These disappointments
he not only took with imperturbable good humour, but rejoiced with
a particular relish over his nephew's success in the same field.
'I glory in the professor,' he wrote to his brother; and to
Fleeming himself, with a touch of simple drollery, 'I was much
pleased with your lecture, but why did you hit me so hard with
Conisure's' (connoisseur's, QUASI amateur's) 'engineering? Oh,
what presumption! - either of you or MYself!' A quaint, pathetic
figure, this of uncle John, with his dung cart and his inventions;
and the romantic fancy of his Mexican house; and his craze about
the Lost Tribes which seemed to the worthy man the key of all
perplexities; and his quiet conscience, looking back on a life not
altogether vain, for he was a good son to his father while his
father lived, and when evil days approached, he had proved himself
a cheerful Stoic.
It followed from John's inertia, that the duty of winding up the
estate fell into the hands of Charles. He managed it with no more
skill than might be expected of a sailor ashore, saved a bare
livelihood for John and nothing for the rest.
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