refer to Julia Hazeltine (of whom, however, he was fond enough), but to
that collection of manuscript note-books in which his life lay buried.
That he should ever have made up his mind to separate himself from these
collections, and go forth upon the world with no other resources than
his memory supplied, is a circumstance highly pathetic in itself, and
but little creditable to the wisdom of his nephews.

The design, or at least the temptation, was already some months old; and
when a bill for eight hundred pounds, payable to himself, was suddenly
placed in Joseph's hand, it brought matters to an issue. He retained
that bill, which, to one of his frugality, meant wealth; and he promised
himself to disappear among the crowds at Waterloo, or (if that should
prove impossible) to slink out of the house in the course of the evening
and melt like a dream into the millions of London. By a peculiar
interposition of Providence and railway mismanagement he had not so long
to wait.

He was one of the first to come to himself and scramble to his feet
after the Browndean catastrophe, and he had no sooner remarked his
prostrate nephews than he understood his opportunity and fled. A man of
upwards of seventy, who has just met with a railway accident, and who is
cumbered besides with the full uniform of Sir Faraday Bond, is not very
likely to flee far, but the wood was close at hand and offered the
fugitive at least a temporary covert. Hither, then, the old gentleman
skipped with extraordinary expedition, and, being somewhat winded and a
good deal shaken, here he lay down in a convenient grove and was
presently overwhelmed by slumber. The way of fate is often highly
entertaining to the looker-on, and it is certainly a pleasant
circumstance, that while Morris and John were delving in the sand to
conceal the body of a total stranger, their uncle lay in dreamless sleep
a few hundred yards deeper in the wood.

He was awakened by the jolly note of a bugle from the neighbouring high
road, where a _char-a-banc_ was bowling by with some belated tourists.
The sound cheered his old heart, it directed his steps into the bargain,
and soon he was on the highway, looking east and west from under his
vizor, and doubtfully revolving what he ought to do. A deliberate sound
of wheels arose in the distance, and then a cart was seen approaching,
well filled with parcels, driven by a good-natured looking man on a
double bench, and displaying on a board th