tle Josselins, who have already got so much
more than _they_ need, what with their late father and me; and my
sister, who is a widow and childless, and "riche a millions" too!
and cares for nobody in all this wide world but little Josselins,
who don't care for money in the least, and would sooner work for
their living--even break stones on the road--anything sooner than
loaf and laze and loll through life. We all have to give most of it
away--not that I need proclaim it from the house-tops! It is but a
dull and futile hobby, giving away to those who deserve; they soon
leave off deserving.

How fortunate that so much money is really wanted by people who
don't deserve it any more than I do; and who, besides, are so weak
and stupid and lazy and honest--or so incurably dishonest--that they
can't make it for themselves! I have to look after a good many of
these people. Barty was fond of them, honest or not. They are so
incurably prolific; and so was he, poor dear boy! but, oh, the
difference! Grapes don't grow on thorns, nor figs on thistles!

I'm a thorn, alas! in my own side, more often than not--and a
thistle in the sides of a good many donkeys, whom I feed because
they're too stupid or too lazy to feed themselves! But at least I
know my place, and the knowledge is more bother to me than all my
money, and the race of Maurice will soon be extinct.

* * * * *

When Barty went to foreign parts, on the 2d of May, 1856, I didn't
trouble myself about such questions as these.

Life was so horribly stale in London without Barty that I became a
quite exemplary young man when I woke up from that long nap on the
floor of my laboratory in Barge Yard, Bucklersbury; a reformed
character: from sheer grief, I really believe!

I thought of many things--ugly things--very ugly things indeed--and
meant to have done with them. I thought of some very handsome things
too--a pair of beautiful crown-jewels, each rare as the black
tulip--and in each of them a bright little sign like this:?

I don't believe I ever gave my father another bad quarter of an hour
from that moment. I even went to church on Sunday mornings quite
regularly; not his own somewhat severe place of worship, it is true!
But the Foundling Hospital. There, in the gallery, would I sit with
my sister, and listen to Miss Dolby and Miss Louisa Pyne and Mr.
Lawler the bass--and a tenor and alto whose names I cannot recall;
and I thought they san