of clay, stones, and rubbish, to analyze when he got home, by the help
of some chemical apparatus he had borrowed from Mr. Squills. He would
stand an hour at a cottage door, admiring the little girls who were
straw-platting, and then walk into the nearest farmhouses, to suggest
the feasibility of "a national straw-plat association." All this
fertility of intellect was, alas! wasted in that ingrata terra into
which Uncle Jack had fallen. No squire could be persuaded into the
belief that his mother-stone was pregnant with minerals; no farmer
talked into weaving straw-plat into a proprietary association. So, even
as an ogre, having devastated the surrounding country, begins to cast a
hungry eye on his own little ones, Uncle Jack's mouth, long defrauded of
juicier and more legitimate morsels, began to water for a bite of my
innocent father.




CHAPTER III.

At this time we were living in what may be called a very respectable
style for people who made no pretence to ostentation. On the skirts of
a large village stood a square red-brick house, about the date of Queen
Anne. Upon the top of the house was a balustrade,--why, Heaven knows,
for nobody, except our great tom-cat, Ralph, ever walked upon the leads;
but so it was, and so it often is in houses from the time of Elizabeth,
yea, even to that of Victoria. This balustrade was divided by low
piers, on each of which was placed a round ball. The centre of the
house was distinguishable by an architrave in the shape of a triangle,
under which was a niche,--probably meant for a figure; but the figure
was not forthcoming. Below this was the window (encased with carved