rtly
ruinous, betrayed no trace of the passage of Hercules. But it was a
weary Morris that crept up to bed; his arms and shoulders ached, the
palms of his hands burned from the rough kisses of the coal-axe, and
there was one smarting finger that stole continually to his mouth. Sleep
long delayed to visit the dilapidated hero, and with the first peep of
day it had again deserted him.

The morning, as though to accord with his disastrous fortunes, dawned
inclemently. An easterly gale was shouting in the streets; flaws of rain
angrily assailed the windows; and as Morris dressed, the draught from
the fireplace vividly played about his legs.

"I think," he could not help observing bitterly, "that with all I have
to bear, they might have given me decent weather."

There was no bread in the house, for Miss Hazeltine (like all women left
to themselves) had subsisted entirely upon cake. But some of this was
found, and (along with what the poets call a glass of fair, cold water)
made up a semblance of a morning meal, and then down he sat undauntedly
to his delicate task.

Nothing can be more interesting than the study of signatures, written
(as they are) before meals and after, during indigestion and
intoxication; written when the signer is trembling for the life of his
child or has come from winning the Derby, in his lawyer's office, or
under the bright eyes of his sweetheart. To the vulgar, these seem never
the same; but to the expert, the bank clerk, or the lithographer, they
are constant quantities, and as recognisable as the North Star to the
night-watch on deck.

To all this Morris was alive. In the theory of that graceful art in
which he was now embarking, our spirited leather-merchant was beyond all
reproach. But, happily for the investor, forgery is an affair of
practice. And as Morris sat surrounded by examples of his uncle's
signature and of his own incompetence, insidious depression stole upon
his spirits. From time to time the wind wuthered in the chimney at his
back; from time to time there swept over Bloomsbury a squall so dark
that he must rise and light the gas; about him was the chill and the
mean disorder of a house out of commission--the floor bare, the sofa
heaped with books and accounts enveloped in a dirty table-cloth, the
pens rusted, the paper glazed with a thick film of dust; and yet these
were but adminicles of misery, and the true root of his depression lay
round him on the table in the shape of