him were red-hot for selling; and sold-bad value-when all bought. He carried out the great Tory statesman's maxim-like many another trader-long before it was put into epigrammatic form. All his life he bought in the cheapest market and sold in the dearest; and he never slept out of his native town a single night, nor wasted a single farthing piece in his life. He lived before tourists were born.

Ann, his daughter, got a thousand pounds down on her wedding day, and all the world grasped Alfred Ghrimes's hand and congratulated him. But his wife died soon after Lydia, their daughter, was born, and he never got another penny from his father-in-law. Indeed, the banker hinted that, after what had happened, he ought to refund the thousand pounds. But Ghrimes was a farmer, and farmers are a good deal cuter' than the men of cities give them credit for being. He did not hand over the money, and thence arose a mortal feud. He and his father-in-law never spoke again.

So, when the third Mortiboy died, he had two children to leave his fortune to.

He left his daughter Susan twenty-five thousand pounds in hard cash; and the rest, residue, and remainder of his estate, of whatsoever kind and wheresoever situate, to Richard Matthew, his only son.

Ready-money reigned in his father's stead.

The fourth Mortiboy had not a scrap of his father's talent. But he was cautious as the typical Scotchman, greedy as the typical Jew, and cunning as any old fox in a Holmshire cover. He carried on his bunch one at least of the keys of wealth. He never spent anything.

He came of three sires who had money and worshipped it as a god, as the only good thing: father, grandfather, great-grandfather. He sucked in the auri sacra fames with his mother's milk. He never heard anything talked about in the old house he was reared in, but money,-how to get it, how to keep it, how to put it out to use, and make it breed like Jacob's ewes.

As a baby, his mother checked him when he shook his silver and coral rattle, for fear he should wear out the bells that jingled on it.

He wore calico drawers till his father's trousers fitted him in everything but length.

At school, he was always the boy who regarded a penn'orth of marbles as an investment to be turned into three-half-pence --not played with.

And this, his father told him, if kept up the year round (Sundays left out), was fifteen thousand six hundred and fifty per cent. per annum. And the boy entered into this great fact, and understood it; worked it out on his slate, and kept it up in apples, pegtops, tennis balls, and other commodities, when marbles were out and these things in.

So he grew up, and was initiated early in life into the mysteries of keeping a country bank. And when you once are on the inside of the counter, you find there is no mystery in it at all.

It consists in getting hold of as much of other people's money as ever they will leave with you, and putting it out, by way of earning interest for your own benefit. In lending an apple or two where you know there is an orchard; but not so much as a seedling pip where there isn't one.

In his father's time, Melliship, Mortiboy & Co. had split. The Melliship of the day started a new bank; and Readymoney's father kept the old one to himself, continuing to trade under the old style and title. Then, besides the bank, he had the brewery-a sound, prosperous concern, that only troubled him twice a year: to take the profits.

The Holmshire iron is not bad stuff for working up when mixed with Staffordshire pig. A clever man, named Hardinge, found this out and mortgaged his estate for thirty thousand pounds to work the ore in the stone that lay under nearly every field.

But it was not enough. He applied to Mr. Mortiboy, and mortgaged his foundry and his plant, and further encumbered his estate. More money was wanted, and Mortiboy would lend no more. A few thousands would have made the works a fortune to him. But the banker pulled up short, and nobody dared "stand against Mr. Mortiboy, though a dozen would have formed a company and found the money. Mr. Mortiboy foreclosed. Mr. Hardinge died of a broken heart; and works, plant and estate, were the mortgagee's.

Ghrimes, a man of hard and sound judgement, managed everything. He was Ready-money Mortiboy's factotum, and was incorruptibly honest. Even his master could trust George

Ghrimes, and he did. He would have let him dip his hands in treacle, and put them into a bag of Koh-i-noors in the dark and never felt a qualm. But for this weakness he conceived it his duty to distrust everybody else. He made this vice-in his own eyes-a virtue. He did not believe in any honesty but the honesty of paying what perforce you must pay. And by himself and his standard he gauged all other men, and thus suspected everybody—his sister, his niece, his clerks, his servants, his customers.

So in Market Basing the charitable called him eccentricthe malicious a miser. Small towns develop character.

You can see in a tumbler what you fail to observe in a vat. Mr. Mortiboy was usually called "Old Ready-money.' There were half a dozen anecdotes about the origin of the sobriquet. Who wouldn't like to have it? This was the commonly received version:-There had come to Market Basing parish church a new parson, and his wife had come with him. Proverbially, new brooms sweep clean, and the parish was in an awful state of heathenism; so she, poor thing, bent on all sorts of good works, called first-subscription-book in hand-on Mr. Mortiboy, their richest parishioner. She did not know he went to chapel. She encountered a shabby

man in the bank-on the doorstep, indeed.

"Is Mr. Mortiboy in ?"

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'My name, ma'am-at your service."

They stood on the pavement outside.

The rector's wife opened her eyes, and took him in from top to toe in a glance-as a quick woman can.

"Are you Mr. R. M. Mortiboy, sir?-Mr. Rob—”

Ready-money Mortiboy, ma'am.'

So the tale is told. I don't know if this is the true version; but the old man carried his nickname to his grave, and never was called anything else-behind his back.

He was the last man in the world to be asked for alms. Polite enough, but hard as nails. He had a formula of his own invention, applicable to all occasions.

If anything was wanted for Market Basing-he was the greatest victim of the poor rates.

If flannels and New Testaments were to be given to the starved niggers of Quashiboo, he thought the stream of charity should he turned on the hungry and houseless ones at home.

But if anybody made a call on him for these, he was instantly impressed with the importance of foreign missions.

For both-he was a little deaf, and times were bad, and his interest in changes of the weather absorbing.

Now when his guests were gone, and he was alone, his sister's charge concerning the stained glass window preyed on Mr. Mortiboy's mind. It was all very well for a bishop, in a cathedral-where there are plenty of windows, and plenty of money to have a memorial window put up to his memory; but, in his sister Susan, such an injunction was an outrage of propriety. Old Ready-money had very clear notions on his own station in life. And, after all, a parish church had no business with coloured windows. At chapel, they did without them. And then, his sister's station was not high enough for memorial windows.

.

"I'll take Battiscombe's advice about it if it's down in the bill, thirteen and fourpence-engaged a long time.' If I can get out of such an absurd direction, I will. What will people say? Very likely, think I did it-and think I'm mad into the bargain. It's just the sort of thing Francis Melliship would go and do, now. Put up а stained glass window! She should have left it-poor thing!-to her Sunday-school teachers and parsons, that have had her money for years, do that for her! They would have done it, no doubt!"

to

Mr. Mortiboy quite chuckled at this humorous idea. His face suddenly changed, however, from gay to very grave. The four candles lighted for his guests were burning on the table!

He quickly blew out three, quenching the last spark of fire at the wick ends with a wet forefinger and thumb-avoiding smell, and possible waste.

Then he held up the decanters to the solitary candle, and measured their cubic contents of port and sherry with his greedy eye.

Next, he took the candle up in his shaky old hand, walked slowly round the table, and collected the glasses.

"Ghrimes has left half his last glass. Well, George Ghrimes never did drink anything, so I'm not surprised."

He poured the half-glass of port back into the bottle.

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Lydia, my girl, you'll"-holding the glass Mrs. Heathcote had used upside down-"get--red-in the-face-like your mother was, if you don't take care."

At last he got to Lawyer Battiscombe's seat.

"Ah! I thought so. Trust a lawyer. Not a drop, if you squeezed the glass for a week."

Then he sat down by the fire, took a lump or two of coal off, and put his feet on the fender. He sat in his easy chair, in thought. Wondering what they would have thought if they had seen him pouring the wine back into the decanters; -thinking he should not have cared a rush if they had. Wondering whether Lydia Heathcote counted on his death; -thinking she was not quite sure of his money yet. Wondering why his sister Susan could not have left him all her money; -thinking he would do his best to defeat her intentions, and secure the odd hundreds he had neither a legal nor moral right to. Wondering why he felt so drowsy ;-thinking—

He was fast asleep.

He slept an hour, and the candle burnt down two inches and a half before he was awakened.

His sister's maid had brought in the tea-tray at the usual hour, and her entrance roused her master.

He woke with a start: counted the biscuits on the dish, and questioned the girl in a breath.

"Was I asleep? Ah!-four-I didn't take-six-my nap -eight-to-day: that's it. Never get into—I'm sure, I

thought I made nine of 'em before-bad habits, Mary."

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'No, sir,"-and exit.

"The minx had had time to have one, I believe. They think they'll take advantage of me; but they're mistaken. They won't."

He got up, fumbled for his keys, and put away the wine and biscuits in the cupboard by the fireplace.

Then he walked to the window, and looked out into the night. It was dark-the moon had not risen; but the street lamp opposite his door threw a good deal of light into the room. He blew out his last candle.

"If I'm only thinking-and, goodness knows, I've plenty to think of-I can think quite as well without a candle. Besides, this room is always light."

He never touched his tea, but sat musing till he dozed off again.

When he woke, his fire was out, his legs were cramped, and it was a quarter to nine by his watch. He pulled the bell. "What a thing habit is! Because I don't happen to have twenty minutes' sleep in the afternoon, I waste the whole of a precious evening."

"Shall I lay the cloth here, sir ?"