"Dear me!" exclaimed the old lady, quite unable to reply at once to such
a gush. "But Captain Lee, did you not say that it is mean to accept
money without working for it, and yet you want me to accept five hundred
pounds without working for it?"

"Oh! monstrous sophistry," cried the perplexed man, grasping desperately
the few hairs that remained on his polished head, "is there no
difference then between presenting or accepting a gift and betting? Are
there not circumstances also in which poverty is unavoidable and the
relief of it honourable as well as delightful? not to mention the
courtesies of life, wherein giving and receiving in the right spirit and
within reasonable limits, are expressive of good-will and conducive to
general harmony. Besides, I do not offer a gift. I want to repay a
debt; by rights I ought to add compound interest to it for twenty years,
which would make it a thousand pounds. Now, _do_ accept it, Mrs
Tipps," cried the captain, earnestly.

But Mrs Tipps remained obdurate, and the captain left her, vowing that
he would forthwith devote it as the nucleus of a fund to build a
collegiate institute in Cochin-China for the purpose of teaching
Icelandic to the Japanese.

Captain Lee thought better of it, however, and directed the fund to the
purchase of frequent and valuable gifts to little Joseph and his sister
Netta, who had no scruples whatever in accepting them. Afterwards, when
Joseph became a stripling, the captain, being a director in the Grand
National Trunk Railway, procured for his protege a situation on the
line.

To return to our story after this long digression:--

We left Mrs Tipps in the last chapter putting on her bonnet and shawl,
on philanthropic missions intent. She had just opened the door, when a
handsome, gentlemanly youth, apparently about one or two and twenty,
with a very slight swagger in his gait stepped up to it and, lifting his
hat said--

"Mrs Tipps, I presume? I bring you a letter from Clatterby station.
Another messenger should have brought it, but I undertook the duty
partly for the purpose of introducing myself as your son's friend. I--
my name is Gurwood."

"What!--Edwin Gurwood, about whom Joseph speaks so frequently, and for
whom he has been trying to obtain a situation on the railway through our
friend Captain Lee?" exclaimed Mrs Tipps.

"Yes," replied the youth, somewhat confused by the earnestness of the
old lady's gaze, "but pray read the le