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Here he would sometimes lament his connection with the tontine. 'If it
were not for that,' he cried one afternoon, 'he would not care to keep
me. I might be a free man, Julia. And I could so easily support myself
by giving lectures.'
'To be sure you could,' said she; 'and I think it one of the meanest
things he ever did to deprive you of that amusement. There were those
nice people at the Isle of Cats (wasn't it?) who wrote and asked you so
very kindly to give them an address. I did think he might have let you
go to the Isle of Cats.'
'
He is a man of no intelligence,' cried Joseph. 'He lives here literally
surrounded by the absorbing spectacle of life, and for all the good
it does him, he might just as well be in his coffin. Think of his
opportunities! The heart of any other young man would burn within him
at the chance. The amount of information that I have it in my power
to convey, if he would only listen, is a thing that beggars language,
Julia.'
'
Whatever you do, my dear, you mustn't excite yourself,' said Julia;
for you know, if you look at all ill, the doctor will be sent for.'
'
'That is very true,' returned the old man humbly, 'I will compose myself
with a little study.' He thumbed his gallery of notebooks. 'I wonder,'
he said, 'I wonder (since I see your hands are occupied) whether it
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