making signs as if I was explaining everything. It was tip-top
as long as it lasted. 'Well,' he said, 'I'm deaf, worse luck, but I bet
the constable can hear you.' And off he started one way, and I the
other. They got a spirit-lamp and the _Pink Un_, and that old religious
paper, and another periodical you sent me. I think you must have been
drunk--it had a name like one of those spots that Uncle Joseph used to
hold forth at, and it was all full of the most awful swipes about poetry
and the use of the globes. It was the kind of thing that nobody could
read out of a lunatic asylum. The _Athaeneum_, that was the name! Golly,
what a paper!"

"_Athenaeum_, you mean," said Morris.

"I don't care what you call it," said John, "so as I don't require to
take it in! There, I feel better. Now I'm going to sit by the fire in
the easy-chair; pass me the cheese, and the celery, and the bottle of
port--no, a champagne glass, it holds more. And now you can pitch in;
there's some of the fish left and a chop, and some fizz. Ah," sighed the
refreshed pedestrian, "Michael was right about that port; there's old
and vatted for you! Michael's a man I like; he's clever and reads
books, and the _Athaeneum_, and all that; but he's not dreary to meet, he
don't talk _Athaeneum_ like the other parties; why, the most of them
would throw a blight over a skittle alley! Talking of Michael, I ain't
bored myself to put the question, because of course I knew it from the
first. You've made a hash of it, eh?"

"Michael made a hash of it," said Morris, flushing dark.

"What have we got to do with that?" inquired John.

"He has lost the body, that's what we have to do with it," cried Morris.
"He has lost the body, and the death can't be established."

"Hold on," said John. "I thought you didn't want to?"

"O, we're far past that," said his brother. "It's not the tontine now,
it's the leather business, Johnny; it's the clothes upon our back."

"Stow the slow music," said John, "and tell your story from beginning to
end."

Morris did as he was bid.

"Well, now, what did I tell you?" cried the Great Vance, when the other
had done. "But I know one thing: I'm not going to be humbugged out of my
property."

"I should like to know what you mean to do," said Morris.

"I'll tell you that," responded John with extreme decision. "I'm going
to put my interests in the hands of the smartest lawyer in London; and
whether you go to quod or not is a matter of i