unmistakable hand. I made sure, of course,
that it was my promised remittance, and I
opened it with a pleasurable feeling of expecta-
tion. This is a copy of what I read : —

" When the maid was arranging your room
after your departure, she cleared some pieces
of torn paper from under the grate. Seeing
my name upon them, she brought them, as in
duty bound, to her mistress, who pasted them
together and found that they formed a letter
from your mother to you, in which I am
referred to in the vilest terms, such as 'a
bankrupt swindler' and 'the unscrupulous
CuUingworth '. I can only say that we are
astonished that you could have been a party
to such a correspondence while you were a
guest under oiu" roof, and we refuse to have
anything more to do with you in any shape or
form."

That was a nice little morning greeting, was
it not, after I had, on the strength of his
promise, started in practice, and engaged a
house for a year with a few shillings in my
pocket 1 I have given up smoking for
reasons of economy ; but I felt that the situa-
tion was worthy of a pipe, so I climbed out of
bed, gathered a little heap of tobacco-dust
from the linings of my pocket, and smoked
the whole thing over. That life-belt of which



THE STAEK MDNRO LETTERS 263

I had spoken so confidingly, had burst, and
left me to kick as best I might in very deep
water. I read the note over and over again ;
and for all my dilemma, I could not help
laughing at the mingled meanness and
stupidity of the thing. The picture of the
host and hostess busying themselves in
gumming together the torn letters of their
departed guest struck me as one of the
funniest things I could remember. And
there was the stupidity of it, because surely
a child could have seen that my mother's
attack was in answer to my defence. Why
should we write a duet each saying the same
thing ? Well, I'm still very confused about it
all, and I don't in the least know what I am
going to do — more likely to die on the last
plank, than to get into port with my ensign
mast-high. 