-law, nor what they call an injured husband——”

“O, my dear sir!” interjected Pitman, horrified.

“Since, in short,” continued the lawyer, “you had no possible interest in the crime, we have a perfectly free field before us and a safe game to play. Indeed the problem is really entertaining; it is one I have long contemplated in the light of an A. B. case; here it is at last under my hand in specie; and I mean to pull you through. Do you hear that?—I mean to pull you through. Let me see: it’s a long time since I have had what I call a genuine holiday; I’ll send an excuse to-morrow to the office. We had best be lively,” he added significantly; “for we must not spoil the market for the other man.”

“What do you mean?” inquired Pitman. “What other man? The inspector of police?”

“Damn the inspector of police!” remarked his companion. “If you won’t take the short cut and bury this in your back garden, we must find some one who will bury it in his. We must place the affair, in short, in the hands of some one with fewer scruples and more resources.”

“A private detective, perhaps?” suggested Pitman.

“There are times when you fill me with pity,” observed the lawyer. “By the way, Pitman,” he added in another key, “I have always regretted that you have no piano in this den of yours. Even if you don’t play yourself, your friends might like to entertain themselves with a little music while you were mudding.”

“I shall get one at once if you like,” said Pitman nervously, anxious to please. “I play the fiddle a little as it is.”

“I know you do,” said Michael; “but what’s the fiddle—above all as you play it? What you want is polyphonic music. And I’ll tell you what it is—since it’s too late for you to buy a piano I’ll give you mine.”

“Thank you,” said the artist blankly. “You will give me yours? I am sure it’s very good in you.”

“Yes, I’ll give you mine,” continued Michael, “for the inspector of police to play on while his men are digging up your back garden.”

Pitman stared at him in pained amazement.

“No, I’m not insane,” Michael went on. “I’m playful, but quite coherent. See here, Pitman: follow me one half minute. I mean to profit by the refreshing fact that we are really and truly innocent; nothing but the presence of the—you know what—connects us with the crime; once let us get rid of it, no matter how, and there is no possible clue to trace us by. Well, I give you my piano; we’ll bring it round this very night. To-morrow we rip the fittings out, deposit the—our friend—inside, plump the whole on a cart, and carry it to the chambers of a young gentleman whom I know by sight.”

“Whom do you know by sight?” repeated Pitman.

“And what is more to the purpose,” continued Michael, “whose chambers I know better than he does himself. A friend of mine—I call him my friend for brevity; he is now, I understand, in Demerara and (most likely) in gaol—was the previous occupant. I defended him, and I got him off too—all saved but honour; his assets were nil, but he gave me what he had, poor gentleman, and along with the rest—the key of his chambers. It’s there that I propose to leave the piano and, shall we say, Cleopatra?”

“It seems very wild,” said Pitman. “And what will become of the poor young gentleman whom you know by sight?”

“It will do him good,” said Michael cheerily. “Just what he wants to steady him.”

“But, my dear sir, he might be involved in a charge of—a charge of murder,” gulped the artist.

“Well, he’ll be just where we are,” returned the lawyer. “He’s innocent, you see. What hangs people, my dear Pitman, is the unfortunate circumstance of guilt.”

“But indeed, indeed,” pleaded Pitman, “the whole scheme appears to me so wild. Would it not be safer, after all, just to send for the police?”

“And make a scandal?” inquired Michael. “’The Chelsea Mystery; alleged innocence of Pitman’? How would that do at the Seminary?”

“It would imply my discharge,” admitted the drawing-master. “I cannot deny that.”

“And besides,” said Michael, “I am not going to embark in such a business and have no fun for my money.”

“O my dear sir, is that a proper spirit?” cried Pitman.

“O, I only said that to cheer you up,” said the unabashed Michael. “Nothing like a little judicious levity. But it’s quite needless to discuss. If you mean to follow my advice, come on, and let us get the piano at once. If you don’t, just drop me the word, and I’ll leave you to deal with the whole thing according to your better judgment.”

“You know perfectly well that I depend on you entirely,” returned Pitman. “But O, what a night is before me with that—horror in my studio! How am I to think of it on my pillow?”

“Well, you know, my piano will be there too,” said Michael. “That’ll raise the average.”

An hour later a cart came up the lane, and the lawyer’s piano—a momentous Broadwood grand—was deposited in Mr. Pitman’s studio.

CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY

Punctually at eight o’clock next morning the lawyer rattled (according to previous appointment) on the studio door. He found the artist sadly altered for the worse—bleached, bloodshot, and chalky—a man upon wires, the tail of his haggard eye still wandering to the closet. Nor was the professor of drawing less inclined to wonder at his friend. Michael was usually attired in the height of fashion, with a certain mercantile brilliancy best described perhaps as stylish; nor could anything be said against him, as a rule, but that he looked a trifle too like a wedding guest to be quite a gentleman. To-day he had fallen altogether from these heights. He wore a flannel shirt of washed-out shepherd’s tartan, and a suit of reddish tweeds, of the colour known to tailors as “heather mixture“; his neckcloth was black, and tied loosely in a sailor’s knot; a rusty ulster partly concealed these advantages; and his feet were shod with rough walking boots. His hat was an old soft felt, which he removed with a flourish as he entered.

“Here I am, William Dent!” he cried, and drawing from his pocket two little wisps of reddish hair, he held them to his cheeks like 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, replacing his false whiskers in his pocket. “Now we must overhaul you and your wardrobe, and disguise you up to the nines.”

“Disguise!” cried the artist. “Must I indeed disguise myself? Has it come to that?”

“My dear creature,” returned his companion, “disguise is the spice of life. What is life, passionately exclaimed a French philosopher, without the pleasures of disguise? I don’t say it’s always good taste, and I know it’s unprofessional; but what’s the odds, downhearted drawing-master? It has to be. We have to leave a false impression on the minds of many persons, and in particular on the mind of Mr. Gideon Forsyth—the young gentleman I know by sight—if he should have the bad taste to be at home.”

“If he be at home?” faltered the artist. “That would be the end of all.”

“Won’t matter a d——,” returned Michael airily. “Let me see your clothes, and I’ll make a new man of you in a jiffy.”

In the bedroom, to which he was at once conducted, Michael examined Pitman’s poor and scanty wardrobe with a humorous eye, picked out a short jacket of black alpaca, and presently added to that a pair of summer trousers which somehow took his fancy as incongruous. Then, with the garments in his hand, he scrutinised the artist closely.

“I don’t like that clerical collar,” he remarked. “Have you nothing else?”

The professor of drawing pondered for a moment, and then brightened; “I have a pair of low-necked shirts,” he said, “that I used to wear in Paris as a student. They are rather loud.”

“The very thing!” ejaculated Michael. “You’ll look perfectly beastly. Here are spats, too,” he continued, drawing forth a pair of those offensive little gaiters. “Must have spats! And now you jump into these, and whistle a tune at the window for (say) three-quarters of an hour. After that you can rejoin me on the field of glory.”

So saying, Michael returned to the studio. It was the morning of the easterly gale; the wind blew shrilly among the statues in the garden, and drove the rain upon the skylight in the studio ceiling; and at about the same moment of the time when Morris attacked the hundredth version of his uncle’s signature in Bloomsbury, Michael, in Chelsea, began to rip the wires out of the Broadwood grand.

Three-quarters of an hour later Pitman was admitted, to find the closet-door standing open, the closet untenanted, and the piano discreetly shut.

“It’s a remarkably heavy instrument,” observed Michael, and turned to consider his friend’s disguise. “You must shave off that beard of yours,” he said.

“My beard!” cried Pitman. “I cannot shave my beard. I cannot tamper with my appearance—my principals would object. They hold very strong views as to the appearance of the professors—young ladies are considered so romantic. My beard was regarded as quite a feature when I went about the place. It was regarded,” said the artist, with rising colour, “it was regarded as unbecoming.”

“You can let it grow again,” returned Michael, “and then you’ll be so precious ugly that they’ll raise your salary.”

“But I don’t want to be ugly,” cried the artist.

“Don’t be an ass,” said Michael, who hated beards and was delighted to destroy one. “Off with it like a man!”

“Of course, if you insist,” said Pitman; and then he sighed, fetched some hot water from the kitchen, and setting a glass upon his easel, first clipped his beard with scissors and then shaved his chin. He could not conceal from himself, as he regarded the result, that his last claims to manhood had been sacrificed, but Michael seemed delighted.

“A new man, I declare!” he cried. “When I give you the window-glass spectacles I have in my pocket, you’ll be the beau-idéal of a French commercial traveller.”

Pitman did not reply, but continued to gaze disconsolately on his image in the glass.

“Do you know,” asked Michael, “what the Governor of South Carolina said to the Governor of North Carolina? ‘It’s a long time between drinks,’ observed that powerful thinker; and if you will put your hand into the top left-hand pocket of my ulster, I have an impression you will find a flask of brandy. Thank you, Pitman,” he added, as he filled out a glass for each. “Now you will give me news of this.”

The artist reached out his hand for the water-jug, but Michael arrested the movement.

“Not if you went upon your knees!” he cried. “This is the finest liqueur brandy in Great Britain.”

Pitman put his lips to it, set it down again, and sighed.

“Well, I must say you’re the poorest companion for a holiday!” cried Michael. “If that’s all you know of brandy, you shall have no more of it; and while I finish the flask, you may as well begin business. Come to think of it,” he broke off, “I have made an abominable error: you should have ordered the cart before you were disguised. Why, Pitman, what the devil’s the use of you? why couldn’t you have reminded me of that?”

“I never even knew there was a cart to be ordered,” said the artist. “But I can take off the disguise again,” he suggested eagerly.

“You would find it rather a bother to put on your beard,” observed the lawyer. “No, it’s a false step; the sort of thing that hangs people,” he continued, with eminent cheerfulness, as he sipped his brandy; “and it can’t be retraced now. Off to the mews with you, make all the arrangements; they’re to take the piano from here, cart it to Victoria, and despatch it thence by rail to Cannon Street, to lie till called for in the name of Fortuné du Boisgobey.”

“Isn’t that rather an awkward name?” pleaded Pitman.

“Awkward?” cried Michael scornfully. “It would hang us both! Brown is both safer and easier to pronounce. Call it Brown.”

“I wish,” said Pitman, “for my sake, I wish you wouldn’t talk so much of hanging.”

“Talking about it’s nothing, my boy!” returned Michael. “But take your hat and be off, and mind and pay everything beforehand.”

Left to himself, the lawyer turned his attention for some time exclusively to the liqueur brandy, and his spirits, which had been pretty fair all morning, now prodigiously rose. He proceeded to adjust his whiskers finally before the glass. “Devilish rich,” he remarked, as he contemplated his reflection. “I look like a purser’s mate.” And at that moment the window-glass spectacles (which he had hitherto destined for Pitman) flashed into his mind; he put them on, and fell in love with the effect. “Just what I required,” he said. “I wonder what I look like now? A humorous novelist, I should think,” and he began to practise divers characters of walk, naming them to himself as he proceeded. “Walk of a humorous novelist—but that would require an umbrella. Walk of a purser’s mate. Walk of an Australian colonist revisiting the scenes of childhood. Walk of Sepoy colonel, ditto, ditto.” And in the midst of the Sepoy colonel (which was an excellent assumption, although inconsistent with the style of his make-up), his eye lighted on the piano. This instrument was made to lock both at the top and at the keyboard, but the key of the latter had been mislaid. Michael opened it and ran his fingers over the dumb keys. “Fine instrument—full, rich tone,” he observed, and he drew in a seat.

When Mr. Pitman returned to the studio, he was appalled to observe his guide, philosopher, and friend performing miracles of execution on the silent grand.

“Heaven help me!” thought the little man, “I fear he has been drinking! Mr. Finsbury,” he said aloud; and Michael, without rising, turned upon him a countenance somewhat flushed, encircled with the bush of the red whiskers, and bestridden by the spectacles. “Capriccio in B-flat on the departure of a friend,” said he, continuing his noiseless evolutions.