‘By the way, how do you stand for money?’ asked Michael kindly.

‘Pecuniarily speaking, I am rich,’ returned the old man with cheerfulness.  ’I am living at present at the rate of one hundred a year, with unlimited pens and paper; the British Museum at which to get books; and all the newspapers I choose to read.  But it’s extraordinary how little a man of intellectual interest requires to bother with books in a progressive age.  The newspapers supply all the conclusions.’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Michael, ‘come and stay with me.’

‘Michael,’ said the old gentleman, ’it’s very kind of you, but you scarcely understand what a peculiar position I occupy.  There are some little financial complications; as a guardian, my efforts were not altogether blessed; and not to put too fine a point upon the matter, I am absolutely in the power of that vile fellow, Morris.’

‘You should be disguised,’ cried Michael eagerly; ’I will lend you a pair of window-glass spectacles and some red side-whiskers.’

‘I had already canvassed that idea,’ replied the old gentleman, ’but feared to awaken remark in my unpretentious lodgings.  The aristocracy, I am well aware—­’

‘But see here,’ interrupted Michael, ’how do you come to have any money at all?  Don’t make a stranger of me, Uncle Joseph; I know all about the trust, and the hash you made of it, and the assignment you were forced to make to Morris.’

Joseph narrated his dealings with the bank.

‘O, but I say, this won’t do,’ cried the lawyer.  ’You’ve put your foot in it.  You had no right to do what you did.’

‘The whole thing is mine, Michael,’ protested the old gentleman.  ’I founded and nursed that business on principles entirely of my own.’

‘That’s all very fine,’ said the lawyer; ’but you made an assignment, you were forced to make it, too; even then your position was extremely shaky; but now, my dear sir, it means the dock.’

‘It isn’t possible,’ cried Joseph; ’the law cannot be so unjust as that?’

‘And the cream of the thing,’ interrupted Michael, with a sudden shout of laughter, ’the cream of the thing is this, that of course you’ve downed the leather business!  I must say, Uncle Joseph, you have strange ideas of law, but I like your taste in humour.’

‘I see nothing to laugh at,’ observed Mr Finsbury tartly.

‘And talking of that, has Morris any power to sign for the firm?’ asked Michael.

‘No one but myself,’ replied Joseph.

‘Poor devil of a Morris!  O, poor devil of a Morris!’ cried the lawyer in delight.  ’And his keeping up the farce that you’re at home!  O, Morris, the Lord has delivered you into my hands!  Let me see, Uncle Joseph, what do you suppose the leather business worth?’

‘It was worth a hundred thousand,’ said Joseph bitterly, ’when it was in my hands.  But then there came a Scotsman—­it is supposed he had a certain talent—­it was entirely directed to bookkeeping—­no accountant in London could understand a word of any of his books; and then there was Morris, who is perfectly incompetent.  And now it is worth very little.  Morris tried to sell it last year; and Pogram and Jarris offered only four thousand.’