‘To be sure you could,’ said she; ’and I think it one of the meanest things he ever did to deprive you of that amusement.  There were those nice people at the Isle of Cats (wasn’t it?) who wrote and asked you so very kindly to give them an address.  I did think he might have let you go to the Isle of Cats.’

‘He is a man of no intelligence,’ cried Joseph.  ’He lives here literally surrounded by the absorbing spectacle of life, and for all the good it does him, he might just as well be in his coffin.  Think of his opportunities!  The heart of any other young man would burn within him at the chance.  The amount of information that I have it in my power to convey, if he would only listen, is a thing that beggars language, Julia.’

‘Whatever you do, my dear, you mustn’t excite yourself,’ said Julia; ‘for you know, if you look at all ill, the doctor will be sent for.’

‘That is very true,’ returned the old man humbly, ’I will compose myself with a little study.’  He thumbed his gallery of notebooks.  ‘I wonder,’ he said, ’I wonder (since I see your hands are occupied) whether it might not interest you—­’

‘Why, of course it would,’ cried Julia.  ’Read me one of your nice stories, there’s a dear.’

He had the volume down and his spectacles upon his nose instanter, as though to forestall some possible retractation.  ’What I propose to read to you,’ said he, skimming through the pages, ’is the notes of a highly important conversation with a Dutch courier of the name of David Abbas, which is the Latin for abbot.  Its results are well worth the money it cost me, for, as Abbas at first appeared somewhat impatient, I was induced to (what is, I believe, singularly called) stand him drink.  It runs only to about five-and-twenty pages.  Yes, here it is.’  He cleared his throat, and began to read.

Mr Finsbury (according to his own report) contributed about four hundred and ninety-nine five-hundredths of the interview, and elicited from Abbas literally nothing.  It was dull for Julia, who did not require to listen; for the Dutch courier, who had to answer, it must have been a perfect nightmare.  It would seem as if he had consoled himself by frequent appliances to the bottle; it would even seem that (toward the end) he had ceased to depend on Joseph’s frugal generosity and called for the flagon on his own account.  The effect, at least, of some mellowing influence was visible in the record:  Abbas became suddenly a willing witness; he began to volunteer disclosures; and Julia had just looked up from her seam with something like a smile, when Morris burst into the house, eagerly calling for his uncle, and the next instant plunged into the room, waving in the air the evening paper.