'I don't know about specimens,' replied Bill; 'but the party as received
the barrel I mean raised a sight of trouble.'

'What's that?' cried Morris, in the agitation of the moment pressing a
penny into the man's hand.

'You see, sir, the barrel arrived at one-thirty. No one claimed it till
about three, when a small, sickly--looking gentleman (probably a curate)
came up, and sez he, "Have you got anything for Pitman?" or "Wili'm Bent
Pitman," if I recollect right. "I don't exactly know," sez I, "but I
rather fancy that there barrel bears that name." The little man went
up to the barrel, and seemed regularly all took aback when he saw the
address, and then he pitched into us for not having brought what he
wanted. "I don't care a damn what you want," sez I to him, "but if you
are Will'm Bent Pitman, there's your barrel."'

'Well, and did he take it?' cried the breathless Morris.

'Well, sir,' returned Bill, 'it appears it was a packing-case he was
after. The packing-case came; that's sure enough, because it was about
the biggest packing-case ever I clapped eyes on. And this Pitman he
seemed a good deal cut up, and he had the superintendent out, and
they got hold of the vanman--him as took the packing-case. Well, sir,'
continued Bill, with a smile, 'I never see a man in such a state.
Everybody about that van was mortal, bar the horses. Some gen'leman (as
well as I could make out) had given the vanman a sov.; and so that was
where the trouble come in, you see.'

'But what did he say?' gasped Morris.

'I don't know as he SAID much, sir,' said Bill. 'But he offered to
fight this Pitman for a pot of beer. He had lost his book, too, and the
receipts, and his men were all as mortal as himself. O, they were all
like'--and Bill paused for a simile--'like lords! The superintendent
sacked them on the spot.'

'O, come, but that's not so bad,' said Morris, with a bursting sigh. 'He
couldn't tell where he took the packing-case, then?'

'Not he,' said Bill, 'nor yet nothink else.'

'And what--what did Pitman do?' asked Morris.

'O, he went off with the barrel in a four-wheeler, very trembling like,'
replied Bill. 'I don't believe he's a gentleman as has good health.'

'Well, so the barrel's gone,' said Morris, half to himself.

'You may depend on that, sir,' returned the porter. 'But you had better
see the superintendent.'

'Not in the least; it's of no account,' said Morris. 'It only contained
specimens.' And he walked hastily away.

Ensconced once more in a hansom, he proceeded to reconsider his
position. Suppose (he thought), suppose he should accept defeat and
declare his uncle's death at once? He should lose the tontine, and with
that the last hope of his seven thousand eight hundred pounds. But on
the other hand, since the shilling to the hansom cabman, he had begun to
see that crime was expensive in its course, and, since the loss of the
water-butt, that it was uncertain in its consequences. Quietly at first,
and then with growing heat, he reviewed the advantages of backing out.
It involved a loss; but (come to think of it) no such great loss after
all; only that of the tontine, which had been always a toss-up, which
at bottom he had never really expected. He reminded himself of that
eagerly; he congratulated himself upon his constant moderation. He had
never really expected the tontine; he had never even very definitely
hoped to recover his seven thousand eight hundred pounds; he had been
hurried into the whole thing by Michael's obvious dishonesty. Yes, it
would probably be better to draw back from this high-flying venture,
settle back on the leather business--

'Great God!' cried Morris, bounding in the hansom like a Jack-in-a-box.
'I have not only not gained the tontine--I have lost the leather
business!'

Such was the monstrous fact. He had no power to sign; he could not draw
a cheque for thirty shillings. Until he could produce legal evidence
of his uncle's death, he was a penniless outcast--and as soon as he
produced it he had lost the tontine! There was no hesitation on the part
of Morris; to drop the tontine like a hot chestnut, to concentrate
all his forces on the leather business and the rest of his small but
legitimate inheritance, was the decision of a single instant. And the
next, the full extent of his calamity was suddenly disclosed to him.
Declare his uncle's death? He couldn't! Since the body was lost Joseph
had (in a legal sense) become immortal.

There was no created vehicle big enough to contain Morris and his woes.
He paid the hansom off and walked on he knew not whither.

'I seem to have gone into this business with too much precipitation,'
he reflected, with a deadly sigh. 'I fear it seems too ramified for a
person of my powers of mind.'

And then a remark of his uncle's flashed into his memory: If you want to
think clearly, put it all down on paper. 'Well, the old boy knew a thing
or two,' said Morris. 'I will try; but I don't believe the paper was
ever made that will clear my mind.'

He entered a place of public entertainment, ordered bread and cheese,
and writing materials, and sat down before them heavily. He tried the
pen. It was an excellent pen, but what was he to write? 'I have it,'
cried Morris. 'Robinson Crusoe and the double columns!' He prepared his
paper after that classic model, and began as follows:

     Bad. ---- Good.

     1. I have lost my uncle's body.

     1. But then Pitman has found it.

'Stop a bit,' said Morris. 'I am letting the spirit of antithesis run
away with me. Let's start again.'

     Bad. ---- Good.

     1. I have lost my uncle's body.

     1. But then I no longer require to bury it.


     2. I have lost the tontine.

     2.But I may still save that if Pitman disposes of the body, and
     if I can find a physician who will stick at nothing.


     3. I have lost the leather business and the rest of my uncle's
     succession.

     3. But not if Pitman gives the body up to the police.

'O, but in that case I go to gaol; I had forgot that,' thought Morris.
'Indeed, I don't know that I had better dwell on that hypothesis at all;
it's all very well to talk of facing the worst; but in a case of this
kind a man's first duty is to his own nerve. Is there any answer to No.
3? Is there any possible good side to such a beastly bungle? There must
be, of course, or where would be the use of this double-entry business?
And--by George, I have it!' he exclaimed; 'it's exactly the same as the
last!' And he hastily re-wrote the passage:

     Bad. ---- Good.

     3. I have lost the leather business and the rest of my uncle's
     succession.

     3. But not if I can find a physician who will stick at nothing.

'This venal doctor seems quite a desideratum,' he reflected. 'I want him
first to give me a certificate that my uncle is dead, so that I may get
the leather business; and then that he's alive--but here we are again at
the incompatible interests!' And he returned to his tabulation:

     Bad. ---- Good.

     4. I have almost no money.

     4. But there is plenty in the bank.


     5. Yes, but I can't get the money in the bank.

     5. But--well, that seems unhappily to be the case.


     6. I have left the bill for eight hundred pounds in Uncle
     Joseph's pocket.

     6. But if Pitman is only a dishonest man, the presence of this
     bill may lead him to keep the whole thing dark and throw the body
     into the New Cut.


     7. Yes, but if Pitman is dishonest and finds the bill, he will
     know who Joseph is, and he may blackmail me.

     7. Yes, but if I am right about Uncle Masterman, I can blackmail
     Michael.


     8. But I can't blackmail Michael (which is, besides, a very
     dangerous thing to do) until I find out.

     8. Worse luck!


     9. The leather business will soon want money for current
     expenses, and I have none to give.

     9. But the leather business is a sinking ship.


     10. Yes, but it's all the ship I have.

     10. A fact.


     11. John will soon want money, and I have none to give.

     11.


     12. And the venal doctor will want money down.

     12.


     13. And if Pitman is dishonest and don't send me to gaol, he will
     want a fortune.

     13.

'O, this seems to be a very one-sided business,' exclaimed Morris.
'There's not so much in this method as I was led to think.' He crumpled
the paper up and threw it down; and then, the next moment, picked it
up again and ran it over. 'It seems it's on the financial point that
my position is weakest,' he reflected. 'Is there positively no way of
raising the wind? In a vast city like this, and surrounded by all the
resources of civilization, it seems not to be conceived! Let us have
no more precipitation. Is there nothing I can sell? My collection of
signet--' But at the thought of scattering these loved treasures the
blood leaped into Morris's check. 'I would rather die!' he exclaimed,
and, cramming his hat upon his head, strode forth into the streets.

'I MUST raise funds,' he thought. 'My uncle being dead, the money in
the bank is mine, or would be mine but for the cursed injustice that has
pursued me ever since I was an orphan in a commercial academy. I know
what any other man would do; any other man in Christendom would forge;
although I don't know why I call it forging, either, when Joseph's dead,
and the funds are my own. When I think of that, when I think that my
uncle is really as dead as mutton, and that I can't prove it, my gorge
rises at the injustice of the whole affair. I used to feel bitterly
about that seven thousand eight hundred pounds; it seems a trifle now!
Dear me, why, the day before yesterday I was comparatively happy.'

And Morris stood on the sidewalk and heaved another sobbing sigh.

'Then there's another thing,' he resumed; 'can I? Am I able? Why didn't
I practise different handwritings while I was young? How a fellow
regrets those lost opportunities when he grows up! But there's
one comfort: it's not morally wrong; I can try it on with a
clear conscience, and even if I was found out, I wouldn't greatly
care--morally, I mean. And then, if I succeed, and if Pitman is staunch,
there's nothing to do but find a venal doctor; and that ought to be
simple enough in a place like London. By all accounts the town's
alive with them. It wouldn't do, of course, to advertise for a corrupt
physician; that would be impolitic. No, I suppose a fellow has simply to
spot along the streets for a red lamp and herbs in the window, and
then you go in and--and--and put it to him plainly; though it seems a
delicate step.'

He was near home now, after many devious wanderings, and turned up
John Street. As he thrust his latchkey in the lock, another mortifying
reflection struck him to the heart.

'Not even this house is mine till I can prove him dead,' he snarled, and
slammed the door behind him so that the windows in the attic rattled.

Night had long fallen; long ago the lamps and the shop-fronts had begun
to glitter down the endless streets; the lobby was pitch--dark; and, as
the devil would have it, Morris barked his shins and sprawled all his
length over the pedestal of Hercules. The pain was sharp; his temper was
already thoroughly undermined; by a last misfortune his hand closed on
the hammer as he fell; and, in a spasm of childish irritation, he turned
and struck at the offending statue. There was a splintering crash.

'O Lord, what have I done next?' wailed Morris; and he groped his way
to find a candle. 'Yes,' he reflected, as he stood with the light in
his hand and looked upon the mutilated leg, from which about a pound of
muscle was detached. 'Yes, I have destroyed a genuine antique; I may be
in for thousands!' And then there sprung up in his bosom a sort of angry
hope. 'Let me see,' he thought. 'Julia's got rid of--, there's nothing
to connect me with that beast Forsyth; the men were all drunk, and
(what's better) they've been all discharged. O, come, I think this is
another case of moral courage! I'll deny all knowledge of the thing.'

A moment more, and he stood again before the Hercules, his lips sternly
compressed, the coal-axe and the meat-cleaver under his arm. The next,
he had fallen upon the packing-case. This had been already seriously
undermined by the operations of Gideon; a few well-directed blows, and
it already quaked and gaped; yet a few more, and it fell about Morris in
a shower of boards followed by an avalanche of straw.

And now the leather-merchant could behold the nature of his task: and at
the first sight his spirit quailed. It was, indeed, no more ambitious a
task for De Lesseps, with all his men and horses, to attack the hills
of Panama, than for a single, slim young gentleman, with no previous
experience of labour in a quarry, to measure himself against that
bloated monster on his pedestal. And yet the pair were well encountered:
on the one side, bulk--on the other, genuine heroic fire.

'Down you shall come, you great big, ugly brute!' cried Morris aloud,
with something of that passion which swept the Parisian mob against the
walls of the Bastille. 'Down you shall come, this night. I'll have none
of you in my lobby.'

The face, from its indecent expression, had particularly animated the
zeal of our iconoclast; and it was against the face that he began his
operations. The great height of the demigod--for he stood a fathom
and half in his stocking-feet--offered a preliminary obstacle to this
attack. But here, in the first skirmish of the battle, intellect already
began to triumph over matter. By means of a pair of library steps,
the injured householder gained a posture of advantage; and, with great
swipes of the coal-axe, proceeded to decapitate the brute.

Two hours later, what had been the erect image of a gigantic coal-porter
turned miraculously white, was now no more than a medley of disjected
members; the quadragenarian torso prone against the pedestal; the
lascivious countenance leering down the kitchen stair; the legs, the
arms, the hands, and even the fingers, scattered broadcast on the lobby
floor. Half an hour more, and all the debris had been laboriously carted
to the kitchen; and Morris, with a gentle sentiment of triumph, looked
round upon the scene of his achievements. Yes, he could deny all
knowledge of it now: the lobby, beyond the fact that it was partly
ruinous, betrayed no trace of the passage of Hercules. But it was a
weary Morris that crept up to bed; his arms and shoulders ached, the
palms of his hands burned from the rough kisses of the coal-axe, and
there was one smarting finger that stole continually to his mouth. Sleep
long delayed to visit the dilapidated hero, and with the first peep of
day it had again deserted him.

The morning, as though to accord with his disastrous fortunes, dawned
inclemently. An easterly gale was shouting in the streets; flaws of rain
angrily assailed the windows; and as Morris dressed, the draught from
the fireplace vividly played about his legs.

'I think,' he could not help observing bitterly, 'that with all I have
to bear, they might have given me decent weather.'

There was no bread in the house, for Miss Hazeltine (like all women left
to themselves) had subsisted entirely upon cake. But some of this was
found, and (along with what the poets call a glass of fair, cold water)
made up a semblance of a morning meal, and then down he sat undauntedly
to his delicate task.

Nothing can be more interesting than the study of signatures,
written (as they are) before meals and after, during indigestion and
intoxication; written when the signer is trembling for the life of his
child or has come from winning the Derby, in his lawyer's office, or
under the bright eyes of his sweetheart. To the vulgar, these seem never
the same; but to the expert, the bank clerk, or the lithographer, they
are constant quantities, and as recognizable as the North Star to the
night-watch on deck.

To all this Morris was alive. In the theory of that graceful art in
which he was now embarking, our spirited leather-merchant was beyond
all reproach. But, happily for the investor, forgery is an affair
of practice. And as Morris sat surrounded by examples of his uncle's
signature and of his own incompetence, insidious depression stole upon
his spirits. From time to time the wind wuthered in the chimney at his
back; from time to time there swept over Bloomsbury a squall so dark
that he must rise and light the gas; about him was the chill and the
mean disorder of a house out of commission--the floor bare, the sofa
heaped with books and accounts enveloped in a dirty table-cloth, the
pens rusted, the paper glazed with a thick film of dust; and yet these
were but adminicles of misery, and the true root of his depression lay
round him on the table in the shape of misbegotten forgeries.

'It's one of the strangest things I ever heard of,' he complained. 'It
almost seems as if it was a talent that I didn't possess.' He went once
more minutely through his proofs. 'A clerk would simply gibe at them,'
said he. 'Well, there's nothing else but tracing possible.'

He waited till a squall had passed and there came a blink of scowling
daylight. Then he went to the window, and in the face of all John Street
traced his uncle's signature. It was a poor thing at the best. 'But it
must do,' said he, as he stood gazing woefully on his handiwork. 'He's
dead, anyway.' And he filled up the cheque for a couple of hundred and
sallied forth for the Anglo-Patagonian Bank.

There, at the desk at which he was accustomed to transact business,
and with as much indifference as he could assume, Morris presented the
forged cheque to the big, red-bearded Scots teller. The teller seemed to
view it with surprise; and as he turned it this way and that, and even
scrutinized the signature with a magnifying-glass, his surprise appeared
to warm into disfavour. Begging to be excused for a moment, he
passed away into the rearmost quarters of the bank; whence, after an
appreciable interval, he returned again in earnest talk with a superior,
an oldish and a baldish, but a very gentlemanly man.

'Mr Morris Finsbury, I believe,' said the gentlemanly man, fixing Morris
with a pair of double eye-glasses.

'That is my name,' said Morris, quavering. 'Is there anything wrong.

'Well, the fact is, Mr Finsbury, you see we are rather surprised at
receiving this,' said the other, flicking at the cheque. 'There are no
effects.'

'No effects?' cried Morris. 'Why, I know myself there must be
eight-and-twenty hundred pounds, if there's a penny.'

'Two seven six four, I think,' replied the gentlemanly man; 'but it was
drawn yesterday.'

'Drawn!' cried Morris.

'By your uncle himself, sir,' continued the other. 'Not only that, but
we discounted a bill for him for--let me see--how much was it for, Mr
Bell?'

'Eight hundred, Mr Judkin,' replied the teller.

'Bent Pitman!' cried Morris, staggering back.

'I beg your pardon,' said Mr Judkin.

'It's--it's only an expletive,' said Morris.

'I hope there's nothing wrong, Mr Finsbury,' said Mr Bell.

'All I can tell you,' said Morris, with a harsh laugh,' is that the
whole thing's impossible. My uncle is at Bournemouth, unable to move.'

'Really!' cried Mr Bell, and he recovered the cheque from Mr Judkin.
'But this cheque is dated in London, and today,' he observed. 'How d'ye
account for that, sir?'

'O, that was a mistake,' said Morris, and a deep tide of colour dyed his
face and neck.

'No doubt, no doubt,' said Mr Judkin, but he looked at his customer
enquiringly.

'And--and--' resumed Morris, 'even if there were no effects--this is a
very trifling sum to overdraw--our firm--the name of Finsbury, is surely
good enough for such a wretched sum as this.'

'No doubt, Mr Finsbury,' returned Mr Judkin; 'and if you insist I will
take it into consideration; but I hardly think--in short, Mr Finsbury,
if there had been nothing else, the signature seems hardly all that we
could wish.'

'That's of no consequence,' replied Morris nervously. 'I'll get my uncle
to sign another. The fact is,' he went on, with a bold stroke, 'my uncle
is so far from well at present that he was unable to sign this cheque
without assistance, and I fear that my holding the pen for him may have
made the difference in the signature.'

Mr Judkin shot a keen glance into Morris's face; and then turned and
looked at Mr Bell.

'Well,' he said, 'it seems as if we had been victimized by a swindler.
Pray tell Mr Finsbury we shall put detectives on at once. As for this
cheque of yours, I regret that, owing to the way it was signed, the
bank can hardly consider it--what shall I say?--businesslike,' and he
returned the cheque across the counter.

Morris took it up mechanically; he was thinking of something very
different.

'In a--case of this kind,' he began, 'I believe the loss falls on us; I
mean upon my uncle and myself.'

'It does not, sir,' replied Mr Bell; 'the bank is responsible, and
the bank will either recover the money or refund it, you may depend on
that.'

Morris's face fell; then it was visited by another gleam of hope.

'I'll tell you what,' he said, 'you leave this entirely in my hands.
I'll sift the matter. I've an idea, at any rate; and detectives,' he
added appealingly, 'are so expensive.'

'The bank would not hear of it,' returned Mr Judkin. 'The bank stands to
lose between three and four thousand pounds; it will spend as much more
if necessary. An undiscovered forger is a permanent danger. We shall
clear it up to the bottom, Mr Finsbury; set your mind at rest on that.'

'Then I'll stand the loss,' said Morris boldly. 'I order you to abandon
the search.' He was determined that no enquiry should be made.

'I beg your pardon,' returned Mr Judkin, 'but we have nothing to do with
you in this matter, which is one between your uncle and ourselves. If
he should take this opinion, and will either come here himself or let me
see him in his sick-room--'

'Quite impossible,' cried Morris.

'Well, then, you see,' said Mr Judkin, 'how my hands are tied. The whole
affair must go at once into the hands of the police.'

Morris mechanically folded the cheque and restored it to his
pocket--book.

'Good--morning,' said he, and scrambled somehow out of the bank.

'I don't know what they suspect,' he reflected; 'I can't make them
out, their whole behaviour is thoroughly unbusinesslike. But it doesn't
matter; all's up with everything. The money has been paid; the police
are on the scent; in two hours that idiot Pitman will be nabbed--and the
whole story of the dead body in the evening papers.'

If he could have heard what passed in the bank after his departure he
would have been less alarmed, perhaps more mortified.

'That was a curious affair, Mr Bell,' said Mr Judkin.

'Yes, sir,' said Mr Bell, 'but I think we have given him a fright.'

'O, we shall hear no more of Mr Morris Finsbury,' returned the other;
'it was a first attempt, and the house have dealt with us so long that
I was anxious to deal gently. But I suppose, Mr Bell, there can be no
mistake about yesterday? It was old Mr Finsbury himself?'

'There could be no possible doubt of that,' said Mr Bell with a chuckle.
'He explained to me the principles of banking.'

'Well, well,' said Mr Judkin. 'The next time he calls ask him to step
into my room. It is only proper he should be warned.'



CHAPTER VII. In Which William Dent Pitman takes Legal Advice

Norfolk Street, King's Road--jocularly known among Mr Pitman's lodgers
as 'Norfolk Island'--is neither a long, a handsome, nor a pleasing
thoroughfare. Dirty, undersized maids-of-all-work issue from it in
pursuit of beer, or linger on its sidewalk listening to the voice of
love. The cat's-meat man passes twice a day. An occasional organ-grinder
wanders in and wanders out again, disgusted. In holiday-time the
street is the arena of the young bloods of the neighbourhood, and
the householders have an opportunity of studying the manly art of
self-defence. And yet Norfolk Street has one claim to be respectable,
for it contains not a single shop--unless you count the public-house at
the corner, which is really in the King's Road.

The door of No. 7 bore a brass plate inscribed with the legend 'W. D.
Pitman, Artist'. It was not a particularly clean brass plate, nor was
No. 7 itself a particularly inviting place of residence. And yet it
had a character of its own, such as may well quicken the pulse of
the reader's curiosity. For here was the home of an artist--and a
distinguished artist too, highly distinguished by his ill-success--which
had never been made the subject of an article in the illustrated
magazines. No wood-engraver had ever reproduced 'a corner in the back
drawing-room' or 'the studio mantelpiece' of No. 7; no young lady author
had ever commented on 'the unaffected simplicity' with which Mr Pitman
received her in the midst of his 'treasures'. It is an omission I would
gladly supply, but our business is only with the backward parts and
'abject rear' of this aesthetic dwelling.

Here was a garden, boasting a dwarf fountain (that never played) in the
centre, a few grimy-looking flowers in pots, two or three newly
planted trees which the spring of Chelsea visited without noticeable
consequence, and two or three statues after the antique, representing
satyrs and nymphs in the worst possible style of sculptured art. On one
side the garden was overshadowed by a pair of crazy studios, usually
hired out to the more obscure and youthful practitioners of British
art. Opposite these another lofty out-building, somewhat more carefully
finished, and boasting of a communication with the house and a private
door on the back lane, enshrined the multifarious industry of Mr Pitman.
All day, it is true, he was engaged in the work of education at a
seminary for young ladies; but the evenings at least were his own, and
these he would prolong far into the night, now dashing off 'A landscape
with waterfall' in oil, now a volunteer bust ('in marble', as he would
gently but proudly observe) of some public character, now stooping
his chisel to a mere 'nymph' for a gasbracket on a stair, sir', or a
life-size 'Infant Samuel' for a religious nursery. Mr Pitman had studied
in Paris, and he had studied in Rome, supplied with funds by a fond
parent who went subsequently bankrupt in consequence of a fall in
corsets; and though he was never thought to have the smallest modicum
of talent, it was at one time supposed that he had learned his business.
Eighteen years of what is called 'tuition' had relieved him of the
dangerous knowledge. His artist lodgers would sometimes reason with him;
they would point out to him how impossible it was to paint by gaslight,
or to sculpture life-sized nymphs without a model.

'I know that,' he would reply. 'No one in Norfolk Street knows it
better; and if I were rich I should certainly employ the best models
in London; but, being poor, I have taught myself to do without them. An
occasional model would only disturb my ideal conception of the figure,
and be a positive impediment in my career. As for painting by an
artificial light,' he would continue, 'that is simply a knack I have
found it necessary to acquire, my days being engrossed in the work of
tuition.'

At the moment when we must present him to our readers, Pitman was in his
studio alone, by the dying light of the October day. He sat (sure enough
with 'unaffected simplicity') in a Windsor chair, his low-crowned black
felt hat by his side; a dark, weak, harmless, pathetic little man, clad
in the hue of mourning, his coat longer than is usual with the laity,
his neck enclosed in a collar without a parting, his neckcloth pale in
hue and simply tied; the whole outward man, except for a pointed beard,
tentatively clerical. There was a thinning on the top of Pitman's head,
there were silver hairs at Pitman's temple. Poor gentleman, he was no
longer young; and years, and poverty, and humble ambition thwarted, make
a cheerless lot.

In front of him, in the corner by the door, there stood a portly barrel;
and let him turn them where he might, it was always to the barrel that
his eyes and his thoughts returned.

'Should I open it? Should I return it? Should I communicate with Mr
Sernitopolis at once?' he wondered. 'No,' he concluded finally, 'nothing
without Mr Finsbury's advice.' And he arose and produced a shabby
leathern desk. It opened without the formality of unlocking, and
displayed the thick cream-coloured notepaper on which Mr Pitman was
in the habit of communicating with the proprietors of schools and the
parents of his pupils. He placed the desk on the table by the window,
and taking a saucer of Indian ink from the chimney-piece, laboriously
composed the following letter:

'My dear Mr Finsbury,' it ran, 'would it be presuming on your kindness
if I asked you to pay me a visit here this evening? It is in no trifling
matter that I invoke your valuable assistance, for need I say more than
it concerns the welfare of Mr Semitopolis's statue of Hercules? I write
you in great agitation of mind; for I have made all enquiries, and
greatly fear that this work of ancient art has been mislaid. I labour
besides under another perplexity, not unconnected with the first. Pray
excuse the inelegance of this scrawl, and believe me yours in haste,
William D. Pitman.'

Armed with this he set forth and rang the bell of No. 233 King's Road,
the private residence of Michael Finsbury. He had met the lawyer at a
time of great public excitement in Chelsea; Michael, who had a sense of
humour and a great deal of careless kindness in his nature, followed
the acquaintance up, and, having come to laugh, remained to drop into
a contemptuous kind of friendship. By this time, which was four years
after the first meeting, Pitman was the lawyer's dog.

'No,' said the elderly housekeeper, who opened the door in person, 'Mr
Michael's not in yet. But ye're looking terribly poorly, Mr Pitman. Take
a glass of sherry, sir, to cheer ye up.'

'No, I thank you, ma'am,' replied the artist. 'It is very good in you,
but I scarcely feel in sufficient spirits for sherry. Just give Mr
Finsbury this note, and ask him to look round--to the door in the lane,
you will please tell him; I shall be in the studio all evening.'

And he turned again into the street and walked slowly homeward. A
hairdresser's window caught his attention, and he stared long and
earnestly at the proud, high--born, waxen lady in evening dress, who
circulated in the centre of the show. The artist woke in him, in spite
of his troubles.

'It is all very well to run down the men who make these things,'
he cried, 'but there's a something--there's a haughty, indefinable
something about that figure. It's what I tried for in my "Empress
Eugenie",' he added, with a sigh.

And he went home reflecting on the quality. 'They don't teach you that
direct appeal in Paris,' he thought. 'It's British. Come, I am going to
sleep, I must wake up, I must aim higher--aim higher,' cried the little
artist to himself. All through his tea and afterward, as he was giving
his eldest boy a lesson on the fiddle, his mind dwelt no longer on his
troubles, but he was rapt into the better land; and no sooner was he at
liberty than he hastened with positive exhilaration to his studio.

Not even the sight of the barrel could entirely cast him down. He flung
himself with rising zest into his work--a bust of Mr Gladstone from a
photograph; turned (with extraordinary success) the difficulty of
the back of the head, for which he had no documents beyond a hazy
recollection of a public meeting; delighted himself by his treatment
of the collar; and was only recalled to the cares of life by Michael
Finsbury's rattle at the door.

'Well, what's wrong?' said Michael, advancing to the grate, where,
knowing his friend's delight in a bright fire, Mr Pitman had not spared
the fuel. 'I suppose you have come to grief somehow.'

'There is no expression strong enough,' said the artist. 'Mr
Semitopolis's statue has not turned up, and I am afraid I shall be
answerable for the money; but I think nothing of that--what I fear, my
dear Mr Finsbury, what I fear--alas that I should have to say it!
is exposure. The Hercules was to be smuggled out of Italy; a thing
positively wrong, a thing of which a man of my principles and in my
responsible position should have taken (as I now see too late) no part
whatever.'

'This sounds like very serious work,' said the lawyer. 'It will require
a great deal of drink, Pitman.'

'I took the liberty of--in short, of being prepared for you,' replied
the artist, pointing to a kettle, a bottle of gin, a lemon, and glasses.
Michael mixed himself a grog, and offered the artist a cigar.

'No, thank you,' said Pitman. 'I used occasionally to be rather partial
to it, but the smell is so disagreeable about the clothes.'

'All right,' said the lawyer. 'I am comfortable now. Unfold your tale.'

At some length Pitman set forth his sorrows. He had gone today to
Waterloo, expecting to receive the colossal Hercules, and he had
received instead a barrel not big enough to hold Discobolus; yet
the barrel was addressed in the hand (with which he was perfectly
acquainted) of his Roman correspondent. What was stranger still, a case
had arrived by the same train, large enough and heavy enough to
contain the Hercules; and this case had been taken to an address now
undiscoverable. 'The vanman (I regret to say it) had been drinking, and
his language was such as I could never bring myself to repeat.

He was at once discharged by the superintendent of the line, who behaved
most properly throughout, and is to make enquiries at Southampton.
In the meanwhile, what was I to do? I left my address and brought the
barrel home; but, remembering an old adage, I determined not to open it
except in the presence of my lawyer.'

'Is that all?' asked Michael. 'I don't see any cause to worry. The
Hercules has stuck upon the road. It will drop in tomorrow or the day
after; and as for the barrel, depend upon it, it's a testimonial from
one of your young ladies, and probably contains oysters.'

'O, don't speak so loud!' cried the little artist. 'It would cost me my
place if I were heard to speak lightly of the young ladies; and besides,
why oysters from Italy? and why should they come to me addressed in
Signor Ricardi's hand?'

'Well, let's have a look at it,' said Michael. 'Let's roll it forward to
the light.'

The two men rolled the barrel from the corner, and stood it on end
before the fire.

'It's heavy enough to be oysters,' remarked Michael judiciously.

'Shall we open it at once?' enquired the artist, who had grown decidedly
cheerful under the combined effects of company and gin; and without
waiting for a reply, he began to strip as if for a prize-fight, tossed
his clerical collar in the wastepaper basket, hung his clerical coat
upon a nail, and with a chisel in one hand and a hammer in the other,
struck the first blow of the evening.

'That's the style, William Dent' cried Michael. 'There's fire for--your
money! It may be a romantic visit from one of the young ladies--a sort
of Cleopatra business. Have a care and don't stave in Cleopatra's head.'

But the sight of Pitman's alacrity was infectious. The lawyer could
sit still no longer. Tossing his cigar into the fire, he snatched the
instrument from the unwilling hands of the artist, and fell to himself.
Soon the sweat stood in beads upon his large, fair brow; his stylish
trousers were defaced with iron rust, and the state of his chisel
testified to misdirected energies.

A cask is not an easy thing to open, even when you set about it in the
right way; when you set about it wrongly, the whole structure must be
resolved into its elements. Such was the course pursued alike by the
artist and the lawyer. Presently the last hoop had been removed--a
couple of smart blows tumbled the staves upon the ground--and what
had once been a barrel was no more than a confused heap of broken and
distorted boards.

In the midst of these, a certain dismal something, swathed in blankets,
remained for an instant upright, and then toppled to one side and
heavily collapsed before the fire. Even as the thing subsided, an
eye-glass tingled to the floor and rolled toward the screaming Pitman.

'Hold your tongue!' said Michael. He dashed to the house door and locked
it; then, with a pale face and bitten lip, he drew near, pulled aside
a corner of the swathing blanket, and recoiled, shuddering. There was a
long silence in the studio.

'Now tell me,' said Michael, in a low voice: 'Had you any hand in it?'
and he pointed to the body.

The little artist could only utter broken and disjointed sounds.

Michael poured some gin into a glass. 'Drink that,' he said. 'Don't be
afraid of me. I'm your friend through thick and thin.'

Pitman put the liquor down untasted.

'I swear before God,' he said, 'this is another mystery to me. In my
worst fears I never dreamed of such a thing. I would not lay a finger on
a sucking infant.'

'That's all square,' said Michael, with a sigh of huge relief. 'I
believe you, old boy.' And he shook the artist warmly by the hand. 'I
thought for a moment,' he added with rather a ghastly smile, 'I thought
for a moment you might have made away with Mr Semitopolis.'

'It would make no difference if I had,' groaned Pitman. 'All is at an
end for me. There's the writing on the wall.'

'To begin with,' said Michael, 'let's get him out of sight; for to be
quite plain with you, Pitman, I don't like your friend's appearance.'
And with that the lawyer shuddered. 'Where can we put it?'

'You might put it in the closet there--if you could bear to touch it,'
answered the artist.

'Somebody has to do it, Pitman,' returned the lawyer; 'and it seems as
if it had to be me. You go over to the table, turn your back, and mix me
a grog; that's a fair division of labour.'

About ninety seconds later the closet-door was heard to shut.

'There,' observed Michael, 'that's more homelike. You can turn now, my
pallid Pitman. Is this the grog?' he ran on. 'Heaven forgive you, it's a
lemonade.'

'But, O, Finsbury, what are we to do with it?' walled the artist, laying
a clutching hand upon the lawyer's arm.

'Do with it?' repeated Michael. 'Bury it in one of your flowerbeds, and
erect one of your own statues for a monument. I tell you we should look
devilish romantic shovelling out the sod by the moon's pale ray. Here,
put some gin in this.'

'I beg of you, Mr Finsbury, do not trifle with my misery,' cried Pitman.
'You see before you a man who has been all his life--I do not hesitate
to say it--imminently respectable. Even in this solemn hour I can lay my
hand upon my heart without a blush. Except on the really trifling point
of the smuggling of the Hercules (and even of that I now humbly repent),
my life has been entirely fit for publication. I never feared the
light,' cried the little man; 'and now--now--!'

'Cheer up, old boy,' said Michael. 'I assure you we should count this
little contretemps a trifle at the office; it's the sort of thing that
may occur to any one; and if you're perfectly sure you had no hand in
it--'

'What language am I to find--' began Pitman.

'O, I'll do that part of it,' interrupted Michael, 'you have no
experience.' But the point is this: If--or rather since--you know
nothing of the crime, since the--the party in the closet--is
neither your father, nor your brother, nor your creditor, nor your
mother-in-law, nor what they call an injured husband--'

'O, my dear sir!' interjected Pitman, horrified.

'Since, in short,' continued the lawyer, 'you had no possible interest
in the crime, we have a perfectly free field before us and a safe game
to play. Indeed, the problem is really entertaining; it is one I have
long contemplated in the light of an A. B. case; here it is at last
under my hand in specie; and I mean to pull you through. Do you hear
that?--I mean to pull you through. Let me see: it's a long time since I
have had what I call a genuine holiday; I'll send an excuse tomorrow to
the office. We had best be lively,' he added significantly; 'for we must
not spoil the market for the other man.'

'What do you mean?' enquired Pitman. 'What other man? The inspector of
police?'

'Damn the inspector of police!' remarked his companion. 'If you won't
take the short cut and bury this in your back garden, we must find some
one who will bury it in his. We must place the affair, in short, in the
hands of some one with fewer scruples and more resources.'

'A private detective, perhaps?' suggested Pitman.

'There are times when you fill me with pity,' observed the lawyer. 'By
the way, Pitman,' he added in another key, 'I have always regretted that
you have no piano in this den of yours. Even if you don't play yourself,
your friends might like to entertain themselves with a little music
while you were mudding.'

'I shall get one at once if you like,' said Pitman nervously, anxious to
please. 'I play the fiddle a little as it is.'

'I know you do,' said Michael; 'but what's the fiddle--above all as you
play it? What you want is polyphonic music. And I'll tell you what it
is--since it's too late for you to buy a piano I'll give you mine.'

'Thank you,' said the artist blankly. 'You will give me yours? I am sure
it's very good in you.'

'Yes, I'll give you mine,' continued Michael, 'for the inspector of
police to play on while his men are digging up your back garden.' Pitman
stared at him in pained amazement.

'No, I'm not insane,' Michael went on. 'I'm playful, but quite coherent.
See here, Pitman: follow me one half minute. I mean to profit by the
refreshing fact that we are really and truly innocent; nothing but the
presence of the--you know what--connects us with the crime; once let us
get rid of it, no matter how, and there is no possible clue to trace
us by. Well, I give you my piano; we'll bring it round this very night.
Tomorrow we rip the fittings out, deposit the--our friend--inside, plump
the whole on a cart, and carry it to the chambers of a young gentleman
whom I know by sight.'

'Whom do you know by sight?' repeated Pitman.

'And what is more to the purpose,' continued Michael, 'whose chambers I
know better than he does himself. A friend of mine--I call him my friend
for brevity; he is now, I understand, in Demerara and (most likely)
in gaol--was the previous occupant. I defended him, and I got him off
too--all saved but honour; his assets were nil, but he gave me what he
had, poor gentleman, and along with the rest--the key of his chambers.
It's there that I propose to leave the piano and, shall we say,
Cleopatra?'

'It seems very wild,' said Pitman. 'And what will become of the poor
young gentleman whom you know by sight?'

'It will do him good,'--said Michael cheerily. 'Just what he wants to
steady him.'

'But, my dear sit, he might be involved in a charge of--a charge of
murder,' gulped the artist.

'Well, he'll be just where we are,' returned the lawyer. 'He's
innocent, you see. What hangs people, my dear Pitman, is the unfortunate
circumstance of guilt.'

'But indeed, indeed,' pleaded Pitman, 'the whole scheme appears to me so
wild. Would it not be safer, after all, just to send for the police?'

'And make a scandal?' enquired Michael. '"The Chelsea Mystery; alleged
innocence of Pitman"? How would that do at the Seminary?'

'It would imply my discharge,' admitted the drawing--master. 'I cannot
deny that.'

'And besides,' said Michael, 'I am not going to embark in such a
business and have no fun for my money.'

'O my dear sir, is that a proper spirit?' cried Pitman.

'O, I only said that to cheer you up,' said the unabashed Michael.
'Nothing like a little judicious levity. But it's quite needless to
discuss. If you mean to follow my advice, come on, and let us get the
piano at once. If you don't, just drop me the word, and I'll leave you
to deal with the whole thing according to your better judgement.'

'You know perfectly well that I depend on you entirely,' returned
Pitman. 'But O, what a night is before me with that--horror in my
studio! How am I to think of it on my pillow?'

'Well, you know, my piano will be there too,' said Michael. 'That'll
raise the average.'

An hour later a cart came up the lane, and the lawyer's piano--a
momentous Broadwood grand--was deposited in Mr Pitman's studio.



CHAPTER VIII. In Which Michael Finsbury Enjoys a Holiday

Punctually at eight o'clock next morning the lawyer rattled (according
to previous appointment) on the studio door. He found the artist sadly
altered for the worse--bleached, bloodshot, and chalky--a man upon
wires, the tail of his haggard eye still wandering to the closet. Nor
was the professor of drawing less inclined to wonder at his friend.
Michael was usually attired in the height of fashion, with a certain
mercantile brilliancy best described perhaps as stylish; nor could
anything be said against him, as a rule, but that he looked a trifle
too like a wedding guest to be quite a gentleman. Today he had fallen
altogether from these heights. He wore a flannel shirt of washed-out
shepherd's tartan, and a suit of reddish tweeds, of the colour known to
tailors as 'heather mixture'; his neckcloth was black, and tied loosely
in a sailor's knot; a rusty ulster partly concealed these advantages;
and his feet were shod with rough walking boots. His hat was an old soft
felt, which he removed with a flourish as he entered.

'Here I am, William Dent!' he cried, and drawing from his pocket
two little wisps of reddish hair, he held them to his cheeks like
sidewhiskers and danced about the studio with the filmy graces of a
ballet-girl.

Pitman laughed sadly. 'I should never have known you,' said he.

'Nor were you intended to,' returned Michael, replacing his false
whiskers in his pocket. 'Now we must overhaul you and your wardrobe, and
disguise you up to the nines.'

'Disguise!' cried the artist. 'Must I indeed disguise myself. Has it
come to that?'

'My dear creature,' returned his companion, 'disguise is the spice of
life. What is life, passionately exclaimed a French philosopher, without
the pleasures of disguise? I don't say it's always good taste, and
I know it's unprofessional; but what's the odds, downhearted
drawing-master? It has to be. We have to leave a false impression on
the minds of many persons, and in particular on the mind of Mr Gideon
Forsyth--the young gentleman I know by sight--if he should have the bad
taste to be at home.'

'If he be at home?' faltered the artist. 'That would be the end of all.'

'Won't matter a d--,' returned Michael airily. 'Let me see your clothes,
and I'll make a new man of you in a jiffy.'

In the bedroom, to which he was at once conducted, Michael examined
Pitman's poor and scanty wardrobe with a humorous eye, picked out a
short jacket of black alpaca, and presently added to that a pair of
summer trousers which somehow took his fancy as incongruous. Then, with
the garments in his hand, he scrutinized the artist closely.

'I don't like that clerical collar,' he remarked. 'Have you nothing
else?'

The professor of drawing pondered for a moment, and then brightened;
'I have a pair of low-necked shirts,' he said, 'that I used to wear in
Paris as a student. They are rather loud.'

'The very thing!' ejaculated Michael. 'You'll look perfectly beastly.
Here are spats, too,' he continued, drawing forth a pair of those
offensive little gaiters. 'Must have spats! And now you jump into these,
and whistle a tune at the window for (say) three-quarters of an hour.
After that you can rejoin me on the field of glory.'

So saying, Michael returned to the studio. It was the morning of the
easterly gale; the wind blew shrilly among the statues in the garden,
and drove the rain upon the skylight in the studio ceiling; and at about
the same moment of the time when Morris attacked the hundredth version
of his uncle's signature in Bloomsbury, Michael, in Chelsea, began to
rip the wires out of the Broadwood grand.

Three-quarters of an hour later Pitman was admitted, to find the
closet-door standing open, the closet untenanted, and the piano
discreetly shut.

'It's a remarkably heavy instrument,' observed Michael, and turned
to consider his friend's disguise. 'You must shave off that beard of
yours,' he said.

'My beard!' cried Pitman. 'I cannot shave my beard. I cannot tamper with
my appearance--my principals would object. They hold very strong views
as to the appearance of the professors--young ladies are considered so
romantic. My beard was regarded as quite a feature when I went about the
place. It was regarded,' said the artist, with rising colour, 'it was
regarded as unbecoming.'

'You can let it grow again,' returned Michael, 'and then you'll be so
precious ugly that they'll raise your salary.'

'But I don't want to be ugly,' cried the artist.

'Don't be an ass,' said Michael, who hated beards and was delighted to
destroy one. 'Off with it like a man!'

'Of course, if you insist,' said Pitman; and then he sighed, fetched
some hot water from the kitchen, and setting a glass upon his easel,
first clipped his beard with scissors and then shaved his chin. He
could not conceal from himself, as he regarded the result, that his last
claims to manhood had been sacrificed, but Michael seemed delighted.

'A new man, I declare!' he cried. 'When I give you the windowglass
spectacles I have in my pocket, you'll be the beau-ideal of a French
commercial traveller.'

Pitman did not reply, but continued to gaze disconsolately on his image
in the glass.

'Do you know,' asked Michael, 'what the Governor of South Carolina said
to the Governor of North Carolina? "It's a long time between drinks,"
observed that powerful thinker; and if you will put your hand into the
top left-hand pocket of my ulster, I have an impression you will find a
flask of brandy. Thank you, Pitman,' he added, as he filled out a glass
for each. 'Now you will give me news of this.'

The artist reached out his hand for the water-jug, but Michael arrested
the movement.