impossible to answer!  The man to whom they should be addressed went certainly to gaol, and—­eh! what was this?—­possibly to the gallows.  Morris was trying to shave when this idea struck him, and he laid the razor down.  Here (in Michael’s words) was the total disappearance of a valuable uncle; here was a time of inexplicable conduct on the part of a nephew who had been in bad blood with the old man any time these seven years; what a chance for a judicial blunder!  ‘But no,’ thought Morris, ’they cannot, they dare not, make it murder.  Not that.  But honestly, and speaking as a man to a man, I don’t see any other crime in the calendar (except arson) that I don’t seem somehow to have committed.  And yet I’m a perfectly respectable man, and wished nothing but my due.  Law is a pretty business.’

With this conclusion firmly seated in his mind, Morris Finsbury descended to the hall of the house in John Street, still half-shaven.  There was a letter in the box; he knew the handwriting:  John at last!

‘Well, I think I might have been spared this,’ he said bitterly, and tore it open.

Dear Morris [it ran], what the dickens do you mean by it?  I’m in an awful hole down here; I have to go on tick, and the parties on the spot don’t cotton to the idea; they couldn’t, because it is so plain I’m in a stait of Destitution.  I’ve got no bedclothes, think of that, I must have coins, the hole thing’s a Mockry, I wont stand it, nobody would.  I would have come away before, only I have no money for the railway fare.  Don’t be a lunatic, Morris, you don’t seem to understand my dredful situation.  I have to get the stamp on tick.  A fact.

—­Ever your affte.  Brother,

J. FINSBURY

‘Can’t even spell!’ Morris reflected, as he crammed the letter in his pocket, and left the house.  ’What can I do for him?  I have to go to the expense of a barber, I’m so shattered!  How can I send anybody coins?  It’s hard lines, I daresay; but does he think I’m living on hot muffins?  One comfort,’ was his grim reflection, ’he can’t cut and run—­he’s got to stay; he’s as helpless as the dead.’  And then he broke forth again:  ’Complains, does he? and he’s never even heard of Bent Pitman!  If he had what I have on my mind, he might complain with a good grace.’

But these were not honest arguments, or not wholly honest; there was a struggle in the mind of Morris; he could not disguise from himself that his brother John was miserably situated at Browndean, without news, without money, without bedclothes, without society or any entertainment; and by the time he had been shaved and picked a hasty breakfast at a coffee tavern, Morris had arrived at a compromise.

‘Poor Johnny,’ he said to himself, ’he’s in an awful box!  I can’t send him coins, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do:  I’ll send him the Pink Un—­it’ll cheer John up; and besides, it’ll do his credit good getting anything by post.’