its active management,
and that some slight whispers which he had heard remotely affecting the
standing of the house must be remembered.

"A werry pretty store you have here, Mr. Newt. Find Pearl Street as good
as Beaver?"

"Oh yes, Sir," replied Boniface Newt, bowing and rubbing his hands. "Call
again, Sir; it's a rare pleasure to see you here, Mr. Van Boozenberg."

"Well, you know, ma, sez she, now pa you mustn't sit in draughts. It's so
sort of draughty down town in your horrid offices, pa, sez she--sez ma,
you know--that I'm awful 'fraid you'll catch your death, sez she, and I
must mind ma, you know. Good-mornin', Mr. Newt, a werry good-mornin',
Sir," said the old gentleman, as he stepped out.

"Do you have much of that sort of thing to undergo in business, father?"
asked Abel, when Jacob Van Boozenberg had gone.

"My dear son," replied the older Mr. Newt, "the world is made up of
fools, bores, and knaves. Some of them speak good grammar and use white
cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, some do not. It's dreadful, I know, and I
am rather tired of a world where you are busy driving donkeys with a
chance of their presently driving you."

Mr. Boniface Newt shook his foot pettishly.

"Father," said Abel.

"Well."

"Which is Uncle Lawrence--a fool, a bore, or a knave?"

Mr. Boniface Newt's foot stopped, and, after looking at his son for a few
moments, he answered:

"Abel, your Uncle Lawrence is a singular man. He's a sort of exception to
general rules. I don't understand him, and he doesn't help me to. When he
was a boy he went to India and lived there several years. He came home
once and staid a little while, and then went back again, although I
believe he was rich. It was mysterious, I never could quite understand
it--though, of course, I believe there was some woman in it. Neither your
mother nor I could ever find out much about it. By-and-by he came home
again, and has been in business here ever since. He's a bachelor, you
know, and his business is different from mine, and he has queer friends
and tastes, so that I don't often see him except when he comes to the
house, and that isn't very often."

"He's rich, isn't he?" asked Abel.

"Yes, he's very rich, and that's the curious part of it," answered his
father, "and he gives away a great deal of money in what seems to me a
very foolish way. He's a kind of dreamer--an impracticable man. He pays
lots of poor people's rents, and I try to show him that he is me