all reproach. But, happily for the investor, forgery is an affair

of practice. And as Morris sat surrounded by examples of his uncle's

signature and of his own incompetence, insidious depression stole upon

his spirits. From time to time the wind wuthered in the chimney at his

back; from time to time there swept over Bloomsbury a squall so dark

that he must rise and light the gas; about him was the chill and the

mean disorder of a house out of commission--the floor bare, the sofa

heaped with books and accounts enveloped in a dirty table-cloth, the

pens rusted, the paper glazed with a thick film of dust; and yet these

were but adminicles of misery, and the true root of his depression lay

round him on the table in the shape of misbegotten forgeries.

'It's one of the strangest things I ever heard of,' he complained. 'It

almost seems as if it was a talent that I didn't possess.' He went once

more minutely through his proofs. 'A clerk would simply gibe at them,'

said he. 'Well, there's nothing else but tracing possible.'

He waited till a squall had passed and there came a blink of scowling

daylight. Then he went to the window, and in the face of all John Street

traced his uncle's signature. It was a poor thing at the best. 'But it

must do,' said he, as he stood gazing woefully on his handiwork. 'He's

dead, anyway.' And he filled up the cheque for a couple of hundred and

sallied forth for the Anglo-Patagonian Bank.

There, at the desk at which he was accustomed to transact business,

and with as much indifference as he could assume, Morris presented the

The Wrong Box