ept his account with a bank in a different quarter of the town. The
concealment, innocent as it seems, was the first step in the second
tragicomedy of John's existence.

Meanwhile he had never written home. Whether from diffidence or shame,
or a touch of anger, or mere procrastination, or because (as we have
seen) he had no skill in literary arts, or because (as I am sometimes
tempted to suppose) there is a law in human nature that prevents young
men--not otherwise beasts--from the performance of this simple act of
piety:--months and years had gone by, and John had never written. The
habit of not writing, indeed, was already fixed before he had begun to
come into his fortune; and it was only the difficulty of breaking this
long silence that withheld him from an instant restitution of the money
he had stolen or (as he preferred to call it) borrowed. In vain he sat
before paper, attending on inspiration; that heavenly nymph, beyond
suggesting the words "My dear father," remained obstinately silent; and
presently John would crumple up the sheet and decide, as soon as he had
"a good chance," to carry the money home in person. And this delay,
which is indefensible, was his second step into the snares of fortune.

Ten years had passed, and John was drawing near to thirty. He had kept
the promise of his boyhood, and was now of a lusty frame, verging
towards corpulence; good features, good eyes, a genial manner, a ready
laugh, a long pair of sandy whiskers, a dash of an American accent, a
close familiarity with the great American joke, and a certain likeness
to a R-y-l P-rs-n-ge, who shall remain nameless for me, made up the
man's externals, as he could be viewed in society. Inwardly, in spite of
his gross body and highly masculine whiskers, he was more like a maiden
lady than a man of twenty-nine.

It chanced one day, as he was strolling down Market Street on the eve of
his fortnight's holiday, that his eye was caught by certain railway
bills, and in very idleness of mind he calculated that he might be home
for Christmas if he started on the morrow. The fancy thrilled him with
desire, and in one moment he decided he would go.

There was much to be done: his portmanteau to be packed, a credit to be
got from the bank where he was a wealthy customer, and certain offices
to be transacted for that other bank in which he was a humble clerk; and
it chanced, in conformity with human nature, that out of all this
business it was the