e judicious levity," says Michael Finsbury in the
text: nor can any better excuse be found for the volume in the reader's
hand. The authors can but add that one of them is old enough to be
ashamed of himself, and the other young enough to learn better._

_R. L. S._
_L. O._

THE WRONG BOX

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH MORRIS SUSPECTS

How very little does the amateur, dwelling at home at ease, comprehend
the labours and perils of the author, and, when he smilingly skims the
surface of a work of fiction, how little does he consider the hours of
toil, consultation of authorities, researches in the Bodleian,
correspondence with learned and illegible Germans--in one word, the vast
scaffolding that was first built up and then knocked down, to while away
an hour for him in a railway train! Thus I might begin this tale with a
biography of Tonti--birthplace, parentage, genius probably inherited
from his mother, remarkable instance of precocity, etc.--and a complete
treatise on the system to which he bequeathed his name. The material is
all beside me in a pigeon-hole, but I scorn to appear vainglorious.
Tonti is dead, and I never saw anyone who even pretended to regret him;
and, as for the tontine system, a word will suffice for all the purposes
of this unvarnished narrative.

A number of sprightly youths (the more the merrier) put up a certain sum
of money, which is then funded in a pool under trustees; coming on for a
century later, the proceeds are fluttered for a moment in the face of
the last survivor, who is probably deaf, so that he cannot even hear of
his success--and who is certainly dying, so that he might just as well
have lost. The peculiar poetry and even humour of the scheme is now
apparent, since it is one by which nobody concerned can possibly profit;
but its fine, sportsmanlike character endeared it to our grand-parents.

When Joseph Finsbury and his brother Masterman were little lads in
white-frilled trousers, their father--a well-to-do merchant in
Cheapside--caused them to join a small but rich tontine of
seven-and-thirty lives. A thousand pounds was the entrance fee; and
Joseph Finsbury can remember to this day the visit to the lawyer's,
where the members of the tontine--all children like himself--were
assembled together, and sat in turn in the big office chair, and signed
their names with the assistance of a kind old gentleman in spectacles
and Wellington boots. He remembers playing with the