against every misfortune except illness or marriage.'

'It strikes me,' remarked the lawyer with a meditative laugh, as he
lighted a cigar, 'it strikes me that you must be a cursed nuisance in
this world of ours.'

'Do you really think so, Finsbury?' responded the magistrate, leaning
back in his cushions, delighted with the compliment. 'Yes, I suppose
I am a nuisance. But, mind you, I have a stake in the country: don't
forget that, dear boy.'

CHAPTER V. Mr Gideon Forsyth and the Gigantic Box

It has been mentioned that at Bournemouth Julia sometimes made
acquaintances; it is true she had but a glimpse of them before the
doors of John Street closed again upon its captives, but the glimpse
was sometimes exhilarating, and the consequent regret was tempered
with hope. Among those whom she had thus met a year before was a young
barrister of the name of Gideon Forsyth.

About three o'clock of the eventful day when the magistrate tampered
with the labels, a somewhat moody and distempered ramble had carried
Mr Forsyth to the corner of John Street; and about the same moment Miss
Hazeltine was called to the door of No. 16 by a thundering double knock.

Mr Gideon Forsyth was a happy enough young man; he would have been
happier if he had had more money and less uncle. One hundred and
twenty pounds a year was all his store; but his uncle, Mr Edward Hugh
Bloomfield, supplemented this with a handsome allowance and a great
deal of advice, couched in language that would probably have been judged
intemperate on board a pirate ship. Mr Bloomfield was indeed a figure
quite peculiar to the days of Mr Gladstone; what we may call (for the
lack of an accepted expression) a Squirradical. Having acquired years
without experience, he carried into the Radical side of politics those
noisy, after-dinner-table passions, which we are more accustomed to
connect with Toryism in its severe and senile aspects. To the opinions
of Mr Bradlaugh, in fact, he added the temper and the sympathies of that
extinct animal, the Squire; he admired pugilism, he carried a formidable
oaken staff, he was a reverent churchman, and it was hard to know which
would have more volcanically stirred his choler--a person who should
have defended the established church, or one who should have neglected
to attend its celebrations. He had besides some levelling catchwords,
justly dreaded in the family circle; and when he could not go so far
as to declare a step un-Engli