CHAP. xx. DICK'S INDEPENDENCE. 333 



Old Bed fossil in my possession, if he would in pity 

 undertake to do anything among the London geologists 

 by way of making up my loss. Will you in kindness 

 hand my note to him in a quiet way, and I will 

 be ever grateful to you ? If you dislike handing my 

 note to Sir Roderick, put it in the fire, and also this 

 one to yourself." 



We have not Mr. Miller's reply to Dick's letter. 

 Very likely it may have been intended to cheer him 

 up. At all events it seems to have contained some 

 reference to Dick's " independence," for here is Dick's 

 reply, 27th March 1863 : 



" It is all very good to talk to me aboat ' independ- 

 ence.' I have laboured among flour bags for the last 

 thirty-eight years, but I never yet knew an empty bag 

 to stand upright. 



" An honest well-meaning man once kept his horse 

 on short allowance, and boasted that he had brought 

 him to live on a straw a day. But when he had 

 accomplished his object, the horse died. 



" A very kind and a very discerning public have, for 

 the last eighteen years, set me down as independent, 

 and fed me with chopped straw; and now those 

 drunken blackguards of the steamer have ruined me. 

 I am a beggar, not in word, but in fact. 



" Previous to writing to you, I applied to my sister 

 at Haddington. She at one time offered me 48. I 

 would not take the money. I thought that she might 

 still have it. She wrote at once, saying that she had it 

 yet, but was about to use it. I told her never to mind 



