Mr. Moggs, being of a studious and refined disposition, had just decided—after a careful search for a congenial subject in which he would not be constantly reminded of soap—to devote himself to the History of the Thebaid, when this cousin died suddenly and precipitated responsibilities upon him. In the frankness of conviviality, Moggs bewailed the uncongenial task thus thrust into his hands, and my uncle offered to lighten his burden by a partnership then and there. They even got to terms—extremely muzzy terms, but terms nevertheless. Each gentleman wrote the name and address of the other on his cuff, and they separated in a mood of brotherly carelessness, and next morning neither seems to have thought to rescue his shirt from the wash until it was too late. My uncle made a painful struggle—it was one of my business mornings—to recall name and particulars. “He was an aquarium-faced, long, blond sort of chap, George, with glasses and a genteel accent,” he said. I was puzzled. “Aquarium-faced?” “You know how they look at you. His stuff was soap, I’m pretty nearly certain. And he had a name—And the thing was the straightest Bit-of-All-right you ever. I was clear enough to spot that...” We went out at last with knitted brows, and wandered up into Finsbury seeking a good, well-stocked looking grocer. We called first on a chemist for a pick-me-up for my uncle, and then we found the shop we needed. “I want,” said my uncle, “half a pound of every sort of soap you got. Yes, I want to take them now. Wait a moment, George.... Now what sort of soap d’you call _that?_” At the third repetition of that question the young man said, “Moggs’ Domestic.” “Right,” said my uncle. “You needn’t guess again. Come along, George, let’s go to a telephone and get on to Moggs. Oh—the order? Certainly. I confirm it. Send it all—send it all to the Bishop of London; he’ll have some good use for it—(First-rate man, George, he is—charities and all that)—and put it down to me, here’s a card—Ponderevo—Tono-Bungay.” Then we went on to Moggs and found him in a camel-hair dressing-jacket in a luxurious bed, drinking China tea, and got the shape of everything but the figures fixed by lunch time. Young Moggs enlarged my mind considerably; he was a sort of thing I hadn’t met before; he seemed quite clean and well-informed and he assured me to never read newspapers nor used soap in any form at all, “Delicate skin,” he said. “No objection to our advertising you wide and free?” said my uncle. “I draw the line at railway stations,” said Moggs, “south-coast cliffs, theatre programmes, books by me and poetry generally—scenery—oh!—and the _Mercure de France_.” “We’ll get along,” said my uncle. “So long as you don’t annoy me,” said Moggs, lighting a cigarette, “you can make me as rich as you like.”