said the old gentleman, resigning himself to circumstances. 'But

you shall feel it in one way: I refuse to pay my bill.'
'I don't care for your bill,' responded Mr Watts. 'What I want is

your absence.'
'That you shall have!' said the old gentleman, and, taking up his

forage cap as he spoke, he crammed it on his head. 'Perhaps you
are too insolent,' he added, 'to inform me of the time of the

next London train?'
'It leaves in three-quarters of an hour,' returned the innkeeper

with alacrity. 'You can easily catch it.'
Joseph's position was one of considerableweakness. On the one

hand, it would have been well to avoid the direct line of
railway, since it was there he might expect his nephews to lie in

wait for his recapture; on the other, it was highly desirable, it
was even strictly needful, to get the bill discounted ere it

should be stopped. To London, therefore, he decided to proceed on
the first train; and there remained but one point to be

considered, how to pay his fare.
Joseph's nails were never clean; he ate almost entirely with his

knife. I doubt if you could say he had the manners of a
gentleman; but he had better than that, a touch of genuine

dignity. Was it from his stay in Asia Minor? Was it from a strain
in the Finsbury blood sometimes alluded to by customers? At

least, when he presented himself before the station-master, his
salaam was truly Oriental, palm-trees appeared to crowd about the

little office, and the simoom or the bulbul--but I leave this
image to persons better acquainted with the East. His appearance,

besides, was highly in his favour; the uniform of Sir Faraday,
however inconvenient and conspicuous, was, at least, a costume in

which no swindler could have hoped to prosper; and the exhibition
of a valuable watch and a bill for eight hundred pounds completed

what deportment had begun. A quarter of an hour later, when the
train came up, Mr Finsbury was introduced to the guard and

installed in a first-classcompartment, the station-master
smilingly assuming all responsibility.

As the old gentleman sat waiting the moment of departure, he was
the witness of an incidentstrangely connected with the fortunes

of his house. A packing-case of cyclopean bulk was borne along
the platform by some dozen of tottering porters, and ultimately,

to the delight of a considerable crowd, hoisted on board the van.
It is often the cheering task of the historian to direct

attention to the designs and (if it may be reverently said) the
artifices of Providence. In the luggage van, as Joseph was borne

out of the station of Southampton East upon his way to London,
the egg of his romance lay (so to speak) unhatched. The huge

packing-case was directed to lie at Waterloo till called for, and
addressed to one 'William Dent Pitman'; and the very next

article, a goodlybarrel jammed into the corner of the van, bore
the superscription, 'M. Finsbury, 16 John Street, Bloomsbury.

Carriage paid.'
In this juxtaposition, the train of powder was prepared; and

there was now wanting only an idle hand to fire it off.
CHAPTER IV. The Magistrate in the Luggage Van

The city of Winchester is famed for a cathedral, a bishop--but he
was unfortunately killed some years ago while riding--a public

school, a considerableassortment of the military, and the
deliberate passage of the trains of the London and South-Western

line. These and many similar associations would have doubtless
crowded on the mind of Joseph Finsbury; but his spirit had at

that time flitted from the railway compartment to a heaven of
populous lecture-halls and endless oratory. His body, in the

meanwhile, lay doubled on the cushions, the forage-cap rakishly
tilted back after the fashion of those that lie in wait for

nursery-maids, the poor old face quiescent, one arm clutching to
his heart Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper.

To him, thus unconscious, enter and exeunt again a pair of
voyagers. These two had saved the train and no more. A tandem

urged to its last speed, an act of something closely bordering on
brigandage at the ticket office, and a spasm of running, had

brought them on the platform just as the engine uttered its
departing snort. There was but one carriage easily within their

reach; and they had sprung into it, and the leader and elder
already had his feet upon the floor, when he observed Mr

Finsbury.
'Good God!' he cried. 'Uncle Joseph! This'll never do.'

And he backed out, almost upsetting his companion, and once more
closed the door upon the sleeping patriarch.

The next moment the pair had jumped into the baggage van.
'What's the row about your Uncle Joseph?' enquired the younger

traveller, mopping his brow. 'Does he object to smoking?'
'I don't know that there's anything the row with him,' returned

the other. 'He's by no means the first comer, my Uncle Joseph, I
can tell you! Very respectable old gentleman; interested in

leather; been to Asia Minor; no family, no assets--and a tongue,
my dear Wickham, sharper than a serpent's tooth.'

'Cantankerous old party, eh?' suggested Wickham.
'Not in the least,' cried the other; 'only a man with a solid

talent for being a bore; rather cheery I dare say, on a desert
island, but on a railway journey insupportable. You should hear

him on Tonti, the ass that started tontines. He's incredible on
Tonti.'

'By Jove!' cried Wickham, 'then you're one of these Finsbury
tontine fellows. I hadn't a guess of that.'

'Ah!' said the other, 'do you know that old boy in the carriage
is worth a hundred thousand pounds to me? There he was asleep,

and nobody there but you! But I spared him, because I'm a
Conservative in politics.'

Mr Wickham, pleased to be in a luggage van, was flitting to and
fro like a gentlemanly butterfly.

'By Jingo!' he cried, 'here's something for you! "M. Finsbury, 16
John Street, Bloomsbury, London." M. stands for Michael, you sly

dog; you keep two establishments, do you?'
'O, that's Morris,' responded Michael from the other end of the

van, where he had found a comfortable seat upon some sacks. 'He's
a little cousin of mine. I like him myself, because he's afraid

of me. He's one of the ornaments of Bloomsbury, and has a
collection of some kind--birds' eggs or something that's supposed

to be curious. I bet it's nothing to my clients!'
'What a lark it would be to play billy with the labels!' chuckled

Mr Wickham. 'By George, here's a tack-hammer! We might send all
these things skipping about the premises like what's-his-name!'

At this moment, the guard, surprised by the sound of voices,
opened the door of his little cabin.

'You had best step in here, gentlemen,' said he, when he had
heard their story.

'Won't you come, Wickham?' asked Michael.
'Catch me--I want to travel in a van,' replied the youth.

And so the door of communication was closed; and for the rest of
the run Mr Wickham was left alone over his diversions on the one

side, and on the other Michael and the guard were closeted
together in familiar talk.

'I can get you a compartment here, sir,' observed the official,
as the train began to slacken speed before Bishopstoke station.

'You had best get out at my door, and I can bring your friend.'
Mr Wickham, whom we left (as the reader has shrewdly suspected)

beginning to 'play billy' with the labels in the van, was a young
gentleman of much wealth, a pleasing but sandy exterior, and a

highly vacant mind. Not many months before, he had contrived to
get himself blackmailed by the family of a Wallachian Hospodar,