iety
of the occasion. This was the grandson of the original Moggs, and a very
typical instance of an educated, cultivated, degenerate plutocrat. His
people had taken him about in his youth as the Ruskins took their John
and fostered a passion for history in him, and the actual management of
the Moggs' industry had devolved upon a cousin and a junior partner.

Mr. Moggs, being of a studious and refined disposition, had just
decided--after a careful search for a congenial subject in which he
would not be constantly reminded of soap--to devote himself to the
History of the Thebaid, when this cousin died suddenly and precipitated
responsibilities upon him. In the frankness of conviviality, Moggs
bewailed the uncongenial task thus thrust into his hands, and my uncle
offered to lighten his burden by a partnership then and there. They even
got to terms--extremely muzzy terms, but terms nevertheless.

Each gentleman wrote the name and address of the other on his cuff, and
they separated in a mood of brotherly carelessness, and next morning
neither seems to have thought to rescue his shirt from the wash until
it was too late. My uncle made a painful struggle--it was one of my
business mornings--to recall name and particulars.

"He was an aquarium-faced, long, blond sort of chap, George, with
glasses and a genteel accent," he said.

I was puzzled. "Aquarium-faced?"

"You know how they look at you. His stuff was soap, I'm pretty
nearly certain. And he had a name--And the thing was the straightest
Bit-of-All-right you ever. I was clear enough to spot that..."

We went out at last with knitted brows, and wandered up into Finsbury
seeking a good, well-stocked looking grocer. We called first on a
chemist for a pick-me-up for my uncle, and then we found the shop we
needed.

"I want," said my uncle, "half a pound of every sort of soap you got.
Yes, I want to take them now. Wait a moment, George.... Now what sort of
soap d'you call THAT?"

At the third repetition of that question the young man said, "Moggs'
Domestic."

"Right," said my uncle. "You needn't guess again. Come along, George,
let's go to a telephone and get on to Moggs. Oh--the order? Certainly. I
confirm it. Send it all--send it all to the Bishop of London; he'll have
some good use for it--(First-rate man, George, he is--charities and all
that)--and put it down to me, here's a card--Ponderevo--Tono-Bungay."

Then we went on to Moggs and found him in a camel-hair