uld divorce our traveller.

The three Finsburys mounted into their compartment, and fell immediately
to quarrelling, a step unseemly in itself and (in this case) highly
unfortunate for Morris. Had he lingered a moment longer by the window,
this tale need never have been written. For he might then have observed
(as the porters did not fail to do) the arrival of a second passenger in
the uniform of Sir Faraday Bond. But he had other matters on hand, which
he judged (God knows how erroneously) to be more important.

"I never heard of such a thing," he cried, resuming a discussion which
had scarcely ceased all morning. "The bill is not yours; it is mine."

"It is payable to me," returned the old gentleman, with an air of bitter
obstinacy. "I will do what I please with my own property."

The bill was one for eight hundred pounds, which had been given him at
breakfast to endorse, and which he had simply pocketed.

"Hear him, Johnny!" cried Morris. "His property! the very clothes upon
his back belong to me."

"Let him alone," said John. "I am sick of both of you."

"That is no way to speak of your uncle, sir," cried Joseph. "I will not
endure this disrespect. You are a pair of exceedingly forward, impudent,
and ignorant young men, and I have quite made up my mind to put an end
to the whole business."

"O skittles!" said the graceful John.

But Morris was not so easy in his mind. This unusual act of
insubordination had already troubled him; and these mutinous words now
sounded ominously in his ears. He looked at the old gentleman uneasily.
Upon one occasion, many years before, when Joseph was delivering a
lecture, the audience had revolted in a body; finding their entertainer
somewhat dry, they had taken the question of amusement into their own
hands; and the lecturer (along with the board schoolmaster, the Baptist
clergyman, and a working-man's candidate, who made up his bodyguard) was
ultimately driven from the scene. Morris had not been present on that
fatal day; if he had, he would have recognised a certain fighting
glitter in his uncle's eye, and a certain chewing movement of his lips,
as old acquaintances. But even to the inexpert these symptoms breathed
of something dangerous.

"Well, well," said Morris. "I have no wish to bother you further till we
get to London."

Joseph did not so much as look at him in answer; with tremulous hands he
produced a copy of the _British Mechanic_, and ostentatiously buried
hi