to. All sorts of questions such as will occur to the reader were raised
and settled, but I must beg him to be content with knowing that
everything was arranged with the good sense that two such men were sure
to bring to bear upon it.

The getting the gold into Erewhon was to be managed thus. George was to
know nothing, but a promise was to be got from him that at noon on the
following New Year's day, or whatever day might be agreed upon, he would
be at the statues, where either my father or myself would meet him, spend
a couple of hours with him, and then return. Whoever met George was to
bring the gold as though it were for the Mayor, and George could be
trusted to be human enough to bring it down, when he saw that it would be
left where it was if he did not do so.

"He will kick a good deal," said the Mayor, "at first, but he will come
round in the end."

Luncheon was now announced. My father was feeling faint and ill; more
than once during the forenoon he had had a return of the strange
giddiness and momentary loss of memory which had already twice attacked
him, but he had recovered in each case so quickly that no one had seen he
was unwell. He, poor man, did not yet know what serious brain exhaustion
these attacks betokened, and finding himself in his usual health as soon
as they passed away, set them down as simply effects of fatigue and undue
excitement.

George did not lunch with the others. Yram explained that he had to draw
up a report which would occupy him till dinner time. Her three other
sons, and her three lovely daughters, were there. My father was
delighted with all of them, for they made friends with him at once. He
had feared that he would have been disgraced in their eyes, by his having
just come from prison, but whatever they may have thought, no trace of
anything but a little engaging timidity on the girls' part was to be
seen. The two elder boys--or rather young men, for they seemed fully
grown, though, like George, not yet bearded--treated him as already an
old acquaintance, while the youngest, a lad of fourteen, walked straight
up to him, put out his hand, and said, "How do you do, sir?" with a
pretty blush that went straight to my father's heart.

"These boys," he said to Yram aside, "who have nothing to blush for--see
how the blood mantles into their young cheeks, while I, who should blush
at being spoken to by them, cannot do so."

"Do not talk nonsense," said Yram, with mock