sense, Mr. Franklin, in our conduct to our mothers, when they first start us on the journey of life. We are all of us more or less unwilling to be brought into the world. And we are all of us right.'

Mr. Candy's assistant had produced too strong an impression on me to be immediately dismissed from my thoughts. I passed over the last unanswerable utterance of the Betteredge philosophy, and returned to the subject of the man with the piebald hair.

`What is his name?' I asked.

`As ugly a name as need be,' Betteredge answered gruffly. `Ezra Jennings.'