nce, at a
lecture-hall in Holloway; 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. Morris 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 inexplicable
symptoms of decline. A young but capable Scot was chosen as manager to
the enterprise, and the cares of business never again afflicted Joseph
Finsbury. Leaving his charges in the hands of the capable Scot (who was
married), he began his extensive travels on the Continent and in Asia
Minor.

With a polyglot Testament in one hand and a phrase-book in the other,
he groped his way among the speakers of eleven European languages.
The first of these guides is hardly applicable to the purposes 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 another filled many notebooks with the results of his
researches.

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 somewhat awkward, as
the leather business was by no means in a state to court enquiry. 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 was only prevented from
taking extreme steps by the advice of the professional man. 'You cannot
get blood from 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 possessed, and