shipped overseas and traded as objects of worship among the negroes
of the American plantations. Jewellery, however, was his stand-by.
In the manufacture of meretricious ware he had a plausibility
amounting to genius, in the disposing of it a talent for hard
bargains; and the two together had landed him in affluence.
Well, sir, being headed off my boyhood's dream by the geographical
inconvenience of Warwickshire--for a lad may run away to be a sailor,
sir, but the devil take me if ever I heard of one running off to be a
supercargo, and even this lay a bit beyond my ambition--I recoiled
upon a passion to enter my father's business and increase the already
tidy patrimonial pile.

"But here comes in the cross of my destiny. My father, sir, had
secretly cherished dreams of raising me above his own station.
To him a gentleman--and he ridiculously hoped to make me one--was a
fellow above working for his living. He scoffed at my enthusiasm for
trade, and at length he sent for me and in tones that brooked no
denial commanded me to learn the violin.

"Never shall I forget the chill of heart with which I received that
fatal mandate. I have no ear for music, sir. In tenderer years
indeed I had made essay upon the Jew's harp, but had relinquished it
without a sigh.

"'The violin!' I cried, though the words choked me. 'Father,
anything but that! If it were the violoncello, now--'

"But he cut me short in cold incisive accents. 'The violin, or you
are no son of mine.'