. 'I never dreamed I should come to
actually covet such society,' he thought. And then a brilliant idea
struck him. Waterloo Station, a public place, yet at certain hours of
the day a solitary; a place, besides, the very name of which must knock
upon the heart of Pitman, and at once suggest a knowledge of the latest
of his guilty secrets. Morris took a piece of paper and sketched his
advertisement.

WILLIAM BENT PITMAN, if this should meet the eye of, he will hear of
SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE on the far end of the main line departure
platform, Waterloo Station, 2 to 4 P.M., Sunday next.

Morris reperused this literary trifle with approbation. 'Terse,' he
reflected. 'Something to his advantage is not strictly true; but it's
taking and original, and a man is not on oath in an advertisement.
All that I require now is the ready cash for my own meals and for the
advertisement, and--no, I can't lavish money upon John, but I'll give
him some more papers. How to raise the wind?'

He approached his cabinet of signets, and the collector suddenly
revolted in his blood. 'I will not!' he cried; 'nothing shall induce me
to massacre my collection--rather theft!' And dashing upstairs to the
drawing-room, he helped himself to a few of his uncle's curiosities:
a pair of Turkish babooshes, a Smyrna fan, a water-cooler, a musket
guaranteed to have been seized from an Ephesian bandit, and a pocketful
of curious but incomplete seashells.

CHAPTER XIV. William Bent Pitman Hears of Something to his Advantage

On the morning of Sunday, William Dent Pitman rose at his usual hour,
although with something more than the usual reluctance. The day before
(it should be explained) an addition had been made to his family in the
person of a lodger. Michael Finsbury had acted sponsor in the business,
and guaranteed the weekly bill; on the other hand, no doubt with a spice
of his prevailing jocularity, he had drawn a depressing portrait of the
lodger's character. Mr Pitman had been led to understand his guest was
not good company; he had approached the gentleman with fear, and had
rejoiced to find himself the entertainer of an angel. At tea he had been
vastly pleased; till hard on one in the morning he had sat entranced by
eloquence and progressively fortified with information in the studio;
and now, as he reviewed over his toilet the harmless pleasures of
the evening, the future smiled upon him with revived attractions. 'Mr
Finsbury is indeed