ly isolated. In places
like Wimblehurst the tradesmen's lives always are isolated socially,
all of them, unless they have a sister or a bosom friend among the
other wives, but the husbands met in various bar-parlours or in the
billiard-room of the Eastry Arms. But my uncle, for the most part, spent
his evenings at home. When first he arrived in Wimblehurst I think
he had spread his effect of abounding ideas and enterprise rather
too aggressively; and Wimblehurst, after a temporary subjugation, had
rebelled and done its best to make a butt of him. His appearance in a
public-house led to a pause in any conversation that was going on.

"Come to tell us about everything, Mr. Pond'revo?" some one would say
politely.

"You wait," my uncle used to answer, disconcerted, and sulk for the rest
of his visit.

Or some one with an immense air of innocence would remark to the world
generally, "They're talkin' of rebuildin' Wimblehurst all over again,
I'm told. Anybody heard anything of it? Going to make it a reg'lar
smartgoin', enterprisin' place--kind of Crystal Pallas."

"Earthquake and a pestilence before you get that," my uncle would
mutter, to the infinite delight of every one, and add something
inaudible about "Cold Mutton Fat."...

III

We were torn apart by a financial accident to my uncle of which I did
not at first grasp the full bearings. He had developed what I regarded
as an innocent intellectual recreation which he called stock-market
meteorology. I think he got the idea from one use of curves in the
graphic presentation of associated variations that he saw me plotting.
He secured some of my squared paper and, having cast about for a time,
decided to trace the rise and fall of certain lines and railways.
"There's something in this, George," he said, and I little dreamt that
among other things that were in it, was the whole of his spare money and
most of what my mother had left to him in trust for me.

"It's as plain as can be," he said. "See, here's one system of waves and
here's another! These are prices for Union Pacifics--extending over a
month. Now next week, mark my words, they'll be down one whole point.
We're getting near the steep part of the curve again. See? It's
absolutely scientific. It's verifiable. Well, and apply it! You buy in
the hollow and sell on the crest, and there you are!"

I was so convinced of the triviality of this amusement that to find at
last that he had taken it in the most disast