aggregate of notes, gold, silver, and copper, and
was not to be counted without some little
trouble. Samson Brown, however,
ascertained that it was all right, and allowed it to
glide gently along the palm of his hand into
his breeches-pocket, which he buttoned up
with a great deal of deliberation and an air of
intense satisfaction.

Strong-minded people invariably boast
that they are above superstition. Samson
Brown was stronger-minded than strong-
minded people. He could be above or below
superstition, just as it answered his purpose.
A belief in ghosts had assisted him to get his
house cheap; a belief in dreams might enable
him to discharge a moral duty. If any of
our readers have been pleased to fancy that
Samson Brown was so much a lover of gain,
that he had no sense of right or wrong, we
beg leave to correct them in that erroneous
opinion. A mere vulgar scamp would have
gone off with the thousand pounds in his
pocket, and left the shade of Mrs. Stubbs to
trouble the cottage till the end of time. But
Samson Brown would as soon have
committed a forgery, as have been guilty of an
act so manifestly paltry.

He therefore went to the village indicated
in his dream; and, after sundry inquiries,
actually found a barber's shop tenanted by
one Jonathan Jones. To the respectability
of Jones, report bore indifferent testimony.
A partiality to beer seemed to be among his
leading propensities; and this peculiarity, it
was said, strongly militated against that
manipulative skill which is so essential to the
barber's vocation. However, several of the
older informants, when they had detailed
sundry disreputable facts in connection with
Jones, shook their heads with exceeding
gravity, and said that if everybody had his
rights, Jones would have been a very different
person from what Jones actually was. If
reports were true, this would have been highly
desirable. Entering the dirty and disorderly
shop, Samson Brown perceived an individual
still dirtier and still more disorderly,—one of
those ungainly, sottish figures, that seem
never to be intoxicated and never sober;
always have red noses, and always wear
seedy black coats. The individual in question
was seated in a corner, with a short
pipe in his mouth, the very perfection of
those bad tradesfolk who make a point of
looking at every customer as if he was an
intruder.

"Come to be shaved?" said the individual,
in a foggy voice.

For the first time, probably, in his life,
Samson Brown shuddered. The idea of trusting
a precious chin to the foul compound
of dulness and malignity that stood before
him!

There was an awkward pause. Samson
Brown turned his eye to the shop window, as
the only shoppy thing about the place, hoping
to find some small article of which he might
make a purchase. Vain endeavour. Rapidly
passing in review a miserable assortment of
glass-cases and pasteboard boxes, evidently
containing the fragments of a business
ruined years ago, he plainly saw that there
was literally nothing to buy. His only
course, therefore, was to jump at once into
the middle of his subject.

"What was the name of your paternal
grandfather?" asked Samson Brown.

"You're another!" growled the barber.

"Pardon me," said Samson Brown, "I
don't quite perceive the force of your observation.
I asked you what was the name of
your grandfather, on the father's side."

"Very well; what was the name of
yours " was the respondent growl.

Through this uncouth question Samson
Brown could almost fancy he heard the voice
of a tempting demon, urging him to walk off
with the money, and leave the surly barber
encumbered with his wrongs, as a punishment
for his bad manners. However, he
resolutely conquered the fiend; and, with
every show of good temper, resumed the
conversation.

"Was your grandfather's name John
Jones?"

"If you guess again, you'll guess wrong,"
was the periphrastic answer.

"In a pecuniary respect your grandfather
was better off than yourself?"

The besotted individual did not know
about that. He knowed that he himself
always payed his way; and that, if other
people, who wore fine coats, always did the
same, things would go on much better than
they did.

"Are there any other grandchildren of
John Jones now alive?"

This question produced an entire change
in the manner of the surly professor of
shaving. Dropping the air of dogged
reserve which he had hitherto worn with such
consistency, he absolutely deluged Samson
Brown with a flood of family history. Never
was heard such a series of woes. Samson
Brown, if he had known anything of the
Greek drama, might have fancied he was
listening to the chronicle of one of those
doomed houses, that have been rendered
immortal on the Attic stage. There was a
lubberly Stephen Jones, who ran off to sea,
and who had been traced all the way to the
Injies, and all the way back to Portsmouth;
whence, however, he had utterly disappeared,
together with a fabulous amount of treasure
that had rewarded his maritime toil. There
was a smart, lively little Gus Jones, who
was regarded as the gentleman of the family,
and who not having done altogether right by
his employer, had ended his days in a penal
settlement. There was the ardent and
impetuous Dan Jones, who, in consequence of a
disappointment in love, took largely to
drinking, and was one morning found dead
in a water-butt. There was the meditative