rant of her loss, she went on crying till the fit passed; and then, finishing off the port, marched away in rather a corkscrew fashion. Dick, lifting his foot, picked up the letter and read it.

It was a very odd epistle, and was dated from some suburb of London of which he knew nothing, called "Paragon-place, Gray's Inn Road."

The orthography was that of a person imperfectly educated, and Dick deciphered it with some difficulty.

"MY DEER POLY"-it went-"escuse Me trubbling you butt im hard up, haveing six of themm Cussed babies to look after and methoosalem and Little bill do eat ther Heds of and what with methoosalem as wont wurk and bill as Wont Prig im most crasy with them you Owe me for six munths which six Pound ten and hope as youll send me the munney sharp as Else bill he cuts his lucky so as hes your own Son and not mine i dont see wy should kepe him any longer for Nuthink and remain dear poly your affeckshunit

"ANN MARIA KNEEBONE.

"P.s.-[This in another hand]-i see the old woman a ritin her letter wich it toke her hall day and the babies a starvin, so i had a P.s. to say as she is verry hard up and so am i and so his bill. "METHOOSALEM."

Dick read this precious epistle with a look of extreme bewilderment. Then he read it over again. Gradually arriving at a sense of its meaning, he looked again at the address and the name, so as not to forget them-he never forgot anything -and then he twisted it up and burned it in the candle. After that he went to bed, putting off meditation till the following morning. Dick was not going to spoil his night's rest because Polly had told him lies.

Little Bill-that was Polly's child; presumably, therefore, his as well. Therefore, little William Mortiboy-the heirapparent to his father's fortunes.

"William Mortiboy's position," said Dick to himself next morning after breakfast, appears unsatisfactory. He lives with a lady named Kneebone, who has a lodging-house for babies. Wonder if the babies like the lodgings? William Mortiboy associates, apparently, with a gentleman called Methoosalem, who refuses to work. Is he one of the babies?

Wonder if he is! William Mortiboy is expected to prig. That's a devilish bad beginning for William. William Mortiboy's companions are not, apparently, the heir to anythingnot even what the man in the play calls a stainless name. Polly, I'm afraid you're a bad lot! Anyhow, you might have paid the five bob a week out of all the money you've had in the last four months. But we'll be even with you. Only wait a bit, my lady."

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.

T was a godly and an ancient custom in Market Basing, that on a certain Sunday afternoon in the year, the children should have a church parade" all to themselves, followed by a bun. Of late years, an addition had been made to this festival by setting apart a weekday in the summer for a school feast and treat. It was generally a dreary affair enough. The boys and girls were marshalled, and marched to some field not far off, where they were turned loose previous to the tea, and told to play. As the Market Basing boys saw no novelty in a field-unlike the Londoner, to whom a bird's nest is a new discovery, and a field-mouse the most remarkable of wild animals-these feasts, although preceded by cake and followed by tea, had no great charms. Perhaps they were overweighted by hymns.

Now, Dick, pursuing that career of social usefulness already hinted at, had succeeded, in a very few weeks, in alienating the affections of all the spiritual leaders of the town. The way was this. First, he refused to belong to the chapel any more, and declined to pay for a pew in the church, on the reasonable ground that he did not intend to go to either. They came to him-Market Basing was regularly whipped and driven to religion, if not to godliness-to give money to

their pet society, which, they said, called alike for the support of church and chapel, for providing Humble Breakfasts and flannel in winter for the Deserving Poor. This was explained to mean, not the industrious poor nor the provident poor, nor the sober poor, but the poor who attended some place of worship. Dick said that not going to church did not of itself prove a man to be irreligious, artfully instancing himself as a case in point; and refused to help.

Then the secretaries of London societies, finding out that there was another man who had money to give, and was shown already to be of liberal disposition, sent him begging letters through the curates. They all got much the same answer. The missionary societies were dismissed because, as Dick told them, he had seen missionaries with his own eyes. That noble institution in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which exists for the double purpose of maintaining a large staff and converting the Jews, was refused on the ground of no results commensurable with the expense. He offered, indeed, a large sum for a successful mission among the professions-especially the bar-in England. And he rashly proposed a very handsome prize-no less than a thousand pounds-to anybody who would succeed in converting him. Rev. Potiphar Demas, a needy vessel, volunteered; but Dick declined to hear him, because he didn't want to know what Mr. Demas had to say. Now, this seemed discourteous to the reverend gentleman.

All this might have been counterbalanced by his many virtues. For it was notorious that he had given a pension to old Sanderson, the ruined cashier of Melliship's bank; also that he had withdrawn the Mortiboy claims on the Melliship estate : this was almost as if the Americans were to withdraw their Alabama claims, because there was no knowing where they might end. Besides which, it made an immediate difference of four shillings in the pound. Further, sundry aged persons who had spent a long life in cursing the name of Mortiboy, took to praising it altogether, because Dick was helping them all. And the liberality towards his clerks with which he inaugurated his reign was almost enough of itself to make him popular.

But then came that really dreadful business about the old women. This, although he was gaining a golden name by making restitution for his father's ill deeds-like Solomon repairing the breaches which his father David had made-was enough to make all religious and right-minded people tremble

Mr. Burls earned fifteen pounds before dinner at that, Frank recollected.

However, he could hardly expect to get more than Critchett had received before him; so he agreed to take a shilling an hour, and work regularly for Mr. Burls.

Burls: 66 Done, then, and settled. We don't want any character, do we, Jack? Pictures aint easy things to carry out of the shop, are they?"

Frank (very angry): "Sir!"

Burls: "No offence. Don't get angry. It was only a hint that we should not trouble you for references to your last employment. Rec'lect what I said about those hands. You've been brought up a gentleman, I dare say, but you're right not to starve your belly to feed your pride. Don't be angry with I'm straight and fair, I am. You'll find me that."

me.

I have now explained how Frank came to be in the top attic of Mr. Burls's house of business. He remained in his situation about three months. While there, he learned a great deal. Mr. Burls took a fancy to him, and soon came to stand a little in awe of him-for he was educated and honest, and, in addition, plainly a gentleman, The dealer was very ignorant, and, from any point of view but that of his own class of traders, very dishonest-that is, he looked upon the public, his customers, as fair game; and would tell any lie, and any sequence of lies, to sell a spurious picture for and at the price of a genuine picture. The morals of commerce, in the hands of the Burlses, find their lowest ebb.

are.

But, to some extent, their customers make them what they If a man who has money to spend on his house will have pictures for his walls, why not prefer a new picture to an old one? Why not an honest print before a dishonest canvas?

But it is always the reverse. He has a hundred pounds to lay out, and he wants ten pictures for the money-bargainsspeculative pictures, with famous names to them, which he can comment on and enlarge upon, and point out the beauties of to his friends, until he actually comes to believe the daub he gave ten guineas for is a Turner; and the dealers can find him hundreds.

Why, the old masters must have painted pictures faster than they could nowadays print them, if a quarter of the things that are sold in their names were their true works. There are probably more pictures ascribed to any one famous old

master now for sale in the various capitals of Europe, than he could have produced had he painted a complete work every day, from the day he was born till the day he died—and lived to be seventy, too.

Burls could find his customers anything they asked for. No painter so rare, so sought after, or so obscure, but there were some works of his, a bargain, in the dealer's stock. He told Frank his history:

"My father wore a uniform: he was a park-keeper in Kensington Gardens. I went to school till I was thirteen, then I went out as an errand boy. My master was a dealer, in St. James's street. I got to learn the gilding and cleaning; and when I was six-and-twenty, I earned two pounds a week. Well, my father had an old friend, and he had had some money left him. He gave his son two hundred pounds, and we went into business. His son died before, we'd been partners a year. I bought his share, and here I am.

I shall die worth a hundred thousand pounds, Shipley"-(this was Frank's name at Mr. Burls's)—"and this business thrown in -mark my words."

This was his story, and it was true. Like all men who have risen from nothing, Mr. Burls was inordinately pleased with himself. He attributed to his great ability what really ought to have been put down to his great luck.

He would be a fine specimen for the "Self-Help" collection in Mr. Samuel Smiles's book.

"Mind you," he often said to Frank, "there aint a man in ten thousand that could have done what I've done."

Now, Burls's life, as I read it and as Frank read it, was simply an example of the power of luck. Serving under a kind master, who lets him learn his trade. Luck. Finding a man who wants to put his son into business, and is willing to trust him. Luck. Getting all to himself. Luck. His shop pulled down by the Board of Works, in order to widen a street. Compensation paid just when he wants money, at the end of his second year's trade. Luck. And so on. Look into every adventure he has made, luck crowned it with success. And how we all worship success that brings wealth! Why, weak Mrs. Melliship would rather have seen Frank succeed in making himself as rich as Dick Mortiboy, than that his name should have been handed down to endless centuries as the writer of a greater epic than Milton, or the painter of a greater picture than the greatest of Raphael's cartoons.