He raised himself slightly on his elbow, and continued with pain—­

“You will go to Guy’s, and Jasper, I hope, may go with you.  Be friends, boys; you will want friendship in this world.  It will be a struggle, for there is barely enough for both.  But it is best to share equally; she would have wished that.  She was always planning that.  I am doing it badly, I know, but she would have done it better.”

The chill December sun came stealing in and illumined the sick man’s face with a light that was the shadow of heaven.  The strange doctor moved to the blind.  My uncle’s voice arrested him—­

“No, no.  Leave it up.  You will have to pull it down very soon—­only a few moments now.  Tom, come closer.  You have been a good boy, Tom, a good boy, though”—­with a faint smile—­“a little trying at times.  Ah, but she forgave you, Tom.  She loved you dearly; she will tell me so—­when we meet.”

My uncle’s gaze began to wander, as though anticipating that meeting; but he roused himself and said—­

“Kiss me, Tom, and send Jasper to me.”

Bitterly weeping, Tom made room, and I bent over the bed.

“Ah, Jasper, it is you.  Kiss me, boy.  I have been telling Tom that you must share alike.  God has been stern with you, Jasper, to His own good ends—­His own good ends.  Only be patient, it will come right at the last.  How dark it is getting; pull up the blind.”

“The blind is up, uncle.”

“Ah, yes, I forgot.  I have often thought—­do you remember that day—­ reading your father’s paper—­and the key?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“I have often thought—­about that key—­which you flung into the fire—­and I picked out—­your father Ezekiel’s key—­keep it.  Closer, Jasper, closer—­”

I bent down until my ear almost touched his lips.

“I have—­often—­thought—­we were wrong that night—­and perhaps—­ meant—­search—­in . . .”

For quite a minute I bent to catch the next word, then looking on his face withdrew my arm and laid the grey head back upon the pillow.

My uncle was dead.

So it happened that a few weeks after Tom and I, having found Uncle Loveday’s savings equally divided between us, started from Lizard Town by coach to seek our fortunes in London.  In London it is that I must resume my tale.  Of our early mishaps and misadventures I need not speak, the result being discernible as the story progresses.  We did not find our fortunes, but we found some wisdom.  Neither Tom nor I ever confessed to disappointment at finding the pavements of mere stone, but certainly two more absolute Whittingtons never trod the streets of the great city.