dozing over her paper, could make no headway against the more impersonal clock-work affair. And so it was with most of his designs, but a few of which had been actually tested before being condemned on insufficient evidence. What more ridiculous, for instance, than to denounce his “Burglar’s Trap” on the score that one single idiot of a householder had blundered into his own snare and been kept there while the robbers were rifling his premises? What more scandalous than to convict his Fire-Derrick--a noble invention, like a crane dangling a little cabin, for saving life at conflagrations--because the first time it was tested the box would not descend, but kept the insurance gentlemen swinging in the air for an hour or two; or his Infallible Lifebelt, which turned upside-down in the water for the single reason that they tried it on a revenue officer who had lost his legs in an explosion? No practical innovation was surely ever started without a stumble. But Uncle Jenico had no luck. He sunk all his capital in his own patents without convincing a soul, or--and this is the notable thing--losing his temper. That one only of his possessions remained to him, fresh and sound as when, as a little boy, he had invented a flying top, which broke his grandmother’s windows. No neglect had impaired it, nor adversity ruffled for more than a moment. If he had patented it and nothing else, he could have made his fortune, I am certain. Still, when we came to be comrades--or partners, as he loved to call us--his restless brain was busy as ever with ideas. Nothing was too large or small for him to touch. He showed me, on an early occasion, how his hat--not the black one he had worn at the funeral, but the big beaver article that came over his eyes--explained its own proportions in a number of little cupboards or compartments in the lining, which were designed to carry one’s soap, toothbrush, razor, etc., when on a short visit. He had the most delightful affection for his own ingenuities, and the worldliest axioms for explaining the secret of their success. On the afternoon when Mr. Quayle, after the kindest of partings with me, had left us, and while he was yet on the stairs, Uncle Jenico had bent to me and whispered: “Make it a business principle, my boy, never to confess to insolvency. You heard the way I assured the gentleman? Well, Richard, we may have in our despatch-box there all Ophir lying fallow for the lack of a little cash to work it; but we mustn’t tell our commercial friends so--no, no. We must let them believe it is their privilege to back us. Necessity is a bad recommendation.” It may be. But I was not a commercial gent; and Uncle Jenico had all my faith, and should have had all my capital if it had rested with me to dispose of it as I liked.