Then the story came out. It seems that when it was resolved to undertake
the publication of the "Literary Times," a certain number of shareholders
had been got together by the indefatigable energies of Uncle Jack; and in
the deed of association and partnership, my father's name figured
conspicuously as the holder of a fourth of this joint property. If in
this my father had committed some imprudence, he had at least done
nothing that, according to the ordinary calculations of a secluded
student, could become ruinous. But just at the time when we were in the
hurry of leaving town, Jack had represented to my father that it might be
necessary to alter a little the plan of the paper, and in order to allure
a larger circle of readers, touch somewhat on the more vulgar news and
Interests of the day. A change of plan might involve a change of title;
and he suggested to my father the expediency of leaving the smooth hands
of Mr. Tibbets altogether unfettered, as to the technical name and
precise form of the publication. To this my father had unwittingly
assented, on hearing that the other shareholders would do the same. Mr.
Peck, a printer of considerable opulence and highly respectable name, had
been found to advance the sum necessary for the publication of the
earlier numbers, upon the guarantee of the said act of partnership and
the additional security of my father's signature to a document
authorizing Mr. Tibbets to make any change in the form or title of the
periodical that might be judged advisable, concurrent with the consent of
the other shareholders.

Now, it seems that Mr. Peck had, in his previous conferences with Mr.
Tibbets, thrown much cold water on the idea of the "Literary Times," and
had suggested something that should "catch the moneyed public,"--the fact
being, as was afterwards discovered, that the printer, whose spirit of
enterprise was congenial to Uncle Jack's, had shares in three or four