Mr. Quayle was kindness itself to me in my utter terror and loneliness. He took upon himself, provisionally, the whole conduct of my affairs. One morning he came in, and drew me to him. “Dicky--Dicky-bird, me jewl!” he said. “I’ve found the fine cuckoo that’s to come and father the poor little orphaned nestling.” I must observe that he had his own theories about this same “harbinger of spring,” which, according to him, was the “bird that looked after another bird’s young.” I remembered the occasion on which he had so defined it, and the laughter which had greeted him; and his alternative, “Well, then, ’tis the bird that doesn’t lay its own eggs, and that’s all one!” But the first definition, it appeared, was the one he kept faith in. “D’you remember Mr. Paxton?” he said. “Uncle Jenico?” I asked. He nodded. “Uncle Jenico Paxton, mamma’s own only brother. Poor papa, my dear--always a wonder and an honour to his profession--has left, it seems, a will, in which he bequeathes everything to Uncle Jenico in trust for his little boy, Master Dicky Bowen. And Uncle Jenico has been found, and is coming to take charge of little Dicky Bowen.” Was I glad or sorry? I was too stunned, I think, to care one way or the other. Any one would do to stop the empty place which none could ever fill, and neither my sympathies nor my dislikes were active in the case of Uncle Jenico. I had seen him only once or twice, when he had come to spend a night or so with us in town. My memory was of a stout, hoarse old man in spectacles, rather lame, with a little nose and twinkling eyes. He had seemed always busy, always in a hurry. He bore an important, mysterious reputation with us as a great inventive genius, who carried a despatch-box with him choked with invaluable patents, and always left something behind--a toothbrush or an umbrella--when he left. Let it be Uncle Jenico as well as another. While we were talking there was a flurry at the door of the room, and a man, overcoming some resistance outside, forced his way in. I gave a little cry, and stood staring. It was the acquitted prisoner, Joshua Pilbrow. George appeared just behind him, flushed and truculent. “He would do it, sir,” said the servant, “for all I warned him away.” Mr. Quayle had put me from him and arisen. There was a bad look on his face; but he motioned to George to go, and we were left alone. The intruder stood shrugging his disordered clothes into place, and looking the while with a sort of black stealth at the barrister. His face held and haunted me. It was bleak and sallow, and grey in the hollows, with fixed dark eyes--the face, I thought, of a malignant, though injured, creature. But it did not so affect Mr. Quayle, it was evident. “The verdict was ‘Not guilty,’ sir,” said the man, quite suddenly and vehemently. Mr. Quayle gave an unpleasant laugh. “Or else you wouldn’t be intrudin’ here,” he said shortly.