Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/81

 personal eccentricity. An important piece of evidence subsequently forthcoming was the fact that in sundry newspapers there appeared advertisements addressed to Joseph James Snowdon, requesting him to communicate with Messrs. Percival & Peel of Furnivars Inn, whereupon Mrs. Peckover made inquiries of the legal firm in question (by means of an anonymous letter), and received a simple assurance that Mr. Snowdon Was being sought for his own advantage.

“You’re cool hands, you and your mother,” observed Joseph James, with a certain involuntary admiration. “This was not quite three years ago, you say; just when I was in America. Ha—hum! What I can’t make out is, how the devil that brother of mine came to leave anything to me. We never did anything but curse each other from the time we were children to when we parted for good. And so the old man went out to Australia, did he? That’s a rum affair, too; Mike and he could never get on together. Well, I suppose there’s no mistake about it. I