hat he is resolved not to pick it."

"As far as I can learn, nothing has been heard about him as yet," said
the son to the father.

"Those limbs weren't his that were picked out of the Thames near
Blackfriars Bridge?"

"They belonged to a poor cripple who was murdered two months since."

"And that body that was found down among the Yorkshire Hills?"

"He was a peddler. There is nothing to induce a belief that Mountjoy has
killed himself or been killed. In the former case his dead body would be
found or his live body would be missing. For the second there is no
imaginable cause for suspicion."

"Then where the devil is he?" said the anxious father.

"Ah, that's the difficulty. But I can imagine no position in which a man
might be more tempted to hide himself. He is disgraced on every side,
and could hardly show his face in London after the money he has lost.
You would not have paid his gambling debts?"

"Certainly not," said the father. "There must be an end to all things."

"Nor could I. Within the last month past he has drawn from me every
shilling that I have had at my immediate command."

"Why did you give 'em to him?"

"It would be difficult to explain all the reasons. He was then my elder
brother, and it suited me to have him somewhat under my hand. At any
rate I did do so, and am unable for the present to do more. Looking
round about, I do not see where it was possible for him to raise a
sovereign as soon as it was once known that he was nobody."

"What will become of him?" said the father. "I don't like the idea of
his being starved. He can't live without something to live upon."

"God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," said the son. "For lambs such
as he there always seems to be pasture provided of one sort or another."

"You would not like to have to trust to such pastures," said the
father.

"Nor should I like to be hanged; but I should have to be hanged if I had
committed murder. Think of the chances which he has had, and the way in
which he has misused them. Although illegitimate, he was to have had the
whole property,--of which not a shilling belongs to him; and he has not
lost it because it was not his own, but has simply gambled it away among
the Jews. What can happen to a man in such a condition better than to
turn up as a hunter among the Rocky Mountains or as a gold-digger in
Australia? In this last adventure he seems to have plunged horribly, and
to have lost over three thousand pou