If he plays a game of bluff, so can I. If his father is to live for
ever, by God, so shall my uncle!'

'It's illegal, ain't it?' said John.

'A man must have SOME moral courage,' replied Morris with dignity.

'And then suppose you're wrong? Suppose Uncle Masterman's alive and
kicking?'

'Well, even then,' responded the plotter, 'we are no worse off than we
were before; in fact, we're better. Uncle Masterman must die some day;
as long as Uncle Joseph was alive, he might have died any day; but we're
out of all that trouble now: there's no sort of limit to the game that I
propose--it can be kept up till Kingdom Come.'

'If I could only see how you meant to set about it' sighed John. 'But
you know, Morris, you always were such a bungler.'

'I'd like to know what I ever bungled,' cried Morris; 'I have the best
collection of signet rings in London.'

'Well, you know, there's the leather business,' suggested the other.
'That's considered rather a hash.'

It was a mark of singular self-control in Morris that he suffered this
to pass unchallenged, and even unresented.

'About the business in hand,' said he, 'once we can get him up to
Bloomsbury, there's no sort of trouble. We bury him in the cellar, which