to discourage other members of the tontine. In reality the business was
entirely his; and he found it an inheritance of sorrows. He tried to
sell it, and the offers he received were quite derisory. He tried to
extend it, and it was only the liabilities he succeeded in extending; to
restrict it, and it was only the profits he managed to restrict. Nobody
had ever made money out of that concern except the capable Scot, who
retired (after his discharge) to the neighbourhood of Banff and built a
castle with his profits. The memory of this fallacious Caledonian Morris
would revile daily, as he sat in the private office opening his mail,
with old Joseph at another table, sullenly awaiting orders, or savagely
affixing signatures to he knew not what. And when the man of the heather
pushed cynicism so far as to send him the announcement of his second
marriage (to Davida, eldest daughter of the Revd. Alexander McCraw), it
was really supposed that Morris would have had a fit.

Business hours, in the Finsbury leather trade, had been cut to the
quick; even Morris's strong sense of duty to himself was not strong
enough to dally within those walls and under the shadow of that
bankruptcy; and presently the manager and the clerks would draw a long
breath, and compose themselves for another day of procrastination. Raw
Haste, on the authority of my Lord Tennyson, is half-sister to Delay;
but the Business Habits are certainly her uncles. Meanwhile, the leather
merchant would lead his living investment back to John Street like a
puppy dog; and, having there immured him in the hall, would depart for
the day on the quest of seal rings, the only passion of his life. Joseph
had more than the vanity of man, he had that of lecturers. He owned he
was in fault, although more sinned against (by the capable Scot) than
sinning; but had he steeped his hands in gore, he would still not
deserve to be thus dragged at the chariot-wheels of a young man, to sit
a captive in the halls of his own leather business, to be entertained