Thanks to his good nature, his practicality, and the multitude of his acquaintances, all manner of shiftless or luckless fellows were in the habit of looking to him for advice and help.  As soon as they found themselves adrift they turned to Gammon.  Every day he had a letter asking him to find a “berth” or a “billet” for some out-at-elbows friend, and in a surprising number of cases he was able to make a useful suggestion.  It would have paid him to start an employment agency; as it was, instead of receiving fees, he very often supplied his friends’ immediate necessities out of his own pocket.  The more he earned the more freely he bestowed, so that his occasional strokes of luck in commerce were of no ultimate benefit to him.  No man in his Position had a larger credit; for weeks at a time he could live without cash expenditure; but this was seldom necessary.

By a mental freak which was characteristic of him he nursed the thought of connecting himself with Messrs. Quodling & Son, oil and colour merchants.  Theirs was a large and sound business, both in town and country.  It might not be easy to become traveller to such a firm, but his ingenious mind tossed and turned the possibilities of the case, and after a day or two spent in looking up likely men—­which involved a great deal of drinking in a great variety of public resorts—­he came across an elderly traveller who had represented Quodlings on a northern circuit, and who boasted a certain acquaintance with Quodling the senior.  Thus were things set in train.  At a second meeting with the venerable bagman—­who had a wonderful head for whisky—­Gammon acquired so much technical information that oil and colours might fairly be set down among his numerous “specialities.”  Moreover, his friend promised to speak a word for him in the right quarter when opportunity offered.

“By the way,” Gammon remarked carelessly, “are these Quodlings any relation to Quodling the silk broker in the City?”

His companion smiled over the rim of a deep tumbler, and continued to smile through a long draught.

“Why do you ask?”

“No particular reason.  Happen to know the other man—­by sight.”

“They’re brothers—­Quodling senior and the broker.”

“What’s the joke?” asked Gammon, as the other still smiled.

“Old joke—­very old joke.  The two men just as unlike as they could be—­in face, I mean.  I never took the trouble to inquire about it, but I’ve been told there was a lawsuit years ago, something to do with the will of Lord somebody, who left money to old Mrs. Quodling—­who wasn’t old then.  Don’t know the particulars, but I’m told that something turned on the likeness of the younger boy to the man who made the will—­see!”

“Ah!  Oh!” muttered Gammon reflectively.

“An uppish, high-notioned fellow, Quodling the broker.  Won’t have anything to do with his brother.  He’s nothing much himself; went through the court not very long ago.”