6.  I have left the bill for eight hundred pounds in Uncle
     Joseph’s pocket.

     6.  But if Pitman is only a dishonest man, the presence of this
     bill may lead him to keep the whole thing dark and throw the body
     into the New Cut.

     7.  Yes, but if Pitman is dishonest and finds the bill, he will
     know who Joseph is, and he may blackmail me.

     7.  Yes, but if I am right about Uncle Masterman, I can blackmail
     Michael.

     8.  But I can’t blackmail Michael (which is, besides, a very
     dangerous thing to do) until I find out.

     8.  Worse luck!

     9.  The leather business will soon want money for current
     expenses, and I have none to give.

     9.  But the leather business is a sinking ship.

     10.  Yes, but it’s all the ship I have.

     10.  A fact.

     11.  John will soon want money, and I have none to give.

     11.

     12.  And the venal doctor will want money down.

     12.

     13.  And if Pitman is dishonest and don’t send me to gaol, he will
     want a fortune.

     13.

‘O, this seems to be a very one-sided business,’ exclaimed Morris.  ‘There’s not so much in this method as I was led to think.’  He crumpled the paper up and threw it down; and then, the next moment, picked it up again and ran it over.  ’It seems it’s on the financial point that my position is weakest,’ he reflected.  ’Is there positively no way of raising the wind?  In a vast city like this, and surrounded by all the resources of civilization, it seems not to be conceived!  Let us have no more precipitation.  Is there nothing I can sell?  My collection of signet—­’ But at the thought of scattering these loved treasures the blood leaped into Morris’s check.  ‘I would rather die!’ he exclaimed, and, cramming his hat upon his head, strode forth into the streets.

‘I must raise funds,’ he thought.  ’My uncle being dead, the money in the bank is mine, or would be mine but for the cursed injustice that has pursued me ever since I was an orphan in a commercial academy.  I know what any other man would do; any other man in Christendom would forge; although I don’t know why I call it forging, either, when Joseph’s dead, and the funds are my own.  When I think of that, when I think that my uncle is really as dead as mutton, and that I can’t prove it, my gorge rises at the injustice of the whole affair.  I used to feel bitterly about that seven thousand eight hundred pounds; it seems a trifle now!  Dear me, why, the day before yesterday I was comparatively happy.’

And Morris stood on the sidewalk and heaved another sobbing sigh.