been just such another at the same age. Joseph wondered to himself if
he had worn at that time little Wellingtons and a little bald head,
and when, in bed at night, he grew tired of telling himself stories
of sea-fights, he used to dress himself up as the old gentleman, and
entertain other little boys and girls with cake and wine.

In the year 1840 the thirty-seven were all alive; in 1850 their number
had decreased by six; in 1856 and 1857 business was more lively, for the
Crimea and the Mutiny carried off no less than nine. There remained
in 1870 but five of the original members, and at the date of my story,
including the two Finsburys, but three.

By this time Masterman was in his seventy-third year; he had long
complained of the effects of age, had long since retired from business,
and now lived in absolute seclusion under the roof of his son Michael,
the well-known solicitor. Joseph, on the other hand, was still up and
about, and still presented but a semi-venerable figure on the streets
in which he loved to wander. This was the more to be deplored because
Masterman had led (even to the least particular) a model British life.
Industry, regularity, respectability, and a preference for the four per
cents are understood to be the very foundations of a green old age. All
these Masterman had eminently displayed, and here he was, ab agendo, at
seventy-three; while Joseph, barely two years younger, and in the most
excellent preservation, had disgraced himself through life by idleness
and eccentricity. Embarked in the leather trade, he had early wearied
of business, for which he was supposed to have small parts. A taste for
general information, not promptly checked, had soon begun to sap his
manhood. There is no passion more debilitating to the mind, unless,
perhaps, it be that itch of public speaking which it not infrequently
accompanies or begets. The two were conjoined in the case of Joseph; the