g but my due. Law is a pretty business.'

With this conclusion firmly seated in his mind, Morris Finsbury
descended to the hall of the house in John Street, still half-shaven.
There was a letter in the box; he knew the handwriting: John at last!

'Well, I think I might have been spared this,' he said bitterly, and
tore it open.

Dear Morris [it ran], what the dickens do you mean by it? I'm in an
awful hole down here; I have to go on tick, and the parties on the spot
don't cotton to the idea; they couldn't, because it is so plain I'm in a
stait of Destitution. I've got no bedclothes, think of that, I must have
coins, the hole thing's a Mockry, I wont stand it, nobody would. I would
have come away before, only I have no money for the railway fare. Don't
be a lunatic, Morris, you don't seem to understand my dredful situation.
I have to get the stamp on tick. A fact.

--Ever your affte. Brother,

J. FINSBURY

'Can't even spell!' Morris reflected, as he crammed the letter in his
pocket, and left the house. 'What can I do for him? I have to go to the
expense of a barber, I'm so shattered! How can I send anybody coins?
It's hard lines, I daresay; but does he think I'm living on hot muffins?
One comfort,' was his grim reflection, 'he can't cut and run--he's got
to stay; he's as helpless as the dead.' And then he broke forth again:
'Complains, does he? and he's never even heard of Bent Pitman! If he had
what I have on my mind, he might complain with a good grace.'

But these were not honest arguments, or not wholly honest; there was a
struggle in the mind of Morris; he could not disguise from himself that
his brother John was miserably situated at Browndean, without news,
without money, without bedclothes, without society or any entertainment;
and by the time he had been shaved and picked a hasty breakfast at a
coffee tavern, Morris had arrived at a compromise.

'Poor Johnny,' he said to himself, 'he's in an awful box! I can't
send him coins, but I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll send him the Pink
Un--it'll cheer John up; and besides, it'll do his credit good getting
anything by post.'

Accordingly, on his way to the leather business, whither he proceeded
(according to his thrifty habit) on foot, Morris purchased and
dispatched a single copy of that enlivening periodical, to which (in
a sudden pang of remorse) he added at random the Athenaeum, the
Revivalist, and the Penny Pictorial Weekly. So there was John set up
wit