showed itself
quite freely. Mr. Francis Wade took a pinch of snuff with a sharp motion
of distaste. "I do not want to hear of your debaucheries," he said; "our
name has been sufficiently disgraced in my hearing."

"What is got over the devil's back goes under his belly," replied Mr.
Richard, coarsely. "My old father got his money by dirtier ways than
these in which I spend it. As villainous an old scoundrel and skinflint
as ever poisoned a seaman, I'll go bail."

Mr. Francis rose. "You need not revile your father, Richard--he left you
all."

"Ay, but by pure accident. He didn't mean it. If he hadn't died in the
nick of time, that unhung murderous villain, Maurice Frere, would have
come in for it. By the way," he added, with a change of tone, "do you
ever hear anything of Maurice?"

"I have not heard for some years," said Mr. Wade. "He is something in
the Convict Department at Sydney, I think." "Is he?" said Mr. Richard,
with a shiver. "Hope he'll stop there. Well, but about business. The
fact is, that--that I am thinking of selling everything."

"Selling everything!"

"Yes. 'Pon my soul I am. The Hampstead place and all."

"Sell North End House!" cried poor Mr. Wade, in bewilderment. "You'd
sell it? Why, the carvings by Grinling Gibbons are the finest in
England."

"I can't help that," laughed Mr. Richard, ringing the bell. "I want
cash, and cash I must have.--Breakfast, Smithers.--I'm going to travel."

Francis Wade was breathless with astonishment. Educated and reared as he
had been, he would as soon have thought of proposing to sell St. Paul's
Cathedral as to sell the casket which held his treasures of art--his
coins, his coffee-cups, his pictures, and his "proofs before letters".

"Surely, Richard, you are not in earnest?" he gasped.

"I am, indeed."

"But--but who will buy it?"

"Plenty of people. I shall cut it up into building allotments. Besides,
they are talking of a suburban line, with a terminus at St. John's
Wood, which will cut the garden in half. You are quite sure you've
breakfasted? Then pardon me."

"Richard, you are jesting with me! You will never let them do such a
thing!"

"I'm thinking of a trip to America," said Mr. Richard, cracking an
egg. "I am sick of Europe. After all, what is the good of a man like
me pretending to belong to 'an old family', with 'a seat' and all that
humbug? Money is the thing now, my dear uncle. Hard cash! That's the
ticket for soup, you may depend."