Page:The wrong box (IA wrongbox00stevrich).pdf/102

 weakest,' he reflected. 'Is there positively no way of raising the wind? In a vast city like this, and surrounded by all the resources of civilisation, it seems not to be conceived! Let us have no more precipitation. Is there nothing I can sell? My collection of signet—' But at the thought of scattering these loved treasures, the blood leaped into Morris's check. 'I would rather die!' he exclaimed, and cramming his hat upon his head, strode forth into the streets.

'I must raise funds,' he thought. 'My uncle being dead, the money in the bank is mine, or would be mine, but for the cursed injustice that has pursued me ever since I was an orphan in a commercial academy. I know what any other man would do; any other man in Christendom would forge; although I don't know why I call it forging, either, when Joseph's dead, and the funds are my own. When I think of that, when I think that my uncle is really as dead as mutton, and that I can't prove it, my gorge rises at the injustice of the whole affair. I used to feel bitterly about that seven thousand eight hundred pounds; it seems a trifle now! Dear me, why, the day before yesterday I was comparatively happy.'

And Morris stood on the sidewalk and heaved another sobbing sigh.