"Took to it from a baby," said Gribble junior complacently. "He sucked in the umbrella and parasol business with his mother's milk, as a body might say. For the top of his cradle was made of two umbrellas, and when he opened his little eyes and looked up, the only roof he saw, until he could crawl, was a roof of silk and whalebone. Nothing like commencing young! That there young un's going to be a useful member of society. I made up my mind to that before Mrs. J. G. made up her mind to present him to me, as a body might say. He can use his left hand as well as his right. No rights and lefts for me. They shall both be rights. It's robbing a young un of half his chance in the world to train him up to a useless hand. You might almost make up your mind to train his left leg to limp. That's not the way to keep moving. I shouldn't wonder if, when the young un's a man, he invents a new umbrella to astonish the world and make our fortunes." The old man smiled, and remarked that Gribble junior was at work late. "Obliged to be. My motto, you know--keep moving. I always think," and Gribble junior sent a pleasant merry look in the direction of the old man, "that it's going to rain to-morrow, and that people'll want umbrellas." "Very good of you, very considerate," murmured the old man. "It wouldn't be so bad," continued Gribble junior, "if other people, whether they're professors of anatomy or not, would think the same way; if _they'd_ think it was going to rain to-morrow, and if _they'd_ prepare their umbrellas to-day--as a body might say." "Surely, surely," said the old man, contriving by an effort to arrest his wandering thoughts. "And how's business, Mr. Gribble?" "Never was so bad," replied Gribble junior cheerfully. "Father's experience'll carry him a good deal farther back than mine will, as you may guess, Mr. Wheels, and he says times never was so bad as they are now." (It is remarkable, be where you will and at any period, here or in any other part of the world, now or twenty years since or twenty years to come, that "times never were so bad" as they are certain to be at the moment of inquiry.) "What is the cause of the bad times?" asked the old man, who had not yet found the opportunity of introducing the object of his visit, and who knew that Gribble junior must always "have his say."