halfpenny! I know I'm an ass, and you may laugh at me to your
heart's delight.' And as Julia's lips opened with a smile, he

once more dropped into music. 'There's the Land of Cherry Isle!'
he sang, courting her with his eyes.

'It's like an opera,' said Julia, rather faintly.
'What should it be?' said Gideon. 'Am I not Jimson? It would be

strange if I did not serenade my love. O yes, I mean the word, my
Julia; and I mean to win you. I am in dreadful trouble, and I

have not a penny of my own, and I have cut the silliest figure;
and yet I mean to win you, Julia. Look at me, if you can, and

tell me no!'
She looked at him; and whatever her eyes may have told him, it is

to be supposed he took a pleasure in the message, for he read it
a long while.

'And Uncle Ned will give us some money to go on upon in the
meanwhile,' he said at last.

'Well, I call that cool!' said a cheerful voice at his elbow.
Gideon and Julia sprang apart with wonderful alacrity; the latter

annoyed to observe that although they had never moved since they
sat down, they were now quite close together; both presenting

faces of a very heightened colour to the eyes of Mr Edward Hugh
Bloomfield. That gentleman, coming up the river in his boat, had

captured the truant canoe, and divining what had happened, had
thought to steal a march upon Miss Hazeltine at her sketch. He

had unexpectedly brought down two birds with one stone; and as he
looked upon the pair of flushed and breathless culprits, the

pleasant human instinct of the matchmaker softened his heart.
'Well, I call that cool,' he repeated; 'you seem to count very

securely upon Uncle Ned. But look here, Gid, I thought I had told
you to keep away?'

'To keep away from Maidenhead,' replied Gid. 'But how should I
expect to find you here?'

'There is something in that,' Mr Bloomfield admitted. 'You see I
thought it better that even you should be ignorant of my address;

those rascals, the Finsburys, would have wormed it out of you.
And just to put them off the scent I hoisted these abominable

colours. But that is not all, Gid; you promised me to work, and
here I find you playing the fool at Padwick.'

'Please, Mr Bloomfield, you must not be hard on Mr Forsyth,' said
Julia. 'Poor boy, he is in dreadful straits.'

'What's this, Gid?' enquired the uncle. 'Have you been fighting?
or is it a bill?'

These, in the opinion of the Squirradical, were the two
misfortunes incident to gentlemen; and indeed both were culled

from his own career. He had once put his name (as a matter of
form) on a friend's paper; it had cost him a cool thousand; and

the friend had gone about with the fear of death upon him ever
since, and never turned a corner without scouting in front of him

for Mr Bloomfield and the oaken staff. As for fighting, the
Squirradical was always on the brink of it; and once, when (in

the character of president of a Radical club) he had cleared out
the hall of his opponents, things had gone even further. Mr

Holtum, the Conservative candidate, who lay so long on the bed of
sickness, was prepared to swear to Mr Bloomfield. 'I will swear

to it in any court--it was the hand of that brute that struck me
down,' he was reported to have said; and when he was thought to

be sinking, it was known that he had made an ante-mortem
statement in that sense. It was a cheerful day for the

Squirradical when Holtum was restored to his brewery.
'It's much worse than that,' said Gideon; 'a combination of

circumstances really providentially unjust--a--in fact, a
syndicate of murderers seem to have perceived my latent ability

to rid them of the traces of their crime. It's a legal study
after all, you see!' And with these words, Gideon, for the second

time that day, began to describe the adventures of the Broadwood
Grand.

'I must write to The Times,' cried Mr Bloomfield.
'Do you want to get me disbarred?' asked Gideon.

'Disbarred! Come, it can't be as bad as that,' said his uncle.
'It's a good, honest, Liberal Government that's in, and they

would certainly move at my request. Thank God, the days of Tory
jobbery are at an end.'

'It wouldn't do, Uncle Ned,' said Gideon.
'But you're not mad enough,' cried Mr Bloomfield, 'to persist in

trying to dispose of it yourself?'
'There is no other path open to me,' said Gideon.

'It's not common sense, and I will not hear of it,' cried Mr
Bloomfield. 'I command you, positively, Gid, to desist from this

criminal interference.'
'Very well, then, I hand it over to you,' said Gideon, 'and you

can do what you like with the dead body.'
'God forbid!' ejaculated the president of the Radical Club, 'I'll

have nothing to do with it.'
'Then you must allow me to do the best I can,' returned his

nephew. 'Believe me, I have a distincttalent for this sort of
difficulty.'

'We might forward it to that pest-house, the Conservative Club,'
observed Mr Bloomfield. 'It might damage them in the eyes of

their constituents; and it could be profitably worked up in the
local journal.'

'If you see any political capital in the thing,' said Gideon,
'you may have it for me.'

'No, no, Gid--no, no, I thought you might. I will have no hand in
the thing. On reflection, it's highly undesirable that either I

or Miss Hazeltine should linger here. We might be observed,' said
the president, looking up and down the river; 'and in my public

position the consequences would be painful for the party. And, at
any rate, it's dinner-time.'

'What?' cried Gideon, plunging for his watch. 'And so it is!
Great heaven, the piano should have been here hours ago!'

Mr Bloomfield was clambering back into his boat; but at these
words he paused.

'I saw it arrive myself at the station; I hired a carrier man; he
had a round to make, but he was to be here by four at the

latest,' cried the barrister. 'No doubt the piano is open, and
the body found.'

'You must fly at once,' cried Mr Bloomfield, 'it's the only manly
step.'

'But suppose it's all right?' wailed Gideon. 'Suppose the piano
comes, and I am not here to receive it? I shall have hanged

myself by my cowardice. No, Uncle Ned, enquiries must be made in
Padwick; I dare not go, of course; but you may--you could hang

about the police office, don't you see?'
'No, Gid--no, my dear nephew,' said Mr Bloomfield, with the voice

of one on the rack. 'I regard you with the most sacred affection;
and I thank God I am an Englishman--and all that. But not--not

the police, Gid.'
'Then you desert me?' said Gideon. 'Say it plainly.'

'Far from it! far from it!' protested Mr Bloomfield. 'I only
propose caution. Common sense, Gid, should always be an

Englishman's guide.'
'Will you let me speak?' said Julia. 'I think Gideon had better

leave this dreadful houseboat, and wait among the willows over
there. If the piano comes, then he could step out and take it in;

and if the police come, he could slip into our houseboat, and
there needn't be any more Jimson at all. He could go to bed, and

we could burn his clothes (couldn't we?) in the steam-launch; and