t I say, this won't do,' cried the lawyer. 'You've put your foot
in it. You had no right to do what you did.'

'The whole thing is mine, Michael,' protested the old gentleman. 'I
founded and nursed that business on principles entirely of my own.'

'That's all very fine,' said the lawyer; 'but you made an assignment,
you were forced to make it, too; even then your position was extremely
shaky; but now, my dear sir, it means the dock.'

'It isn't possible,' cried Joseph; 'the law cannot be so unjust as
that?'

'And the cream of the thing,' interrupted Michael, with a sudden shout
of laughter, 'the cream of the thing is this, that of course you've
downed the leather business! I must say, Uncle Joseph, you have strange
ideas of law, but I like your taste in humour.'

'I see nothing to laugh at,' observed Mr Finsbury tartly.

'And talking of that, has Morris any power to sign for the firm?' asked
Michael.

'No one but myself,' replied Joseph.

'Poor devil of a Morris! O, poor devil of a Morris!' cried the lawyer in
delight. 'And his keeping up the farce that you're at home! O, Morris,
the Lord has delivered you into my hands! Let me see, Uncle Joseph, what
do you suppose the leather business worth?'

'It was worth a hundred thousand,' said Joseph bitterly, 'when it was
in my hands. But then there came a Scotsman--it is supposed he had a
certain talent--it was entirely directed to bookkeeping--no accountant
in London could understand a word of any of his books; and then there
was Morris, who is perfectly incompetent. And now it is worth very
little. Morris tried to sell it last year; and Pogram and Jarris offered
only four thousand.'

'I shall turn my attention to leather,' said Michael with decision.

'You?' asked Joseph. 'I advise you not. There is nothing in the whole
field of commerce more surprising than the fluctuations of the leather
market. Its sensitiveness may be described as morbid.'

'And now, Uncle Joseph, what have you done with all that money?' asked
the lawyer.

'Paid it into a bank and drew twenty pounds,' answered Mr Finsbury
promptly. 'Why?'

'Very well,' said Michael. 'Tomorrow I shall send down a clerk with a
cheque for a hundred, and he'll draw out the original sum and return it
to the Anglo-Patagonian, with some sort of explanation which I will try
to invent for you. That will clear your feet, and as Morris can't touch
a penny of it without forgery, it will do no harm to my little schem