“Come to tell us about everything, Mr. Pond’revo?” some one would say politely. “You wait,” my uncle used to answer, disconcerted, and sulk for the rest of his visit. Or some one with an immense air of innocence would remark to the world generally, “They’re talkin’ of rebuildin’ Wimblehurst all over again, I’m told. Anybody heard anything of it? Going to make it a reg’lar smartgoin’, enterprisin’ place—kind of Crystal Pallas.” “Earthquake and a pestilence before you get _that_,” my uncle would mutter, to the infinite delight of every one, and add something inaudible about “Cold Mutton Fat.”... III We were torn apart by a financial accident to my uncle of which I did not at first grasp the full bearings. He had developed what I regarded as an innocent intellectual recreation which he called stock-market meteorology. I think he got the idea from one use of curves in the graphic presentation of associated variations that he saw me plotting. He secured some of my squared paper and, having cast about for a time, decided to trace the rise and fall of certain lines and railways. “There’s something in this, George,” he said, and I little dreamt that among other things that were in it, was the whole of his spare money and most of what my mother had left to him in trust for me. “It’s as plain as can be,” he said. “See, here’s one system of waves and here’s another! These are prices for Union Pacifics—extending over a month. Now next week, mark my words, they’ll be down one whole point. We’re getting near the steep part of the curve again. See? It’s absolutely scientific. It’s verifiable. Well, and apply it! You buy in the hollow and sell on the crest, and there you are!” I was so convinced of the triviality of this amusement that to find at last that he had taken it in the most disastrous earnest overwhelmed me. He took me for a long walk to break it to me, over the hills towards Yare and across the great gorse commons by Hazelbrow. “There are ups and downs in life, George,” he said—halfway across that great open space, and paused against the sky.... “I left out one factor in the Union Pacific analysis.” “_Did_ you?” I said, struck by the sudden chance in his voice. “But you don’t mean?” I stopped and turned on him in the narrow sandy rut of pathway and he stopped likewise. “I do, George. I _do_ mean. It’s bust me! I’m a bankrupt here and now.” “Then—?” “The shop’s bust too. I shall have to get out of that.” “And me?” “Oh, you!—_you’re_ all right. You can transfer your apprenticeship, and—er—well, I’m not the sort of man to be careless with trust funds, you can be sure. I kept that aspect in mind. There’s some of it left George—trust me!—quite a decent little sum.” “But you and aunt?”