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brightened up Forsyth, and drunk a devil of a lot of most
indifferent liquor. Let's top off with a visit to my cousins, and

be the instrument of Providence in earnest. Tomorrow I can turn
my attention to leather; tonight I'll just make it lively for 'em

in a friendly spirit.'
About a quarter of an hour later, as the clocks were striking

eleven, the instrument of Providence descended from a hansom,
and, bidding the driver wait, rapped at the door of No. 16 John

Street.
It was promptly opened by Morris.

'O, it's you, Michael,' he said, carefully blocking up the narrow
opening: 'it's very late.'

Michael without a word reached forth, grasped Morris warmly by
the hand, and gave it so extreme a squeeze that the sullen

householder fell back. Profiting by this movement, the lawyer
obtained a footing in the lobby and marched into the dining-room,

with Morris at his heels.
'Where's my Uncle Joseph?' demanded Michael, sitting down in the

most comfortable chair.
'He's not been very well lately,' replied Morris; 'he's staying

at Browndean; John is nursing him; and I am alone, as you see.'
Michael smiled to himself. 'I want to see him on particular

business,' he said.
'You can't expect to see my uncle when you won't let me see your

father,' returned Morris.
'Fiddlestick,' said Michael. 'My father is my father; but Joseph

is just as much my uncle as he's yours; and you have no right to
sequestrate his person.'

'I do no such thing,' said Morris doggedly. 'He is not well, he
is dangerously ill and nobody can see him.'

'I'll tell you what, then,' said Michael. 'I'll make a clean
breast of it. I have come down like the opossum, Morris; I have

come to compromise.'
Poor Morris turned as pale as death, and then a flush of wrath

against the injustice of man's destiny dyed his very temples.
'What do you mean?' he cried, 'I don't believe a word of it.' And

when Michael had assured him of his seriousness, 'Well, then,' he
cried, with another deep flush, 'I won't; so you can put that in

your pipe and smoke it.'
'Oho!' said Michael queerly. 'You say your uncle is dangerously

ill, and you won't compromise? There's something very fishy about
that.'

'What do you mean?' cried Morris hoarsely.
'I only say it's fishy,' returned Michael, 'that is, pertaining

to the finny tribe.'
'Do you mean to insinuate anything?' cried Morris stormily,

trying the high hand.
'Insinuate?' repeated Michael. 'O, don't let's begin to use

awkward expressions! Let us drown our differences in a bottle,
like two affable kinsmen. The Two Affable Kinsmen, sometimes

attributed to Shakespeare,' he added.
Morris's mind was labouring like a mill. 'Does he suspect? or is

this chance and stuff? Should I soap, or should I bully? Soap,'
he concluded. 'It gains time.' 'Well,' said he aloud, and with

rather a painful affectation of heartiness, 'it's long since we
have had an evening together, Michael; and though my habits (as

you know) are very temperate, I may as well make an exception.
Excuse me one moment till I fetch a bottle of whisky from the

cellar.'
'No whisky for me,' said Michael; 'a little of the old still

champagne or nothing.'
For a moment Morris stood irresolute, for the wine was very

valuable: the next he had quitted the room without a word. His
quick mind had perceived his advantage; in thus dunning him for

the cream of the cellar, Michael was playing into his hand. 'One
bottle?' he thought. 'By George, I'll give him two! this is no

moment for economy; and once the beast is drunk, it's strange if
I don't wring his secret out of him.'

With two bottles, accordingly, he returned. Glasses were
produced, and Morris filled them with hospitable grace.

'I drink to you, cousin!' he cried gaily. 'Don't spare the
wine-cup in my house.'

Michael drank his glass deliberately, standing at the table;
filled it again, and returned to his chair, carrying the bottle

along with him.
'The spoils of war!' he said apologetically. 'The weakest goes to

the wall. Science, Morris, science.' Morris could think of no
reply, and for an appreciableinterval silence reigned. But two

glasses of the still champagne produced a rapid change in
Michael.

'There's a want of vivacity about you, Morris,' he observed. 'You
may be deep; but I'll be hanged if you're vivacious!'

'What makes you think me deep?' asked Morris with an air of
pleased simplicity.

'Because you won't compromise,' said the lawyer. 'You're deep
dog, Morris, very deep dog, not t' compromise--remarkable deep

dog. And a very good glass of wine; it's the only respectable
feature in the Finsbury family, this wine; rarer thing than a

title--much rarer. Now a man with glass wine like this in cellar,
I wonder why won't compromise?'

'Well, YOU wouldn't compromise before, you know,' said the
smiling Morris. 'Turn about is fair play.'

'I wonder why _I_ wouldn' compromise? I wonder why YOU wouldn'?'
enquired Michael. 'I wonder why we each think the other wouldn'?

'S quite a remarrable--remarkable problem,' he added, triumphing
over oral obstacles, not without obvious pride. 'Wonder what we

each think--don't you?'
'What do you suppose to have been my reason?' asked Morris

adroitly.
Michael looked at him and winked. 'That's cool,' said he. 'Next

thing, you'll ask me to help you out of the muddle. I know I'm
emissary of Providence, but not that kind! You get out of it

yourself, like Aesop and the other fellow. Must be dreadful
muddle for young orphan o' forty; leather business and all!'

'I am sure I don't know what you mean,' said Morris.
'Not sure I know myself,' said Michael. 'This is exc'lent

vintage, sir--exc'lent vintage. Nothing against the tipple. Only
thing: here's a valuable uncle disappeared. Now, what I want to

know: where's valuable uncle?'
'I have told you: he is at Browndean,' answered Morris, furtively

wiping his brow, for these repeated hints began to tell upon him
cruelly.

'Very easy say Brown--Browndee--no' so easy after all!' cried
Michael. 'Easy say; anything's easy say, when you can say it.

What I don' like's total disappearance of an uncle. Not
businesslike.' And he wagged his head.

'It is all perfectly simple,' returned Morris, with laborious
calm. 'There is no mystery. He stays at Browndean, where he got a

shake in the accident.'
'Ah!' said Michael, 'got devil of a shake!'

'Why do you say that?' cried Morris sharply.
'Best possible authority. Told me so yourself,' said the lawyer.

'But if you tell me contrary now, of course I'm bound to believe
either the one story or the other. Point is I've upset this

bottle, still champagne's exc'lent thing carpet--point is, is
valuable uncle dead--an'--bury?'

Morris sprang from his seat. 'What's that you say?' he gasped.
'I say it's exc'lent thing carpet,' replied Michael, rising.

'Exc'lent thing promotehealthy action of the skin. Well, it's
all one, anyway. Give my love to Uncle Champagne.'

'You're not going away?' said Morris.
'Awf'ly sorry, ole man. Got to sit up sick friend,' said the

wavering Michael.
'You shall not go till you have explained your hints,' returned

Morris fiercely. 'What do you mean? What brought you here?'
'No offence, I trust,' said the lawyer, turning round as he

opened the door; 'only doing my duty as shemishery of
Providence.'

Groping his way to the front-door, he opened it with some
difficulty, and descended the steps to the hansom. The tired

driver looked up as he approached, and asked where he was to go
next.

Michael observed that Morris had followed him to the steps; a
brilliant inspiration came to him. 'Anything t' give pain,' he

reflected. . . . 'Drive Shcotlan' Yard,' he added aloud, holding
to the wheel to steady himself; 'there's something devilish

fishy, cabby, about those cousins. Mush' be cleared up! Drive
Shcotlan' Yard.'

'You don't mean that, sir,' said the man, with the ready sympathy
of the lower orders for an intoxicated gentleman. 'I had better

take you home, sir; you can go to Scotland Yard tomorrow.'
'Is it as friend or as perfessional man you advise me not to go

Shcotlan' Yard t'night?' enquired Michael. 'All righ', never min'
Shcotlan' Yard, drive Gaiety bar.'

'The Gaiety bar is closed,' said the man.
'Then home,' said Michael, with the same cheerfulness.

'Where to, sir?'
'I don't remember, I'm sure,' said Michael, entering the vehicle,

'drive Shcotlan' Yard and ask.'
'But you'll have a card,' said the man, through the little

aperture in the top, 'give me your card-case.'
'What imagi--imagination in a cabby!' cried the lawyer, producing

his card-case, and handing it to the driver.
The man read it by the light of the lamp. 'Mr Michael Finsbury,

233 King's Road, Chelsea. Is that it, sir?'
'Right you are,' cried Michael, 'drive there if you can see way.'

CHAPTER X. Gideon Forsyth and the Broadwood Grand
The reader has perhaps read that remarkable work, Who Put Back

the Clock? by E. H. B., which appeared for several days upon the
railway bookstalls and then vanished entirely from the face of

the earth. Whether eating Time makes the chief of his diet out of
old editions; whether Providence has passed a special enactment

on behalf of authors; or whether these last have taken the law
into their own hand, bound themselves into a dark conspiracy with

a password, which I would die rather than reveal, and night after
night sally forth under some vigorous leader, such as Mr James

Payn or Mr Walter Besant, on their task of secret
spoliation--certain it is, at least, that the old editions pass,

giving place to new. To the proof, it is believed there are now
only three copies extant of Who Put Back the Clock? one in the

British Museum, successfully concealed by a wrong entry in the
catalogue; another in one of the cellars (the cellar where the

music accumulates) of the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh; and a
third, bound in morocco, in the possession of Gideon Forsyth. To

account for the very different fate attending this third
exemplar, the readiest theory is to suppose that Gideon admired

the tale. How to explain that admiration might appear (to those
who have perused the work) more difficult; but the weakness of a

parent is extreme, and Gideon (and not his uncle, whose initials
he had humorously borrowed) was the author of Who Put Back the

Clock? He had never acknowledged it, or only to some intimate
friends while it was still in proof; after its appearance and

alarming failure, the modesty of the novelist had become more
pressing, and the secret was now likely to be better kept than

that of the authorship of Waverley.
A copy of the work (for the date of my tale is already yesterday)

still figured in dusty solitude in the bookstall at Waterloo; and
Gideon, as he passed with his ticket for Hampton Court, smiled

contemptuously at the creature of his thoughts. What an idle
ambition was the author's! How far beneath him was the practice

of that childish art! With his hand closing on his first brief,


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