urned from the dead to enjoin. And, what with one thing and another,
and a sudden dearth of money which fell on me (when my cat-fund was all
spent, and my gold watch gone up a gargoyle), I had such a job to feed
the living that I never was able to follow up the dead.

The magistrates held some enquiry, of course, and I had to give my
evidence; but nothing came of it, except that the quarryman, Evan
Peters, clearly proved his innocence. Being a very clever fellow, and
dabbling a bit in geology, he had taken his hammer up the mountains, as
his practice was when he could spare the time, to seek for new veins of
slate, or lead, or even gold, which is said to be there. He was able to
show that he had been at Tal y Llyn at the time of day when George would
be having his luncheon; and the people who knew Evan Peters were much
more inclined to suspect me than him. But why should they suspect
anybody, when anyone but a fool could see "how plain it was of the
cholera?"

Twenty years slipped by (like a rope paid out on the seashore, "hand
over hand," chafing as it goes, but gone as soon as one looks after it),
and my hair was gray, and my fame was growing (slowly, as it appeared
to me, but as all my friends said "rapidly"; as if I could never have
earned it!) when the mystery of George Bowring's death was solved
without an effort.

I had been so taken up with the three dear children, and working for
them as hard as if they were my own (for the treasury of our British
empire was bankrupt to these little ones--"no provision had been made
for such a case," and so we had to make it)--I say that these children
had grown to me and I to them in such degree that they all of them
called me "Uncle!"

This is the most endearing word that one human being can use to another.
A fellow is certain to fight with his brothers and sisters, his father,
and perhaps even his mother. Tenfold thus with his wife; but whoever did
fight with his uncle? Of course I mean unless he was his heir. And the
tenderness of this relation has not escaped _vox populi_, that keen
discriminator.

Who is the most reliable, cordial, indispensable of mankind--especially
to artists--in every sense of the word the dearest? A pawnbroker; he is
our uncle.

Under my care, these three children grew to be splendid "members of
society." They used to come and kick over my easel with legs that were
quite Titanic; and I could not scold them when I thought of George.
Bob Bistre