see us together; and really, do you know, I am very much obliged
to him, for this is about the luckiest thing that could have

possibly occurred. It seems to me--Uncle Ned, I declare to heaven
it seems to me--I'm clear of it!'

'Clear of what?' asked the Squirradical.
'The whole affair!' cried Gideon. 'That man has been ass enough

to steal the cart and the dead body; what he hopes to do with it
I neither know nor care. My hands are free, Jimson ceases; down

with Jimson. Shake hands with me, Uncle Ned--Julia, darling girl,
Julia, I--'

'Gideon, Gideon!' said his uncle. 'O, it's all right, uncle,
when we're going to be married so soon,' said Gideon. 'You know

you said so yourself in the houseboat.'
'Did I?' said Uncle Ned; 'I am certain I said no such thing.'

'Appeal to him, tell him he did, get on his soft side,' cried
Gideon. 'He's a real brick if you get on his soft side.'

'Dear Mr Bloomfield,' said Julia, 'I know Gideon will be such a
very good boy, and he has promised me to do such a lot of law,

and I will see that he does too. And you know it is so very
steadying to young men, everybody admits that; though, of course,

I know I have no money, Mr Bloomfield,' she added.
'My dear young lady, as this rapscallion told you today on the

boat, Uncle Ned has plenty,' said the Squirradical, 'and I can
never forget that you have been shamefully defrauded. So as

there's nobody looking, you had better give your Uncle Ned a
kiss. There, you rogue,' resumed Mr Bloomfield, when the ceremony

had been daintily performed, 'this very pretty young lady is
yours, and a vast deal more than you deserve. But now, let us get

back to the houseboat, get up steam on the launch, and away back
to town.'

'That's the thing!' cried Gideon; 'and tomorrow there will be no
houseboat, and no Jimson, and no carrier's cart, and no piano;

and when Harker awakes on the ditchside, he may tell himself the
whole affair has been a dream.'

'Aha!' said Uncle Ned, 'but there's another man who will have a
different awakening. That fellow in the cart will find he has

been too clever by half.'
'Uncle Ned and Julia,' said Gideon, 'I am as happy as the King of

Tartary, my heart is like a threepenny-bit, my heels are like
feathers; I am out of all my troubles, Julia's hand is in mine.

Is this a time for anything but handsome sentiments? Why, there's
not room in me for anything that's not angelic! And when I think

of that poor unhappy devil in the cart, I stand here in the night
and cry with a single heart God help him!'

'Amen,' said Uncle Ned.
CHAPTER XIII. The Tribulations of Morris: Part the Second

In a really polite age of literature I would have scorned to cast
my eye again on the contortions of Morris. But the study is in

the spirit of the day; it presents, besides, features of a high,
almost a repulsive, morality; and if it should prove the means of

preventing any respectable and inexperienced gentleman from
plunging light-heartedly into crime, even political crime, this

work will not have been penned in vain.
He rose on the morrow of his night with Michael, rose from the

leaden slumber of distress, to find his hand tremulous, his eyes
closed with rheum, his throat parched, and his digestion

obviously paralysed. 'Lord knows it's not from eating!' Morris
thought; and as he dressed he reconsidered his position under

several heads. Nothing will so well depict the troubled seas in
which he was now voyaging as a review of these various anxieties.

I have thrown them (for the reader's convenience) into a certain
order; but in the mind of one poor human equal they whirled

together like the dust of hurricanes. With the same obliging
preoccupation, I have put a name to each of his distresses; and

it will be observed with pity that every individual item would
have graced and commended the cover of a railway novel.

Anxiety the First: Where is the Body? or, The Mystery of Bent
Pitman. It was now manifestly plain that Bent Pitman (as was to

be looked for from his ominous appellation) belonged to the
darker order of the criminal class. An honest man would not have

cashed the bill; a humane man would not have accepted in silence
the tragiccontents of the water-butt; a man, who was not already

up to the hilts in gore, would have lacked the means of secretly
disposing them. This process of reasoning left a horrid image of

the monster, Pitman. Doubtless he had long ago disposed of the
body--dropping it through a trapdoor in his back kitchen, Morris

supposed, with some hazy recollection of a picture in a penny
dreadful; and doubtless the man now lived in wanton splendour on

the proceeds of the bill. So far, all was peace. But with the
profligate habits of a man like Bent Pitman (who was no doubt a

hunchback in the bargain), eight hundred pounds could be easily
melted in a week. When they were gone, what would he be likely to

do next? A hell-like voice in Morris's own bosom gave the answer:
'Blackmail me.'

Anxiety the Second: The Fraud of the Tontine; or, Is my Uncle
dead? This, on which all Morris's hopes depended, was yet a

question. He had tried to bully Teena; he had tried to bribe her;
and nothing came of it. He had his moral conviction still; but

you cannot blackmail a sharp lawyer on a moral conviction. And
besides, since his interview with Michael, the idea wore a less

attractive countenance. Was Michael the man to be blackmailed?
and was Morris the man to do it? Grave considerations. 'It's not

that I'm afraid of him,' Morris so far condescended to reassure
himself; 'but I must be very certain of my ground, and the deuce

of it is, I see no way. How unlike is life to novels! I wouldn't
have even begun this business in a novel, but what I'd have met a

dark, slouching fellow in the Oxford Road, who'd have become my
accomplice, and known all about how to do it, and probably broken

into Michael's house at night and found nothing but a waxwork
image; and then blackmailed or murdered me. But here, in real

life, I might walk the streets till I dropped dead, and none of
the criminal classes would look near me. Though, to be sure,

there is always Pitman,' he added thoughtfully.
Anxiety the Third: The Cottage at Browndean; or, The Underpaid

Accomplice. For he had an accomplice, and that accomplice was
blooming unseen in a damp cottage in Hampshire with empty

pockets. What could be done about that? He really ought to have
sent him something; if it was only a post-office order for five

bob, enough to prove that he was kept in mind, enough to keep him
in hope, beer, and tobacco. 'But what would you have?' thought

Morris; and ruefully poured into his hand a half-crown, a florin,
and eightpence in small change. For a man in Morris's position,

at war with all society, and conducting, with the hand of
inexperience, a widely ramified intrigue, the sum was already a

derision. John would have to be doing; no mistake of that. 'But
then,' asked the hell-like voice, 'how long is John likely to

stand it?'
Anxiety the Fourth: The Leather Business; or, The Shutters at

Last: a Tale of the City. On this head Morris had no news. He had
not yet dared to visit the family concern; yet he knew he must

delay no longer, and if anything had been wanted to sharpen this
conviction, Michael's references of the night before rang

ambiguously in his ear. Well and good. To visit the city might be
indispensable; but what was he to do when he was there? He had no

right to sign in his own name; and, with all the will in the
world, he seemed to lack the art of signing with his uncle's.

Under these circumstances, Morris could do nothing to