. For he had an accomplice, and that accomplice was blooming
unseen in a damp cottage in Hampshire with empty pockets. What could be
done about that? He really ought to have sent him something; if it was
only a post-office order for five bob, enough to prove that he was kept
in mind, enough to keep him in hope, beer, and tobacco. 'But what
would you have?' thought Morris; and ruefully poured into his hand
a half-crown, a florin, and eightpence in small change. For a man in
Morris's position, at war with all society, and conducting, with the
hand of inexperience, a widely ramified intrigue, the sum was already a
derision. John would have to be doing; no mistake of that. 'But then,'
asked the hell-like voice, 'how long is John likely to stand it?'

Anxiety the Fourth: The Leather Business; or, The Shutters at Last: a
Tale of the City. On this head Morris had no news. He had not yet dared
to visit the family concern; yet he knew he must delay no longer, and
if anything had been wanted to sharpen this conviction, Michael's
references of the night before rang ambiguously in his ear. Well and
good. To visit the city might be indispensable; but what was he to do
when he was there? He had no right to sign in his own name; and, with
all the will in the world, he seemed to lack the art of signing with
his uncle's. Under these circumstances, Morris could do nothing to
procrastinate the crash; and, when it came, when prying eyes began to be
applied to every joint of his behaviour, two questions could not fail to
be addressed, sooner or later, to a speechless and perspiring insolvent.
Where is Mr Joseph Finsbury? and how about your visit to the bank?
Questions, how easy to put!--ye gods, how impossible to answer! The man
to whom they should be addressed went certainly to gaol, and--eh! what
was this?--possibly to the gallows. Morris was trying to shave when this
idea struck him, and he laid the razor down. Here (in Michael's words)
was the total disappearance of a valuable uncle; here was a time of
inexplicable conduct on the part of a nephew who had been in bad
blood with the old man any time these seven years; what a chance for a
judicial blunder! 'But no,' thought Morris, 'they cannot, they dare not,
make it murder. Not that. But honestly, and speaking as a man to a man,
I don't see any other crime in the calendar (except arson) that I don't
seem somehow to have committed. And yet I'm a perfectly respectable man,
and wished nothin