e one of my friends there who is looking after
light-fingered gentry."

As this was said significantly Edwin did not deign a reply, but, leaning
back in a corner, gazed out at the window and brooded over his unhappy
fate. Truly he had something to brood over. Besides being in the
unpleasant position which we have described, he had quite recently lost
his only relative, a "rich uncle," as he was called, who had brought
Edwin up and had led him to believe that he should be his heir. It was
found, however, on the examination of the old gentleman's affairs, that
his fortune was a myth, and that his house, furniture, and personal
effects would have to be sold in order to pay his debts. When all was
settled, Edwin Gurwood found himself cast upon his own resources with
good health, a kind but wayward disposition, a strong handsome frame, a
middling education, and between three and four hundred pounds in his
pocket. He soon found that this amount of capital melted with alarming
rapidity under the influence of a good appetite and expensive tastes, so
he resolved at once to commence work of some kind. But what was he to
turn to? His uncle had allowed him to do as he pleased. Naturally it
pleased the energetic and enthusiastic boy to learn very little of
anything useful, to read an immense amount of light literature, and to
indulge in much open-air exercise.

Bitterly did he now feel, poor fellow, that this course, although
somewhat pleasing at the time, did not fit him to use and enjoy the more
advanced period of life. He had disliked and refused to sit still even
for an hour at a time in boyhood; it now began to dawn upon him that he
was doomed for life to the greatest of all his horrors, the top of a
three-legged stool! He had hated writing and figures, and now visions
of ledgers, cash-books, invoice-books and similar literature with
endless arithmetical calculations began to float before his mental
vision. With intense regret he reflected that if he had only used
reasonably well the brief period of life which as yet lay behind him, he
might by that time have been done with initial drudgery and have been
entering on a brilliant career in one of the learned professions. As to
the army and navy, he was too old to get into either, even if he had
possessed interest, which he did not. Sternly did he reproach his
departed uncle when he brooded over his wrongs, and soliloquised
thus:--"You ought to have known that I was