“Uncommonly true that; and the nephew stuck to it like a cobbler to his last—­he said they should go out, and they did go out; and, say what they would about their natural claims, he would not listen to them, but bundled them out and out in a pretty short space of time.”

“It was trying to them, mind you, to leave the house they had been born in with very different expectations to those which now appeared to be their fate.  Poor things, they looked ruefully enough, and well they might, for there was a wide world for them, and no prospect of a warm corner.

“Well, as I was saying, he had them all out and the house clear to himself.

“Now,” said he, “I have an open field and no favour.  I don’t care for no—­Eh! what?”

“There was a sudden knocking, he thought, the door, and went and opened it, but nothing was to be seen.

“Oh!  I see—­somebody next door; and if it wasn’t, it don’t matter.  There’s nobody here.  I’m alone, and there’s plenty of valuables in the house.  That is what I call very good company.  I wouldn’t wish for better.”

He turned about, looked over room after room, and satisfied himself that he was alone—­that the house was empty.

At every room he entered he paused to think over the value—­what it was worth, and that he was a very fortunate man in having dropped into such a good thing.”

“Ah! there’s the old boy’s secretary, too—­his bureau—­there’ll be something in that that will amuse me mightily; but I don’t think I shall sit up late.  He was a rum old man, to say the least of it—­a very odd sort of man.”

With that he gave himself a shrug, as if some very uncomfortable feeling had come over him.

“I’ll go to bed early, and get some sleep, and then in daylight I can look after these papers.  They won’t be less interesting in the morning than they are now.”

There had been some rum stories about the old man, and now the nephew seemed to think he might have let the family sleep on the premises for that night; yes, at that moment he could have found it in his heart to have paid for all the expense of their keep, had it been possible to have had them back to remain the night.

But that wasn’t possible, for they would not have done it, but sooner have remained in the streets all night than stay there all night, like so many house-dogs, employed by one who stepped in between them and their father’s goods, which were their inheritance, but for one trifling circumstance—­a mere ceremony.

The night came on, and he had lights.  True it was he had not been down stairs, only just to have a look.  He could not tell what sort of a place it was; there were a good many odd sort of passages, that seemed to end nowhere, and others that did.

There were large doors; but they were all locked, and he had the keys; so he didn’t mind, but secured all places that were not fastened.

He then went up stairs again, and sat down in the room where the bureau was placed.