anything. The dean
did pay; but he was a little slow in his payments, and money with
him was never very plentiful. In these circumstances it became very
expedient that Frank Greystock should earn his bread early in life.

Nevertheless, he had chosen a profession which is not often lucrative
at first. He had been called to the Bar, and had gone,--and was still
going,--the circuit in which lies the cathedral city of Bobsborough.
Bobsborough is not much of a town, and was honoured with the judges'
visits only every other circuit. Frank began pretty well, getting
some little work in London, and perhaps nearly enough to pay the cost
of his circuit out of the county in which the cathedral was situated.
But he began life after that impecunious fashion for which the
Greystocks have been noted. Tailors, robemakers, and booksellers
gave him trust, and did believe that they would get their money. And
any persistent tradesman did get it. He did not actually hoist the
black flag of impecuniosity, and proclaim his intention of preying
generally upon the retail dealers, as his uncle the admiral had done.
But he became known as a young man with whom money was "tight." All
this had been going on for three or four years before he had met Lucy
Morris at the deanery. He was then eight-and-twenty, and had been
four years called. He was thirty when old Lady Fawn hinted to him
that he had better not pay any more visits at Fawn Court.

But things had much altered with him of late. At the time of that
visit to the deanery he had made a sudden start in his profession.
The Corporation of the City of London had brought an action against
the Bank of England with reference to certain alleged encroachments,
of which action, considerable as it was in all its interests, no
further notice need be taken here than is given by the statement
that a great deal of money in this cause had found its way among the
lawyers. Some of it penetrated into the pocket of Frank Greystock;
but he earned more than money, better than money, out of that
affair. It was attributed to him by the attorneys that the Bank
of England was saved from the necessity of reconstructing all its
bullion-cellars, and he had made his character for industry. In the
year after that the Bobsborough people were rather driven into a
corner in search of a clever young Conservative candidate for the
borough, and Frank Greystock was invited to stand. It was not thought
that there was much chance o