He finished his chop placidly, recalling some traits of the departed Lemuel, who, he could little doubt (though with a philosophic reservation for contingencies) had been his sole surviving relative on the mother’s side. He remembered, with a certain easy gratification, how this disregarded uncle of his, from being a scapegrace and rather impossible waster, had been reported--from Australia, whither he had withdrawn--a reformed character of late years, which he had devoted to the amassing of a considerable fortune made out of stock--but whether soup or sheep Gilead did not know. Nor did he care in the least. All money was dirty stuff in the making. The moral of acquisition was in the cleansing of the hands that followed. He brushed a crumb or two from his waistcoat, paid his bill, and returned to Whitehall to request a short leave of absence. None might have guessed from his exterior the issues which turned upon that petition. It is not my purpose to recount the details of the interview which followed, or the processes by which identification was secured, and a claim substantiated. Suffice it to say that ‘Loquacious Lemuel,’ as he was known in the land of his adoption, had turned his natural predatory instincts to phenomenal profit during the few years that opportunity had allotted him for their full play, and had then, in a mood of magnificent atonement, bequeathed the whole of his gigantic fortune to the credulous brother-in-law in England whom he had once been instrumental in impoverishing, and whose sole heir Gilead remained by will. The young man--to jump formalities, and eschew all bewildering calculations of figures--entered upon his new world rich, in the stereotyped phrase, beyond the dreams of avarice--as if avarice ever had any dreams worth mentioning but of orts and candle-ends. But he faced his position with a clear brain, and a full appreciation of the ten thousand rapacities and importunities it would invite. As to that his plans were quite decided. He would employ a confidential secretary, and some subordinate agents and amanuenses, and to them entrust the active business of philanthropy, while he himself would stand in the background (the unconfessed one, the “nominis umbra,” like Junius) to direct operations, and give his personal attention to such cases as seemed to offer scope for the romantic quest.