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 tomorro