the old man any time these seven years; what a chance for a
judicial blunder! "But no," thought Morris, "they cannot, they dare not,
make it murder. Not that. But honestly, and speaking as a man to a man,
I don't see any other crime in the calendar (except arson) that I don't
seem somehow to have committed. And yet I'm a perfectly respectable man,
and wished nothing but my due. Law is a pretty business."

With this conclusion firmly seated in his mind, Morris Finsbury
descended to the hall of the house in John Street, still half-shaven.
There was a letter in the box; he knew the handwriting: John at last!

"Well, I think I might have been spared this," he said bitterly, and
tore it open.

"Dear Morris," it ran, "what the dickens do you mean by it? I'm in an
awful hole down here; I have to go on tick, and the parties on the
spot don't cotton to the idea; they couldn't, because it is so plain
I'm in a stait of Destitution. I've got no bed-clothes, think of
that, I must have coins, the hole thing's a Mockry, I wont stand it,
nobody would. I would have come away before, only I have no money for
the railway fare. Don't be a lunatic, Morris, you don't seem to
understand my dredful situation. I have to get the stamp on tick. A
fact.--Ever your affte. Brother,

"J. FINSBURY."

"Can't even spell!" Morris reflected, as he crammed the letter in his
pocket, and left the house. "What can I do for him? I have to go to the
expense of a barber, I'm so shattered! How can I send anybody coins?
It's hard lines, I daresay; but does he think I'm living on hot muffins?
One comfort," was his grim reflection, "he can't cut and run--he's got
to stay; he's as helpless as the dead." And then he broke forth again:
"Complains, does he? and he's never even heard of Bent Pitman! If he had
what I have on my mind, he might complain with a good grace."

But these were not honest arguments, or not wholly honest; there was a
struggle in the mind of Morris; he could not disguise from himself that
his brother John was miserably situated at Browndean, without news,
without money, without bed-clothes, without society or any
entertainment; and by the time he had been shaved and picked a hasty
breakfast at a coffee tavern, Morris had arrived at a compromise.

"Poor Johnny," he said to himself, "he's in an awful box! I can't send
him coins, but I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll send him the _Pink
Un_--it'll cheer John up; a