“My boy, I can trust you anywhere, after what you have been telling me. Of human nature I know nothing, except”—for John thought he did know something—“from my own little experience. I find great thoughts in the Greek philosophers; but somehow they are too general, and too little genial. One thing I know, we far more often mistrust than trust unwisely. And now I can trust you, Cradock; in the main, you will stand upright. Stop, my boy; you must have a scrip; I was saving it for your birthday”. “You donʼt despise me, I hope”? said Cradock; “you donʼt think me a coward for running away so? After what has happened to–day, I should go mad, if I stopped here. Not that that would matter much; only that, if it were so, I should be sure to _do it_”. John Rosedew had no need to ask what he meant by the last two words, for the hollow voice told him plainly. But for him, it is likely enough that it would have been done ere this; at any rate, in the first horror, his hand alone had prevented it. The parson trembled at the idea, but thought best not to dwell upon it. “‘Reformidare mortem est animi pusillanimi’, but ‘reformidare vitam’ is ten times worse, because impious. Therefore in your case, my boy, it is utterly impossible, as well as ignoble towards us who love you so. Remember that you will break at least two old hearts you owe some duty to, if you allow your own to be broken. And now for your viaticum; see how you have relieved me. While you lived beneath Hymettian beams in the goods of Tyre and Cyprus, I, even I your godfather, knew not what to give you. The thought has been vexing me for months, and now what a simple solution! You shall have it in the original dross, to pay the toll on the Appian road, at least the South–Western Railway. Figs to Athens, I thought it would be, or even as eels to Copaïs; and now ‘serves iturum Cæsarem’. I believe it is at the twenty–first page of my manuscript, such as it is, upon the Sabellian elements”. After searching in three or four drawers—for he was rather astray at the moment, though generally he could put his hand, even in the dark, upon any particular one of his ten thousand books—he came upon the Sabellian treatise, written on backs of letters, on posters, on puffing circulars, even on visiting–cards, and cast–away tradesmenʼs tickets; and there, at the twenty–first page or deltis, lay a 50l. Bank of England note, with some very tough roots arranged diamond–wise on the back, and arrows, and hyphens, and asterisks, flying about thickly between them. These he copied off, in a moment, on a piece of old hat–lining, and then triumphantly waved the bank–note in the air. It was not often poor Uncle John got hold of so much money; too bitterly knew Aunt Doxy how large was the mesh of his purse.