ar was rather
better off than usual, owing to recent liquidations by the firm for whom
she and Mrs. Burr were at work upstairs. Mr. Jerry urged him on no
account to fret his kidneys about mundane trifles of this sort.
Everything, without exception, came to the same thing in the end, and
weak concessions to monetary anxiety only provided food for Repentance.

Uncle Mo explained that his uneasiness was not due to ways and means, or
the want of them, but to a misgiving that Aunt M'riar's money was "got
from her."

Now in his frequent confabs with Mr. Jerry, Uncle Mo had let fall many
suggestions of the sinister influence at work on Aunt M'riar; and Mr.
Jerry, being a shrewd observer, and collating these suggestions with
what had come to him otherwise, had formed his own opinions about the
nature of this influence. So it was no wonder that in answer to Uncle Mo
he nodded his head very frequently, as one who not only assents to a
fact, but rather lays claim to having been its first discoverer. "What
did I tell you, Mo?" said he.

"Concernuating? Of? What?" said Uncle Mo in three separate sentences,
each one accompanied by a tap of his pipe-bowl on the wooden table at
The Sun parlour. The third qualified it for refilling. You will see, if
you are attentive and observant, that this was Mo's first pipe that
afternoon; as, if the ashes had been hot, he would not have emptied them
on that table, but rather on the hob, or in the brazen spittoon.

"Him," said Mr. Jerry, too briefly. For he felt bound to add:--"Coldbath
Fields. Anyone giving information that will lead to apprehension of,
will receive the above reward. Your friend, you know!"

"My friend's the man, Jerry. Supposin'--just for argewment--I fist that
friend o' mine Monday morning, I'll make him an allowance'll last him
over Sunday. You wouldn't think it of me, Jerry, but I'm a bad-tempered
man, underneath the skin. And when I see our old girl M'riar run away
with like by an infernal scoundrel.... Well, Jerry, I lose my temper!
That I do." And Uncle Mo seemed to need the pipe he was lighting, to
calm him.

"He's where her money goes, Mo--that's it, ain't it?"

"That's about it, sir. So p'hraps when I say I don't know how M'riar
come to be so short of cash, I ought to say I _do_ know. Because I _do_
know, as flat as ever so much Gospel." So the Emperor of Russia might
not have remained unenlightened.

Mr. Jerry reflected. "You say he hasn't been near the Court ag