Dunchester."

"All the same, I mean to have a try, Sir John," I answered cheerfully.
"I suppose you do not want an assistant, do you?"

"Let me see; I think you said you were married, did you not?"

"Yes," I answered, well knowing that Sir John, having disposed of his
elder daughter to an incompetent person of our profession, who had
become the plague of his life, was desirous of putting the second to
better use.

"No, my dear boy, no, I have an assistant already," and he sighed, this
time with genuine emotion. "If you come here you will have to stand upon
your own legs."

"Quite so, Sir John, but I shall still hope for a few crumbs from the
master's table."

"Yes, yes, Therne, in anything of that sort you may rely upon me," and
he bowed me out with an effusive smile.

"---- to poison the crumbs," I thought to myself, for I was never for
one moment deceived as to this man's character.



A fortnight later Emma and I came to Dunchester and took up our abode in
a quaint red-brick house of the Queen Anne period, which we hired for a
not extravagant rent of 80 pounds a year. Although the position of this