en,--not that they would be partial to us, but because
we knew all their questions,--within a week, both George and I were
forced to leave the dear old school, the grand old town, the lovely
Severn, and everything but one another.

He lost his father; I lost my uncle, a gentleman in Derbyshire, who had
well provided my education; but, having a family of his own, could not
be expected to leave me much. And he left me even less than could, from
his own point of view, have been rational. It is true that he had seven
children; but still a man of,L15,000 a year might have done, without
injustice--or, I might say, with better justice--something more than
to leave his nephew a sum which, after much pushing about into divers
insecurities, fetched L72 10s. per annum.

Nevertheless, I am truly grateful; though, perhaps, at the time I had
not that knowledge of the world which enlarges the grateful organs. It
cannot matter what my feelings were, and I never was mercenary. All my
sentiments at that period ran in Greek senarii; and perhaps it would
show how good and lofty boys were in that ancient time, though now they
are only rude Solecists, if I were to set these verses down--but, after
much consideration, I find it wiser to keep them in.

George Bowring's father had some appointment well up in the Treasury.
He seems to have been at some time knighted for finding a manuscript of
great value that went in the end to the paper mills. How he did it, or
what it was, or whether he ever did it at all, were questions for no
one to meddle with. People in those days had larger minds than they
ever seem to exhibit now. The king might tap a man, and say, "Rise, Sir
Joseph," and all the journals of the age, or, at least, the next day,
would echo "Sir Joseph!" And really he was worthy of it. A knight he
lived, and a knight he died; and his widow found it such a comfort!

And now on his father's sudden death, George Bowring was left not
so very well off. Sir Joseph had lived, as a knight should do, in a
free-handed, errant, and chivalrous style; and what he left behind
him made it lucky that the title dropped. George, however, was better
placed, as regards the world, than I was; but not so very much as to
make a difference between us. Having always held together, and being
started in life together, we resolved to face the world (as other people
are always called) side by side, and with a friendship that should make
us as good as one.

This,