their hands in by what they called taking fair advantages of each other, that is to say, cheating each other, when there was not. Nobody knew the ins and outs of the Pringles. If they let their own right hands know what their left hands did, they took care not to let anybody else’s right hand know. In multiplicity of concerns they rivalled that great man “Co.,” who the country-lad coming to London said seemed to be in partnership with almost everybody. The author of “Who’s Who?” would be puzzled to post people who are Brown in one place, Jones in a second, and Robinson in a third. Still the Pringles were “a most respectable family,” mercantile morality being too often mere matter of moonshine. The only member of the family who was not exactly “legally honest,”—legal honesty being much more elastic than common honesty,—was cunning Jerry, who thought to cover by his piety the omissions of his practice. He was a fawning, sanctified, smooth-spoken, plausible, plump little man, who seemed to be swelling with the milk of human kindness, anxious only to pour it out upon some deserving object. His manner was so frank and bland, and his front face smile so sweet, that it was cruel of his side one to contradict the impression and show the cunning duplicity of his nature. Still he smirked and smiled, and “bless-you, dear” and “hope-your-happy,” deared the women, that, being a bachelor, they all thought it best to put up with his “mistakes,” as he called his peculations, and sought his favour by frequent visits with appropriate presents to his elegant villa at Peckham Rye. Here he passed for quite a model man; twice to church every Sunday, and to the lecture in the evening, and would not profane the sanctity of the day by having a hot potato to eat with his cold meat.