‘It’s not that, my dear boy,’ said the uncle, shaking him by the hand.  ‘I’ll tell you all about it afterwards.’

‘All right,’ responded the nephew.  ’I stand treat, Uncle Joseph; what will you have?’

‘In that case,’ replied the old gentleman, ’I’ll take another sandwich.  I daresay I surprise you,’ he went on, ’with my presence in a public-house; but the fact is, I act on a sound but little-known principle of my own—­’

‘O, it’s better known than you suppose,’ said Michael sipping his brandy and soda.  ‘I always act on it myself when I want a drink.’

The old gentleman, who was anxious to propitiate Michael, laughed a cheerless laugh.  ‘You have such a flow of spirits,’ said he, ’I am sure I often find it quite amusing.  But regarding this principle of which I was about to speak.  It is that of accommodating one’s-self to the manners of any land (however humble) in which our lot may be cast.  Now, in France, for instance, every one goes to a cafe for his meals; in America, to what is called a “two-bit house”; in England the people resort to such an institution as the present for refreshment.  With sandwiches, tea, and an occasional glass of bitter beer, a man can live luxuriously in London for fourteen pounds twelve shillings per annum.’

‘Yes, I know,’ returned Michael, ’but that’s not including clothes, washing, or boots.  The whole thing, with cigars and occasional sprees, costs me over seven hundred a year.’

But this was Michael’s last interruption.  He listened in good-humoured silence to the remainder of his uncle’s lecture, which speedily branched to political reform, thence to the theory of the weather-glass, with an illustrative account of a bora in the Adriatic; thence again to the best manner of teaching arithmetic to the deaf-and-dumb; and with that, the sandwich being then no more, explicuit valde feliciter.  A moment later the pair issued forth on the King’s Road.

’Michael, I said his uncle, ’the reason that I am here is because I cannot endure those nephews of mine.  I find them intolerable.’

‘I daresay you do,’ assented Michael, ’I never could stand them for a moment.’

‘They wouldn’t let me speak,’ continued the old gentleman bitterly; ’I never was allowed to get a word in edgewise; I was shut up at once with some impertinent remark.  They kept me on short allowance of pencils, when I wished to make notes of the most absorbing interest; the daily newspaper was guarded from me like a young baby from a gorilla.  Now, you know me, Michael.  I live for my calculations; I live for my manifold and ever-changing views of life; pens and paper and the productions of the popular press are to me as important as food and drink; and my life was growing quite intolerable when, in the confusion of that fortunate railway accident at Browndean, I made my escape.  They must think me dead, and are trying to deceive the world for the chance of the tontine.’