shoes were sound; and the pair would start for the leather business

arm in arm. The way there was probably dreary enough, for there was no

pretence of friendly feeling; Morris had never ceased to upbraid

his guardian with his defalcation and to lament the burthen of Miss

Hazeltine; and Joseph, though he was a mild enough soul, regarded his

nephew with something very near akin to hatred. But the way there

was nothing to the journey back; for the mere sight of the place of

business, as well as every detail of its transactions, was enough to

poison life for any Finsbury.

Joseph's name was still over the door; it was he who still signed the

cheques; but this was only policy on the part of Morris, and designed

to discourage other members of the tontine. In reality the business was

entirely his; and he found it an inheritance of sorrows. He tried to

sell it, and the offers he received were quite derisory. He tried to

extend it, and it was only the liabilities he succeeded in extending; to

restrict it, and it was only the profits he managed to restrict. Nobody

had ever made money out of that concern except the capable Scot, who

retired (after his discharge) to the neighbourhood of Banff and built a

castle with his profits. The memory of this fallacious Caledonian Morris

would revile daily, as he sat in the private office opening his mail,

with old Joseph at another table, sullenly awaiting orders, or savagely

affixing signatures to he knew not what. And when the man of the heather

pushed cynicism so far as to send him the announcement of his second

marriage (to Davida, eldest daughter of the Revd. Alexander McCraw), it

was really supposed that Morris would have had a fit.

The Wrong Box